"Text" - Thoughts/Talking via Mindlink/Muttering
"Text" - Speech
"Text" - Shouting
CHAPTER SEVEN - Fog Problem, Part Two
Stress wasn't something that Danny had to deal with often. It is true that his work put him in quite critical situations, causing that he was faced with a difficult choice more than once, but since his "retirement" in his field of heroism, he wasn't since then put in a situation which caused him so much stress.
Licking his chapped lips, which had dried instantly after doing this, he tried to focus on the task at hand rather than the annoying voices of teenagers in his head. Currently, together with the previously mentioned young scientist, who also worked spontaneously next to him (Although it was evident that she is already on her last lines of endurance), they together were in the process of creating a virus that would sabotage this whole "Fog".
"Do you always treat everyone who tries to help you like that?" Kid Flash's voice echoed in his head, so that as soon as it arrived, he could vanish as well. And just when Danny also thought that this was the end of all conversations, he was bitterly disappointed.
"This is Kid, I can see that you've already met." He looked up to see at that moment a girl in a green outfit with many arrows on it, uttering these words.
Raising one of his eyebrows, out of the corner of his eye he only watched the two teenagers oh so friendly exchange, so only later Dr. Roquette herself could cut in on all this wonderful conversation.
"We're trying to save the world here!" Danny didn't have to describe at this point what a small, albeit ferocious smile appeared on his face. He made every effort not to make a point about his own saving the world thought in his mind, knowing that if he so did, many people would hear him. (And that's what he was trying to avoid at all costs!)
In a split second, he didn't even realize when, the team of young heroes with which he also came here managed to conduct a discussion about their usefulness in this mission. As a young adult man, he really did his best not to get caught up in their banter together, but when their screams started to ring in his head more and more, he couldn't stand it anymore.
"SHUT." He shouted as he suspected, if it were possible, to the top of his lung in his mind.
Immediately, silence feel between them. His heavy panting, caused by the faster heartbeat that also accompanied him at that moment, was the only thing he and the three other people in his room could hear.
Danny, too, thanked himself that for once he hadn't been an idiot and had remembered to wear contacts lenses over his eyes, otherwise surely their toxic green glow would be visible in the darkness now.
He hadn't even realized when he felt a hand on his shoulder, which as he later learned after turning over belonged to Aqualad. Looking at him with his weary eyes, seeing his expression which was somewhat filled with patience, he realized that the young teen was trying to help him calm down.
So, taking only a deep breath, knowing that time was not on their side, he nodded his head to the teenager next to him to inform him that he had everything under control. Returning to typing individual sequences on the keyboard keys, he ignored the somewhat worried (though he would more call it uncomfortable) gaze given to him by the three people present in the room with him.
"...I'll go to Miss Martian and Superboy." Artemis gave a short glance, and not waiting for any response from any of his teammates, she left the room and direct her movement to join the mentioned two teenagers.
The repeated and relatively soft tapping of keys by two pairs of hands was now clearly audible through the silence in the room. And in all honesty? Danny definitely preferred to keep them quiet if that would help him get out of this place faster.
The repeated and relatively soft tapping of keys by two pairs of hands was now clearly audible through the silence in the room. And in all honesty? Danny definitely preferred to keep them quiet if that would help him get out of this place faster.
"The virus won't do us any good if we don't have weapons alone." Aqualad pushed them out of their minds with his statement, only to finish his thought later. "Could you locate it?"
"My Fog is no weapon!" The scientist replied indignantly, clenching her teeth tightly to glare at the teenager who spoke the words.
It was evident that she only wanted good for herself and others in this situation. Danny sort of understood what she meant... After all, he himself had only wanted to help the surrounding people more than once, and of course it ended in a less than pleasant way for him.
Sighing, he listened with the sadness in his eyes, which spoke for itself of the emotion of understanding, directed to the woman next to him. This time he, placing his own hand on her shoulder, smiled sadly at her and uttered the words addressed to her in his mind.
"It'll be over soon, we have to stay strong." He squeezed her lightly where his grip had also been, trying to reassure her that they were in it all together.
When he received a kind of neutral expression in response, which was later followed by a smile from Roquette, he only watched her return to her task after taking a deep breath and letting it out. By clicking on the selected keys at the same time, she started the program that started the countdown.
"I'm tracking the fog..." The doctor said to quickly add later. "We'll have company, get ready."
