Author Notes: Caffeine Justice League THIS. And that's my reason for writing this. XD; Just the first part here. Oh well. :3
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Heck, my JL tapes are recorded off TV, and, thus, bootleg. I own NOTHING! Bwahahaha! :flops thuds:
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Path
I cannot see how you can be
So fucking hateful of my ways
From all these thoughts, I will not stray
The hate I feel today
-- Ill Nino, 'If You Still Hate Me'
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Thump. Thump.
A groan sounded against the darkness, the only sound save for the nearly rhythmatic beats. Amber eyes opened as confusion reared, but ebony was the only witness.
What had happened? The last he could recall, he had been on his way home, slinking through the shadows to avoid being seen. Then.. Had he been struck from behind? Memory failed.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The beats grew faster, terrifying drums, and realization bloomed; his own heart seemed impossibly loud.
Coherency was slowly but surely returning. Thoughts struggled to string together, and the absent thought passed, wondering if he had been drugged. Attempt to sit, to stand, failed with the notice of bonds; thick, plastic straps held him immobile, the kind used in psychiatry wards.
Bound. Drugged. Dark. Thoughts joined with realization and wed with horror.
Thumpthumpthumpthump.
What had happened? What had happened?! Vision could not be properly accessed, and it only led to the rise of fear.
Creak.
… That was not his heart.
There came a sudden, startling light; a doorway opened, but glare proved to be too strong against his own eyes. All he could see was a shadow, a silhouette, against the white.
"How lucky." A cruel voice crooned in clear glee. "A brand new toy to play with."
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"J'onn!" The thick voice boomed across communications, laced with panic. "I can't find him!"
The last living Martian had to conceal the cringe, masking his annoyance; for all the times for a vague call, this was certainly not the best of them. "Hawk, what's the problem?"
"I can't find Dove! Have you seen him? He didn't come home!"
"Hawk, the last mission Dove was sent on was with you over two days ago--"
"He left the house for goddamn groceries, and he did not come home!"
"Hawk!" Slowly, J'onns emotions were becoming clear. "The League is currently dealing with a Delta-Class situation in downtown Metropolis! Perhaps he took a longer route home. But it hardly qualifies for --"
"He's been missing since last night! He's never been gone this long!"
That gave the Martian reason to pause. It was nearly noon in the city where Hawk and Dove spent their civilian lives; twelve hours of no word for a duo as close as they were did not bode well.
"After this situation is cleared, I'll inform the League. We'll find Dove."
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"Now, then, little one.." A saccharine mockery laced his kidnappers' tone. "What is your name?" A stab of pain, temporary yet wholly painful, followed the words.
A short time after he had awoken, barely an hour by the large clock oddly place on the wall, the pain had begun. It lacked rhyme or reason, at first, and there came query as to why it was happening, but each question was met with further pain. The clock was the only distraction.
Red and white. The clock was red and white. It reminded him of the clocks in nostalgic 50's restaurants.
At thirteen past twelve, the question came.
At first, there came confusion, but the strike of the small whip across his bare stomach quickly chased it away. He answered, of course, as soon as he was able; there was every reason to do so, and very little reason against it.
"No, no, no, little one." Cruelty crooned. "Your other name."
That was when he realized he had given the name of his mask. Two strikes of the whip passed before he could bring himself to reply; regret formed nearly immediately.
"Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Laughter that could so easily be mistaken as cheerful, yet was so dark at the same time.
The whip came down again.
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The security tapes from the front of the grocery store became the first lead in the League's investigation; a man, normal and plain and so easy to blend into a crowd, following the civilian garbed Dove.
Similar security recordings from a shop less then twenty feet down the road revealed the absence of both.
The man lead no hits upon the League's computers; none of the worlds' heroes had ever seen this man before. There was very little choice but to physically send a few of the League down to the small stores, asking with photo in hand if anyone knew who the man was.
Within an hour, they had a name. Within an hour and a half, they had information. Within two hours, they had a location.
Within five minutes, they had hope.
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The clock was all that he had left.
After some time, his kidnapper seemed to obtain boredom; the whip was taken away, was replaced with further horror, only to become worse when boredom reintroduced itself again. Each time, eyes wandered to the only distraction available, the only escape possible.
One limb was simply gone, taken cruelly with a blade he could have sworn was dull to have invoked the agony that it had. The flesh of the lost limb had later been forced down his throat, and the sick nausea that it had caused was stopped with a tight gag. Burns laced wounds that decorated flesh, and the still bleeding scar across his temple was lost in a sea of pained recollection. He could no longer recall when his clothes had been taken.
