14 August 2010
Annapolis, Maryland
'I know my grasp of Earth history is based largely on Earth sitcoms' Ms Martian hummed over the telepathic link as the three stood at the base of the hill, staking out the first of the men in Mason's photo. The three of the Pentagon and the two from Honolulu had reconvened in Maryland, almost as soon as the clock had ticked over to the wee hours of the next morning. 'But why would a North Vietnamese General be in a 1968 photograph with U.S. personnel?'
'Good question' Robin replied as his gaze flickered to the scanned photo picturing the man in question. 'This General Trang was the first person that my facial recognition software was able to identify'
'But that doesn't explain how Trang ended up here' Raven pointed out, 'Or how he ended up in place like this, in the States, of all places'
'Mm, it is strange' Robin nodded as he moved back to staring through his binoculars as Kid Flash and Superboy returned from doing a perimeter sweep. 'That takes money and connections…'
'Two things participation in an illegal smuggling ring might provide' Kid Flash replied.
'So, maybe Adams was right!' Superboy piped up, at least before something beyond their sight caught his attention. Those normally blue orbs lit up a brilliant red as the kryptonian switched over to thermal vision. 'Wait—! Wait a second! Trang's not alone in there! Someone's with him! Someone with a sword!'
'Shirley Mason was killed by a sword!' Robin noted.
'Then what are we waiting for?!' Kid Flash retorted, preparing to race off.
'Let's get 'em!' Superboy agreed, grinning in anticipation.
'NO' Robin quickly shut that idea down, 'This is a COVERT op. We keep to the SHADOWS and we DON'T take the offensive!'
'Like in Captain Atom's lecture…' Raven mused as Ms Martian took flight with a roll of her eyes and cloaked in invisibility, went to take a closer look.
'Rae' Kid Flash blinked, 'You were listening?'
'Eh…' She shrugged, neither agreeing to nor denying the fact.
Floating closer to the open window, Ms Martian barely made it to the open balcony before the sounds of conversation floated out to her. "…I know why your here. I still have my sources; sources which have told me about your methods, of your work with Mason" Trang smiled around the rim of his crystalline goblet. "But I must admit, I'm disappointed, Rako. I have protected you since you were a child and this is how you repay me? Have you no loyalty?"
"I do" The golden-plated samurai—Rako—drew himself up tall, with his blade poised above his head and glistening in the low lighting. "Just not to you"
THWACK!
Ms Martian didn't even think as she swung her hand out and telekinetically knocked the blade away from Trang. She knew that they needed to talk with Trang, to get information out of him about the Adams case and she couldn't, in good conscious, watch someone die right in front of her if she could do something about it. That's what heroes were all about, right? Saving people. In hindsight, it wasn't the best move.
"A new security system, General?" Rako purred as he turned to face the balcony where the martian had perched herself on the railing, cape trailing behind her and a cloak of invisibility draped around her. Apparently, it wasn't enough. Invisibility, despite what people might think, wasn't infallible and the samurai easily picked up on the martian's heat signature. "Most impressive indeed"
'Crap' Ms Martian inwardly swore, forgetting for a moment that she was still telepathically connected to the Team.
'Ms M?' Robin inquired, his tone sounding both concerned and curious.
'What's going on? Are you okay? D'you need help?' Kid Flash added, his words rushing together in a flurry of buzzing sounds.
THWUMP!
Before Ms Martian could reply, Rako strode out on the balcony and easily sliced his armour-plated hand straight through the place where the martian was perched. Unable to react in time, Ms Martian thudded to the floor with an audible groan, alerting the Team of her predicament and, in turn, revealed her presence to the samurai & the General. So much for covert (she just knew that there was a lecture about their failings in her near future).
"Unhhhh…" Ms Martian groaned as she was tossed aside and unceremoniously hit the floor at Trang's feet. The attack had knocked her about far more than she was expecting and as an aching dizziness settled behind her eyes, the martian found herself trying to blink away the spots which had suddenly sprouted across her vision from the too hard hit.
"It's too bad" Rako leered as he ripped his blade from the ceiling where it had become lodged, and moved to behead the martian girl at his feet. "That I'll have to dismantle it!"
'Dismantle…?' Ms Martian blinked confused, turning slightly to see the glinting blade headed for her. 'Oh'
'Ms M!' Robin panicked as her emotions flittered through the link. With looks of determination set in their faces & the sensation of overwhelming protectiveness flowing through the link, both Kid Flash & Superboy took off towards the hilltop mansion. Both of the avians were not far behind, Raven opting to hook her arms under Robin's armpits as she flew them towards their Team.
"Never gonna happen!" Superboy cried in reply to Rako as he burst through the screen door. Using his entire upper half as a battering ram, the kryptonian tore through the obstacle separating him from those hidden inside and the waves of rage & bloodlust that flowed off of him, were echoed by the speedster who was not far behind. In the meantime, Trang had scrambled from his chair and scurried to one of the back corners of the room for safe keeping. Not that it really helped.
SLAAAASH!
Rako swung his blade, spinning on his heel to meet the kryptonian coming straight for him with the intent to kill. The blue of his blade glinted in the low lighting, and sparked with the electricity that charged through the hidden circuits. It was just enough to slice through Superboy's t-shirt and chest, even as the boy ducked to avoid the blow.
Raven, meanwhile, found herself faltering beneath the intense waves of emotion and was only just able to keep a hold of Robin (though it was close) as she tried not to buckle beneath the weight of it all.
'Rae?' Robin turned to his fellow avian as she tried to block—or at least filter—out the empathic link as much as possible. 'Are you okay?'
'Uh huh' Raven nodded absently, eyes closed as she paused in the midair and tried worked through separating her emotions from Superboy's and Kid Flash's.
