A/N: I kinda feel like I'm posting this for myself now, not really for anybody else. Oh, well.
Onwards!
Chapter Eleven: Violet Rage
Zatara had been checking the levels of mystic energies in Coast City — hard light constructs always caused a disturbance in the concentration of different magical forces, which had made pairing up with Green Lantern on missions more difficult for the magic-based members of the League (of the three sorcerers currently on the League's roster, only Doctor Fate had the experience and skill required to perfectly adjust to Green Lantern's effect on his magic) — in an effort to locate Star Sapphire, when the woman herself chose to make an appearance.
"Who are you and what are you doing in my city?" she demanded.
Zatara was not surprised that she didn't know who he was — he was the least well-known of all the Leaguers, and he preferred it that way.
"My name is Zatara," he answered courteously, "I'm a member of the Justice League."
Star Sapphire's eyes narrowed beneath her mask. "I don't need the Justice League interfering in Coast City."
"We're investigating a case involving numerous men from your city being trapped in some kind of crystal. Would you happen to know anything about it?"
Without warning, Star Sapphire fired an energy blast at him. Caught off guard, Zatara was hurled backwards into a street sign, which splintered and clattered to the ground under his weight. He barely had time to roll away before another blast scorched the pavement next to him.
"Wait!" he cried as he evaded her ensuing volleys. "I'm not" — duck — "accusing you" — dodge — "of anything" — jump — "I just need" — duck again — "to talk to you!"
"I have nothing to say to you," declared Star Sapphire.
She formed a whip of violet energy and used it to lash out at Zatara, who had to fling himself to the side to avoid it. As it came back for a second strike, he threw up his arms and bellowed, "Dleihs!"
His hastily erected shield prevented the whip from touching him, but due to the hard light effect on the magic, it was not strong enough to completely protect him, and the force of Star Sapphire's blow made him stagger backwards. As he hurriedly made some adjustments to shore up his defenses, he tapped into his comlink and called his teammates for help, just before Star Sapphire's sword construct pierced through his shield.
Flash was there almost immediately, whisking him out of the way so that the sword stuck in a wall instead of in Zatara's chest. With a low growl, Star Sapphire dissolved the sword and created a hand instead, which reached out for the Scarlet Speedster's fleeing form. By a combination of Star Sapphire's quick thinking, the fact that her beams travelled at lightspeed, and Flash's preoccupation with getting Zatara to safety, the fingers of her hand construct closed around Flash's waist.
The Scarlet Speedster found himself unexpectedly yanked high into the air, and summarily felt his ribs being painfully squeezed. Before Star Sapphire could get much more advantage, however, he began vibrating his molecules at an incredible rate. The massive amount of friction soon proved too much for the violet vigilante to maintain her concentration, and the hand construct shattered.
With nothing holding him up, Flash plummeted.
"Well, what do you make of it?"
Batman ignored Ian Egerton's question, choosing instead to pull out a gem-cutter from his utility belt.
"What are you doing with th—HEY!" Egerton exclaimed in shock as the Dark Knight began chipping away at the crystal block currently entrapping one Lawrence Owen. "Stop that! You can't —"
"Really, my friend," Doctor Fate said with a sigh as he held Egerton back from his attempt to stop Batman. "The least you could do is ask."
"What the hell are you doing?" Egerton demanded.
"I'm taking a sample of the crystal to examine," Batman responded without looking up.
"Seriously?" Egerton shrugged off Fate's restraining hand; the sorcerer allowed him to once he saw that Egerton wasn't still trying to advance. "The wizard's right — you could have asked."
"I don't ask permission."
Egerton raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess — 'it's better to ask forgiveness than permission'."
He was met only with silence. Egerton huffed and watched the Caped Crusader drive the gem-cutter persistently into the pink crystal.
"That's not going to work, you know. This thing's proven to be harder than anything on —" Egerton broke off in amazement as a small piece of crystal detached from the block.
"How in the world —"
"Kryptonite-tipped blade."
"Kryptonite?"
"This element can cut Superman. And it's green."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
Once again, Batman didn't answer. Instead, he went around the room, carving out several more samples from the other crystals. After he'd collected about ten or so specimens, he glanced at Doctor Fate, who had been muttering under his breath as he moved between the crystal blocks.
"Any progress?"
"Surprisingly, it is not as bad as I'd feared," the sorcerer replied. "This crystal is unlike anything I've ever seen, and it would seem that, if built correctly, the matrix is fully capable of safely keeping its inhabitant in stasis with no ill-effects whatsoever."
Batman's eyes narrowed. "If built correctly?"
"The molecular arrangement of these crystals seem to be rather haphazard," Doctor Fate admitted. "I do not believe they were constructed by an experienced hand."
"What does this mean for the victims?" Egerton asked, frowning.
"Well, their situation isn't as dire as I'd imagined — they all have a good chance of surviving the breaking of their stasis — but they may experience some undesirable side-effects, depending on how long they were trapped. Which is why I still advise getting them out as soon as possible."