Only the second scientist present in the room was able to understand under what pressure the woman next to him might also be. Worrying about her life, as he did in every little moment, for the lives of his friends and...
He preferred not to think about it now. He had to focus on the task ahead of him, he couldn't get himself get so easily distracted.
"I'm redirecting the collected data to you, Serling, to save some time." He said in one breath, feeling like he was sitting on needles when the loading bar that sent the necessary part of the data came to an end in the blink of an eye.
Sighing with relief, he immediately felt shivers run down his spine.
Turning around in a split second, instinctively taking the first thing he could get his hands on, which was a paperclip on his desk, he thanked his instincts as he did so.
Thanks to his quick reaction, he managed, with the help of an ordinary, stupid and purely useless paperclip, to bounce thrown at them, as he now realized shuriken.
Panting, feeling like a long time ago the adrenaline in his body had not reached such a critical level, like through a mist he heard Aqualad's warning telling him to get on the ground.
Hearing absolutely nothing, he only watched as Aqualad tried to defend Dr. Roquette, by letting himself be hit by another star-like weapon aimed at them.
"It must have hurt a lot." Said as he now knew a woman who Danny called in his mind "Fake green cat woman" (Well, she had a mask that reminded him of a cat!), just so she could immediately strike and enter the fray with the young hero before their eyes.
Walking quickly to Roquette, forgetting his own terrible adrenaline rush, he knelt beside her and said. "Quick, we have to get out of here!" Without even waiting for her answer, he quickly helped the woman to get up in a hurry, so that while doing so, he heard a teenager fighting next to them, calling for backup.
"Thank God." He muttered to himself, feeling another dose of shivering run through his back. It was only by some fucking miracle that he managed to tilt his head in time to avoid another Shuriken thrown towards the young female scientist, which was supposed to end her life.
"I see you have company." Said Chesire (Whose name Danny supposed to find out later), so Danny could only look in her direction, in the exact moment when she was avoiding Aqualad's hit on her. "Another scientist? He wasn't on the list, someone from the university?"
He didn't have to be a genius to make it clear that the woman's tone was drenched with curiosity, but also somewhat cunning. She knew what she was doing, she wanted to provoke him to spill the beans and talk about himself in an act of desperation, in order to somehow defend his position.
For his luck (And her misfortune!), his pride in this matter was long ago buried deep down in the underground. So, just gritting his teeth tight, holding his hand even tighter on Roquette, just trying to get out of this room, he felt tremendously relieved as he saw Artemis arriving as backup from the corner of his eye.
"Don't move." The blonde-haired girl growled a warning, to be on standby with the long ago pulled arrow on the bow.
The laughter of the woman who hadn't let her guard down the whole time echoed like some mesmerizing spell in his ears. Noticing as the fallen so far Aqualad, now stood up face to face with said woman, in a gesture of a harder way of getting to them (Which looked a little comical looking at Danny's height).
The scientist literally felt like some kind of stone on his heart is falling, as soon as he heard the distinct sound of shoes hitting the floor. They didn't have to wait long for Miss Martian to appear in the next corner of the room, along with accompanying Kid Flash, who, with their stance, announced that they were ready to fight.
Chesire was surrounded from practically all her sides, he wasn't going to lie. She didn't have the slightest chance of winning at this point, unless somehow some assistance came to her, which would be of little use looking at the tiny room they found themselves in.
"It got quite interesting, let me join you later." No one figured out when, but by throwing some kind of smoke bomb that caused a row, she was given enough time to escape the room unnoticed.
Kid Flash, who, still thinking that somehow he would be able to stop her, ran through the resulting curtain of smoke as quickly as possible, only to realize, unfortunately, that it was too late for him to do so.
Chesire was gone, and chaos ensued where she once stood.
"You let her get away, just like that?!" Roquette was not at all pleased with the performance of the teenagers assigned to her protection.
"Great, it's all your fault!" Kid Flash growled, glaring at Artemis, who instantly pushed him away from him as he had run into her earlier.
"Mine?! I'm all ears how!"
But Danny didn't listen to their argument. He was too busy trying to calm his ice core, which like a wild beast wanted to emerge from his body and take over him. He didn't know how much longer he would be able to endure before he was in critical condition, which he didn't want to find himself, especially in the presence of young heroes.
"Focus guys, it's not over yet!" Told the team captain, only so he could after saying these words hear Robin's voice that come out of his communicator.
