Author's Note: Last Season, I was under the impression that Belle Reve was in Gotham City. My mistake. Belle Reve Penitentiary is located in Louisiana
Episode 1: Nightfall
Gotham City
"What the hell is it, Crane?"
The Riddler examined the thick coin in this hand. It was silver. On one side it bore the symbol of Pandora's Box, flanked by the motto "oderint dum metuant". On the other, it had a backwards view of North and South America with the words "aeternus malum". The villain tossed it up and caught it. He turned to Poison Ivy next to him. She smirked.
Scarecrow was shaking with excitement. "They've broken open every super-prison in the world and they're giving everyone these. Now's our time!"
"Because someone is handing out silver coins?" Now it was Riddler's turn to smirk.
"It may look like a simple coin, but it's a communication device. The only communication device working right now! You've all been invited to join the secret society!"
"The Earth's backwards on it." Riddler looked at the coin once again. "Where are these from?"
"Who cares?" Ivy sneered. "We should all go our own way while we can. Whoever these people are, the Justice League will just stop them."
"Oh no they won't Ivy! Now we need to listen to the coins and go where they tell us." Scarecrow gestured to his own coin.
"But can we trust them, Scarecrow? I'm of two minds about this." Two-Face's face twisted into a bizarre grimace.
"Of course he is." Riddler chuckled. "Riddle me this then, Dent. Are you in or are you out?"
Two-Face glared at him and flipped the silver piece into the air.
"I'm in."
Belle Reve Penitentary
Louisiana
Floyd Lawton shook the guards off as they led him into the "briefing room". He sat down alongside the other members of the secret government black ops unit known as Task Force X aka the Suicide Squad. Specifically, he sat in between a very annoyed King Shark, and a quite light-hearted and make-up covered Harley Quinn.
Standing behind bulletproof glass, next to the button that would detonate all the nano-bombs buried the base of their skulls, was the prison's warden - Amanda Waller. An athletic, ex-military black woman; Waller had clawed and scratched her way to the top of the food chain until she had built herself a regime with enough power to win World War Three. She pressed a mike button. "Welcome back, convicts. Seems you haven't been out of your cells lately. However, here's some news that might cheer you up. At oh-six-hundred, almost all communications throughout the world were cut. Cell phones, email, internet - all gone. Only a few secure lines controlled by me, A.R.G.U.S. and the Russian military remained operational. At zero-six-thirty, we received word that the Justice League satellite codenamed Watchtower had been torn from orbit and part of it landed in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island. Spy planes got this image."
A picture was projected onto a screen. It showed the central part of the Watchtower satellite. Jutting out from one side was a stage. A large crowd surrounded it. Waller frowned. "There are multiple high-level military targets present. Gorilla Grodd, Black Adam, Parasite, Metallo and the Rogues just to name a few. We suspect the people holding this meeting are interdimensional. Their own world possibly destroyed by a powerful force. If so, we have to monitor any new occurrences."
She sighed. "But why am I telling you all this? Being villains yourselves, your task is to infiltrate the ranks of this meeting and get me any information you can. Any attempts to escape or join them will result in immediate use of lethal force in termination. Do I make myself clear?"
None of the Squad members said anything. Lawton leaned back in his seat. Waller was on a hair trigger. But if the situation was as serious as she made it seem, there was good reason to be.
Lawton stepped out of the briefing room accompanied by his squadmates and an entourage of armored guards. They were led down a gunmetal-colored corridor to a room to which the only entrance was through twenty-foot blast concrete and steel doors. The weapons room, where all their personal loadouts were contained and held alongside a myriad of other tools of death.
Stepping inside the massive room, Lawton immediately located his custom-made wrist guns. Interchangeable barrels, ammunition, attachments, and calibers for each of the beauties. Magazine capacity was anywhere from one to twenty rounds. They slid onto the tactical rails mounted on greaves attached to the bulletproof red bodysuit he wore. Zipping up the suit, he grabbed his babies and started assessing them. This was a recon mission , so if anyone needed to die it would be done quietly. With a few simple motions, he attached a silencer to each of them, and loaded each with a five-round magazine of .45 ACP ammunition. A heavy round, but easily silenced and hard-hitting enough for a clean kill. Lawton then placed the foam-lined steel mask, equipped with a cybernetic Optical Enhancement device that helped him aim his perfect shots; over his face.