He had plead, had screamed, but his torturer had simply laughed, a light baritone that he had quickly learned to hate. Out of desperation, he had offered information, had laid his knowledge bare, simply wishing for the pain to cease. His kidnapper took what he wanted, and did as he pleased.
Eyes wandered amidst cries towards the clock; it was all that was left.
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Adam Craven, the League learned, was a devout psychotic. At least, that was the opinion of most who learned of him.
He was barely thirty, younger than most of those dubbed 'villains' that the League had faced in the past. There was, as well, nothing particularly special about the man; no powers, no dark history, he even had the appearance of a normal man. Brown hair, brown eyes, someone one could look upon and easily forget.
However, Mr. Craven was an outspoken man, and, after the Thanagarian invasion, had become quite the pro-human; or, as often thought, an anti-nonhuman. It was clear from anything he had spoken or written that he hated Superhumans, Mutants, Metahumans, or anything that could be classified as one or the other.
Yet, it was still somehow particularly surprising when the League found that he had been behind the disappearance of a member of the League. It was never thought that a normal man would go so far as kidnapping out of sheer hatred of existence.
"But, then," One of the heroes had said, "isn't that the human condition?"
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The man was gone. It was as much of a shock as it was an incredible relief; he could not recall the last time he had been alone, if such a time had existed during his captivity at all. Yet, now, he was alone, left with nothing but his pain, his thoughts, and the clock.
However, the clock was now not needed. The pain that existed now was nothing compared to the agony of before, was nearly a dull ache. Nearly, but not quite.
Thus, his thoughts were all that remained. The last strings of hope, misery, regret. A great deal of regret, he realized; there was so much in his life that he wished he could now undo.
His entire way of life was flawed. Suddenly, he found himself wishing for survival, to have a second chance at all that had gone wrong. He knew he would not, could not, survive; his kidnapper had said as much. He did not doubt him. Everything else he had said had come to pass.
Misery entwined with regret; heaving sobs forced themselves past the gag still in place; tears escaped closed eyes.
Creak.
He could only turn his head to stare in alarm; immediately, he wished he hadn't, wished he did not look. The man was back.
He held a metal mallet in one hand.
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The house seemed disturbingly normal. A standard, cookie-cutout house, nearly identical to all the others lining the street, save for the color of the roof. Red and white shingles. The roof was red and white.
"Superman, are you sure this is the right house?" Wonder Woman queried, standing, alone, in front of the small building. She looked to the sky briefly, looking for the Man of Steel. "It seems so.. Normal."
"It's the right one." Was the brisk reply. "The basement is coated in lead." There was only one reason for that to be.
"There's not a lot we know about this guy." Green Lantern, at the back of the house, suddenly spoke. "We need to be on our guard."
That seemed to be the silent order to begin. The princess of Themyscera did not bother with a grand entrance; she simply walked to the front door and forced it down.
A similar sound came from another room; Green Lantern had taken the same approach. Wonder Woman did not wait for her friend to join with her; instead, she headed to the lower floor by way of the stairs. She wanted to rescue Dove as quickly as possible.
J'onn had said he felt a great deal of distress from the captured hero. She hoped that he was not harmed.
The basement, she learned, was surprisingly small; a total of two rooms, directly across from each other. She opened the left door, and found what she desired.
"Dove!" She gasped in relief, shocked at the state she found him in.
He was unharmed.
In civilian cloth, arms bound behind his back and chained to the wall, but unharmed.
"I found Dove!" She spoke into the communicator. "He seems to be all right. Are you all right, Dove?"
The young man, somewhat pale and eyes wide, could only nod. He seemed to be at a loss for words, and it only led to the princess's concern.
"What happened?" She had tried to ask.
"Oh my.." Green Lantern gasped, horror clear in his tone. "We need a medical transport down here now! We have a second victim here!"
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Wonder Woman had found Dove through the left. Green Lantern decided to check the right.
He was glad that he had.
At first, he could only stare in numb horror. "Oh my.." It took a long second before he was able to call through his communicator. "We need a medical transport down here now! We have a second victim here!"
The man was strapped to a table, practically covered in blood. It was clear that he was once a metahuman, or, at the least, a mutant; half of a tail lay connected to flesh. It had been forcefully removed, if the gore coated butcher knife on the floor was any indication.
