Chapter 7: A Trip Down Memory Lane Part 2
"Jinx? What are you doing here?" He asked, groaning as he kept Consuming the Infected, feeling himself reach 200% before looking to the hex sorceress, pulling himself to his feet.
"I saw you on the news and figured you could use a hand. Looks like Blondie had the same idea." The ex-villain gestured to Terra, who had returned her rock armor to the ground, looking with suspicion at Jinx. "As for how I found you, I just tracked the biggest signal for bad luck in Jump City." She flashed him another Chesire grin, and he couldn't help but laugh.
"Yeah, that sounds about right. Thanks Jinx, I seriously may have died there and then if you hadn't chucked Adonis down." The whole world had slowed, and he had felt himself draining. That was a terrifying sensation, but it was partially relieved by the massive amount of strength he had absorbed from the Infected.
"Yeah, speaking of, what happened to him? And what did you do to him?" She asked, only with mild interest instead of sick fascination that he had felt boring into him due to Terra.
"The same guy that Infected me did this to Adonis. We fought, and I barely proved myself stronger, absorbing him." He looked down, clenching his fists. "He… wasn't the first person I've Consumed, taking his talents, strengths, and memories… Maybe it makes me a monster that I don't feel guilty. One of those guys was a sociopath after all, and he could be impacting me way more than I had hoped…" He honestly didn't know. Things had been moving almost crazy fast ever since Mercer arrived, and he was scared that he hadn't yet thought about the people he'd killed. Sure, they were maniacs intent on killing him and who all seemed to be sociopathic or at the very least murderers, but he had also killed Adonis. Adonis. It only helped slightly that he was Infected and seemed unable to make his own decisions.
A pawn of Zeus' that he had struck down. It was intensely disturbing to think about life as chess, but it was the current best he could do to try and cope with his surprising neutrality on the matter.
"So?" He looked up to see Jinx looking at him impassively. Terra looked incredibly worried and even a bit sick, but the hex-witch seemed completely unimpressed.
"So? So I'm a sociopathic maniac with more power than almost anything in the city, and I can absorb the powers of anyone I want to make myself even stronger." Why was she so calm about this? She had to have figured out that he could kill and Consume them in an instant…
"But you aren't attacking civvies, and you haven't gone for my throat yet. Or Blondie's, for that matter. So long as you only eat the BlackWatch people and the Infected, you still count as a hero in my book Greenie." He couldn't help but smile at the simple way Jinx put things. They hadn't talked much before she fell off the grid, but she had congratulated him on dealing with the Brotherhood the way he did. Better than Robin at least, who had attempted to sweep it under the rug.
"That goes double for me Beast Boy." Terra sat down beside them, shooting a distrustful glare at Jinx.
"Thanks Terra, Jinx. Good to know I'm not alone here." He beamed at them before suddenly something in Terra's shorts rang. She pulled it out to reveal his Titans communicator, which she activated.
"Hello?" Unlike the usual events when the Titan com was used, there was a symbol of an owl holding a spear in one talon, the other with an olive branch.
"Hello. Is Beast Boy there? I am Athena, and I wish to help him in any way I can." A voice, disguised and synthesized but obviously female and human, rang out.
"Athena? Goddess of wisdom?" The changeling asked as the surprised geomancer handed the communicator to him, only to be met by a sigh.
"Sometimes I forget that she's real, at least according to Wonder Woman. No, Athena is more of a… handle than anything else. A way to keep anonymity while I help you deal with Alex. You interested?" The woman asked, and Beast Boy didn't hesitate.
"You have a deal Athena. If it makes any difference, I have Terra and Jinx helping me out." He shifted the screen to face the girls, just in case the screen was working in the opposite direction.
"Tara? Huh, Karen mentioned you before things went to hell here. Alex killed her in cold blood, I'm sorry." Terra blinked in surprise, her face matching Beast Boy's slightly in tint, but nodded.
"That sounds like what I expected to happen… Dana?" She asked, making Jinx look between the two in confusion.
"Karen Parker was a member of Gentek, and Terra had her as a pen pal while she was playing civvie." The hex-witch nodded at the explanation. "Wow, I need to do a better job hiding my identity… Anyway, I have a feeling I know what Alex will be doing. He will be gathering an army, not just of the Infected he can spawn, but of your villains. Think. Are there any that he may go after in particular?" She asked, making Beast Boy scratch his head in thought.
Slade? He had gone under after his previous meeting with Terra several years ago, but there were still sightings of him on occasion. Plus, he would be a powerful ally.
Control Freak? His remote maybe, but not the guy himself. That may count as a negative for physical aspects.
Doctor Light? Possibly, but again it was the debate of the tech over the man.
Adonis? Already Infected and then Consumed.
Brother Blood? He was being kept in the CADMUS base just outside Jump with a power inhibitor stopping him from escaping. Dude was powerful though, so Alex may take the risk to bust him out, not even counting whatever else was in those labs.
Cinderblock? He wasn't organic as far as Beast Boy was aware, so that may not work.
Overload? Same problem as Cinderblock.
Plasmus? That was a horrifying thought. He was kept in a nigh permanent cryo-sleep within STAR Labs, or Gentek as it was now.