Lawton looked around at his teammates. Black Spider had his usual infrared/night vision mask and lightly-armored bodysuit. King Shark was attaching the metal jaw that helped increase his already immense natural bite strength. Harley stuffed a .44 Taurus Raging Bull revolver into her belt before picking up the mallet she was known for among the inmates of Belle Reve and the supervillain community. Captain Boomerang selected his bandolier of weapons giving him his namesake. El Diablo, as per-frickin'-usual, simply stood by, waiting for the others to gear up.
The new person - she had only been with them for a few low-level missions that didn't lead to anything - was a tiny little thing at five-three and one hundred and five pounds. Louise Lincoln was a two-bit bank robber that had the powers of cryokinesis and a mouth that wouldn't stop feeding them ice puns. Going by Killer Frost, she had been caught when her getaway driver turned out to be an A.R.G.U.S. agent. Sentence for around thirty-eight major bank robberies, she was nearing the end of her time on the squad. And it wasn't a secret that she got along with Shark way too well.
Lawton looked around and saw his teammates were ready. "Alright, let's move out!"
The squad, once again escorted by armed guards, jogged their way to the hangar. Their normal C-130 aircraft (dubbed Final Destination 3 by Captain Boomerang and Harley), was under repair from the last mission when it got hit with an RPG. Besides, it was too big to hide anyway. This time, they were taking a Navy-style Sea Stallion helo nicknamed Sheba. It could carry 38 normal troops. But with King Shark's size, they were gonna need that extra space.
Lawton stepped on board and noticed the single occupant of the troop bay. "Who the hell are you?"
The man turned towards him. He wore blue armor with orange stripes and highlights in certain places. Large pauldrons covered his shoulder and deltoid areas. He had flexible abdominal armor and a solid chestplate. His shins, calves, and thighs were covered in armor plates. Beneath the armor, he wore a black bodysuit. Across his chest was a bandolier with three pouches and around his waist was a belt that had a holster and pouch attached to it. On his back was a broadsword. His mask was an amalgam of his two colors, the right side being blue and missing an eyehole, while the other was orange and featured the eyehole. "Lawton. Long time no fight."
Lawton's jaw dropped behind his mask. "Deathstroke? Deathstroke the Terminator?"
"Yew two blokes know each other then?" Captain Boomerang inquired.
"While back, before I got taken in, me and a friend of mine named Ben Turner did a job for a guy named Sergeant Steel. We were supposed to murder a mercenary named The Terminator. That was before we found out he had enhanced strength, speed, stamina, intelligence and not to mention one helluva healing factor." Lawton grimaced. "Needless to say, that job went south."
"No shit. Steel was a goddamned idiot." Deathstroke chuckled. "You're skilled, but bad intel is bad intel."
"Trust me, Iraq taught me all about that." Deadshot took a seat across from the mercenary. "How'd a pro like you get caught?"
"Batman."
At that, Deadshot fell silent. Harley winced slightly. Black Spider growled. They were all here because of the hero known as Batman. Deadshot turned to Harley. He hadn't even noticed her in the briefing room. She had a new outfit, better than the old one. This one was black and red. It consisted of half red, half black spandex booty shorts; a half-red, half-black top, with diamond shapes on each side in the color of the opposite side. On her left leg was a red sock, a red kneepad, and a red thigh-high sock under that. Her right leg had the same style in black. She had red and black pauldrons and had gotten rid of the paint around her eyes. But she hadn't dyed her hair black to match. Instead she had left it red. Lawton was damned if he knew or saw any practicality in it, but he liked it.
Anyway, while he observed this, the helicopter started taking off. The roof opened up, and the chopper started on it's way to Rhode Island.
Remains of the Justice League Watchtower Satellite
Happy Harbor, Rhode Island
"Fuck, Waller was right." Deadshot shoved his way through the crowd of supervillains. "Everyone's here. Multiplex, Bane, Cheetah, Mad Hatter, Giganta, Firefly. If you can name 'em, they're here."
"Fawkin' A." Captain Boomerang lit a cigarette and sneered. "Too damn crowded if ye ask me."
"Well, now, ain't nobody do that, did they, Mistah Kangaroo?" Harley giggled and elbowed El Diablo, who simply frowned and turned away. Harley shrugged and started skipping towards Deadshot. "Where's ya friend, Floyd? The tough one with deep voice?"
"He's not my friend." Deadshot stopped and looked around. "And yeah, where is Deathstroke?"
"Don't worry, I'm here." Deathstroke's voice presented itself in the Squad's ears.
