I'm so sorry. I've just been proof reading and I've realized that I've been mixing my tenses. I'd like to blame my inexperience at writing, but I don't find that a proper excuse. It's going to take me a while to correct that on account I don't have constant online access to make the corrections. Again; any help, criticism and advice will be greatly appreciated.
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"I don't know what you did, but it's obviously your biggest mistake," comes the sound of the looming voice of a king. Expanding his view, he sees before him, floating in the air, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter and the Green Lantern. On the ground he could see Aquaman, and somewhere in the background, he knows that Batman is looming. The Justice League of America.
"No," he thinks to himself. "Not yet. I'm too far from the building. They're too early. I can't take them now…"
Wonder Woman speaks loudly with her full almost poetic voice; her eyes never moving away from her opponent, "John, check on Superman."
John lowers himself to the ground and feels Superman's wrist.
"I think I have a pulse here."
Wonder Woman, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "J'onn?"
"I am unaware as to this man's motives. He is somehow shielding himself from my influence."
Wonder Woman opens here eyes looking at the dark clad assailant. "You will be given only one option. I suggest you try and explain yourself now."
Cautiously, he stands up with his mystical Escrima stick in his hand. He holds it out horizontally in front of him. Five seconds to an eternity later, the man in black feels his heart drop. They had no reaction… at all. They don't know. Then he realizes that the Flash isn't there. His one out is no longer an option.
The odds are impossible. He frantically tries to think of a way out of this. He's too far from the building. He's got a few tricks, but none of them will work on all of them at the same time.
"Are you challenging us?" comes the words of Aquaman, a smile creeping across his face.
Five of the most powerful people in the world are standing in front of him.
Any reasonable individual would have given up by now. Either that or they would try to talk their way out of it. Circumstances are different now. If he fails to save her, it's not going to be because he fails to try.
With that, he pushes a release button and quickly swings the Escrima stick behind him extending it four times into a quarter staff. Holding it behind him, he matches up his opponents. J'onn could end the fight in a second, but he stays back and fights with telepathy so others can have their "opportunity" to be heroes. Batman's opportunistic and will only hit when he's sure of an attack to end the fight. Most likely, he's staying at a third or fourth floor elevation in the limited shadows. John has the most power, but he's developed a habit of only attacking when he's told to. Arthur favors his…
"Nightwing, wait."
The Flash comes on the scene. He got the message. The others are taken aback by the Flash's revelation. They look at the Flash and then back at the man. He removes the shawl from his face to reveal the accusations validity. The shock prevents them from acting out right.
Immediately Nightwing calls out "B". Without hesitation, the Flash runs as fast as he could to an alley becoming nothing but a red blur. For the brief instance, one could see a black streak in the road as it is raced away. Wonder Woman, having seen the Flash grab Batman, rises higher off the ground and says, "You three handle this." With that she's gone just as fast.
And then there were three. Now all Nightwing has to do is take down a king of Atlantis, the most powerful weapon in the known universe and a telepathic shape-shifting Superman. How hard could that be?
As Arthur's eyes trailed away from Wonder Woman, he was the first to follow Nightwing jump down an upturned manhole quarterstaff in hand.
"Did you see around his head?" John asks referring to a thin metallic band around his head.
"It must be what's blocking his thoughts from me."
"So who's going after him?"
Landing twelve feet below the street level, Nightwing stands on a landing just before the five foot drop into the sewer water. After quickly looking up, he jumps into the two feet of flowing sewer water below him. He touches his mask and the lenses over his eyes glow green making the dark tunnels visible for seven feet ahead of him. He races upstream down the tunnel.
He quickly thinks to himself, "Which one are they going to send?" He then hypothesizes that they all know that Arthur is the only one of them that would do well in close quarters. He quickly places a couple of pre-set proximity high-impact stun grenades ahead of and behind him. He then jumps up onto a four foot ledge above the water with his quarterstaff in hand. At that moment, he sees the green light falling into the sewers.
"No. They know it's too dark down here and would send the one member in the team that could produce light; Green Lantern." Nightwing looks into the water trying to locate where he left those pesky grenades. Could they have flowed down stream with the water? Even if he could locate them, he can't just pick up a proximity grenade. Nor could he let one set off so GL can know where he is. "Stupid, Stupid, Stupid." He thinks. He looks around him trying to find something… anything. Think.
Then above him and four feet to the left, he sees a connecting trap to the utility tunnels above him. The steel door has two rusted metal lever handles hanging from it. With the quarter staff in hand, he pole vaults himself toward the steel door. His left hand just reaches the handle when an all too familiar green wall comes up from be hind him. Nightwing quickly uses his quarter staff to launch himself as far away from wherever the grenades could possibly be. He rolls as he hits the water and is engulfed in the dreadful smell.
