WWLAOS: Thank you. My chapters don't always come out the way I want them. It did lack some spark, but don't forget about it.
oneredneckgoddess: Wait no longer.
Those at the table who could fly lunged into the air, while Songbird dove beneath a half-wall separating the dining room from the living room. Alfred charged the woman floating in air, leaping from the balcony. Fist drawn back, he smashed into her face as he flew. As if he had impacted a solid wall, she held immovable, and grabbed his fist as he started to fall.
"You don't have the power to injure me." The ring on her other hand glowed, and she fired, pitching him back against the far wall. J'nol caught him as he fell from it, coughing from the plaster dust, and pain. Two sentinels, one on either side of Ellie fired hands into the room, one aiming for Annia, the other for Rebecca. Annia dodged the hand and led it on a chase until it tied itself up. I landed and grabbed the cable, and laid my mace against it. The silver stud depressed, energy shot through the cable, and an explosion signalled the death of the Death Knight. The cable went taut as I let it go, and the Knight crashed agains the building, exploding again.
At the same time, Rebecca had let the hand grab her, and then unleashed lightning back down the cable. The Knight exploded. The hand released as the Knight fell. Ellie laughed. "Don't worry, I have more."
"How many more can you have?" Ace asked cockily. A moment later, I was sincerely wishing he hadn't done that. The roof was torn off revealing that she had not only brought all five hundred Death Knights, but also what looked to be every Sentinel in the city. "Oh, that many more."
"I think a retreat is in order." Alfred offered.
"I agree." Songbird noted, and drew back her bow. An arrow arced up, and exploded in a flare of light and heat. As it did so, temporarily blinding Ellie and the robots, J'nol phased us through the floor. Alfred hit the door of the apartment first, ripping off it's hinges, and sending it flying across the hall. I could hear the Knights attacking the floor of our aparment and ripping the ceiling apart. We hit the elevators just as they broke into the hall. I spun, and threw my mace up, deflecting a blast of heat vision into the roof, bringing it down just long enough to give us few seconds. We dropped into the shaft. There wasn't room to spread my wings, but I didn't need to. As I landed, the boys were already there to catch me. Energy lashed down the shaft, and blew chunks out of the floor. Ace leaned back and launched a column of flame upwards. J'nol was already ahead of us, opening a sewer access. We slipped into it, even though I had to fold my wings to fit. He closed it behind us, and phased through after us. Once into the sewers, we thought we were safe. Turns out we were wrong.
"I can still feel you!" Ellie called at the access. Energy flashed out, and the grate cover exploded. The tunnels were too narrow for the Knights, so she ordered them back and to cover every exit from the sewers. Now it was a race against time. Songbird held back for a moment inhaling.
"It's at killing range!" I screamed, but it was too late. The blast wave ripped apart the sides and supports of the tunnel, and I could feel the building above shaking. She stopped just as the roof of the tunnel collapsed. We turned and ran, as I fervently hoped the people above us were able to get out safely. The first exit from the sewers was a manhole cover, but J'nol phased through it, and found a pair of Knights and a dozen sentinels guarding it. "Annia, we'll keep going along this line, you look for an exit." Annia nodded, and zipped away, as we headed down the tunnel. I heard the breakthrough first, and pushed the others along.
"We cannot run forever!" Ace snapped as we moved.
"But we can't fight her in such close quarters." I snarled back. Annia reappeared.
"Most of them are blocked, but up ahead there's a massive junction that leads to the sea. That exit is under water, and is blocked by some sharks, but there's room to move in the junction." Annia reported.
"Then we can make a stand there. What do you think?" I asked.
"Go for it." Was the unanimous response. We swept into the room that might have, had it not been a sewer junction, served as a round house for railway locomotives, with room to spare, and two dozen entrances.