"Robin to Aqualad, Robin to Aqualad." A voice came out of the device to start a new sentence without giving anyone time to reply. "We're over Philadelphia. We managed to locate Shadows' next target... It's S.T.A.R. Labs..."
If anyone saw Danny's pupils narrow, they said nothing about it. Everyone knew that no matter what the headquarters of the young scientist were, the S.T.A.R. laboratories were just as important to him as to their, their teammates.
Clenching his fists, knowing what message would be told them in a moment, he simply waited for its official announcement.
"We're too late... They've been destroyed." Although he knew what the final verdict would be, he still had a hard time accepting this bitter truth.
"Anything else, any other damage caused by them?" Aqualad asked, trying to get as much of the information as he was able to before it was time for them to hang up again.
"The fog razed the whole building to the ground, everything is in ruins." A moment of silence on the other side. There was a clear disbelief in the voice of the youngest member of the team, as if he didn't understand what was happening in front of his eyes. Danny thanked him that he had chosen not to describe what he found in more detail. "All data stolen... What are we supposed to do?"
If their team captain was having some kind of battle inside himself now, he wasn't showing it. With his feet firmly on the ground, correcting his posture, as if to inform those present in the room that they had not lost this fight yet, he gathered all his remaining in him strength up and said.
"We're moving the doctor..." He looked at the two scientists behind them, to speak. "Start tracking the Fog, as fast as you can."
"I think we have company!" Unexpectedly said again the dark-skinned teenager present with them, hearing how in the ventilation of the building to which they moved, you could clearly hear the movement of a person.
"We are doing our best!" Danny hissed only to get up from his position and feeling as his nerves can't remain in one place, he stood up and began to finish the selected piece of code while standing.
Right next to him, he heard Doctor Serling say something like a whisper, but he was too focused on finishing the task as soon as possible to worry about such nonsense. Biting his lower lip lightly, remembering not to accidentally bite it to the blood, he glanced out of the corner of his eye at the series of code the other scientist was working on.
"I'm sending the last part of the code, cooperate with me, you piece of junk." He growled at the machine, feeling like every second spent in this tense atmosphere was not helping him at all.
I'm out of shape, it's not for my years. He thought to himself to clench his hands on the keyboard and, as if trying to rush the loading bar visible on the screen, he only cast it a single glare.
"I got it." Serling replied to quickly move the mouse to open and complete the data set sent to her into one whole. "The upload process starts from... Now on!"
At these words, they both breathed a sigh of relief. They knew that now the only thing that was enough for them was to wait for a moment for the virus they completed to be sent to the Fog main database.
Unfortunately, the moment of rest was not given to them, because at one moment from behind a nearby wall they could see the same smoke ball approaching them more and more closely.
There was only a short amount of time spent on tension which risen among them only to disappear, because almost immediately, from the nearby vent, you could hear its hatch opening and the figure of a woman which they have a chance to meet earlier, appeared before them.
She didn't hesitate. She immediately aimed, this time with a weapon in the shape of some kind of arrows, at the chest of the present young hero, only to make a brief statement when she landed safely on the ground, her voice full of slyness.
"We'll see how immune you are against my jellyfish venom, shall we?"
"Aqualad, wait!" Danny shouted, but it was too late.
The aforementioned teenager, under the influence of the poison now circulating in his veins, threw himself into the fray without much thought. He didn't last long, however, because the hero, weakened by the venom, was not doomed to win. Before he could look back, his body refused to cooperate with him, and Chesire's heavy foot that landed on his back certainly didn't guarantee that he would get up.
Danny knew his stupid hero complex would sooner or later decide to show itself, and for the first time in his life in so long, he was glad it had picked the right moment.
Appearing in front of Roquette, shifting her body behind him so that he had a better opportunity to protect her in any way, he felt his eyes turn the same toxic green hue beneath his lenses.
Trying to stabilize his breathing, he instinctively took steps backward as the figure of the masked woman in front of him approached them.
"Well, well, who would have thought? A scientist who does not run away in panic." Taking out of her belt, the previously hidden, second twin Sai, she pointed it straight at him. "Aren't you scared? You are just standing on the verge of the Gate of Death."
Oh, if she only fucking knew. He thought, while in mere second he was in process of avoiding the threw at him hits, pushing the doctor herself aside to keep her safe.
