Yo. Next chap here.
While writing this chapter, I decided to use modified versions of three characters that appear. Age, typical behavior, looks and few other things have been shifted about to fit, particularly because bringing them in directly from their own show would result in a more the 'Young Adult' feel of the Young Justice series,
And Yes! Holly is my favorite character from the Artemis Fowl series, hence my slipping her in. Hell, the Artemis Fowl reference included the locked door opening trick. It was based off Mulch using his beard hair to open the micro-keyhole in Arty's safe, way back in book one.
Hope you guys enjoy it.
Chapter 4
Sumdac Labs, Washington DC
'Well, that's the last one of them.' Megan said to Kaldur as the lead scientist in the room slumped. 'Get going.'
'On it.' His movements were swift yet sure, sprinting past the unconscious bodies sprawled on the floor toward the transparent tank in the center of the room. Pulling his right arm back, he uncorked a killer right straight that tore right through the reinforced fiberglass like it was wet toilet paper. The moment he pulled his arm back, the water gushed out, flooding the room.
He didn't care. Pulling out a water bearer, he stuck his arm back into the hole, ignoring the scratchy feeling of the jagged fiberglass on his skin as he connected to the water in the tank. For a few seconds, nothing happened, the room quiet but for the sloshing sounds of the water.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACKLE! BOOM!
The tank exploded, the water draining out of it in that singular burst, glass and water flying out at near bullet speeds.
Kaldur staggered back, his water bearer dropping into the water swirling around his knees as he tried to reel in his frenzied thought processes.
Being of the Warrior class, he had a limit to how much water he could command. Going above that limit practically splintered his thoughts, causing one hell of a headache.
'Relax...' Megan's voice drifted through the chaos as he felt his mind begin to knit itself back in order. 'I've got this. It wouldn't be cool for you to go through this much stress only to not be able to save your friend.'
'Very... Very true...' Kaldur thought back, feeling his thoughts unscramble enough to get that out. 'Thank you Megan.'
"No problem. Here, you dropped this."
The Atlantean blinked. He could have sworn that he'd just heard Megan's voice with his ears and not his mind. Perhaps his thoughts weren't as straightened out as he'd assumed?
"Umm Kaldur?" He not only heard her but felt someone tap him on the shoulder. He immediately glanced over his shoulders to see...
A green skinned girl of around his age wearing a sleek black suit hovering over the water.
"Megan?"
"Yup! That's me!" Her face lit up in a bright smile that assured him that this really was the owner of the voice in his head. "Oh, here! I found this floating around."
In her outstretched hand was his water bearer. "Thank you. I didn't realize that I had dropped it."
"No problem! Now, let's get your friend outta here."
Wading through the water, Kaldur moved onto the metal base of the now destroyed tank and bent over to pick out the half-submerged body of his friend and mentor, lifting her in a bridal carry.
"Holly? Holly answer me!" Kaldur looked confused as he shook the woman in his arms. She was awake. Her eyes were clear, not glassy and every other indicator showed that she was awake. So why wasn't she answering? "Megan, can you help me look inside her mind? See if there's anything wrong with her."
"Sure." She replied. Closing her eyes, she focused on the mind before her and gently began probing it.
Kaldur, meanwhile, was watching every inch of the room within his sightline, wondering exactly why they had not yet been swamped by whatever security measures the Sumdac group had put in place. Surely they couldn't be so foolhardy as to believe that they were untouchable, could they?
"Megan-"
"Kaldur-"
Both paused and Kaldur inclined his head, indicating that she should go first.
"Alright, um, first off, she's okay. She's just in a sort of protective coma."
"So why does she look like she's awake?"
"That's the interesting thing. She seems to have split off a part of her subconscious mind to take control of her body, kind of like an-"
"Auto-pilot." The male Atlantean nodded as the memory of the technique his blond friend had used filtered back into his mind. "It's a technique some of us learn to help when being tortured."
"Oh..." Megan trailed off, leaving Kaldur to wonder why she seemed so impressed. "Well, I'm not skilled enough to pull her out of this so I'll get in contact with my uncle. Meanwhile, you wanted to tell me something?"
The slight worry that had just begun to loosen up wound itself tighter in his gut. "Yes. Can you scan for any strange thoughts around us?"
"Sure!" She smiled brightly before it dimmed a bit. "Though I do have a range so I may not be accurate."
"I'll take what you've got." He replied simply.
When she opened her eyes, the decidedly scared look deep within them instantly had all his senses at full alert.
"We aren't the only ones here..."
Line —~ ~— Break
"Damn... We aren't the only ones in here..." The young man stated as he snuck into the security room.
Another man, more muscular than the lanky one glanced around before settling a glare on one of his partners for the night. "The hell do you mean?"
"Exactly that." The first one replied as he instantly blitzed past the Labs' Security System Firewall and began pulling up records, logs and files. "Someone, more precisely, another unit has infiltrated this building."
"That shouldn't be possible." A clipped, feminine voice cut in. "We specifically chose today due to the slight chink in the security of this place. The odds of another team also deciding on infiltrating today are-"
"Pretty even considering that we decided on today." The lanky boy interrupted. "They certainly are organized."
"Explain." The female stated.
"At least three teams worked this job. The first temporarily halted their systems from outside, allowing a second team to slip in via the roof and take out Sleeping Beauty here-" he gestured toward the unconscious human rolled underneath the workstation, "-allowing all teams to move in without bothering too much about security. I can't decipher much more but utilizing such cooperation, they've managed to head into the sublevels."
"How about our package? Has it been tampered with?" She asked.
"Not as far as I can detect."
"Then we proceed as planned."
Line —~ ~— Break
'The average teenager would be at home right now. Sleeping perhaps, or maybe playing video games. The really exceptional ones would be out on the town. No, not me, I just had to be linked to the Speed Force.
'God, I love my life.'
Raven noticed the wide grin on the speedster's face as they stuck close to Robin, making their way past various, yet ominous and definitely alien pods, and jabbed his ribs with an elbow. "Watch it. Your grin could attract unnecessary attention."
"Sorry." He whispered back as he tried to reign in his wayward emotions. But dammit! How many teenagers got to have this much fun?
"Quiet you two!" Robin chided from up front. "We could easily get caught by your yapping."
"Umm... you three don't belong here."
And then, they were caught.
Gotta love the universe's sense of irony.
