22 August 2010
The Tower of Fate, Salem

Although it hurt to be back in the Tower so soon after Kent's death and her eviction, Rachel couldn't—wouldn't—leave it up to chance concerning her few meagre belongings. Nabu had made it quite clear about what he thought of her residing in his Tower and what he may very well do to the things she left behind. This was the Tower of Fate, y'know, all-seeing being of Order and that meant that there was no place for a being of Chaos in here. And as much as Rachel hated that she was technically only a guest—a ward—within the Tower thanks to Kent's teachings and with him gone, that too meant she would have to depart. The Lords of Order, such as Nabu, couldn't—& wouldn't—give two shits about a little witch like herself; unless she somehow happened to tip the balance of the universe (but that wouldn't happen for several more years).

Which was the very reason why the Team had returned on this day (Rachel was more than capable of packing up herself; but the older members had been particularly insistent about coming along. M'gann, Artemis & Wally being at the top of that list). Sat on the edge of her bed, Rachel couldn't find it in herself to start packing up her bedroom just yet, even though she already had several boxes taped up and awaiting departure on the bioship. Instead, she procrastinated the final move as she mourned the loss of the only earthly home she had ever known (because she had been far too young to remember the Apostles of Trigon Cult that she had been born to; knowing them only from her mother's sparse stories and the occasional wayward cultist who ran in the same circles).

An excitable yell sounded from somewhere in the Tower as a flash of red flannel zipped by, pulling Rachel from her dour thoughts with a small smile just in time to see the speedster being chased by an animated golem with a walking cane. Shaking her head, Rachel hauled herself from the bed and shuffled over to the empty boxes laying open in the middle of the room and with a heavy sigh, she spread her magic across the room. The tune that fell from her lips was an old cleaning song that her teacher, Azar, had taught them once upon a time when they had been tasked to clean the temples. It was supposed to be a fun little way to pass the time whilst they learnt to control their magicks on a larger scale.

"Higitus, figitus, zumba-bazing!
U'rid ani'bahak, kulu shiyan!
Nan nazzim am'teeana a'lan
Hiya bina! Hiya bina!
Tadakar dayum et alkuhi alu'wala!
Hockety, pockety, wockety, whack!
Abracadabra abra-anack!
Yataq'las fi al'am, sag'ir jidana
Elayna tawfir mishir kafat lil'jana!"

Everything that Rachel's magic touched suddenly swung around to face her, as if they were animated and their attentions were grabbed by the witch's magic. Everything from the Earthen globe to the taxidermied birds on the bookshelf, and even the heroic figurines sat on the windowsil.

"Higitus, figitus, migitusmum!
Prestidigitonium!
Cicero 'ana tami C's 'liat
Tar'bit abjadi 'idha samhat!
Ali'cafez balacazez!
Malacamez meripidez!
Tad'ai, tanqas, ya q'wami
Hadhi'ila alka'met mufrad'ami!"

The books came first, jumping off of the bookshelves with a flounce that seemed almost uncharacteristically cheery as they responded to her spell. Rachel's lips twitched up at the corners as she watched the dance along to her magic, before they shrunk and descended into the depths of the awaiting boxes. The taxidermied birds and other such figurines came next with the same amount of exuberance of the books.

"Hockety, pockety, wockety, whack!
Hadhi'ila alka'qat yajib naz'imaq!
Higitus, figitus, migitusmum!
Prestidigitonium!
Higitus, figitus, zooma-cazam!
Qef! Qef!
L'takul falzum al'muram!
Al'wiea alskur, ana'su qazitan
Taqam alashay al'qim alfar muta b'kafiran!"

Rachel didn't know why this particular exercise made the items dance so, but it was amusing enough that they did. Next came the breakables with the sugar bowl & crystalline ball rolled up in bubblewrap. Furniture followed soon after with Hugin's roost taking flight with the bird inside, much to the avian's chagrin and he made it well known about how he felt as it descended amongst the other pieces she was packing away. With the way things were going, it wouldn't take long for her to be done.

"Sanin, l'bada min, l'bada min
O, aya ka'flan?
Ah, hockety, pockety?
O, ja, ja!
Hockety, pockety, wockety, whack!
Alseeb w'yat ziva-zaq!
Higitus, figiuts, migitusmum!
Prestidigitonium!
Higitus, figiuts, migitusmum!
Prestidigitonium!"

Just as Rachel was finishing up, the last of her belongings shrank down and zipped into the last of the awaiting boxes, she heard a manic cackle reverberate throughout the Tower. Only the thought of the speedster fiddling with something he shouldn't be passed through her brain as she turned towards the door, curious to see who was laughing so candidly. But she had barely crossed the threshold before everything went black.


