Muddling though Grey
Chapter Ten: Metropolis Throw-Down
Disclaimer: Characters and premise are the property of DC, I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit fun.
Conner watched curiously as Evan leaned over the side of the couch, clutching desperately at the sides of the conveniently placed trash can and lost what little breakfast he'd been able to choke down. "Trickster told me 'War of the Worlds' is a bunch of crap," Conner stated conversationally. "Human germs can't affect me. Since there aren't any Kryptonian bugs on the planet I'm never going to get sick."
Evan freed one hand to flip Conner off then went back to hurling. "And we hate you," Piper groaned from the other couch that had been hauled into the back bedroom which had officially been designated the 'plague carrier' sector of the base
"Since I'm immune Len told me to tell you that your both still under quarantine, job or no job," Conner passed on cheerfully. "He says you can't come because you'll ralph on the loot."
"Sucks," Piper complained. "First Metropolis target Cold says is worth it, and a virus takes me out before the job even starts."
Conner made his way deeper in the room, balancing steaming bowls of soup on a tray. He set one down by Piper. "Sam says to feed you lots of liquids. It's bad to throw up on an empty stomach."
"You sure you want to stay here and play nursemaid?" Piper checked. "It is Metropolis after all, you could go embarrass you-know-who."
"Naw, I used to spend all my time chasing after him, trying to impress him or just wishing for him to care about me," Conner said. "What a total waste. Ticking him off isn't worth the bother; it'd just be giving him more of me."
Piper made a face, "Go and be mature about it, spoil all our fun."
"I'll help with your next plan to tick off your parents," Conner offered. "I mean that's different, you guys still care about each other even if they're jerks."
"You mind coming as my date to a big family dinner?" Piper asked hopefully.
"Sure," Conner replied without a second thought.
"Really?" Piper exclaimed sitting up and forgetting he was sick. Both he and Evan managed to find the strength to stare at Conner in shock for several seconds.
Conner looked at them oddly for a moment. "Oh yeah, I forgot, the Gegnomes told me dating your own gender was the less typical option with humans." He rolled his eyes. "The Gegnomes thought humans were really silly about the whole thing. They're much more sensible, they just don't have gender." Piper and Evan looked equally disturbed at how Conner apparently didn't think being gender-less was at all strange, but really it wasn't weird enough to actually distract them from being sick for more than a few moments, much to their disappointment.
As he left the room, Conner blew a shield of super-cooled air ahead of him then stepped into it. After a few seconds, long enough to freeze any germs that might have gotten on him, he shook off the ice. Everyone who'd gotten the flu seemed so miserable, he really didn't want to get near Owen with any germs on him.
"I told them," he yelled to the rest of the crew, who were in the middle of gearing up. "Actually I don't think they'd have made it out the door even if you'd wanted them to come."
Trickster nodded in agreement. "It's a miserable one, just glad I'm shut of it."
"Okay, everyone ready?" Cold asked.
"I think I'm contractually obliged to remind you that stealing's wrong," Conner pointed out with a grin. Everyone grabbed the first thing handy and threw it at him.
Boomerang handed over Owen. "Do not give him pixie sticks again," he warned. "I don't care if he begs or uses puppy eyes or whatever other tricks he's got up his sleeve. He doesn't need that much sugar, I swear it's almost like he's a speedster when he's that hyper, damned disturbing."
"Wally on pixie-sticks is worse," Conner argued. "That's why I let Owen help me eat them. We had to do something to keep Wally from getting them."
"No pixie sticks!"
"I promise," Conner sighed. "How about you?" he asked Owen.
"Candy yum!" Owen declared.
"Er, we're promising NOT to eat candy," Conner corrected.
"No candy?" Owen's eyes welled up with tears.
Conner looked over at Boomerang. "Maybe one piece?" he asked.
Boomerang shook his head and sighed. "It's your funeral," he said. "We're not going to be back before morning."
"Let's go, we're on the clock," Mirror Master reminded.
"See ya kid," Cold said as Mirror Master opened the way.
"Yeah... Be careful," Conner said uncertainly. He didn't want to admit it, but the fact that they weren't going up against the Flash made him a little nervous. Flash understood the game, Conner wasn't sure Superman had any notion of how to be anything other than sanctimonious and officious. He'd certainly never seen any other aspect of the man.
Superman froze for a moment when he saw who was hitting the STAR Lab convoy. He was struck by the duel realization that this was an opportunity to remove the bad influences from Superboy's life and that he wouldn't get any kind of thanks for this... especially not from Conner.