A quick glance up had Dick narrowing his eyes. 'This guy... he looks like a younger Superman...'
"Well done, Kr." The sound of another voice, accompanied by footsteps, had all three teenagers on their feet and ready to move. The newcomer, well newcomers really, were odd. They all had striking resemblances to the first alien creature they'd seen. However, these were much more muscular as well as seemingly being more armored.
They also had weird creatures on their shoulders that, apparently, possessed the power of speech.
"Take them to the holding cells." The one in the lead, and probably the leader, ordered. "Ask Master if they are to be cloned."
Robin's first impulse was to get back and plan a way out of this mess.
Raven's was to blast her foes with some pretty powerful energy spells she knew.
Kid Flash really wanted to speed blitz all of the aliens, well, except the boy. He looked kinda lost.
These choices were taken from them as they suddenly collapsed, warding off unconsciousness by sheer willpower.
Wally fell first.
Training with the Dark Knight gave Dick stronger mental fortitude but he could only last so long.
Raven, just before she submitted, felt the strange energy latching onto hers release a slight pop.
Line —~ ~— Break
Kaguya's POV
Ahead of me, he freezes, every muscles, sinew and tendon pulled taut as something comes to his attention. A moment later, he slips into a shadowy alcove and I do the same.
We're pressed back to front, mine being the back pressed into his front. It's a warm, comfortable place, one I wouldn't mind staying in.
A slight shake of my head dispels that thought.
"The one I told you of, the girl with the other two boys? She's in trouble."
And his warm breath tickling my ear brings it right back.
"I'll... I'll find them." Damnit! Not now, moron! Focus!
I do, and I activate my byakugan, a shade of the power I once had and one I only recently began to truly accept. Color leaks out of the world around me, leaving everything in dichromatic black and white as my sensory sphere expands, going to a complete three hundred and sixty degree view, one of the perks Naruto and Kurama left me with, the complete byakugan, as opposed to the incomplete variant the Hyūga clan he told me of were bestowed with.
The very first thing I notice is his face. Even in black and white he looks...
Back to what I was supposed to be doing...
I see everything on this level and beyond, though I focus my attention on the level we are on right now. Walls are shunted apart with ease, allowing me to narrow down my search to living beings, their internal energies glowing brightly in my perception. 'Wrong shape, wrong shape, way too inert for people that were just captured... hmm, looks like the Princess is heading over that way... and bingo.'
I turn to Naruto, an action that, in this tight alcove has me pressing up a bit more into him... Focus, damnit! "Found them. Three guys instead of two, though two are knocked out, same with the girl, and an escort of those brutish creatures we've spotted all around."
"I know the direction." Kami! Only years of training with my mother and aunts helped me stifle that shiver running up my spine. "We'll head toward them now."
"The Princess... she's heading almost opposite us. She's going to find something where she's headed."
"Follow her." He replies softly. "I'll go get the others and we can meet up later.."
"Got it. We'll talk via the tags."
He nods, flashing a brief smile at me before heading toward them.
Kami, why wasn't I a regular girl way back then? I mean, I know various things on politics, regal bearing and everything to do with being a princess but maybe that way, I'd at least have a clue what to do when struck by infatuation!
Line —~ ~— Break
It has been stated before that Donna Troy didn't exactly have abilities geared toward infiltration. That said, her abilities didn't exactly oppose infiltration either.
Yes, superhuman strength, durability and endurance weren't staples of the spy business but then most spies would die to have superhuman speed, agility, senses and flight.
Particularly the last two, which Donna utilized to great length as she moved.
You can't trip a pressure pad while hovering and very few can sneak up on a person who can hear a butterfly's wings cutting through the air.
Now on the final sublevel, Donna slipped past a pair of human guards, heading toward wherever the extensive structure ended. Just as she was to round a corner, the sound of footsteps and voices entered her enhanced range, coming from the direction she was about to walk towards. It sounded like two men were discussing something.
"... is almost there."
"Soon, we'll have a counterpart to Project Kr. Be sure to give my thanks to her. She chose an excellent specimen. Too bad she was rescued."
The first man laughed heartily. "Of course she chose well. She knows the Amazons like no other, even if she isn't one. But rest assured that your thanks will reach her, Des. She's always happy to hear of her customer's satisfaction."
Donna frowned as she thought over the man's words. Two things stood out to her. A non-Amazon that knew all about them? She'd never heard of such. It couldn't have been a traitor either, considering the fact that they hadn't had any of those in ages. Certainly not during Queen Hippolyta's reign. So... who?
Second; these men not only knew who her captors were, they were actively using whatever they'd obtained from torturing her to create something...
Making up her mind to tell Diana after finding out whatever they were creating, she flew straight up and all but plastered herself onto the ceiling just as the men rounded the corner. Sparing a moment to take note of their appearances, she then turned the corner herself, remaining keenly aware of the men until they were out of her range before dropping to hover just above the floor.
People within an enclosed environment, be it a house or a secret underground lab, tended to rarely ever look up. Diana's words that once again prove themselves true.
With the men gone, Donna took her time to observe her surroundings, all her senses pricked. The result matched what she could see visually: she was in a hallway, no hidden chambers or trapdoors anywhere, with a door at the opposite end.
'Judging by the context of their conversation, my guess is that whatever findings they got from me, the results lie behind this door.' With that, she proceeded toward the door.
'Locked...' She cursed mentally as she tried to burn a hole through the offending piece. This was one of those situations where her skill set didn't match her up to infiltration.
Two options lay before her:
Turn around and leave;
Lightly tap on the door and hope alarms didn't blare out.
Guess which choice she made?
'Huh. For something hidden this far down, I really would have expected more from the security systems.' She thought as she hovered into the spacious room. It was pretty bare, honestly. But for a few medical machines, it was basically your average spartan room with a pod in its center.
Donna took a moment to see if she could make heads or tails of the data being recorded by the machines but she soon gave up on that and headed to the pod. It was a cylindrical object, horizontally oriented with about three-quarters of it fabricated from some kind of metal that was both cool and oily when she touched it. The top quarter was made of a transparent material and she glanced in.
Then, she stopped, did a double take and looked back in.
"No way..."
And then the alarms blared.
Line —~ ~— Break
"Fuck!" The lanky boy in the green bodysuit swore as the alarms wailed. A quick glance at his handheld computer had him following the first curse with a string of others.