22 August 2010
Mad Mod's Institute for Bratty Do-Gooders, Salem

When Artemis woke with a gasp, she found herself tightly bound to an ornate wooden chair in a room that she did not recognise. Black & white tiles covered the foyer floor in dizzying arrays of checkerboards and a large winding staircase that seemed to loom over them, stood at one end of the room. The walls gave no indication as to where they were because there were no windows, but there were several portraits and busts depicting a rather gruesome-looking creature, that reminded her of the pug-faced old man who ran Bibbo's Diner in Metropolis. Even as she struggled to get free, a quick glance to her left showed her that the others were also in a similar predicament only their own bondages were only a little different. Where she had been stuck with simple metallic manacles for example, M'gann & Kaldur got fiery cuffs, Conner got ones of glowing green kryptonite, Rachel was bound with magic runes & a strip of tape slapped over her mouth and Wally with a straitjacket, complete with ball & chain.

"…Huh?" Wally yawned, blinking dumbly at his surroundings as the world shifted into focus. It made about as much sense to him as the rest of them. "Am I the only one who has no idea where we are?"

"Why, you're right where you belong, my duckies!" Chirped a British voice from the top of the stairs. One that seemed to belong to an old man with bright red hair, half-moon spectacles and a rather patriotic blazer emblazoned with the Union Jack. "You're in school!"

"School?" M'gann puzzled as she began to sweat something fierce, unable to escape from her fiery restraints. "But that doesn't start 'til September!"

"Not in my house, it doesn't!" He replied, landing gracefully in front of them. "That's right lads & lovelies! You're the only students at Mad Mod's Institute for Bratty Do-Gooders!"

"Mmph!" Rachel grunted something unintelligible against her gag, her brows furrowed in irritation. Strangely, the witch seemed to be the only one unbothered, if a little annoyed, at the man before them.

"Uh, uh, uh!" Mad Mod chastised the young witch, waving his bejewelled cane in her face as the tip began to glow. "It's high time someone taught, you sprogs, a lesson!"

"Uh oh" Wally swallowed. That was never a good sentiment coming from a villain; particularly one who knew their secret identities.

"Ugh! I can't move!" Artemis grumbled to herself as she struggled harder against her restraints. This embarrassing situation would have of been so much easier if she could reach the few crime-fighting tools which she had in her pocket (she always kept a few of the essentials on hand, thanks to her father's numerous "tests"). Thankfully, however, Artemis wasn't the only one stuck fast in her chair.

"My magic—! It won't work…!" Kaldur puzzled as he stared at his own restraints in confusion. Even if he couldn't move his hands, he still should have of been able to do something.

"Specially made chairs, lad" Mad Mod leered over the atlantean as he pressed in close enough for their two breaths to mingle. "We can't have those nasty superpowers disrupting my lecture, now can I?"

"Oi! Get away from him!" Wally grunted as he tried to kick the ball & chain over towards the villain, only to find himself hissing in pain when he stubbed his toe instead and the iron ball did not move an inch. Artemis only just barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes.

ZZZT!

"Don't worry, my lil' snot!" Mad Mod grinned lecherously as he stabbed his can into Wally's side and ignited it in lightning, effectively turning the bejewelled cane into a taser.

"Eurgh!" Wally gritted his teeth against the numerous volts running through his body. Normally, this might have of caused someone a considerable amount of pain, but he was a speedster and therefore rather familiar with the feeling of being zapped. That didn't mean that it didn't still hurt, because it did, just not as much.

"I didn't go to all of this trouble of building this school and filling your Tower with knockout gas, just to finish you off lickety-split! That'd be pointless!"

"Then…what do you…want?" Conner ground out between clenched teeth as he fought against the kryptonite keeping him in place.

"Just what I said dearie, to teach you lot, a lesson! Yes, I've been watching you children misbehave! And I hate misbehaving children!" Mad Mod heaved a put-upon sigh as the portraits around them began to flip around as he rambled; each one showing photo-realistic images of the Team on their missions. "Fighting crime, saving lives and interfering with the plans of hard-working villains! Why, you lot are nothing but a bunch of troublemakers—!"

"We are not—!" Artemis squawked, struggling in her restraints as a collective trickle of apprehension ran throughout the Team. If this guy could get his hands on some rather realistic & intimate photos of them on their supposedly covert missions, what else could he do?

"— But you'll learn soon enough, where your place truly lies!" Mad Mod steamrolled on, "Y'see, I'm older than you, so that means I'm bigger, badder and better!"

"You've definitely got badder breath than us!" Wally chuckled, unable to help himself.

WHACK!

It would seem that Mad Mod didn't particularly take kindly to that jab because he, once again, tasered the speedster into submission. Part of Artemis had to wonder if Wally liked being zapped, or if he was just trying to draw the attention away from the others because he knew that his tolerance for electrocution was higher than theirs. Whatever the case, the archer wanted to both cuff the speedster around the ears for his usual remarks and thank him profusely for doing so because some of their teammates weren't starting to look so good.

