"What the hell are you thinking !Why haven't you thrown that thing into the Sun?! Or the Phantom Zone?!" Time yelled, enraged a his mentor
"Tim calm dow-" Harper tried to interrupt
"No!" he shouted "I'm tired of him hiding info from us" Tim aggressively pointed a the Dark Knight " This is why I left, why Dick left because you keep things from us"
All was quiet for a moment as the statement sunken, Bruce turning his back to his ward.
"Give me a break, your becoming extremely paranoid again Bruce" He said disappointed that his mentor has fallen back into that habit, he huffed thinking about the planes created in order to assure safety being used agents him multiple times.
"Look," harper said slowly "You've known him for a lot longer, but I KNOW he wouldn't do it without a good reason" a 'hopefully' muttered under her breath as she comely talked to him, tried to get them to calm down.
Bruce sighed as Alfred placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. Turing back to the collection of partners and support, a sad and tired expression on his face, "The fragment was subjected to temperatures exceeding several times hotter than the core of the sun, it grew larger. Frozen and shattered into multiple pieces, it thawed out in less five minutes and automatically regrouped. Every test it was subjected to caused it to ether adapted or evolve in someway, we learned quickly that tests involving energy of any kind would make it grow larger." the frustration and annoyance evident on his face.
The looks of realization dawned on everyone faces as he talked, realizing just how dangerous it was, and why they ere left in the dark. "Master Bruce," Alfred said trying to compose himself at the revelation " Are you suggesting that.." he trailed off
"A self replicating Doomsday" Damian said, his stoic demeanor dropping. Being raised by The League of Assassins taught his to fear nothing, or at least very few thing for the sake of self preservation, but that thing, it was a utter abomination.
The cave grew silent again as the thought struck fear into the hardened crime fighters, and the use of a black hole to eliminate both was not lost on them. "But" Barbra said, breaking the silence "that doesn't explain how the Tamers were able to fight against it" she said as she pulling up what little video there was of them fighting the D-reaper, "Sakuya & Gallant are presuming using magic, but Gatling & Justice are tech based, but there still doing damage." It was rather odd, the videos played on as the Japanese Heroes shouted attack names at the defense drones, each drone falling apparat or evaporating as each hit landed.
"Could they have enchanted the weapon?" Harper asked
"Gatling's ammo maybe, but Justice's unlikely" Damian replied
Barbra frowned as one he the attacks hit destroying the puppet like drone, she hummed in annoyance. She rewound and enlarged the footage, playing it back slowly but choppily, advancing the grainy footage the moment until the moment of the weapons impact.
"Is that Binary code? a honestly baffled Harper asked, being in the Capes & Costume crowd you tend to become desensitized to all the weirdness after a while. But this? Its up there.
"Is it coming from the attack, or the destruction of the drone?" asked Damian, unsure due to the low quality
"Could It be both" Alfred said flatly, causing the assemblage of Heroes to enter 'Detective Mode'
"A programmable bio-weapon, the ability to change its command programing for a variety of missions, a infinitely reusable weapon" Bruce reasoned
"Treating it like a computer virus" Tim followed up, "That's some Anti-virus, but where did they get the coding?"
"Didn't a government agency explain what it was after the fact?" Harper offered "What was it called? Hipno?" she said trying to remember
"Why does that sound familiar?" Barbra asked as she typed the name into the Database
"HYPNOS, the Japanese Meta-Human defense & tracking agency" Damian said," Grandfather tried to have spies infiltrate them after the disaster. All of them were transferred without reason, or stuck to low ranking positions. What little info was obtained was essentially useless" the current Robin finished, a semi annoyed look on his face.
"Sooooo, another shady government agency creating weapons to use agents Heroes gone out of there control destroying everything in its path, and needing said Heroes to clean up there mess. Where have I heard that before." Harper snarked
"It's never that simple" Bruce said, turning back to the screen as Oracle pulled up all documents on the group, both public and that of the Justice League. Which was more than they expected, which was a problem. "Ugh" gowned Barbra, "Its going to take me some time to root through this" she said rolling her shoulders while cracking her knuckles, readying herself for the data crunching. "Give me tonight, possibly tomorrow at the latest."
"And I would like to remind you sir, that you and master Damian are attending Miss Salina's fundraiser tonight" Alfred reminded the father & son.