"Gizmo what the hell is wrong?" the girl on the team yelled from her spot underneath the control console that held their package. Her job was to attach an ultrathin microchip onto the primary relay cable so that the techie of their team could shut down the motion sensors around the package, allowing them to grab it without setting off any security measures, a job she couldn't very well perform if said techie was disrupting her concentration.
"Geez, Jinx, you mean beside the wailing alarms?" The now named Jinx was sorely tempted to zap her overly sarcastic teammate with a lightning bolt but she refrained. That would simply distract her further.
"Yes, Giz, I meant beside the wailing alarms."
"We've been made. Someone rebooted the whole system and flushed us out. The delayed alarms all just fired up."
She blinked a bead of sweat out of her eye as she gently nudged a few more cables out of the way to reveal her target. "Why aren't we swamped with their security personnel yet?"
"I piggybacked our Trojans off that of the other team. It'd take careful analysis to prove that another person hacked their systems at all. Is it in?"
"All the way." She slid out from beneath the console. "Go:"
"Already moving." His fingers blurred over his mini-computer as he addressed their third teammate. "Mammoth, grab it!"
The muscular giant grinned brutishly, "Finally!" before smashing the reinforced fiberglass and reaching in for the smallish box within. "Giz"
The lanky techie collected the proffered object and slipped it into his backpack, switching it for a larger box that, upon activation, expanded to form a hoverboard. "Thanks. We need to move, though. Those security personnel you asked about? They're on the move..."
Line —~ ~— Break
"Listen Superboy, I know it might seem hard to believe but there is a whole world out there..." Raven smiled at the young man. "A world you might never get to see if you're kept-"
She was interrupted by the blare of alarms and Robin's furious voice cursing out from his pod.
"My hack's been flushed. I'm guessing that they ran a system reboot." He explained before turning to their jailer. "I know this might seem rushed but you have to make up your mind. Help us get out and we help you experience the world or don't and remain here until they decide to let you out."
The teenager was clearly torn as to what decision to make. However, just as he opened his mouth to speak, he was blasted back by something.
Kid Flash, due to his connection to the Speed Force was the only one to really see what just happened and even then, it seemed blurry.
One instant, the clone seemed ready to say something, the next, a dark haired man appeared right in front of him and lashed out with a kick that blew him back.
Then, he headed over to Raven's pod.
"Hey! If you lay a finger on her-"
"If you absolutely must, threaten only those who are threats." The newcomer nonchalantly reached into her unsealed pod and seemingly swiped at the bonds holding her hands up. They fell away instantly and he repeated the process for those as her feet before helping her out of the pod. "You okay?"
"Um... yeah... thanks." Raven seemed just as confused as Robin was so clearly neither of them knew him. So who was this guy? "Um... Who are you?"
He just smirked as he helped Robin out before heading over to Kid Flash。 "Maelstrom. And you?"
"I'm Raven, the guy you're currently helping is Kid Flash and-"
"Robin." said boy identified himself. "What are you doing here?"
"Like you, myself and my friend are investigating this place. We think they might know of how we got here."
"And this friend of yours..." Robin prompted.
"Keeping an eye on things." He stated before glaring at something...
Superboy, apparently, considering the fact that he chose that moment to charge at Maelstrom.
"Superboy wait!" Raven cried, throwing herself into the path of his headstrong charge. The clone hesitated before stopping himself completely. "There's been a small misunderstanding. This-" She gestured at Maelstrom who seemed way too relaxed for someone that was about to be hit by a Superman clone, "is Maelstrom. He just rescued us and only hit you due to misinformation." She then turned to the newcomer. "This is Superboy, a clone of Superboy that wants to experience the world. And we're helping."
The last part was worded like it was a done deal.
"Alright, fine." Maelstrom threw his hands up in mock surrender before turning to Superboy. "Hey. Apologies for hitting first."
The clone glared at him for a few seconds before huffing out a 'no problem'.
Abruptly, the masked man's demeanor changed, shifting from playful to military-like seriousness. "We need to move now. The creatures-"
"Genomorphs." Superboy supplied to which he nodded curtly.
"The genomorphs are moving to block all exits. We have a slight window of opportunity but we have to move now."
Robin and Raven were immediate in their decisions with Kid Flash and Superboy agreeing moments later.
"Follow me." Maelstrom ordered and turned to sprint out of the DNA Harvesting Chamber. "Robin, see if you can get back into their systems. Use their own tech against them; sow confusion where you can. Superboy, stick with Raven and bring up our rear guard. K.F, up front with me. Take out any of those genomorphs you see."
Their response was almost instant, with military-like precision, eliciting an almost imperceptible nod from the raven haired impromptu leader.
Line —~ ~— Break
For Donna, the blaring alarms didn't even exist. In fact, very little existed to her at that moment and she was staring right at them.
The pod she'd noticed when she first stepped into this room and its content.
Her.
She was staring at herself.
Not a reflection or a mere image but a totally different being altogether that could... no that WOULD have passed as her. The only reason she even knew this was a real being was that they were dressed differently.
While she was garbed in her skintight black pants with her starfield sleeveless shirt completed by her silver belt and wristbands, the 'her' in the pod was garbed in a one-piece body suit of the purest white and nothing else.
'A clone?' Donna thought, her mind utterly confused by what she was seeing. 'They... I was kidnapped... tortured... just to be cloned? Why?'
It all boiled down to that singular question: Why?
The shock began to drain out of her mind and she took hold of her returning mental faculties to try to at least figure something out.
It was with the return of said mental faculties that she picked up on the presence of another person within the room.
Apparently, the person picked up on this as they pushed off the doorjamb to walk into her line of sight.
It was a tall young woman, probably a year or two older than herself, of slender build. She wore black pants that were looser than the Amazon's, with a plain black long-sleeved turtleneck. The lower half of her face was covered by a dark mask, leaving only her violet eyes uncovered and her black hair was braided into a single plait that fell all the way down to her calves.
These were all noted peripherally, though.
The very first thing Donna consciously noted was the way the woman carried herself.
Hers wasn't the grace of a dancer nor that of a warrior. It was the innate grace only royalty could breed, one that only a child raised amidst royalty and brought up in the ways of the royals themselves could have.
Diana had a bit of that grace, as did she, being of Themyscira's royalty, but theirs leaned more toward that warrior's grace. They were Amazons, after all.