"Where?"
"Up front. Unlike you, I'm actually a recognizable face in the supervillain community. Can't let them see me relying on you two-bit pricks."
Deadshot swore. "Waller, your cowboy is gettin' a little too Rough Rider for this op."
"Let him, Lawton. It could be a benefit. One thing though: Is Luthor there?"
Deadshot scanned the crowd with experienced eyes. "I don't see him."
"Damn."
"Anything else? People around here are gettin' a little antsy."
"Just wait and watch."
Suddenly, a golden object flew from the stage in an arc and clattered onto the ground. Several villains were crowded around it. Grodd and Deathstroke bent to look at it. Then a black shape zig-zagged through the crowd and snatched it. As he stood still, it was revealed to be Black Manta, holding Aquaman's trident. "It's mine!"
Several other objects fell into the crowd, including Superman's Cape and Wonder Woman's Lasso. Deadshot watched as Parasite and Metallo started arguing over the cape when a loud voice boomed. "Enough! There will be no discord among us! This world is ours!"
"And the Justice League is dead." The speaker was an identical copy of Superman, except he had a huge "U" on his chest instead of an "S". To his left was a woman in black that seemed like a reporter Deadshot had seen on TV, except with a more Amazonian body and her lasso looked like barbed wire. Next to her was a Flash wannabe with an elongated helmet and a tiny woman standing on his shoulder.
To the speaker's right, was a man in armor and an owl symbol on his chest. Further over was a skull in a black Firestorm costume and a blazing inferno inside of his head. And finally, on the far right, was a cowering Green Lantern with some kind of sickly infection running through his right arm.
The speaker started talking again. "This is Owlman. Superwoman. Deathstorm. Power Ring. Johnny Quick and Atomica. We are the Crime Syndicate. We come from another world which we ruled until it turned against us. So we destroyed it. We have killed all who stood against us when we arrived. And we have killed the Justice League. I say again, this world is ours. If you pledge your allegiance to us it can be yours too."
He turned to Superwoman. "Haul him up."
With a yank. She pulled up a familiar face to those of Gotham. El Diablo mumbled. "Dios mio!"
'His name is Nightwing." The speaker nodded to Superwoman who pulled away his mask. "But his real name is Richard Grayson!"
Harley gasped. "Floyd look, they got Batman's old buddy!"
"Don't mean shit unless they got Batman too."
"We will hunt down the weak. Those that defy us will be burned away until there is nothing left. They have been winning so far, but the war is not over. You were given power for a reason. Now use it for us and we will make this world the way it should be! Aeternus Malum. Forever Evil."
The villains raised their fists and cheered. Deadshot grabbed Harley and beckoned to King Shark who was a little ways down the line. "Deathstroke, we're leaving. It's time to fall back and regroup."
"Agreed. I'll be there in a second."
Belle Reve Penitentary
Louisiana
"He moved the goddamn moon."
Waller swore and slammed her fist into the console keyboard. "The leader - Ultraman, he gains strength with Kryptonite and becomes weak with sunlight. He moved the moon so that there's a perpetual eclipse."
"Shit." Deadshot rubbed his eyes. "Waller, what about my daughter, Zoe?"
"If she's lucky, she'll have a guardian angel somewhere." Waller frowned at him. "Besides, you're heading to Gotham pretty soon anyway."
"Why?"
"The Crime Syndicate's moving something big into the city. We want you to grab it and nail any members you can." She turned away from him. "Get some sleep Lawton. Maybe you'll have some company waiting in your cell."
Lawton nodded and stepped out of the command center, followed by two guards. He went down the corridor to the levator, which then went down several floors to the MaxSec level. They took him to his cell, locking it up after he entered.
Harley smiled at him from the bed. "How ya doin' pudden?"
"Tired. Worried about my daughter." Lawton peeled his orange prison shirt off. "But enough of that. I need this."
Harley giggled and welcomed him with open arms.
Suicide Squad Roster
Floyd Lawton/Deadshot (New 52 costume)
Harleen Quinzel/Harley Quinn (Current New 52 costume)
Slade Wilson/Deathstroke (Arkham Origins costume)
Nanaue/King Shark (Assault on Arkham costume...for now…)
Louise Lincoln/Killer Frost (Assault on Arkham costume)
Chato Santana/El Diablo (Movie costume)
Eric Needham/Black Spider (Assault on Arkham costume)
George "Digger" Harkness/Captain Boomerang (New 52 costume)