'You can let me down here' Robin poked at the younger girl, who had suddenly become stagnant. He wanted to know what was going on (he too could feel Superboy's rage, but it was less full on for him) and how he could help, but the rest of their Team also needed more immediate help. He knew that the witch could take care of herself and to be honest, it was less dangerous out here than up in there.
'O-okay' Raven nodded, her eyes flicking open for a moment so she could set him on his feet. Robin paused for a moment as he watched Raven right herself and fall into a seated position with legs crossed, hands folded into twin signs of the horn and closed her eyes once more. And then he was off, serenaded by the mumbled words of Arazanian, Raven's mothertongue.
"Biat a'wa alza Azarath" Raven murmured under her breath, "Unar'duk 'Am Ruh a'leam adban, a'tini alquat l'jahat h'dhih alma shir, h'dah" [By the powers of mighty Azarath, Mother Spirit of the Never Realm give me strength to face the emotions, that be].
'Superboy!' Ms Martian cried when she noticed the red that dripped from Rako's blade. 'Are you okay?!'
"I'm…I'm bleeding…?" Superboy stared in confusion at his own wounded chest, like he couldn't comprehend what had just happened.
'How can a Terran blade cut a kryptonian?' Ms Martian wondered as her head tilted in question, puzzling with morbid curiosity.
'Not the time, Ms M!' Robin replied as Kid Flash flipped in the room, coming in the through the hole in the door that Superboy had left behind.
Kid Flash did indeed connect with his intended target, but even with all of that centrifugal force behind his movements, he barely made the samurai stumbled forward a pace or two. Feet crumbling beneath the force of the rock-hard warrior, Kid Flash was easily tossed aside as if he were no more than a ragdoll; a nuisance. The speedster landed with a hard thud, groaning in pain as he rolled himself up onto his hands & knees and tried to regain his bearings as Rako descended on him. Fortunately, Ms Martian had regained enough of her own senses to telekinetically fling the samurai away from the speedster before his attack could land. Unfortunately, that meant his attention had returned to the martian and as he palmed a handful of throwing stars, Robin swung in through the open door.
"NO!" Robin cried as he watched the weapons fly, almost as if in slow motion. How could things have gone so wrong, so quickly? Things had started simply enough: Captain Atom, the Team's espionage instructor, had assigned them a cold case from 1968 to solve, about an Air Force Officer by the name of Nathaniel Adams who was convicted of murder and then later died in prison. Captain Atom had been tipped off that Adams might have been framed and, in doing so, assigned the case to the Team in the hopes that they could use what they had been taught to dig up long & buried secrets. But their investigation seemed to have caused a chain reaction amongst the surviving members involved with the case because one woman—Lieutenant Shirley Mason—had already died and with the way things were looking, another may already be on the menu. Robin could only hope that they were able to thwart the plot to kill General Trang before it was too late.
No sooner had Robin alighted in the hilltop mansion and made to help his teammates, did he find himself swallowing a fistful of golden-plated armour. Just as Kid Flash suddenly found himself having to peel his face off of the floor, Robin too, had to get his feet underneath him before the samurai struck again. Scrambling to his feet, Robin turned to try and help Ms Martian, mind all a-jumbled as he made to stop the throwing stars before it was too late. Spinning on the balls of his feet, the avian sidekick heard more than saw, the moment that the weapons stopped in their trajectory; although it wasn't because of him.
KLATTER!
Mercifully, before the throwing stars could connect with Ms Martian's face, a filmy black inkiness slithered across the weapons and dropped them to the floor. Raven had returned just in time to catch the weapons before they were able to embed themselves into Ms Martian. '…Thanks Raven' Ms Martian breathed a sigh of relief.
'Your welcome' Raven replied, her tone just as breathy and with hands that were just as shaky as the martian's.
"C'me on, Supey! Get it together!" Kid Flash called as he clambered to his feet. Across the way, Raven alighted on the floor as she trotted over to Ms Martian to help her up.
"What? Oh right" Superboy nodded as he scrambled to his feet. The sidekicks regrouped, pausing if only for a moment before they made to charge the samurai. "Let's take him—!"
RRRRIIIIIPPP!
"—Ah!" Raven gasped as they were suddenly blinded by a large and heavy rug that was chucked over them, dragging all of the sidekicks to the floor.
"Hey!" Kid Flash yelped as he tried to disentangle his limbs from the others. "Who turned out the lights?"
"Somebody's l'ayas [hands] are on my b'qip [butt]!"
"…Sorry" Robin apologised, his cheeks flushing red in the dark as he realised just what it was he was grappling with.
"Get this off of me!" Superboy growled as he tried to wrestle with the cloth covering all of them.
WHOOSH!
"…Thanks Ms M" Raven flashed the martian a smile as she telekinetically flung the rug off of the five of them. Blinking rapidly at the sudden change in light, it took them a moment to untangle themselves from one another, only to discover that both Trang and Rako had disappeared.
"…This is embarrassing" Kid Flash groaned as he pulled himself free of both Superboy and Raven. "Practically a comedy"
"Yeah, it would be" Robin agreed, his voice filtering out from some secret back room that he'd found in the time in had taken for the others to get free and get to their feet. Following his voice, the others soon found themselves looking upon the sight of yet another dead body. Once again, Raven found her vision blocked by a hand but this time, she just left it there. Less so because she was afraid of what she might see, and more so of how she would react (the last time she had seen a corpse—had been the cause of someone's death—was back when her father had invaded Azarath) this man that they were supposed to protect—to watch & talk to—had been alive only mere moment ago and now he was dead. Because of them, because they hadn't been fast enough, because they hadn't been enough. "If Trang's corpse didn't scream 'Greek Tragedy!"