This woman, though... She was royalty, pure and simple.
The entirety of this observation took about as much time as it did for the woman to step into Donna's line of sight and open her mouth to speak:
"Pardon my interruption but we have to leave."
A single black eyebrow arched almost of its own accord. "Pardon me as well for asking but is there any reason why I should leave? And more precisely, leave with you?"
Her lips quirked just a bit as she replied: "Besides the alarms signifying that our presences have been detected?"
'I guess it is true then. No one can beat royalty at sarcasm.' Donna noted dryly. "The alarms signify that we should get out, true, but it has no import on whether I choose to leave with you or not."
"Admittedly." She concedes. "However, I have a friend who is currently attempting to assist a group out of here. If we join up with him and the final group that's a few floors up, our chances of survival increase."
The Amazonian kept her breathing even as she contemplated her choices. Leave with this unknown woman or attempt to find her own way out? And what about the clone? Should it just be left alone or should she attempt to get it out?
"I need to know if you trust me enough to follow me." The woman stated seriously, no trace of the earlier sarcasm in her tone. "My friend is already on the move and I need to meet up with him."
Donna was well and truly torn between choices. She didn't even think much on leaving with the woman but leaving without the clone...
"Let's go." She turned to the woman and nodded decisively. The clone was just that; a clone. She would escape now and tell Diana about it later. Then they would figure out what to do.
Line —~ ~— Break
If there was anything that could impress Dick Grayson, AKA Robin, it was efficiency. Whether it was a trait cultivated by his exposure to the Dark Knight or a personal trait that would have shown up regardless of his training with the Bat of Gotham was a moot point.
Efficiency impressed him.
And the man leading them out of the maze of sublevels was one hell of a study in the art of being efficient.
He wasted absolutely no movements as he sprinted down the halls or swiftly dispatched the hordes of genomorphs that had attempted to ambush them at various points in the lower levels. He had swiftly introduced them to his partner, a woman he referred to as 'Shard' while easily apologizing to the other woman, Donna, for an earlier altercation. He had redistributed them easily, having Donna and Superboy up front with himself to fend off any more ambushes, and there had been three so far, while sending Wally to the rear to watch Raven.
Now, in the middle of the little formation, Robin glanced at the woman by his side to confirm what he was seeing on his wrist mounted holo-computer. "Shard, I'm getting visuals of a squad of genomorphs fighting a group of three."
"Is the girl carrying a female floating?"
"Yeah." He nodded as she somehow communicated with Maelstrom up front.
She was amazing. Her ability to see things a great distance away as well as penetrating through most objects was simply astounding.
"Robin, Shard, you guys stay back with Raven and Kid Flash. We'll go ahead and assist the unit being ambushed."
He wanted to argue against it. Why not stay together and attack as one? The answer came to him almost instantly: It was better to have them stay back and guard the entrance, so to speak, than have everyone rush in only to get trapped at both ends.
The entirety of this thought process took less time than two seconds. "Got it. Notify us when you're done."
"Will do."
The three of them pushed off, moving faster than they had before, with Maelstrom and Donna taking the lead while Superboy lagged behind just a bit.
"Whew!" Wally rested his arms on his knees and took a few deep breaths. "Damn this is tiring."
"You're telling me." Raven sighed as she leaned heavily on the wall beside her. "How the hell are those three able to keep moving?"
'This must be another reason he had us split up. K.F must be feeling the burn of having to repeatedly keep the damned genomorphs back and Raven's been dishing out her spells pretty constantly.' The Boy Wonder realized. 'Pushing them further without rest could have burnt them out.'
At that moment, Shard moved down the hallway a bit, looking straight down the path they'd just come through. "Robin, can you see the group of twenty-six... genomorphs, you called them?... about to round that corner?"
He frowned and punched in a series of commands to his computer as Raven and Kid Flash shifted into alert stances. The display showed zilch.
Just as he was about to comment on it, the first of the genomorphs rounded the corner...
SNAP! THUD!
It dropped to the ground, a small, bullet sized hole drilled into its skull.
Shard stood right where she was, one hand lifted almost lazily, a finger pointed at the spot the alien creature's head occupied a scant moment ago.
The only difference between the time the first genomorph poked its head out and the time the last did was that Shard had lifted a second hand to join the first.
As the last body dropped to pile up with the others, she turned to Robin. "Bone shards, fired out of the tip of my fingers at near supersonic speed. Hence the name."
She was referring to a while back, when he'd asked the reason for her name, to which she' replied with an enigmatic, "You'll see."
Well, see he did!
"Let's go. They're done up ahead." And she turned to sprint ahead, leaving the three teens slack jawed.
Line —~ ~— Break
"Ah, they finally decide to show up." The raven haired man who had introduced himself as Maelstrom stated. "Kaldur, Megan, Holly, these are the last three of our group."
"Hi!" The cheerful redhead smiled at the newcomers. "I'm Megan, this is Holly-" She gestured to the auburn haired woman by her side before jerking a thumb at the dark skinned boy standing just a bit behind them, "-and that's Kaldur."
The three newcomers introduced themselves before Maelstrom continued speaking: "Megan and Kaldur were just sharing some pertinent information with us. Kaldur, could you please recap?"
The boy nodded. "Basically, during our rescue of Captain Holly Short, Megan discovered the presence of a completely different group, all of whom were in here with the intention to steal something from this facility."
"Megan's got a sensory ability like Shard's only hers locates people by searching for intents." Maelstrom explained.
Robin glanced at the green skinned girl. "Telepathy?"
"Yep!"
"Now that we're all here, we need to alter our formation just a bit: Megan, carrying Captain Short since she's still recovering, Shard and Robin will be in the middle. All three of you are our eyes so you'll need to be shielded. Give constant updates, say, once in three minutes unless it's urgent. Kid Flash, Superboy and Raven will be our rearguard. Since you aren't as fatigued as the others in your unit, Superboy, I'll need you to help relieve the pressure on the other two. Kaldur, You're upfront with the Princess and I. If you begin to feel fatigued drop behind us and call out. We'll cover for you. Intel team, let me know the instant you believe the rearguard need support. I'll head back and Shard can hold the fort for me until things ease out a bit."
Holly was impressed as the group quickly sorted themselves into their positions. Whoever this Maelstrom was, he definitely wasn't a green teenager. No, the young, dark haired man was clearly a commander the likes of Vinyáya and Root.