Killer… Moth…
Oh. Shit.
"Can you get Killer Moth's address?" He asked with near panic in his tone, making the geomancer and the hex-witch nearby look at him questioningly.
"Uh… Sure. He's in the Yellow designated zone of Jump, the Eastern section. I'll have your communicator get a signal located there." He nodded his acceptance, and the second the Titan-Com had the coordinates he waved for Terra and Jinx to follow him out of the Hive.
"What are you so worried about? That bumbling buffoon can't be of much help to that Mercer guy." Jinx asked, using her natural acrobatic skills and some bad luck to keep pace with the slowed down Beast Boy, while Terra controlled the earth to spring her through the air beside them.
"It's not him I'm worried about, other than the fact that he isn't that bad by villain standards, and he has his daughter with him. I'm more worried about his maggots." Realization hit his partners like a freight train, but they kept beside him, even increasing their pace slightly.
Killer Moth, a villain of Batman's who had followed Robin to Jump City. He was pretty pathetic, but had one thing going for him that would interest Mercer: The mutant maggots like Silkie. Killer Moth had shown that he could make these biological monstrosities (He found Silkie quite adorable, but he couldn't deny they were freaky) mutate into, well, killer moths. If Alex got his hands on the tech Killer Moth used, or the maggots themselves, he would have a whole new army at his fingertips, one he could manipulate to become incredibly deadly in a myriad of ways that spelt horror for the civilians of Jump City.
When they arrived, overlooking the signal location, they saw Killer Moth and his blonde daughter Kitten being threatened at gunpoint by a BlackWatch Commander, who had Kitten's spider headed boyfriend (His head was literally a full giant spider on top of a human body, he was one of the reasons BB had avoided attempting partial shapeshifting) Fang, who seemed to be glaring down at them.
Instead of seeing a suburban street with a simple crime occurring, Beast Boy saw a battlefield, and he would take full advantage of it.
When he had absorbed Adonis, his instincts grew even more intense, and what was more, he could feel the Beast again, along with the other instinct sects in his brain (Don't worry, I'll explain later).
Alpha, the leadership side he had unknowingly birthed during the fight against the Brotherhood of Evil, worked alongside the Beast as he came up with a game plan.
"Terra, you're on collateral. You need to protect Killer Moth and Kitten, as well as anyone else nearby. Jinx, do something to take care of Fang, tie his spider legs or something. I'll deal with the Commander." Something in his head resonated with the Commander. Something strangely new yet old. It felt like… Alex.
The duo nodded, and they sprung into action against a full on hostage situation.
Terra built a dome around the villains, protecting them from the fight that was possibly about to break out.
Jinx leaped down and released a wave of amethyst bad luck at the spiderman, who face (Carapace?) planted with his eight extra limbs tied together, curses and clicking escaping his… mouth.
Beast Boy took the chance to leap down and grab the Commander by the throat, holding the startled man up with a toothy grin.
"Say, could you be so kind as to tell me just why you smell almost exactly like some of the Infected that I've met recently? I mean, humans shouldn't smell that... bad?" His emerald eyes widened when the Commander's hands became a huge set of claws, attached to his body by black and red biomass. "Oh, that explains it."
The BlackLight warrior kicked off of Beast Boy's chest, gouging deep treads in the ground as he halted his inertia, and the changeling could feel his bloodlust. Not as much to his surprise anymore, his blood boiled at the challenge of another powerful opponent, the chance to test himself and grow far stronger.
He would worry about the danger of this later, but first, he had an ass to kick.
His left hand formed his Tendrils, while his right formed Claws, and he kicked off the ground at the BlackLight with intent to tear.
The Evolved rolled to the side, roundhouse kicking the changeling into the air and sprinting at a wide eyed Jinx.
"No way bub!" BB shouted at the top of his lungs as he instinctively made his body far denser than before, aiming himself in a way that he knew would take out this idiot.
Face? Meet fist, at Mach freaking TWO!
Instead, the wrong face met a huge rock wall, crashing through it with a loud yelp.
"Terra! What the hell?!" He asked, rubbing his bruised face as it quickly healed, the Evolved looking at him in amusement, along with Jinx and Kitten from within the sphere.
"What were you thinking you idiot?! You need to hit him hard, but not hard enough to level the goddamn street!" She shouted, eyes glowing gold as she made the taller teen wilt slightly.
"Sorry, I wasn't thinking…" His blood cooled, no longer boiling with a need for battle, and that made him smile.
"You're right I- what are you smiling about?" In response he winked and used his Tendrils to pull himself at the Evolved, who was expecting a fight interrupting monologue instead of a punch to the face.
"Super anti-hero slash vigilante rule number one, collateral damage is a must avoid, except for a bad guy's face!" He crowed, using his thumb to aim as he cocked back his right arm, focusing on the location of his plummeting enemy and launching a single spiked tendril from his middle finger's knuckle at high velocity, intent to spear the Evolved.
But he was screwed over again as he missed, the Evolved gliding out of the way, flipping him off with his claws.