"You're in my world, now" Mad Mod chastised the ginger, "And you won't be getting out 'til you've learnt some proper respect!"

"Respect? From you?" Artemis scoffed as she rolled her eyes and drew the mad man's attention to her, "Pass—"

BRRRRRRIIIIIIIING!

"—Oh, dear, there's the bell, my duckies" Mad Mod shook his head rather patronisingly as the archer's sarcastic words were cut off by the blaring noise of the school bell. "Off to class with the lot of you! There's much to be done and we don't want you falling behind the others, now do we?"

"Whoa—! Wait—!" Wally squawked in surprise as the floor suddenly dropped out beneath him.

"Mmgh!" Raven grunted, eyes blowing wide as the speedster next to her suddenly disappeared. The witch barely had time to spare the rest of them a panicked look before, she too, dropped through the floor.

"Rachel!" Kaldur worried as she disappeared. Usually, the witch would be fine dropping from such (unknown) heights, but without the use of her magicks she—much like him—was just a sitting duck. He could only hope that her landing would be less traumatic as the floor dropped beneath him.

"Kal—!" Conner went next, only getting through half of the atlantean's name before the dark swallowed him and the glow of green kryptonite, whole.

"AHH!" M'gann screamed the whole way down until nothing could be heard from the martian but deathly silence.

"Ack!" Artemis was the last to fall, choking on her breath as she dropped through the floor only to jolt to a sudden stop some feet below.

The new room that she had landed in was decorated in much the same black & white tiles as the first; adorning both the floor and the ceiling in those patterns. Three of the four walls that surrounded her were bare of anything, but the fourth wall—the one that she faced—bore a large scratchy blackboard; one that was bookended by two busts of Mad Mod. Artemis highly doubted that they were there only for decoration, but instead placed there as some sort of surveillance system.

"Now how can I teach you anything, if you won't sit still and listen?" Mad Mod's face appeared on the blackboard before her, flickering to life in a series of sharp chalk lines.

"Huh?" Artemis blinked as a wooden hand suddenly reached over the back of her chair and latched onto her crown, forcing the archer to face forward even as she continued to rub her wrists raw in her struggles to escape.

"One of my hypno-screens oughta get your attention!" Mad Mod chirped as his face quickly swirled into pulsating rings, "And, as a bonus, it'll erase everything in your brain as well!"

At his words, those previously blank walls came alive with a series of pulsating rings that moved independently of one another in the most dizzying of fashions. Artemis felt herself grow sick as she was forced to watch the hypnotising screens force their way inside her mind. Panicked at the numb sensation that had begun to settle over her brain, the archer began to rock side-to-side in her chair, until eventually she had enough momentum to knock it over. It wasn't enough force to set her free, mind you, just enough to break away the wooden casing that surrounded the actual cuffs. And with some contortion, the blonde was able to finger a lock pick from her pocket and use it on the cuffs that kept her hostage.

It was almost with vindictive glee that Artemis ripped herself free of her restraints, even going so far as to toss the wooden hand from her head and over towards the nearest wall where it became embedded halfway through the screen; something which struck her as odd. She was stronger than your average girl, sure (you had to be in their line of work), but she didn't have the kryptonian sort of strength that one would need to perform such a feat, one-handed. Instead, as she inspected the blank wall a little closer, she found it to be a projector screen of some kind; like the kind you might find at a drive-in movie theatre and one that was currently sparking up a storm thanks to its newest addition.

"Naughty snotty!" Mad Mod's voice came over the intercom, breaking Artemis from her thoughts, "If you're gonna destroy school property, then school property's gonna destroy you!"

"…Whoa!" Artemis quickly backpedalled a pace or two as the screen she had been inspecting suddenly ripped in two as a large missile broke through.

"Right then, count along with Moddy!" The villain chirped as the busts, too, sprang to life. The stone eyes became lasers and the ears jutted out to reveal spinning razors that looked sharp enough to slice through just about anything.

"Oh crap!" It was at this point that Artemis was cursing herself for not bringing along her compact bow, or something of the same calibre as she dodged out of the way of the suddenly mobile busts.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six—" Mad Mod cheerfully counted down as Artemis suddenly found herself dodging lasers, missiles and spinning blades that were trained on her. Jumping behind one of the busts seemed to take care of the homing statues, but there was still the looming missile to worry about and that countdown did not promise good things. "—Five, four, three, two, one!"

"Oh crap!" Artemis hissed as the traffic lights on the missile blinked from red to green. Quickly backpedalling towards the sparking screen, the archer quickly raced across the room and dove for the hole already embedded there. Crossing her fingers, the archer hoped that there was another room beyond this one and not another wall that would lead to her demise. "Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap—!"