Line —~ ~— Break
Mark Desmond was royally pissed. And, quite honestly, he had very good reason to be.
Not twenty minutes ago, he'd been cheering over the success of project Zon, thinking of the greatness that could be attained if the Plan succeeded.
Now, he was forced before the Board to explain exactly how the facility had been breached and robbed.
And how he'd managed to lose project Kr.
No, pissed didn't even begin to cut it.
He stepped into the Room and the door sealed itself behind him.
The darkness was banished as all eight screens on the wall flickered to life simultaneously.
-Desmond, what is going on?-
He'd have sold his soul just to have the ground open up and swallow him at that moment. Too bad he had the niggling feeling that these beings would simply buy back his soul to inflict agonizing tortures on it. Best to face this head on then.
"The facility was infiltrated." He replied simply.
-How?- An aristocratic voice asked just as plainly.
For all his long dealings with the Board, he never truly knew if they were human. They'd never once revealed any traces of humanity within save for the slight differences in their speech patterns and their character of their voices.
The first to speak carried a firm tone of authority (though they all did, his seemed the most striking) as well as a hint of wisdom no mere human could have.
The second spoke like a true aristocrat yet there always seemed to be a hint of callousness. He likened it to a blade covered in silk. The dagger could and would rip the silk if it sufficient force was applied.
Back to reality.
"A coordinated group effort. They got in by having a unit temporarily shut down the security systems, allowing a second unit to get in from above to knock out the security personnel in charge of the surveillance systems. When the first team got in, they utilized a complicated hack to take control of our systems. Project Kr's enhanced hearing located a unit and they were captured, alerting us to their infiltration. Upon running a complete system reboot, the presence of a second group entirely was revealed."
-Two groups?- The third voice was always clipped and the most militaristic, reminiscent of a no nonsense kind of person. A mercenary perhaps. -Any ideas what they wanted?-
"Partially, sir." Desmond's reply was hesitant. He took their non-response as a silent decree to continue. "The second group were able to make off with a hard drive. From the inventory, I'm certain it contains all our data on genetic modification and selective evolution and devolution."
-Why that?- Voice number four: the only female, her tone bearing elements of shrewdness and regal authority. -Should we be concerned?-
"Not in the slightest." He replied instantly. "The data on that drive has been rendered all but obsolete considering the parameters I was given to work within."
-To you, it is obsolete. To those who took the drive, and more particularly, their sponsors, it is worth a lot.- Sibilant, soothing, always assuring until the hidden dagger was buried deep inside his enemies back, that was the feel Desmond always got from the fifth man's voice.
-We'll figure that out later.- A male voice again, sounding like it had been run through so many digital systems that it sounded more mechanical than human. -Our main priority should be the intruders.-
Desmond quickly consulted his handheld array. "Majority of the genomorphs within the facility are converging on their location and are prepared to cut them off before they hit sublevel five. The few remaining are utilizing ambushes and sudden attacks to slow them down and divert them to the last entry leading into sublevel five."
-Ensure that they do not escape.- The first voice commanded. -If they prove to be useful, clone them, otherwise, dispose of them thoroughly.-
For the first time since the beginning of the meeting, Desmond smiled, a sadistic smile that spoke volumes of the pony-tailed man.
It was not a pretty sight.
"It will be as you have ordered."
Line —~ ~— Break
"Maelstrom! We need to change routes!" Robin yelled as he hurled explosive batarangs into two of the genomorphs that had somehow managed to get through the thresher Kaldur, Donna and their impromptu leader had created.
"Any reasons?" The raven haired man asked as he struck out with swift, precise strikes, the kunai in his hands (as Robin recognized the weapon of the ninja) flashing out to deliver death blows to the surrounding creatures.
"Yes!" Shard yelled out from the behind him. Due to the continuous flow of battle, she had been unable to risk using her abilities for fear of accidentally hitting the members of this temporary alliance and so was standing with Captain Short. She'd kept her eyes peeled, though, and so was currently the team's major source of intel. "They're herding us toward the large storage space two levels up. They've got an army waiting for us there. Going in would be suicide!"
"Anything behind this wall?"
"Another passage, leading toward the elevator shaft!"
"Superboy, Princess, cover me!" He ordered instantly, whipping around with a glowing orb of energy hovering above his right palm and lashing out at the wall.
While the two he'd called on shifted to provide greater defense for him, the dark haired man pushed at the wall, the blue orb in his hand grinding away at the wall. Then, when it was halfway in, it exploded, blowing a hole clean through the obstruction. "Everyone go! Rearguard first!"
Kid Flash was the first out, zipping past genomorphs as he moved, sending them flying. Then Raven got through, followed by Superboy, Shard, Megan and Captain Short, Robin, Kaldur and Donna.
"We're through! Maelstrom come on!" Donna yelled at the still fighting man.
"Got ya!" He shouted before leaping back, hands moving in a strange manner. Just as he cleared the newly created exit, he breathed out a stream of fire, utterly stunning his partners. Then, as he landed, his hands flashed through more of those strange patterns before being slammed on the ground. In response, a thick wall of earth rose up, plugging the hole they'd just jumped through.
"Alright, Princess, Superboy, head straight for the elevator and rip those doors open. The rest of you, follow them. Shard, with me. We'll be their cover. Move!"
Responding quickly, the Amazon and the Kryptonian clone swiftly moved ahead, the rest of the alliance following as the arrowed toward the elevator.
Just as they reached the elevator, the hallway shook violently, nearly sending the speedster into the ground.
"What the hell!" He yelled as he stabilized himself. "What was that?"
"Get into that elevator shaft!" Maelstrom grunted from behind them, eliciting a look from the ever curious boy.
What he saw sent a shiver of fear down his spine. Some new types of genomorphs, these ones looking like giant gorillas from the Savage Land! comics he'd read had smashed through a wall and were currently engaged in a fight with Maelstrom and Shard.
The guy was a blur of constant motion, dodging hits and slamming the genomorphs with the glowing energy orbs now held in both hands, Shard never far behind as she sniped at the genomorphs' soft spots hitting their eyes, ears, hell she even scored a few shots up some nostrils!