"Oh screw this!" He gritted his teeth as he resisted the boiling of his blood, leaping high into the air and grabbing the man's leg, slicing his claws off and shooting out tendrils to Consume him, new memories and power flooding him as he fell faster and faster towards the ground.
"I need you to do me a favor and find all the information you can on Killer Moth and his mutant maggots. If we can experiment, possibly clone or gift them with BlackLight, we may find ourselves yet another way to turn the tables in our favor…"
Beast Boy blinked back to reality just in time to spread his arms and legs, slowing his descent and letting him land, not gracefully, but in a way that didn't cause the whole street to crumble.
"Well, I guess that was a thing… Are KM and Kitten alright?" He asked, lifting himself back to his feet and sweat dropping as he saw the wincing imprint of his face in the pavement.
"We're fine. Just what… was that?" Killer Moth seemed to forget that he was an enemy of Beast Boy's, and the changeling didn't really care himself one way or the other. Enemy or not, he wanted to stop all the bloodshed we could.
"Yeah, thanks Greenie… Where's Robbie-Poo?" The teenage blonde asked, making Beast Boy remember that she had a peculiar obsession with the Boy Wonder.
"He and the rest of the Titans are staying in the Tower until this all blows over, I'm this city's protector now, with the exception of these two." He gestured to Terra and Jinx, but was shocked when Kitten suddenly clung to his arm.
"My hero! Robin abandoned us, but you never would do that, would you Beastie?" She cooed, and the emerald eyed hero looked between Terra, Jinx, and KM, and they were all shocked as he was.
She had changed the subject of her Hero Worship FAST!
"Uh… We need to get you out of the city Moth, preferably with all your research and maggots." Even through the mask, he could tell there was a raised eyebrow on the villain. "Better you have them than a biological terrorist who's already a one man army." He nodded in acceptance of this and pulled on a candlestick near the entrance, which revealed his secret lab, allowing the group to walk down the spiral staircase.
Beast Boy was shocked at just how many maggots there were, hundreds at least! Killer Moth walked over to a supercomputer and began typing on it, starting a download to a flashdrive as he hit a button on his gauntlet, shrinking all his mutant maggots to actual maggot size as he began to gather them up, Beast Boy trying to help much to Kitten's annoyance, the blonde diva storming upstairs to pack her bags.
"Why was Fang with BlackWatch?" Beast Boy asked as they waited impatiently for the download to finish.
"He made a deal with that terrorist guy. He received some new powers, in return for being his lackey. My Kitten was heartbroken until you arrived." The way the villain said that made Beast Boy shudder, being reminded of when he held the city hostage so that Robin would take Kitten to her Junior Prom.
This guy didn't mess around when getting his daughter what she wanted.
"Uh… Happy to help?" He asked, unsure if that was the proper response to this situation, and the nod from KM made him sigh in relief.
"It's for the best that we get away from Jump City anyway. You said you're the only heroes out there, and its obvious that the Infected aren't the only ones that are holding the city hostage." Beast Boy nodded his agreement at the summary of the situation. BlackWatch, Infected, and apparently Mercer sleeper agents were seemingly everywhere.
"We'll try and get you out through the bridge. It'll be guarded without a doubt, but I can distract them while you sneak through. I just hope this doesn't force Mercer's hand…" He had to try and ignore the call in his blood for Mercer to face him. It almost felt like his Alpha side, but different.
Shunting that to the side when he heard Kitten come down the stairs, he nodded and checked the download, finally complete. It was time to enact a plan of action.
"Okay, here's what we'll do…"
Several hours later it was almost sundown, and it was time for Beast Boy to get Kitten and Killer Moth out of the city. They approached the blockade, wearing disguises of course, with confidence, being met with suspicion as the BlackWatch soldiers looked them over.
"Get the hell outta here, no one leaves the city!" He barked, holding his assault rifle up and making Beast Boy narrow his eyes, his senses going haywire.
Five BlackWatch members, all armed and armored, but their weapons had their safeties on. If he were to use his full speed, he could take out two before they knew what happened, one more before the safeties went off, and then another before the gunfire started, but that left one opponent and no way to cover his friends.
"Jinx, jam that last guy's rifle. Terra, I need you to protect Jinx, Kitten, and Killer Moth." The superheroines nodded and activated their powers as Beast Boy sped into action.
"What the-" The first BlackWatch member was thrown into the second by Beast Boy, and as the safeties on the rifles clicked off the changeling roundhouse kicked the third into the bridge's tower with enough force to leave a dent, and the fourth he punched in the stomach.
The only standing member tried to fire his weapon, but that course of action blew up in his face… literally, the gun bucked and smacked him in the face with enough force to knock him over.
"Run for it!" Beast Boy shouted, kicking the villain's into gear while they still had an opening.
Except there wasn't an opening, the BlackWatch soldiers were holding Kitten and KM by their throats, the other three beginning to surround the trio of heroes. Their eyes flashed red, but not like Alex's. This was something else entirely…
"Now now Beast Boy, you were barely at my level before my latest upgrade." The voice of Brother Blood rang out, the leader of BlackWatch shapeshifting into the nemesis of Cyborg, with a cold grin on his face.
