Hey guys and girls! Soo, I made one little error that one of our guest users pointed out, and now that I think about it, they're right. Not being a major Hawkman fan, I forget that Nth metal is supposed to have power over supernatural forces. Thank you for the correction, I'll be sure to work it in at some point. For that matter, if there's anything I don't think about from the Justice League characters, feel free to mention it. Flash, Arrow, Superman, and Batman are really the whole of my expertise, leaving pretty much Martian and Hawkman untouched and Green Lantern I only have the basics on. Anyway, I can't wait for this battle to end, so hopefully I can tie it up soon. Now, Enjoy!
"You know, there's one thing that's really been bugging me," I said as we flew towards Arkham.
"What is it?" Danny asked.
"Do we even have to breathe?" I asked with curiosity.
"Not as ghosts I don't think. It's more of a habit than a requirement. I've talked underwater before, so obviously that doesn't hurt us not to."
"You kids breathe?" Joker questioned with a smile.
"I wonder, is clown gas flammable?" I said with an edge of a threat.
"You really are a party pooper. Has Batsy been talking about me again?"
"Batman would use your name as a curse word if he weren't as decent of a man as he is. Needless to say, you don't come up very much," I said, glaring at the green haired freak.
"Then how do you know all of my fun tricks?"
"I watched way too many cartoons as a kid," I said in a flat tone.
"Ooh, so you were fun once!"
"Danny, how the hell are you dealing with this annoyance so well," I questioned.
"I'm just enjoying the fact that someone bugs you more than the Box Ghost. Speaking of which, I wonder if anyone's caught him yet," he responded.
"He's probably been caught, escaped, caught again, escaped again, and is now probably bugging some storage facility throwing boxes at God knows what."
"I don't get how that guy gets out all the time," he said.
"I know right? And it's always some rant about 'Face my cube shaped containers of doom!' Ugh, I can't stand that guy!"
"He sounds like fun, maybe I should meet him," Joker said with a smile.
"After you were dumb enough to piss off even Youngblood, I think you should leave befriending ghosts to other ghosts," I said, narrowing my eyes with annoyance.
"You mean like that guy?" he asked, pointing back with his thumb.
"What?" Danny and I both questioned at once, turning around.
There was a violet flash, a cry of pain from Danny, and a scream of terror from the clown. I followed my first instinct and rushed towards the falling freak. He stopped screaming when I caught him.
"Aren't you going to save your friend?" he questioned.
"I am," I said, motioning towards the me rushing to protect Danny up over the top of us with my head.
"You didn't say you had a twin!" he joked and started laughing.
"You're an idiot," I said as I duplicated again, leaving the duplicate to take him from my hands.
"How many of you are there?"
"Enough. This one's going to take you back to Arkham. Don't try to escape," I informed before flying back up towards Danny.
"What are you doing here Plasmius?" Danny questioned.
"Now Daniel, if I told you that you might foil my plan, but who am I kidding, you two could never stop me. I liquidated all of my assets before coming here in order to have the opportunity to make even more money. Really, you can thank yourself Kira. You were the one that made me realize that attaining Maddie was impossible," he said with a superior tone.
"I see our little heart to heart got you somewhere, but you're going in the wrong direction. You have more of a purpose in life than to just get money. So tell me, what was your real motivation?" I questioned, crossing my arms.
"Well there was one person I couldn't attain in that dimension, but I see two here I can. I don't presume you two have a place to stay?"
"We can make arrangements, ones that don't involve you," I said, narrowing my eyes.
"You couldn't get us last time, you're not getting us this time fruit loop," Danny said. "Why don't you just get a cat like every other lonely millionaire?"
"How many times must I say, I will not get a cat!" he shouted, shooting a horizontal slash of ecto-energy at us. I realized it was probably impossible for Danny's shield to stop it, so I made one wide enough to cover both of us.
"Why don't you learn how to buzz off!" I shouted as my eyes turned red and a whole line of probably ten Shadowrules split out of me.
"There's that temper again. You really are more like me than you know," Vlad said with a grin as he split off into enough Vlads to match me.
"There is one way I'm different than you," I said, breathing heavily out of anger.
"And how's that?"
"My energy doesn't have to split between my duplications," I said as all eleven of me let out ghostly wails, shattering all of Vlad's duplicates on impact and sent him flying back to God knows where. It was like watching a shooting star vanish into the distance. Hopefully he ended up in China.
"It's okay Shadow, you can calm down now," Danny said, putting a hand on the original me's shoulder.
I took a deep breath and the duplicates all faded away, letting me reabsorb their energy. "Sorry D. Did they have a designated area for you to leave the civilians, or have you just been taking them away from the action?"