"Who would have thought, you can avoid a simple swing of my weapon." Was she fucking playing with him?
"But how about a more precise swing!"
Danny, without thinking too much, lifted the chair next to him, blocking the blow that was aimed at him. Pushing the chair beside immediately after doing so, he didn't have much time to think, feeling as if in an instant the second blade he had completely forgotten about (Which he remembered about just a moment ago, goddamn it!) is aimed at his face.
Covering it with his arm, feeling that Chesire's weapon is sliding over his skin like it were butter or soap, he hissed loudly as he now feeled on his own skin, the irritating sensation of poison.
"I appreciate your willingness to save your colleague from work, but it won't do you much good."
"R-Really? I do not think so." He replied, saying something to the assassin for the first time, smiling slyly at the sight of the computer in the background, on the screen which the blue loading bar reached its one hundred percent.
Chesire, seeing his happy demeanor immediately, turned back. With an anger in her eyes that he saw now, he only watched the nervous woman respond to his words, pointing at Dr. Roquette one of her blades that had wounded Danny not long before.
"You finished the virus." She growled to move closer to her, but once again Danny stood in her way.
Glaring at the woman in front of him, focusing his eyes on her own at the same time, he only stared as she backed away displeased from his figure.
"You're lucky I got exact orders not to kill you if we failed." She said, taking a position as if she was ready to fight, only to add. "Dear doctor, you may still be of use of the Shadows... And who knows, maybe your bodyguard will also find use in our team."
"Only in another life." He smiled at his own joke. I guess his old habits were returning to him, seeing how tragic his jokes were, especially when he was just a few steps away from completing his death.
"We'll see what the Shadows have to say about that." This time she, laughing at her own words, throwing her smoke bomb at them, disappeared from the room before they could react.
Chasing away once again today the layer of smoke that was blocking his vision, Danny hadn't even realized how much his body was starting to shake. It wasn't until the adrenaline in his body stopped pumping thought his veins and, he felt the pain intensifying at the root of his arm that he hissed in frustration only to feel Roquette's grip on his shoulder.
"Danny, are you okay?!" She asked while coming up to him, only now to notice how deep his wound was. Gasping, feeling as her breath had immediately frozen in her throat, at first she tried to approach him to try to do something, literally anything.
"Not now, we have more important things to do, like the fact that the other members of the team will be here soon." Ignoring his pain in the interest of trying to hide the clearly visible green blood from her, which would surely only disturb her even more, he pulled down the sleeve of his white overall, hiding his wound.
"We have to do something, after all Aqualad himself collapsed after three arrows, and he is an Atlantean...!" Her hazy voice echoed in his ears, leaving only a void behind them.
Shifting his good hand over her shoulder, feeling the venom begin to circulate more and more with every second, he decided to keep his stance firm, as if trying to tell the woman in front of him that she shouldn't worry so much.
"Looks like her weapon wasn't poisoned..." Liar. "As soon as we get back to the base, I will ask for help in dressing the wound." Another lie. "I will lie down for a few days to rest and not overwork myself to make sure I'll be in a good shape." And the third lie. Huh, another downside of being a hero, his habit of lying is reactivating, and Jazz would certainly not approve of it.
Saying nothing, the second scientist, seeing his expression, which spoke absolutely nothing about his real feelings, only squeezed her hands tighter into fists, to sigh after a few moments of her own reflection, to just look away.
Danny didn't seem to have to say how much he thanked her for choosing to trust him in this case (Though she shouldn't!) and, let him handle the matter himself.
At the beginning, the room was completely chaotic, it was hard to focus on even one thing, because almost everywhere around them, where you laid your look, they were surrounded by an environment destroyed during the fight.
The ship that Robin and Superboy was on arrived shortly after. There was an argument during the arrival of the other members of their little team, but Danny was too tired to listen to their too energetic conversation.
As he sat on the free place in the ship, trying to avoid pressing any pressure on his slowly closing wound, he only closed his eyes, ignoring everything around him.
The unpleasant pain in his chest, which was increasing with every minute, communicating to him that his ice core was releasing more and more of cumulated inside his body power, causing him a great feeling of discomfort. He had to act fast if he didn't want it to overload.
This is how it ends when you haven't been fighting in a long time and wean your core from shedding energy normally, as it should. He hissed in his thoughts to himself, very glad that Miss Martian gave up the idea of talking to them through a shared link.
