The Watchers: The Incredible Hulk
"Six weeks straight!" Wally snarled as he yanked a spindly robotic arm off it's simian owner and planted it into another robot's gleaming red eye. He repeated the process twice more before the first robot exploded. "Back to back attacks for six straight weeks!"
"Talking about it won't change anything Baywatch!" Artemis shouted back, firing two explosive arrows into a cluster of robot monkeys from her perch atop the Happy Harbor Bank. Without losing a moment, she chose another arrow, nocked and fired it at the large metal box that seemed to be spawning Ivo's latest attempt at… she couldn't even call it 'world domination' with a straight face because seriously! Who the hell attempted to conquer the world with monkeys?!* "You have got to be kidding me!" She growled as she watched the arrow explode harmlessly against the box's side. "What the hell did Ivo do, liquefy invulnerability and turn it into a box?!"
"Oh God, please don't say that again," Wally shuddered as he stopped beside her, panting from the effort of keeping the robots away from the panicking civilians. "I really don't want the thought of a literal fleet of invulnerable robot monkeys stuck in my head." When she didn't respond, he turned his attention to the streets below. "Looks like Zatanna and Kaldur were able to get most of the civs out of the immediate vicinity."
"Good," His girlfriend replied as she planted her arms at her waist and leaned over backwards, unwittingly drawing his attention to her incredibly toned abs. "Where the heck are Raquel and Dick anyway?" She asked as she straightened up, not noticing the way he studiously avoided her gaze. "They were supposed to be working on creating a virus to shut down Ivo's network."
"Knowing those two, I wouldn't be surprised if they snowballed from an 'anti-network' virus to an 'initiate self-destruct while burning the network while also back-tracing Ivo's location' virus," Wally sighed. In the air, the BotMama* -his personal name for the spawner bot- had just released another set of simian bots that were massing for another charge when a dark shape tore right through them before slamming into the ground. As the robot monkeys re-calibrated their sensors, a second figure appeared over them, arms stretched out as her dark blue cape billowed dramatically. The monkeys chattered wildly, activating their rocket boosters to fly toward her… only to blink in utter befuddlement as they found themselves unable to move so much as a millimeter.
"gninthgil fo stlob htiw meht tsalB!" The sky above flashed silver as supercharged blasts of electrical energy lanced out in jagged forks, tearing through the monkeys in droves until nothing but charred husks remained, held up by M'gann's powerful telekinetic grasp.
"Hey you guys!" Zatanna greeted cheerily as she alighted beside the Archer-Speedster duo. "Sorry for the delay; Raquel was able to get into the spawner's core programming to figure out the intervals between each spawn so we had to wait until she could delay it."
"Did she get it?" Wally asked, hoping that the dark skinned girl had succeeded so they could finally see about making their way through the boxset. "Please tell me she got it!"
"She got it," Zatanna confirmed. "Robin was able to whip up a virus to track Ivo too so he's off to nab the 'good doctor' with Kaldur."
"And the giant bot up there?" Artemis asked.
Zatanna simply smirked enigmatically before pointing at the box.
An instant later, the dull gray cube that had proven invulnerable to their best attempts shattered into little fragments.
"Woah!" Wally stared wide-eyed, impressed by the display of magic.
"Someone's been training hard," Artemis commented, knowing how often her friend pushed herself to get better, stronger, so that she could one day release her father from Nabu's hold. "And non-verbally too!"
The Homo Magi smirked proudly at them for a moment before sagging. "God, I wish that was me!"
Right on cue, the three saw the familiar form of M'gann's uncle, the Martian Manhunter, surface out of the cloud of metal shards just as an additional pair of arms shifted into his skin, leaving him with just two arms.
"Looks like the cavalry's arrived," Artemis remarked as Green Lantern showed up, a giant, translucent green vacuum cleaner sucking away the metal shards of box and monkey alike while, on the ground, Wonder Woman spoke to the mayor of the coastal town. Turning to a still downcast-looking Zatanna, the archer slung an arm around her friend's shoulder. "Don't worry, Zee; I'm sure you'll be ripping realities apart with your spells soon enough."
"Ripping realities apart?" Wally arched an eyebrow at the two. "Don't you think that's just a little… much?"
"Magic is basically using mystical energies to bend the laws of physics over until they kiss their own asses," His girlfriend smirked as she notched a zipline arrow and aimed at the base of the adjacent building. "Isn't that basically warping reality?"
Before he could respond, she fired the arrow and swung to the ground, leaving him with a laughing Zatanna who was already levitating to the ground.
The Speedster just rolled his eyes at her before zipping down the side of the building.
‹‹‡››
"Hold on," Raquel glared at her friends with as much indignant intensity as she could muster which was, for the benefit of those who had never seen her glare, quite a lot of intensity. "So you guys have spent the last couple of months watching movies with the Justice League-"
"We've only watched one… movie…" Wally's loud protest died off midway when she leveled the full might of her imperious glare solely at him.
"You. Have been. Watching movies! With the JUSTICE LEAGUE! Without ME!"
"Raquel," Kaldur called out as he finally arrived at the Cave after being held back by Wonder Woman upon their return to discuss details of Ivo's attack. "I understand that you are upset, Raquel, and rightly so," He continued as he smoothly interposed himself between the upset girl and the rest of the Team. "I ask that, whatever anger you feel you take it out on me."