"No kidding," said Egerton. "We've been trying, but it has us all stumped. A team of experts from New York arrived about a week ago — they've been working on it with us, but as you can see, they're not having much luck, either. I don't suppose you have any ideas?" he asked Batman hopefully.
"I'll let you know if I do." Batman pocketed his gem-cutter just as his comlink buzzed in his ear and Zatara's familiar voice came through.
"I've found Star Sapphire. Corner of Sand and Pacific. Requesting immediate backup."
"Fate?"
"On it."
Doctor Fate waved his hand, and his characteristic purple ankh portal appeared. The two Leaguers stepped through at once, and the portal closed behind them.
Time for a Flash is variable. Due to their incredible speed, hyper-perception was an absolute necessity, otherwise they would be banging into everything in their way. Hyper-perception allowed the Flash's brain to process information at the same speed he was running, so that he had time to react appropriately. The downside of hyper-perception was that it made normal events happening in real time agonizingly slow from Flash's viewpoint. Fortunately, Wally could turn off this enhanced sense when he was not using his powers, and live in real time with everyone else without feeling like he was living in a world of molasses — but his hyper-perception could and would still involuntarily kick in at the most inopportune moments.
Such as when he was in the process of falling at least twenty feet to the hard asphalt. Wally knew full well that he would be in the air for less than a second before he hit the ground — acceleration due to gravity was 9.8 meters per second squared — but to his speedster's mind, it was feeling like several minutes. He had plenty of relative time to realize that forcefully breaking himself free of Star Sapphire's hold in mid-air — when he couldn't fly — might not have been the brightest idea.
I probably should have thought that through. Flash winced at the sight of the road coming (slowly) up to meet him. This is gonna hurt.
A pair of hands caught him before he hit the ground, and his hyper-perception switched off like a light bulb, restoring him to regular time.
"Thanks, J'onn," he said as the Martian set him down on his feet.
"You are welcome."
Flash looked up and saw Star Sapphire now being engaged by Batman and Doctor Fate, who had just come out of an ankh portal. She was holding her own decently against Gotham's Caped Crusader, but when the world's foremost sorcerer started spellcasting, she quickly lost altitude. Doctor Fate's mystical energy blasts slammed full force into her, and Star Sapphire dropped like a stone. Flash was already on his way to catch her when she managed to successfully shield herself from Doctor Fate's next spell, and then she shot back up, swiping Fate aside with a whip construct.
J'onn launched himself into the air, arms outstretched. Star Sapphire shot a beam at him, but he twisted out of the way and continued on, phasing through her resulting barrage. Realizing she wasn't going to get anywhere if she attacked the Martian Manhunter head on, Star Sapphire created a shield to deflect three batarangs from Batman, before seizing the Dark Knight himself and flinging him into J'onn. The two Leaguers crashed into the steel framework of a nearby tower, J'onn managing to angle himself so he would take the brunt of the impact instead of his frailer human teammate.
"Llaberif!"
A fireball struck Star Sapphire from the left, hurled her way by Zatara, who had propelled himself into the air to join the fight. She dipped a few inches, twirled out of the way of the next fireball, then shot out a claw to grab the magician. Zatara nimbly ducked, and Star Sapphire's preoccupation with him allowed Doctor Fate to sneak up and grab her from behind. She immediately bucked, reacting with violet energy, but the experienced sorcerer held her fast as her aura flared madly. Fidgeting and squirming within his grip, Star Sapphire managed to work her arm loose enough to gain sufficient leverage to jam her elbow into Fate's abdomen. Doctor Fate huffed in pain and his grasp loosened, allowing Star Sapphire slip out and rocket further up into the atmosphere. Zatara gave chase, streaming through the air after her; she hammered him back to the ground, shield and all.
A purple ankh appeared in the sky and a hard shove from the recovered Martian Manhunter pushed her straight into it. Star Sapphire was dropped to the ground by the exit portal, where Batman and Flash were waiting. Flash ran up a whirlwind around her while Batman held a canister of knockout gas ready to spray her with once she was sufficiently disoriented.
That didn't happen. Star Sapphire disappeared into the swirling air, but a second later the rounded tip of a mini jet smacked Flash in the chest, the edge of the wing catching Batman as well. Doctor Fate attempted to assist, but Star Sapphire was within her construct this time, and his attacks simply rebounded off the hard light surface while the plane itself zoomed first into a recovering Zatara, then J'onn, then Doctor Fate.
Deciding enough was enough, Star Sapphire molded the jet into a glowing rope. She looped coils around all the five men and pulled tight, bringing them together in the middle of the street. Bringing her other arm to support the one holding the her construct, she sent a powerful surge through the rope.
Bright violet energy exploded, momentarily blanking out the entire battlefield. When it faded, Star Sapphire was nowhere to be seen.
The large block of pink crystal left in the street, however — and the men inside it — was impossible to miss.
A/N: If anyone's still reading, I'd love to hear from you =)