We arranged around the room, all facing out, since it wasn't possible to tell which way she was coming from. She did however, take the shortest route into the room, so I had the first clear shot. My mace, and her fist both slammed into our targets at the same moment, but each of our protective forcefields slammed up, blocking most of the force. With our attacks halted, we both fell back, but I had one advantage. I wasn't alone. Alfred crashed into Ellie again, this time from the side, so that she had to turn to face him. As before, his fist had no effect, but J'nol smashing into her from behind did. She splashed into the water, and then broke the surface again. Heatvision swept across the platform in the center, but arrows exploded in her face, blinding her so that she couldn't see. The twins reached out, and closed hands together, free hands coming up. A six pointed star flickered to life before them, two rings wrapping it and rotating slowly. Energy began to gather in front of it, as symbols appeared in the middle of the rings and the center of the star. Some rotated clockwise, some counter clockwise. Songbird fired two more arrows into the cloud, each of them exploding in a brilliant blue flash of light. Ellie charged from the cloud aiming for Songbird, unknowing that she had fired over the interlocked hands of the twins. Ellie charged straight into the spell as it unleashed it's potential energy.
The spell was fully autonomous once it finished and fired, which was good, as it's back blast chunked the twins and Songbird against the far wall. It was not so much an energy strike, as it was a massive, continuous beam of energy. Ellie was thrown against the opposite wall, and the spell held her. I grabbed Alfred, and J'noll picked up Songbird, as Annia led us to the nearest above water exit. Alfred led the charge, breaking through the manhole cover and destroying the two Death Knights positioned there by smashing them together. Rebecca weakly cloaked us in magic, and it lasted just until we reached the office building. The guard let us in without hesitation and the CEO was waiting in the basement.
"Are you alright?" He asked concernedly, as we half-collapsed to the floor. Inza had once explained that the twins had the power to equalize the energy of those around them, so that everyone would be equally tired or rested. When they grew more tired, the field that produced the effect would drain energy to keep them in balance, or as it was now, to keep them alive.
"Fine, we just need to rest for a time." I answered for the group.
"Good, I have news for you, that you might not like." He replied. I stared at him, considering a protest, but deciding against it. "Lord Akati's floating fortress arrives in the harbor tonight. We are planning a raid on the fortress when it arrives."
"We?" I asked, slightly confused. The walls seemed to bleed people, as each person detatched from the wall, and disengaged his camoflague.
"The New York resistance cell." The CEO replied. "I let you think I was brainwashed, but my man behind the mirror kept me safe from the tampering, as he does all our employee's. Very nice to meet you. I assume your father was Batman?" He asked Alfred, extending a hand. Alfred shook it warily. The other man chuckled.
"Must have been. My father described your's quite well, if a touch unflatteringly." The man laughed. "Robert Tracy Carter." He offered me his hand. "You must be one of Lantern's children."
"Aisha." I replied, shaking his hand. "You're Booster's son?"
"Yup. I built this company with some of the technology he... ahem, boosted, in the future." The man grinned. "So, we're going after Akati. I assume you're here to do the same?"
"Sort of." I replied. "But first, let's have some introductions." He laughed and I relaxed a little, though I was still wary for Ellie. She wasn't dead, that much I knew, but she was probably hurting, and that was to our advantage, even if we'd lost the element of surprise.
"Master, I have failed again." Ellie reported. Akati laughed. Even having sworn fealty to him Ellie hated his laugh, but she wouldn't say anything.
"Do not worry so child, I will deal with them when they attack me." Akati answered her concerns. "You will come to join me on my fortress at three o'clock this afternoon. They will try to attack tonight when I dock. We will be ready for them. Until then, I like the blue dress best." He finished. "And bring the two Knights."
"Yes Master." The screen flickered out. There was no mistaking his intentions. The blue dress he'd given her was stained with blood, some of it her own, some of it those of her victims. There were only two reasons he made her wear it, and killing those who would resist him was one of those reasons. The other was too horrible to think about. As for the two Knights, she knew which ones he meant. The one who had killed Green Arrow, and the on that had caused Kara Kent's accident. She did not want to know how he knew that they were going to attack him. The dress she wanted was in a small silver engraved box in the dresser, the inside of it sheeted with cedar panels to block out the smell. She waved the two men out of her room. They bowed and left. She'd had them tagged so that they could not leave the apartments she had at the top of the Hilton without being killed, so that she would not be revealed to have an exploitable weakness. Laying the blue dress across the dresser, she stepped to an intercom in the wall.
"Sentinel. Send for Death Knight 14, and 47. They are to meet me at the helipad a top the building. Send my carriage to the pad as well."
"Yes, mistress." The Sentinel responded. She released the intercom, and took a deep breath, before sitting on the bed. Two hours to three o'clock. Time enough for some fun. She called the two men back in.