As Nightwing gets up, he crosses his hands and grabs two gadgets from both his bucklers. One item he places in his mouth as he throws the other behind him at the Green Lantern. A large trail of smoke follows the projectile toward the green glow. Quickly and effortlessly, the Lantern creates a fan blade with his ring. The fan blows the smoke back toward it origination and dissipates. He's vanished again.
Green Lantern still floating two feet above the water, creates a giant sift five feet in front of him. He then drops it in the water and moves it forward. Sure enough, Nightwing is hiding in the water and stands up. He rapidly throws a handful of wing-dings. Green Lantern easily blocks them and screams, "That's enough."
The sift turns into a flowing beam of light that wraps around Nightwing bounding his entire body. Nightwing is brought closer to within two feet of John and asks, "What the hell is this about Nightwing?"
Nightwing opens his mouth to reveal a small device between his teeth. He bites down emanating a bright flair-like light distracting him long enough for Nightwing to get his right hand free. He roughly jabs two fingers far into John's mouth causing him to have a gag reaction. The slight distraction is enough for John to loose concentration, fall into the water and release Nightwing. The sewer is now once again completely dark. Nightwing quickly holds John in a Fujiwa - neck and shoulder lock. Having the leverage he is able to hold John just above the water to not drown him and still have the ability to stop the flow of blood to the brain.
Suddenly, Nightwing begins to feel a searing pain in his leg as he feels himself being flung across the tunnel.
"Get off of him!" comes the familiar voice of the king. Nightwing winces from the pain and rolls with his fall. He moves deeper into the tunnels and in the comfortable darkness.
John then glows brightly enough for Arthur and John to see more clearly.
"Are you all right John?"
"I'm fine, he just surprised me."
"We have to be careful. The bat-clan uses more tricks and traps than most of our villains."
"Ending this quickly will be easy."
Looking back in the direction of Nightwing, Arthur yells, "If it's a fight you want boy, I'll be too happy to oblige!" He starts walking in that direction when the light behind him begins to fade. He quickly looks behind him toward Green Lantern.
"What's the matter?"
"I don't know. I can't seem to..." John tries to stand up straight, but his knees buckle beneath him. Arthur goes to help him. It's then that he notices the small drop of blood in his neck. Having worked with the Batman for so long, he expects the current reaction from John to be from some kind of drug.
"Can you get out of here?" he asks. The biggest reaction John could give is shaking his head. The light is almost completely out. He tries to reach J'onn telepathically.
"J'onn. Can you pick up John?"
"Where is your location?" come the thoughts of J'onn.
"I don't know. I can't see a damn thing down here."
"I'll be there momentarily."
The light is completely gone as J'onn replies.
"Get down here n-"
Arthur is interrupted by the feel a stick against the back of his head. Annoyed, he looks around him to see the brief sight of Nightwing running behind him.
"Damnit Garth," Nightwing thinks, as he rushes along the tunnels away from the JLAers. "Anyone includes Aquaman."
Arthur begins to take chase then realizes he's left John alone. "J'onn, I need you down here - now!
"I am presently trying to contact Flash, Wonder Woman and Batman."
"Forget them J'onn, I need you down here to take care of John now. I can't go after this kid and-" Arthur pauses as he feels around the darkness for John. Frantically, he begins searching around the water.
"Don't worry Aquaman, he's safe."
"What is this about Nightwing?"
"I can't say. All I can do is promise you I'll do all I can to make this right."
After a short time of wandering, Arthur calls out, "You know full well that I'm not going to lie down like a dog for you."
"In all honesty; if half the stories Garth told me about you are true, I might actually enjoy this."
With that, a wing ding hits a nearby wall setting off one of the proximity grenades. Arthur falls back against the side wall of the tunnel. Another wing-ding flies and hits another grenade beside him throwing him farther down the tunnel.
Getting up from his hands and knees frustrated, he yells, Damnit boy! Fight me! Face to face like a man." He hears rusted metal turning down the shaft of the tunnel and sees a light pouring down into the sewer fifteen feet down the tunnel. He then sees Nightwing pull himself up through the doorway. Aquaman runs as fast as he can toward the light, but Nightwing pulls himself up into the utility tunnels too fast for Arthur to catch up. Before he closes the door, he drops two pellets. The pellets explode and gas comes streaming out of them filling the sewers quickly.