"God-fucking-damnit-" Walking hurriedly, he closed the door behind him, and immediately after doing so, he slid down, panting, over a nearby wall.
Being locked in his small room, making sure that no one was outside in the corridor, he allowed himself to relax at least this time, but not for long. Like in contact with lightning, blue light like an electric ray passed over his body so that he could only make a loud sound of full of pain.
Panting, cursing at the world for the extra poison of jellyfish that he fucking knew was still circulating through his veins inside his body, while struggling to get up, he leaned against a nearby cupboard.
Instantly shifting his weight to a nearby piece of furniture, one hand clutching his chest where was his core while the other was wandering around inside a newly opened drawer, he flinched again as another wave of blue-like lighting passed through his body.
"Damn, where it is, where it is?!" He was shouting to himself more and more desperate, feeling that his vision started to blur with each passing second.
When a similar tiny object, shaped like a small rectangle, got into his hand, he didn't think long about what he should do next. By getting rid of his wristband, he couldn't focus his blurry gaze at first. Feeling the irritation build up in him, sloppy, but finally he got rid of an identical little rectangle, but this one, in turn, emanated with a bright blue (Almost white) energy.
Inserting this microscopic object into the entrance, feeling the individual electrics making its own connection in a mere seconds, he breathed a sigh of relief when the pain in his chest slghtly stopped.
Not having any more strength to stay on his feet, this time he slid down over the desk next to him and, swallowing loudly, he closed his eyes.
He didn't know how much time he spent quietly sitting and listening to his own breath, but he didn't care about so little things at this moment. Right now, he was just glad that the unmerciful pain had finally stopped.
Licking his chapped lips, while also relaxing his muscles, he opened one of his eyelids to see how the newly inserted object in his wrist now begins to turn the same blue color as the previous one.
With only a sound of dissatisfaction, he shuddered too when he heard his phone ringing in his pocket. Taking it out, heavily opening his eyes, he had to wait a moment before he could focus his gaze. However, when he saw his sister's contact, which had just popped out in his phone, he lowered it.
He was too tired for any conversation with Jazz, and besides, he didn't want her to hear the state he had led himself to.
Lowering his hand to the side, letting the phone fall freely from his hand onto the floor beside him, he sighed deeply to close his eyes again.
"Old habits die hard, huh?" He asked himself, just curling into some kind of ball, pushing his knees closer to his chest to rest his head on them. "I wish mine were dead long ago..." He muttered, and feeling exhaustion taking over his whole body, he fell asleep.
Greetings Mortals!
It's me, Haven again! :D
I hope that you've liked this chapter as much as do (Especially the last part, I was literally so hyped while I was writing it! /)
And as you can see-
THERE'S MORE PLOT IN THIS PART :D (And also this is the longest chapter in this story... Maaaan, translating this took me hell'a long time!)
BUT-
I really liked it thought! I hope that you understand what I was trying to do while explaining the last part, where Danny was trying to regulate his ice core. If no, here, let me explain this to you really quick:
Danny's core is still growing with power, and always will be. It's somewhat his curse, for being both alive and dead, at the same time. While yes, this situation would be just fantastic for him while doing his daily super-hero-stuff, it's not ideal, when he's retired.
He developed working (Not really safe tho-) method, that gives him a chance to dispose of excessive, cumulated in his body part of his power.
He has to... Do something once in a while to keep his level of power in norm, so he won't overload.
But as you can see, in this chapter he finally let his powers from ice core flow through his veins, aaaaand...
It didn't really end for him so well :))
When you bottle volcano with rock, giving it at the same a way to dispose of its lava in controlled surroundings, nothing would happen, right?
Yeah, so imagine now Danny as some kind of volcano... Really, really dangerous volcano... Whiiiich, might, or might not completely have control over his power, because of his own arrogance.
Whoops :))
Anyway! As always, sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes!
Hope you're doing well, and have a nice day/night! ^^
~Beware, Haven!
Also, self-advertising time! :D
I've started to write more stories based around my favourite shows! ^^
That includes (Not so new) new story about crossover between Ben 10 and MHA and, another one (This one is new!) about also crossover, about Over The Garde Wall and MHA! ^^
Don't know if anybody is willing to read it, but I just wanted to say this, because I'm really proud of these stories, just like I'm proud of this one! ^^
Again, hope you're doing well!
See ya in the next chapter! :D