"K.F. We gotta move!" His head snapped back upon hearing Robin's voice to see that Donna and Superboy had ripped the elevator doors open. Raven was already in, as was Megan with Captain Short on her back, both hovering as the Boy Wonder shot a grappling hook to the top of the shaft and climbed up, leaving the line for whoever else would need it.
Hearing a sudden grunt of pain, he glanced back to see the leader of their alliance slumped against a wall, Shard standing over him to face down the approaching beasts.
"Kid Flash, duck!" Donna shouted before twin grunts of effort reached his ears. He was already on the ground by then, having learnt in his days as the Flash's sidekick that no one ever yelled 'Duck' without good reason.
Well, except kids but that was going off track.
Two objects streaked over his head, the wake of their movement strong enough to tug violently at his hair. Half a second later, twin clangs rang out, accompanied by bellows of pain.
"Get to the elevator shaft! Hurry!" Donna stated as she ran past to aid their partners. Heeding to her advice, the speedster ran to the shaft and climbed aboard the line his friend had left, climbing up one pull after the other. Glancing up, he saw the girls flying up, keeping pace with Robin and Kaldur who was using his water swords to climb up in a fair imitation of Kratos.
Glancing down, he saw Shard and Maelstrom running up the walls of the elevator shaft like it was a horizontal surface, Donna was flying and Superboy pulling himself hand over hand up the line, much like Robin and himself.
'Probably doesn't have flying down yet.' He shrugged and resumed his climb.
"Princess, as soon as we get to the top, blast the door open and punch a path through to the outside. Everyone else follow-"
Maelstrom's command was interrupted by a loud boom echoing from somewhere below.
"Everyone faster! Now!"
The words were barely out of his mouth when one of the elevator doors suddenly blew back, the strength of whatever had hit the door being so great that the metal doors were embedded into the wall of the elevator shaft. A horde of the smaller, simian genomorphs swarmed out of the newly created entry and began a rapid climb up the walls.
"Everybody hold on!" Megan cried before shooting upward and using her powers to pull everyone else in her wake. Up ahead, Donna made it to the top of the shaft and, within two punches, had their exit set.
"Move, move, move!" She urged as she flew back in to grab Robin and Kaldur, hurling them out bodily before flying ahead as Maelstrom had ordered.
Meanwhile, Megan had helped everyone out of the shaft bar Maelstrom who stood firmly attached to the top of the elevator shaft. "Everyone get back!"
As he said this, his hands flashed through those strange motions again, ending with him bringing up two fingers held like a gun to rest beneath his lips. A split-second later, he once again breathed out a torrent of flames that washed down the shaft, incinerating the genomorphs unlucky enough to be in the shaft.
With a quick flip, he landed in the hallway, sprinting to catch up to the rest of the team.
Line —~ ~— Break
The wall exploded outward, leaving a cloud of rubble and dust that they immediately cleared.
"Oh man!" Gizmo gasped, doubled over on his hoverboard, arms wrapped around his torso. "We never do this kinda thing again."
"Agreed." Jinx groaned from Mammoth's chest as the brutish looking teen released her from his grip. "Where's Icicle?"
The temperature around them dropped rapidly as the aforementioned, ice-coated teen dropped out of the sky to land beside them. "Here"
"Any external observers?" She asked as she stood.
"None that I could track." He replied, chilly gasps of air escaping his mouth as he spoke.
"Heads up!"
Gizmo's loud warning was accompanied by an explosive retort as the wall directly over the one they'd just come out of was blown outward, a girl in dark clothes and silver wristbands flying right in the midst of the dust cloud, followed instantly by other people, the last of whom was a black haired man that was pushed back by a plume of water expelled from his mouth. Just as the water was cut off, a beam of lightning streamed out of his hands, striking the water and creating a dazzling lightshow accompanied by bellows of pain.
Watching as the man flipped about in the air to land on the ground, barely displacing the grass beneath his feet.
"Gizmo, are those the 'other team' you spoke about?" Jinx asked, desperately resisting the urge to run her hands through her pink streaked raven hair in frustration.
"Unfortunately." She could hear the slight tremor in his voice as he spoke and she wondered if their leader would have punished him for displaying his fear.
"Fuck."
"Maybe we can pass ourselves off as belonging to an organization sent in to investigate‐ "UGH!"
"No, you can't." The raven haired man stated in a tone devoid of any form of emotion, his outstretched arm still encased in the swirling green energy, held exactly in the same spot from which it had temporarily connected with Icicle's face.
Jinx was flabbergasted as she turned back to see the same man standing where he'd first landed, yet also standing right before her. Abruptly, the image behind her vanished and a line of dust jumped into the air.
'F-fast!' She nearly gasped out in shock. They had no one, hellthey had nothing that fast back at the HQ!
"Hmm?" He arched an eyebrow almost mockingly as they struggled against the strange pressure he was exerting on them to stand in defensive positions. "If you want to fight me then I truly do hope you can present a challenge."
Jinx cursed. They'd never dealt with a speedster before and this guy seemed like he could manipulate the elements at least as well as she could. Add onto that the fact that Icicle was seemingly out of the fight and she simply couldn't see a way out of this.
Then, a pseudo-army of genomorphs rushed out of the holes the two teams had created.
Line —~ ~— Break
To have said, at this point that Mark Desmond was pissed would have been akin to saying that the sun was hot.
It wasn't a lie, just that it didn't quantify just how hot, after all, to the average four year old, a candle was hot.
Having suffered not one but two simultaneous infiltrations with both infiltrators making off with things that were his while doing as much damage to the facility and destroying his genomorphs was bad. Causing him to be subject to that conversation with the Board was worse.
Exposing Sumdac as they just did had caused him to snap.
The intruders would be dealt with and the vial of serum he'd taken from project Blockbuster would ensure that the chaos these imbecilic children had brought onto them would be returned to order.
"Dubbilex, subdue them." He ordered harshly. There would be no clichéd villain-chat nor would he gloat. Not after all they'd done.
The pale blue alien by his side nodded once before activating its telepathic connection to all the G-gnomes within the facility, dredging up all the available mental energy and bringing it to bear on their foes. A cruel smirk crossed Desmond's lips as he watched them all cry out and sink to their knees, some passing out instantly, others trying to fight off the telepathic assault. They would fail, though. Dubbilex was created using Martian DNA, granting him extremely powerful telepathy. Their struggles were pointless...
Line —~ ~— Break
Megan was scared.
'Megan.'