"Thank you Alfred" Bruce's mood seemed to lighten up, he turned towards the stairs as his posture slouched, the exhaustion finally catching up with him. "And could you prepare some of those shrimp puffs when I wake up"
The clicks & flashes of cameras were nothing new she-(Chang pose) has grown up with them for most of her (Change pose) life. After a while it just becomes background noise, at least here she (Change pose) was actually wearing clothes and not skimpy scraps of fabric pretending to be (Change pose) clothing, or god forbid what goes on in Paris.
She lets herself slip out of her routine as he let-out a sigh, the director called out "Ok people, break" the woman called out to the the photographer and support staff. As they broke away a woman walked towards, " That was wonderful" said the Company's owner, a tall dark-haired woman known as Salina Kiel. "Thank you for agreeing to this ."
"It's what your paying me for," Rika said flatly, getting a small chuckle out of the older woman.
"Even so, why chose my little outfit?" Salina said, her 'little outfit' was a multi million dollar company that had only recently go into the fashion business, A mix of modern fashion and 40s design, along with a underlying cat motif.
The two talked over to the changing room, "I simply wanted to see the Us, at least anywhere other than California." Rika said opening the door
Salina hummed in agreement, ever since Oceanmaster attacked the surface a year and a half ago with that cyborg sea-serpent that devastated the West cost the the area has become a stark reminder. People who had survived had fled inland if they could, but most couldn't afford to, Gangs rule over the slums of those who are left. "True, though I can't say that Gotham is any better. But its home." she said with a little fondness.
A ring of her phone interrupted her thoughts as she checked the message, "Oh ,right." Salina said, She turned to the model changing her clothing in front of her, not caring about showing off her muscle physique. "I am holding a Charity Event tonight, would you like to attend" she offered
"Sorry but no" Rika said, before she corrected the bluntness of her statement "I have to apologies, I am still dealing with the jetlag and don't have the appropriate wear," she said apologetically. "And isn't those events usually attacked and healed hostage?"
"Despite what the Media would portray, every gathering of the rich and powerful isn't held up by supervillains" the former vileness said, while it was somewhat true she had also bribed some of her 'acquaintances' to leave her alone. Those she couldn't she blackmailed, but thankfully the one she couldn't was out of town.
The model had changed into the next clothing set, a black cocktail dress with purple leggings with small silver cats embroidered on them. "Well too bad, tis bein-" she was interrupted by a knock at the door "Miss Makino were on a schedule" came the photographer's voice. "Well talk later" Salina said
Rika walked out the door following the man back to the set, not noticing the owners glance at her back. Salina knew it was more than just jetlag, she knew that physique from years of training herself as well as from Pamela and Harley. All that she is missing is the scars, which meant one of two things, she was ether very skilled, or a newbie. Ether way she popped open her phone and selected a number, "Katrina dear, could you keep an eye on our guest. Yes, yes, no... You will get time and a half.."
Meanwhile in a forgotten corner of Gotham city, on the top floor of a building long abandoned stat a makeshift laboratory, light only the light from a desk lamp illuminated a comical looking robot. It Small body of polished steel healed aloft by four legs, lights flashing from its computer brain through its glass dome head, its two spindly arms moving back and fore grabbing tools from the nearby counter as it worked.
[Those flying rats, they don't know who there dealing with] it swore to its self, its voice sounding as if its coming through a damaged speaker [Oh but they will, soon they all will]. It continued to rant and rave to itself, sounding more like indecent whining to anyone if they were lessening. It was Interrupted as the turned there 'head' upwards as if lessening as the sound of static filling the room. [Soon my god, I shall free you] they said picked up the fruits of there work, a canister of greyish silver liquid, turning around to expose there fleshy eye from a chunk of missing metal.
They waked over to a tied up hostage, a man struggling for his life trying to break free from his bonds, [You are about to be reborn for a glories purpose] the cyborg said poring the liquid on the man. The man's thrashing increased more as the liquid crawled up his body, his body increased in size truing a shade of sickly green, his final thoughts were a plea to whatever god there was as the goop covered his face and started to slide down his through.
Finally it was over as the green behemoth stood up, massive screws protruding from its skin. Its eyes light up from behind its mask, the glow the same shade as its spiky red hair. "[I Serve]" It said in a booming voice, kneeling at its creator.
The cyborg smiled a evil grin, satisfied at the result.