The dark haired Dakotan stared at him with narrowed eyes, trying and, ultimately, failing to hold on to her anger. Whether he knew it or not -and it was really difficult to tell with his calm, reserved nature- she had developed something of a crush on the Atlantean and his mere presence had already sent those cursed tingles racing down her spine well before he decided to be the damned avatar of self-sacrifice. As it stood, even maintaining her glare was taking up far more energy than it was worth so she chose to spin around and march toward the central living area as huffily as she could manage before planting herself on a couch in a faux-imperious manner. "If I miss so much as a minute of the next hangout-"
"I will ensure that such does not happen again," Kaldur promised, not knowing how affected she was by his voice. "Now I believe we have a movie to watch?"
"I'll go get the snacks!" M'gann yelled excitedly as she bounded toward the kitchen, an amused Conner and Zatanna opting to join her while Wally raced to the Hub to notify the adults that they were about to begin. While those went on, Dick headed over to the entertainment system to get things started, rifling through the boxset for the note listing the exact order of the movies before selecting a case and popping the disc into the player.
"Hey what's the title of that one?" Artemis asked as she took her seat on the same couch she'd sat on the last time while Conner walked in, laden with a whole assortment of drinks.
"Why spoil the surprise?" Wally countered as he practically appeared by her side, all but vibrating with excitement. "They're on the way. Oh, and we've got a guest!"
"What was that about a guest?" Zatanna's voice sounded a tad muffled behind the veritable buffet of snacks that floated out of the kitchen ahead of herself and M'gann. "Wally?"
"See for yourself," John Stewart chuckled, his deep baritone practically filling the room as the members of the League strolled in.
Apart from Hal -who was dealing with some important Lantern business offworld- Clark and Dinah -who were over at Bruce's manor- every member of the Justice League who had been present for the Iron Man movie was back with two additions.
First was the easily recognizable face of M'gann's uncle J'onn who had been invited by Oliver. Thanks to their activities over the past year and their relationship with the man's niece, the members of the Team were not so surprised to see him.
The second addition, though…
"Is-"
"That-"
"Supergirl?!" M'gann squealed in excitement, completing Artemis and Zatanna's questions as Oliver practically pushed the visibly blushing young woman into the room. "Oh my God it's Supergirl!"
"Quite a welcome yes?" Diana laughed as herself, Oliver and Kara took the largest couch while John provided a hard-light couch for himself and J'onn. "I'm almost jealous, Kara."
"Um… hi?" Kara waved shyly at M'gann, Wally and Conner who were the most blatant with their stares. For the first time since Clark had convinced her to don the cape and shield, Kara found herself seriously doubting herself. Unlike most of the other members of the League, she had only three years of heroics under her belt and most of that had been on her own. Counting the rare Justice League meetings that she physically attended - as she much preferred joining such meetings remotely- this was the first time she had ever shown up for a League gathering of this nature and meeting these sidekicks, some of whom were even more popular than she was,* was simply nerve-wracking. "I'm Kara Danvers. I'm Superman -I mean Clark's- cousin."
"We know! About you being Superman's cousin, I mean, not about your name because if we knew yourname it wouldbekinda weirdandstalkerishandwearedefinitelyNOTstalkersandsowewouldn'tknowyournamebutitwouldbecoolifweknewit-" M'gann nodded rapidly, talking so quickly that her words blended into an unrecognizable babble until Conner finally pulled her to himself and gave her a gentle kiss. When he finally pulled away from her, she had an understandably dopey grin on her face until the mortification of precisely why her normally distant boyfriend had kissed her hit.
Everyone, including Kara who had actually felt relieved by the girl's rushed babble, burst into peals of laughter when the now bright green Martian dug her face into the crook of her boyfriend's neck in embarrassment.
"Hi Kara," Conner smiled at the young woman who was his… aunt? He shrugged the mental details of his weird family tree off as he stroked M'gann's hair. "I'm Conner and this is M'gann. Sorry about that; she's… well, she really likes you."
"It's nothing to worry about," Kara replied, feeling some of her reservations begin to melt away. Unlike the stiff formality of the Justice League meetings -which was always noticeable, even over the League-issued holo-projectors- this little gathering felt far more welcoming: it was more a gathering of friends than one of mere business-related acquaintances. Deciding to open up a bit, she added, "To be honest, that was a pretty good impression of me the first time I met Lois." Her comment led to another burst of laughter, mostly from the League members but it helped take the focus off M'gann, something the Martian was infinitely grateful for.
"So," Oliver slapped his hands together and rubbed them eagerly, "What's on the playlist for today?"
"We're about to find out," Dick replied as he whipped out the remote and hit the play button.
TW:MCU
*- Artemis would eat her words if she got to see the 'Planet of the Apes' saga, even if they aren't, *technically* monkeys.
*- While Supergirl is arguably more popular than any member of the YJ Team in comics [I would argue that she ISN'T], she is never so much as mentioned in the show, allowing me to sort of play around with her backstory. In this case, she is 25 and started her heroics 3 years prior to the events of Young Justice Ep 1(Independence Day). While she has likely been in the game longer than some of them, she has never really broken into the realm of mainstream recognition like Kid Flash, Robin or Aqualad. Anything else will probably crop up in the story as we go on. Oh! And this version's characterization is heavily influenced by Melissa Benoist's Supergirl [particularly the excited babbling thing.]
Hey Everyone! We're back for another installment of The Watchers and this time, we're heading into Big Green territory!
This prologue will be taken down from this fic (TW:IM) and tacked on to the beginning of The Watchers: The Incredible Hulk a week from now when the full 'watching' begins. We decided to tack this on here to let you know that we're still working on this and to let you know about the fact that the Incredible Hulk fic will be posted as its own story.
See you in a week!
Mr War & The Ethereal Lord
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