In the utility tunnel, Nightwing seals the trap door to the sewer as tightly as he can. He hears a banging on the other side of the door beneath him. It begins as a repetitive, constant banging. It slows tempo quickly. A dent comes up from below. Nightwing gets up to his feet and holds his quarter staff ready. A small crack reveals itself in the metal and the gas begins to seep into the tunnel. The gas becomes a fog lining the bottom three inches of the tunnel. Nightwing can hear the coughing of Aquaman as he punches up through the door. Aquaman bends the metal of the door out of the way and drags himself up into the tunnels coughing, desperately trying to get the gas out of his lungs.
Nightwing, distracted by Aquaman, failed to see J'onn phase through the ground behind him.
J'onn is arguably the most powerful being on earth. He's a shape shifter and telepath, with Superman's strength, speed and eye beams. He has no kryptonite. He doesn't breathe air through lungs, but through his skin, so gasses don't work on him. His skin is practically impenetrable as long as he's conscious, so most poisons and serums are ineffective. The closest thing he has to a flaw is that he has a bad reaction to fire… but who doesn't? But sometimes strengths can be the greatest weakness from its removal.
J'onn flew at light speed to grab the metal band surrounding Nightwing's head. The minute it left Nightwing's head a sweltering pain stabs into the minds of both Aquaman and J'onn. J'onn's costume begins to turn green and his features stretch to a points. Aquaman is in so much pain that he can't bring himself to cough up the rest of the gas in his lungs. That pain is a fraction of J'onn's pain. Every thought in a twelve mile radius is pouring through his mind at the same time burning his mind like fire.
The utility tunnels of Metropolis run all the lines under the streets. Everything from the phone lines, gas, electricity, cable lines run through these tunnels. They're sealed off with thick hardened steel and lined with lead to protect these lines from the damage that concurrently happens a few feet above them. There are lights streaming along the top are fed by a separate electric line than the main power lines running along the sides.
J'onn fell to his knees and leans back unable to take in a breath for another scream.
"I'm sorry J'onn."
After loosing concentration from the pain, Nightwing is able to shove his quarterstaff through J'onn and into the power lines that feed the city of Metropolis.
Another problem with J'onn is insulation. His costume is his skin, so he isn't able to wear rubber soles to insulate a pulse.
Thousands of volts of power are fed directly into the Martian as he falls from a pain he, nor anyone since, has never felt. The whole tunnel appears to be dulled. He starts to walk toward Aquaman. Nightwing kneels down beside him pulling out a cloth of some kind. Aquaman just lays there, unable to move.
"What have you do-"
He is interrupted by Nightwing placing the cloth over his mouth.
"My belt has a mental amplifier. It feeds all thoughts and emotions across the city into my head. I'm not a telepath, so I'm just a deaf man working at an airport. The mental inhibitor was actually to prevent the thoughts from coming out. J'onn's a telepath and you're an empath. I just needed you two in close proximity. This is just chloroform. I promise I will make this right… but…"
Aquaman was unconscious before he can finish. Nightwing doesn't know what else to say. He gets up and looks at the two comatose people lying beside him. He picks up the quarterstaff and unlocks it. It shrinks back to the size of Escrima stick and he places it into a holster in his thigh.
He presses a button on his left buckler. He then says, "Pick up these ones for now." He shakes his arms letting the blood flow through his arms. His bucklers are coated with lead and the weight is starting to take its toll.
Nightwing looks up to see an access shaft. He starts to climb to the street. He lifts up the access panel for the shaft.
He doesn't lift it up all the way. He wants to get his bearing. He looks around… There it is. The building.
The access is pulled from its hinges and Nightwing is thrown up from the shaft and down the street. Fortunately for him, he was able to roll with his direction and get into a defensive stance.
He looks back to see one of the most dangerous things he's ever seen. The sight is the icon that, to some, outshines the Superman. She floats a few feet above the street with her arms crossed. She is Wonder Woman, and she looks pissed.
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I want to say three things while I research the next chapter.
1.The next chapter will reveal who Nightwing is doing all this for (again, this isn't continuity).
2.I'd like to thank all who sent me a review and (again) any help, criticism and advise would be greatly appreciated.
3.All nay-sayers to this story…
-When the enemy is confused, you can use this opportunity to take them (Du Mu)
-Tire them by flight (Sun Tsu)
-Some win through speed, even if they are clumsy (Cao Cao)
-Overcome your opponent by calculation (Li Quan)
-Invincibility is a matter of self-defense; vulnerability is simply a matter of having gaps (Wang Xi) --The Art of War
Translated by Thomas Cleary