It wasn't that she'd never been subjected to mental pressures before, as a matter of fact, her uncle started off her training using such methods.
No, she was scared because this was several orders of magnitude more pressing than anything her uncle had ever done.
'Megan...!
And the voices... Maelstrom had asked her to keep light connections to each of the team's members minds, not enough to read their minds, but more as a key to facilitate a faster switch should they require a purely telepathic communication link. Unfortunately, when the genomorphs began their assault, the doors to each person's mind opened some more and she was washed in their agony.
'Megan!'
Abruptly, the pain reduced to a dull throb at the back of her mind and the voices dropped lower and lower until they became an indistinct hubbub somewhere...
The red-haired Martian carefully cracked an eyelid open, afraid of bringing down the brunt of that horrific pressure on her mind again.
'Hey, Megan.' Upon hearing her name, she fully opened her eyes to take in the featureless expanse of white she was stuck in. There was absolutely no feature of any form, not even the line of a distant horizon. Hell, if she couldn't feel the solid surface beneath her feet, she'd have sworn that she was floating.
'Megan...' The voice called again, sounding incredibly strained now and she twisted and turned to find the source.
'Listen, I know... I know you c-can't see me b-but it's Maelstrom...'
"What?" She was baffled. Yeah, she could now identify the voice as his but where was he?
'You're in a mental shelter I created... I'm using myself to take shield the others... I need you to release an omni-di... Omni-directional pulse of mental energy, as po-powerful as you can make it.'
"Won't that hurt you?" The Martian teenager was terrified. He already sounded beat-up but what he was suggesting could kill him!
'Don't worry... Be fine... Just do it on- NGH!' The featureless expanse seemed to ripple as he exclaimed and Megan, guessing what he wanted her to do, began harnessing as much of her mental energy as she could.
"I'll be ready on your mark." She stated through gritted teeth as she began to feel the strain of holding back so much of her built up energy while building up even more.
'Heh... Thanks...'
Line —~ ~— Break
Desmond's mood had taken a sharp upward turn.
Since the telepathic assault had begun, only two of the moronic children seemed to be conscious; a girl with pink streaks in her raven hair that spasmed violently, her prone body kicking about as she tried to fight off wave after wave of mental assault; the other a raven haired young man that had just dropped onto both knees and had a hand to his head, gripping it tightly. Mark's genetically enhanced sight allowed him to see the dark streaks that ran down from his nostrils and out of his nose. Blood.
They were quite interesting, the last two, and already he had plans to see exactly what made them tick just in case it could be added to the Blockbuster serum, but this was getting boring.
"Do we have to utilize such means?" Guardian asked as he nervously watched the teens get mind-raped.
"Of course it is! We don't need them remembering anything!" Desmond snapped irritably. Guardian's moral side was coming out again and without any G-gnomes to put him back under subjection, this could lead to an unnecessary headache. "Dubbilex, enough playing around! Shut them down!"
"Think... heh... Think I'm gonna make it easy?"
Desmond's head turned so fast he nearly tore the muscles in his neck. The raven haired teenager, the one who seemed to be holding out the most, was now on his feet, staggering a bit before he stabilized himself and threw a grin, one twisted by pain probably, at Desmond in his cluster of genomorphs.
"GET! OUTTA! MY! HEAD!"
A pulse of pure mental energy blasted out, a pulse so powerful it felt almost like a physical blow to Desmond and Guardian.
Ignoring the throbbing headache the pulse had left in its wake, the graying man glanced about quickly before screaming in outrage.
The G-gnomes were all scattered on the ground, the mental pulse having lifted and hurled them backwards, their open eyes blank as blood poured out of their ears. Even Dubbilex was not spared, though the alien had, the second it heard the raven haired boy begin to speak, used the other G-gnomes powers to shield itself.
"Heh... That'll teach you to mess with us." The raven haired boy panted, a cocky smirk on his face as the rest of them slowly came to.
"NO! You will NOT leave here alive! Your chaos will be purified even if I have to start project Kr from scratch!" Desmond snarled as he pulled out a syringe filled with a slightly glowing, pale blue liquid. "I will bring order back to this facility! I will not fail the Board!"
With this final declaration, he lifted the syringe up, its hypodermic needle glinting in the moonlight...
And twisted around to plunge it into Guardian's chest.
Line —~ ~— Break
"Everyone okay?" Jinx asked as she slowly pushed herself to her knees, feeling nauseated by the simple act. "Giz? Mammoth? Icicle?"
Off to her left, she heard retches and moans and she turned her head, slowly, to see her team techie in a similar position to herself only difference being the dry heaves racking his body.
"I'm okay." Mammoth replied as he stood and then turned to help her up. "Gizmo's not so lucky. Icicle's still out."
The girl sighed in relief as her abilities fully reactivated the instant her feet touched the earth and the nauseating feeling reduced. "Grab them. We can't afford to fight without them. Hell, even with them our chances aren't looking too good."
At that moment, an agonized scream ripped through the air, prompting them to look back at the genomorph horde.
The creatures had all shifted to form a semi-circle, showing a man stepping away from a bulging mass of flesh on the ground. A second scream tore out of the distorted mass of flesh before it settled down to form a cocoon of sorts. Then, a grotesquely misshapen arm punched out of the chrysalis and tore it apart, revealing a blue... thing... whose only true element it shared with humanity was that it was bipedal. Its skin was blue with red lines akin to cracks and its musculature looked more suited to a humanoid rhino.
As if that wasn't bad enough, she noticed that the other group of teenagers had split up half facing the genomorphs, the other half facing her group.
"Don't think we'll make it out without a fight." Mammoth grumbled and, for the first time since she'd met him, she noted that her brutish looking partner didn't seem too eager about the upcoming fight.
Then the brown haired man with the glasses flung out his arm in an all encompassing arc. "Destroy them!"
Line —~ ~— Break
Robin stood together with Kid Flash, Raven and Superboy, facing the second team Megan had alerted them of. Maelstrom had ordered them to concentrate on this group while he took on the genomorphs with the rest of the team except Megan who was to guard Captain Short as well as act as the nexus for their telepathic communications.
"So, you guys seem horrendously outnumbered so I'll be big and ask politely: Can you please surrender?" Robin sighed. Trust Wally to make light of every situation.