'It's about doing what's right, not what's popular,' Superman reminded himself. 'They were criminals attacking an armored vehicle in his city and that couldn't be allowed to pass. They were amoral, someone with Superboy's powers shouldn't be allowed to live with people like them, it was asking for trouble.
Superman tilted his head to the side, listening closely to pin-point the different Rogues' locations. Trickster was in the air, scouting for him most likely. Cold had derailed the convoy truck with a patch of black ice on the road. With the truck on it's side and immobile, Heatwave was melting his way in, incidentally causing the guards inside to drop from heat-exhaustion before they could even get a shot in. It took Superman several minutes to pick out Mirror Master and Boomerang lurking on the outskirts of the battleground. No matter how closely he listened he couldn't pick up any trace of Mirror Apprentice or the Pied Piper. Clark had to admit a certain amount of relief not to find any sign of Superboy either, apparently the Rogues hadn't completely corrupted him yet.
Trickster was the obvious first target. Take out their point-man and air-support quickly then he'd have the advantage fighting the remainder of the Rogues. But Mirror Master was their avenue of retreat, as long as he was free there was a good chance that some or most of the Rogues would escape. That wasn't an acceptable outcome.
Superman landed several blocks away from the crime scene and approached on foot. It was more Batman's style, taking his opponents out one by one through stealth, but if he confronted them and they ran they'd still have Superboy.
Once Superman was in the building where Mirror Master was lurking he used his X-Ray vision to locate the Rogue then blasted straight through a wall with his heat vision to melt the strange looking gun in Mirror Master's hand. Before the orange and green clad criminal could pull another weapon Superman had wrapped a length of steel tightly around him, pinning his arms to his sides and securing him to one of the building's support columns.
With Mirror Master out of the equation Superman confronted the rest of the Rogues openly. He flew up and grabbed Trickster by the collar of his cape. "You should have stayed in Central," he said. "Unlike Flash I don't make excuses for crooks."
Out of the corner of his eye Superman saw a boomerang spinning toward him. He moved aside but misjudged it's curving path. The boomerang struck him in the back and exploded. Superman's body shielded Trickster from the blast and the teen used the distraction to release the clasp on his cape. As it came free a jolt of electricity changed the fabric causing it to wrap around Superman and cling.
"You're right, you're nothing like Flasher," Trickster said as he tumbled free. "Flash cares more about people than about keeping up appearances. You couldn't stand Conner 'cause of how it looked huh? But now that he's with us you care, 'cause that looks worse yet?"
Several more boomerangs exploded near Superman, not doing much harm but it was disorienting. As Superman ripped free of Trickster's booby-trapped cape it occurred to him that if he hadn't taken Mirror Master out first he'd be caught in an unforgiving cross-fire. Trickster hadn't been a look-out, he'd been bait. Fighting a speedster the Rogues favored tactics that lured Flash into making attacks they could predict, so they could aim where they planned for him to be rather than where he was.
"Mirror Master's not responding," Cold shouted. "Heatwave, my turn on the truck. Go find out what's with Scudder."
Free of the cape Superman found himself harassed by Trickster's exploding yo-yos. Like Captain Boomerang's weapon of choice, the yo-yos unpredictable paths made them hard to dodge or counter. The teen also had an annoying habit of targeting his face.
Superman could sense the fight beginning to escalate. He decided he needed to get Trickster out of it. He didn't want to risk a repeat of what had happened to Superboy with the teenaged Rogue.
The next time Trickster attacked with one of his yo-yo's Superman ignored the explosion and grabbed the string. He used it to yank Trickster into reach. Then he pulled off Trickster's air-walks and tossed them away. Finding himself high in the sky and suddenly without the means to fly Trickster's fear of heights took hold with a vengeance and he latched on to the nearest solid object with all his strength.
Boomerang caught himself mid-throw. He couldn't risk an explosion with Trickster clinging to Superman like a monkey.
Superman landed on the tip-top of a building. He carefully pried Trickster off him, so as not to accidentally break the boy's fingers forcing them open, and transferred him to the antenna that capped the building. "Don't leave me up here! Get me down you bastard!" Trickster begged, his heart thudding wildly as his phobia took hold.
"I'll be back for you when the fight's over," Superman promised.
Trickster hugged the antenna tighter and started cursing arrogant assholes who made premature assumptions about who was going to win the fight.