"I've just been dropping them off anywhere that seems safe. Could you find some place and make a perimeter out of duplicates?"
"Sounds like a plan. I could probably make enough mindless duplicates to make a big ghost shield like your parents. It'll be smaller, but it should protect enough people that the Justice League won't have to worry about them getting in the way. Gotham Park should be a good enough place," I suggested.
"Sounds like a plan. Where's Gotham Park at?"
I turned my head about ninety degrees and pointed towards a big green planted area of the city. "Over there. I'll send out some duplicates to set up and clear the area, and I'll be here to help you save civilians," I said as I split off four duplicates. It was a whole lot easier now that I didn't need to focus my mind on what they were thinking. "Speaking of duplicates, Joker has just arrived at Arkham Asylum," I said as I retrieved the energy from that copy.
"Alright, let's go," he said as my duplicates flew off and we started flying towards some people in obvious trouble.
I shot away two ectopuses that were chasing a small group of people. "We're working with the Justice League. There's a safe zone in Gotham Park. Do you want me to take you there?" I asked the group.
With half terrified looks, they nodded their heads. I lowered my head and made enough duplicates to take each of them to the park at once. They could help with the shield when they got there. The process was repeated time after time until I got strained at fifty. That was my limit. So it ended up with Danny and I doing run after run with the youngest, oldest, and injured people while we told the rest where to head.
On one of my trips to get more people, I spotted smoke coming from a building. Danny was just dropping someone off, so I had one of the duplicates tell him the emergency. Needless to say, he rushed out as quickly as he could. There were cries from the street that some people were trapped on the top floor. I hurried to fly in.
Immediately, the strong smell of smoke and ash hit me like a wall. It burned my throat until I remembered I didn't need to breathe. The room was blazing hot, but it didn't hurt me. "Hey, where are you?" I shouted as I heard screaming.
"Over here!" a voice shouted. It sounded kind of familiar, but I couldn't tell over the crackling of the flames. Without any alarms going off not to, I went towards the voice.
"Are you injured?" I called out in the poor visibility.
"No, but there's no way in here, debris is blocking the doorway," she answered.
"I can get in," I said as I intangibly walked straight through the blockage.
"How did you do that?" the Asian woman clad in a red jacket asked.
"Haven't you looked outside lately Detective? It seems like everyone's doing it now a days. Do you know where anyone else is?" I asked as I recognized her as Detective Ellen Yin.
"Yeah, my neighbor's daughter is trapped in the next apartment. I heard her screaming."
"I think I did too. I'll go get her real quick and then I'll float you both down to the ground alright?"
"Okay, just hurry. I'm not sure about the integrity of this building."
I nodded my head and let out a horse cough before flying through the wall towards the screams from earlier. The girl I found was a tall brunette with green eyes about my age that was screaming her head off. "Hey, calm down. It's okay, I'm here to get you out," I said, putting my hand on her shoulder.
"Thank God, I thought I was going to die in here," she said, turning around to hug her arms around me.
"Alright, what's your name?" I asked calmly.
"Kristen Brown," she said in a shaky voice. "But my friends call me Kris."
"Alright Kris, hold on to me as tight as you can. We're going to go get Detective Yin next door and then I'm going to fly you both down okay?"
"Okay," she replied.
With that, I flew her and me through the wall to the coughing detective. "Grab on Detective, I don't need anyone falling on my watch," I said, offering out a hand while Kris pretty much clung to the other half of my body. The older woman held on tightly and I flew us up and through the outside wall of the building, then down to the street bellow.
Paramedics came to take the two women just as the top of the building started crashing in on itself. I flew back up to freeze the surface to keep it in place and put out the fire until the area could be cleared. The next thing I did was land next to an ambulance.
"Excuse me sir," I called to one of the EMTs.
"Sorry kid, I don't have time to talk," he said, walking right past me.
"And I don't have time to be called a kid. We've been taking injured people to Gotham Park. There's a containment zone there. If you're smart enough to listen to me, you'll call over an ambulance or two to go there and help," I said, floating up in front of him.
"Oh, of course," he said, finally analyzing the situation. "The only problem is, two of our trucks got caught in traffic by everyone trying to get out of town."
"I can get them. Do you have a last known location?"
"Yeah, I'll mark it on a map for you," he said, heading to the front of the truck and grabbing a large paper map of the city. "Last we knew," he said, pulling out a blue highlighter, "they were here and here."
"Alright, thanks. I'll get them out of there in no time," I said, taking the map.
"If you don't mind my asking, how?"
"Well, not as strong as Superman, but I can still lift a whole school bus if I need to," I said, glancing over the map and finding my current location. "Thanks again," I said as I started flying up to get a bird's eye view.
"Aw, this night is going to last forever!"