The girl shifted her feet a bit as she lifted her hands, palms facing the sky. Beside her, the giant teen stood in a defensive position. "Sorry but I'll have to decline on behalf of my team."
Out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning crashed down on them, illuminating their surroundings and carrying on for about ten seconds before disappearing as suddenly as it had shown up.
"Guess we'll have to do this the hard way then." Robin stated, safely ensconced in the magical shield Raven had thrown up.
On an unseen signal, Raven dropped the barrier and took to the skies as Superboy and Wally charged ahead to take on Mammoth while he flung batarangs toward the girl.
The fight was on.
Line —~ ~— Break
Donna was only half-focused on her fight with the genomorphs.
Of course, half of her focus as a trained Amazonian warrior was way too much focus considering the creature she was engaged with were nowhere near trained. Powerful? Yes. Trained? Not remotely.
They only ever attempted to punch her out of the air, a repetitive, unimaginative tatic that involved the large ape-like genomorphs swinging at her with over-extended punches that allowed her to get up close, hammer at their pug-ugly faces repeatedly before backing out again.
The other half of her focus was directed at watching Maelstrom's fight against the blue brute.
It was nothing short of spectacular.
He was a continuously moving whirlwind of pain, diving in close to his opponent to deliver powerful attacks to its gut before reappearing behind it to slash at it swiftly, carving up its back with what seemed to be a wind blade. The only reason the thing was still fighting was its inhuman durability and its seeming ability to not feel pain.
"AH!" She whirled about to see Kaldur flying toward her, his arms still crossed over his face. With a small grunt of effort, she caught him and flew down to set him on his feet.
"Thank you."
"No problem." She shrugged then whipped about to deliver a swift spin kick to the head of a smaller genomorph that had attempted to sneak up on her. "You okay?"
"I'll be fine." He replied. "I got blindsided by a big one."
"Kinda guessed that already." Donna commented. "Well, back to work."
Line —~ ~— Break
Naruto's POV
For a rat faced bastard, the head of this facility is quite the shrewd character. Compared to someone like Gatō, anyway.
For example, he ditched the whole pointless gloating and went straight for a debilitating attack, he didn't make himself a stupidly large target by 'leading the charge' and he knew how to keep himself away from danger by putting up a meat shield.
The few times I've gotten past the genomorphs and the big blue ape, I've been stalled by the creature he'd called Dubbilex, whose skill with mental attacks is quite the chore, particularly because I've always sucked at defending myself from such attacks and my brain's still reeling from the effort of holding back that mental assault earlier.
Ducking beneath a powerful but horribly telegraphed punch from the blue ape, I decide to kick things up a notch.
Grabbing onto the swinging fist above my head, I attach myself to it with a bit of chakra and swing up to land on the arm, a rasengan forming with little effort in my open palm. Instead of attacking him directly, however, I spring off its arm to crunch the technique into the face of a lumbering genomorph behind it. As the energy orb explodes, I'm pushed up into the air and I activate the Rinnegan.
Sparing a moment to lock on to the twisted energies of the various genomorphs around, I then call up the powers of the Deva path: "Inryoku Satsujin!"
The effect is instant; every genomorph within my field of power is crushed into the ground as the gravity around them quadruples. Interestingly, the blue thing that man created struggles to stand and I'm forced to increase the force on him. He succumbs by the time it hits seven times the force of gravity.
Dropping lightly to the ground, I spare a glance at the others: Robin and his team have knocked out the other group and are now standing guard over them while Kaldur, Donna and Kaguya walk over to join Megan and Captain Short. All in all, everyone's okay.
So, I take my time to walk over to the bastard in charge of this facility. He knows I'm coming for him and he scrabbles back, desperately trying to get away from me.
A short shunshin later, I'm by his side and I lash out with a foot, catching him in the side and hurling him into the air. I grab him by the throat as he comes back down and slam him into the ground. He coughs up a blob of blood but I don't hear any sounds of breakage.
Just like Amachi and Orochimaru, he's been experimenting on himself, using the positive results he obtains from inflicting agony on others to further himself.
I may not usually enjoy torture but I'll make an exception for this scum.
"How does it feel?"
He chokes and coughs, blood splattering the sleeve of my shirt. He won't die yet, though. Atlantean DNA means he can survive longer periods without oxygen than a regular human would.
I look down, straight into his eyes now, looking straight into this vile excuse for a human's soul. "How does it feel to be at the mercy of someone else?"
He's terrified. I can see it in his eyes that he's so terrified of me at the moment.
Good. That will make this next part easier.
I tap into the Indra half of my chakra, sacrificed by Sasuke in a final effort to stop the Jūbi once and for all, and I activate the Mangekyō Sharingan. A second later, I'm in his head and I begin the final phase of my plan.
While I'd initially planned to kill him in the most gruesomely agonizing way possible, I hadn't planned on meeting the leader of this facility out in the open like this, hence my adjustment to the plan. He'd suffer, though. Dear Kami, he'd suffer.
Tsukuyomi was, after all, designed to make its victims suffer.
A rush of memories disrupted my concentration as one of the many clones I'd set up around dispelled itself. Batman and his merry band of Friends had arrived.
Finally. It had been well over an hour since I'd activated the beacon he'd given Kaguya and I
Within the last few seconds I had, I buried the memory of my identity and abilities deep within his mind, leaving his brain to explain how he'd never once got a glimpse of my power set. I didn't want him hunting me down. Then, I made him forget the identities of the rest of the team as well.
That done, I stood up just as the rest of the team came to stand by me.
It was now up to the League...
—~ ~—
Done!
Wow, this came out later than I expected. Blame a bout of depression and my muse. The muse reigns supreme, I guess, cause I had one idea that I was working towards and she simply tore it up and had me do something else.
Tell me what you think in reviews.
Inryoku Satsujin- Gravity Killer: The user utilizes the gravity manipulation the Rinnegan grants to increase the force of gravity within an area by varying magnitudes. Naruto, due to access
to the 'hive-like' knowledge of the Rinne-Sharingan, can target specific energy signatures with this technique.
Note: Naruto is NOT as fast as I made him seem when he punched Icicle. He only exceeds sound speeds, IMHO, when he uses Sennin Modō and beyond. What he did there was a combination trick that involved the shunshin, kage bunshin, henge and wind manipulation. Remember, folks, he IS quite the accomplished prankster.
Feb 16 2018 Edit
-POV markers added.