"You know, this'd be easier if you wore flame-retardant gear like a sensible person," Heatwave commented to Mirror Master as he adjusted his flame-thrower to serve as a cutting torch.
"Rory, you are NOT a sensible person," Mirror Master sighed. He squirmed as far to one side as his bonds allowed and gritted his teeth in anticipation. Then his eyes widened. "Behind you!" he exclaimed.
Heatwave spun around and cut loose. The narrow band of blue-white flame cut through Superman's costume and left a thin welt on his arm, as if he'd brushed up against a stove.
"Damn," Heatwave cursed as he realized he'd already maxed out his weapon's thermal output to cut through the steel bar holding Mirror Master captive. And Superman had only taken a slight burn. In a few seconds Heatwave's flame-thrower had been ripped off his back and tossed out of the building while another length of steel had been used to bind him to a support pillar a few yard from where Mirror Master was imprisoned.
As Superman flew out the hole in the side of the building yet another exploding boomerang hit him. This one was strong enough to knock him back through the wall. Superman suddenly realized what Batman had meant when he said the Rogues didn't play for keeps: They weren't going all out, they were still holding back and attuning their attacks to his defensive capabilities. He couldn't remember the last time, outside of friendly spars within the JLA, where he'd fought someone who gave a damn if he survived the fight, and most were actively trying to kill him.
"Just because you hate heights doesn't mean you aren't high wire trained," Trickster told himself through gritted teeth. It had been four years since he'd worked without the personal safety net of his air-walks and the intervening time had only intensified his acrophobia. He hooked his knees around a support beam then let himself fall back. "Perfectly secure. Now just open your damned eyes." Seeing the ground twenty stories beneath him Trickster's stomach churned at the vertigo inducing view. He reached up into his bag of tricks, taking several obnoxiously pink capsules out. Then he paused to watch the flow of the fight.
Boomerang was using his explosions to rattle Superman and force him down into Cold's firing range. No one else seemed to be left standing. Trickster timed his throw to coordinate with Boomerang and Cold and let fly. The pink capsule struck Superman in the back of the head and exploded into a mass of goo that engulfed most of his upper-body. It was already half-hardened by the time Cold's next blast encased the superhero in ice.
Superman fell over a dozen feet before the ice and goo shattered, exploding outward, unable to contain either his strength or his heat vision. His cape hung in tattered ruins as the better part of it was ripped off along with the ice while a healthy amount of Trickster's pink goo remained, particularly where it had adhered to Superman's hair like gum. "I think we may have ticked him off mates," Boomerang commented, noting the way Superman's eyes continued to glow with the potential for destruction.
"Then we're approaching even," Trickster declared unrepentantly as he readied another capsule.
Superman swooped down on Boomerang's position. He grabbed the man by his collar and hauled him up high above the city. "You wouldn't drop me?" Boomerang asked a bit nervously.
"I wouldn't struggle too much if I were you," Superman suggested darkly.
"Right-o," Boomerang agreed. He agreed even more emphatically when Superman left him hanging from a flag pole well above the streets of Metropolis. Struggling was the last thing he was planning to do.
As Superman returned to confront Cold he tried to stay out of Trickster's range. The teen was securely captive, but still finding ways to be irritating. Clark wondered briefly if peanut-butter would work on the pink goo hardening in his hair. 'Probably not.'
"You're the only one left," he told Cold. "You're not going to escape. Why make this harder on yourself than it has to be?"
"Well, first because we got a nice advance payment to keep you on this side of the city and the second installment goes up for every minute you don't show over there," Cold replied. "But mostly because I don't like you."
Superman hesitated, he glanced across the city.
"Well, aren't you going to fly off and see what we were paid so very well to distract you from?" Cold asked.
"And leave you with Superboy?"
"Conner," Cold corrected icily. "And since when do you care if he's alive or dead?"
"I never wanted him to kill himself!" Clark snapped.
"You just wish he'd never been born," Cold stated. "Odd, how the vast distinction wasn't clear to him."
"You're criminals!" Superman exclaimed.
"Oh, I'm sure there are better people out there he could have latched on to," Cold admitted. "But you're not one of them. You've just been waiting for him to screw up. Just waiting for something, anything, so you can say you were right not to trust him. You've never done him anything but harm."
"What's it going to be hero?" Cold asked when Superman simply continued to glare at him. "Hurt the kid one more time or go find out about whatever it is that we've been keeping you from?"
"You're NOT good for him," Superman declared.
"How the hell would you know?" Cold asked, setting himself to fight.