The hero clad in green made his way as quickly as he was able to the side of the table, trying to remove the straps without further injuring the poor soul; both arms, from elbow to fingertips, looked as if someone had run them over. Marks from what he thought was from a whip covered his torso, and burns from an unknown source seemed to randomly plaster themselves around flesh.
The wielder of an Oan ring looked to his face; somehow, he felt ill at what lay before him. Both eyes were simply gone, were nothing more than blood and gore.
"We have a Javelin outside, Lantern." Diana's voice suddenly came into focus. "I'm coming in to help."
He couldn't bring himself to tell her to stop, that he could bring the tortured body outside himself; not after realizing that the body was not simply a body, and, in fact, was trembling, and had begun to whimper. The body was awake.
There was no attempt to use his ring; the straps were now gone, and the gag was simply, albeit gently, torn free.
"Great Hera!" Came the horrified yelp. "Lantern, do you.." Wonder Woman paused, swallowed audibly, looked briefly to the whimpering, bloodied mass, before looking back to her friend. "Do you need me to carry him?"
He couldn't speak, feeling ill from the stench of blood and death, and had finally made use of the ring; green encompassed the still bleeding form, bringing him gently through the air. A yelp of surprise was all that escaped, but the whimpers continued.
Even as they left the room that had nearly been this mans' grave, a horrified notice came into the two heroes' vision; there were corpses in the darkened corners of the room.
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No one was quite sure how Mr. Craven had known they were going to arrive, or how he continued to evade being found. There had been a call to every member of the League to be on the lookout for the nearly nondescript man; justice had to be done.
The medical team aboard the Watchtower was all that was keeping the rescued individual from death. His identity was still unknown, but all that could be done was being done to keep him alive.
The damage done was horrifying.
"Elbow and knees were dislocated. Two broken ribs. Second degree burns from what appears to be a branding iron, or a piece of heated metal. Several dozen whip marks along the abdomen. It seems his hands and lower arms were crushed with a meat cleaver, and he'll be lucky if he'll so much as be able to open a can of soda ever again. His eyes were physically removed, his eardrums seemed to have been destroyed, and it seems like his tail was cut in half." Batman frowned, seemingly disturbed by the information. "DNA tests bring up no matches on the Watchtowers' computers, or my own."
"There were four corpses in the same room." Green Lantern's composure seemed to have returned, his tone strong. "Two metahumans, one mutant, and an atlantean." The surrounding members of the League stared in shock; he frowned, lifting a shoulder in a small shrug. "I was just as surprised as the rest of you. I already contacted Aquaman."
Silence reigned for a long several minutes. The implications of the situation had not gone unnoticed, and each of the top members of the Justice League knew what it all translated into.
"Why didn't we notice this before?" Superman's rhetorical question was almost a surprise. "Four innocent people are dead, it may turn into five, and one of our own nearly met the same fate. How did we miss this?"
"This is all too freaky." Came a shudder from Flash. "We didn't even catch the guy." The fastest man alive paused for a moment, blinked once, then looked to J'onn. "Hey, can't you use your telepathy to find out who the guy in the medwing is?"
The last surviving Martian simply nodded. "I was about to ask permission, actually."
"Do it." Superman nodded once. "I'm sure he would like his family to know he's alive."
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There was no pain, and he was not yet dead. Somehow, the two facts should not have gone hand in hand, and it was a complete surprise to find that either existed at all.
Something, however, felt odd. He was only half conscious, he knew, was quite aware that he was in some sort of hospital, if his own sense of smell was not deceiving him. Yet, simply did not want to fully accept consciousness; he feared it was all an illusion, hallucinated knowledge, and that agony awaited him.
We will not hurt you. The soothing voice was a surprise; was that his mind, or someone else? You are not insane, either.
Who are you? What's happening? He wanted to ask, but dared not attempt to speak.
I am with the Justice League. You were rescued last night. Rescued? He truly was gone from that place, then.
It is all right. The voice soothed, somehow sensing his nearly hysterical relief. I need to ask your name, however. We want to contact your family, to let them know that you're here.
I..
Several moments passed in silence. The Martian sitting on a chair next to the bedridden patient suddenly opened his eyes, blinking in surprise. He had found out who the man was, and was wholeheartedly shocked.
"…Copperhead?"
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My life is not something you think you can run
You should have learned
This is the reason we're done
I hate your ways, and everything that you say
I wish you dead
-- Ill Nino, 'If You Still Hate Me'
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Author Notes: And.. Er.. Yeah. There ya go. Part one sthuff. Did you like the ebilness? I need to write more ebilness. Cc waves about a flag with 'EBIL' in felt letters
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