27 August 2010
Bichel Co. Storage Warehouses, Gotham City

With a half-baked plain in mind, the Team set up shop in a large storage warehouse where they had tracked the muddy trail of Clayface inside. The warehouse was one of those facilities which was big enough to hold several boxes of cargo and there was enough room for all of them to split up & hide behind the stacks as they searched for the villain in question. Strangely enough, because this was Gotham, no on really seemed to care that their storage facility was being broken into. Probably because it would have of happened eventually or because it had already happened a thousand times before; either way, when Robin popped the lock on the door, no alarms—silent or otherwise—went off.

Splattered in mud, Superboy was the first to track down the villain in the darkest corner of the warehouse; though he did not know it at first. Following the twisting trail of mud into the back end of the warehouse, Superboy found himself confronted with the sight of his martian teammate standing in the corner of the room with her back turned to him, a puddle of mud at her feet, and staring rather creepily at the wall in front of her. It was a rather strange thing for the martian to do and there was no denying how it made his hair stand on end.

"Ms Martian?" Superboy asked in concern as he crept closer to rest his hand on her shoulder, "M'gann? What's wrong?"

"What are you talking about?" Ms Martian replied, her voice airy and not quite there.

"M'gann?" Superboy asked as his hand rested for a moment on her shoulder, only to come back covered in mud. His brows furrowed in confusion at the dirt covering his palm and his face crumpled up in disgruntlement at the thought of having even more washing to do when this mission was done.

"SUCKER!" Clayface cried as his neck twisted a full one-eighty and—baring a snaggletoothed grin that did not suit the martian's form—enveloped the kryptonian.

SCHLOOP!

Between this breath and the next, clay limbs exploded outwards and wrapped themselves tightly around the surprised kryptonian, sucking him in and swallowing him whole. Muffled gurgling could be heard as Superboy's head was swallowed first, hands struggled against the unforgiving earth and manic giggles filled his ears as he was lifted clear off of his feet; disappearing inside. Darkness fell and he knew was black.


"Guys!" Superboy's voice crackled over the comms, "I found the creature! Rendezvous at my coordinates!"

'Superboy?' Ms Martian called over the telepathic link, slightly confused as to why the kryptonian had opted to use the comms instead. Searching through the stacks of cargo, Ms Martian—being the closest to the kryptonian—peered left and right as she moved to locate his coordinates. 'Where are you?'

"Over here…!" Superboy called up to the ginger, from he casually stood at the intersection.

"Superboy?" She chirped, brows pinching together in confusion as she noted his suddenly spotless costume and the few puddles of mud splattered around his feet. She could only assume that the boy had spent a fair few precious minutes wiping away what muck that he could get off of himself in the small window of solitude that he had to himself. "What happened?"

"Bad news, gorgeous" Superboy sighed, a charming smile on his lips as he looked upon her with a gleam in his eye. "He caught me off guard"

"Wha—? Are you okay?" She pushed closer in concern because even on the few occasions that the kryptonian had been caught off guard, he had still been able to hit back with a fair bit of oomph; something that usually made up for whatever lapse of judgement he had had.

"Of course" Superboy smiled charmingly, brushing off her concerns with a small tilt of his head. "But he still got away, gorgeous"

"You…you think that I'm g-gorgeous?" Ms Martian stammered as a bright red flushed across green freckled cheeks. (Sometimes her crush on the boy wasn't as subtle as she would have of liked it to be, but that didn't really matter considering the boy of her affections was just as oblivious to her feelings as he was to most things).

"Well, sure" Superboy shrugged, hands stuffed into the pocket of his pants as his visage began to bubble and gurgle strangely; like a bubbling pool of tar, his face distorted into something frightening.

WHOMP!

"Who wouldn't?" Clayface leered as he exploded upwards from the waist. Throwing aside his kryptonian disguise (the original having been spat out not too long after being swallowed), Clayface surged upwards towards the martian and knocked her from the air with a well-placed uppercut. Two down, four to go.


Across the warehouse, Kid Flash found himself wrapped up in the arms of his clay-faced love. Cast in the dim hue of the warehouse, Ms Martian seemed almost salacious where she stood poised, pressed in close to the speedster. Bosom pressed to bosom, arms twined around necks and ginger locks practically melted together as the two embraced; they were pressed so close that they were practically breathing the same air.

Kid Flash couldn't believe it; what he had wanted for so long had finally come true! He'd gotten the girl that he had been chasing for the better half of two months (the same girl, mind you, who had been mooning over a certain kryptonian in much the same manner as he). Goosebumps littered his skin and his heart beat excitedly in his chest, though he tried his best to hide his eagerness. It wasn't working as well as he hoped.

A happy flush of pink dusted his freckled cheeks as Kid Flash tilted his head just so, voice low and thick as he whispered into the martian's ear. "Babe, I knew you'd come around"

"Of course" Ms Martian purred, her voice silky smooth as it tickled his ear, making Kid Flash shiver and press closer still. "Why wouldn't I want to be shown a good time? Will you show me a good time?"

"Babe" Kid Flash crooned, turning to mush in her palms, "It's like you read my mind"

"Oh, yeah?" Ms Martian grinned as her delicate lips took on a snaggletoothed grin and her voice dropped down an octave or two. "Tell me more"

"…Babe?" Kid Flash pulled back as the girl in his embrace turned uncomfortably sticky.

"What?" Ms Martian leered as her face bubbled and distorted into something other worldly. Gone was the gorgeous green girl that the speedster had wrapped himself up in, instead replaced by the snaggletoothed grin of their enemy. Clayface's mouth creaked open, drawing a line from ear to ear as it opened wide; stretching further and further until he stood bestrode over the speedster."Is there something on my face, Babe?"

It was all Kid Flash could do, but scream.


Tucked into a slim alcove of the warehouse, stuck between three stacks of cargo, Robin stood surrounded by a gaggle of golden-hued clones. With shoulders drawn up tight and hands hovering close over his utility belt, the detective watched the clones of his best friend with a suspicious eye. Frustration bubbled deep within his chest as Batman-bred suspicion settled across his shoulders like the cape which fluttered behind him. They had barely been in the warehouse for quarter of an hour before 'ole Clayface had struck and though, logically he knew that one of them was likely the real Kid Flash, it was still hard to distinguish who was who. Particularly as all of them—himself and the clones, included—were stood, ankle-deep, in a pile of muddy clay which did not help his cause.

"…Whichever one of you can tell me what my middle name is" Robin hedged, fingers fluttering against the edge of his utility belt, "Is the real Kid Flash!"

"Why, that's easy!" One clone gloated as they ganged up on the Boy Wonder like wolves circling their prey.

"Yeah!" Crowed another, "Easy for me!"

"It's—"

"—CHUMP!"

"—SAP!"

"—BRAT!"

"—PUNK!" The clones chorused one after the other, their voices layering one atop each other until it was nothing but a cacophony of noise that filled the alcove.

WHUMP!

Between this breath and the next, the Clayface clones bared snaggletoothed grins at the red-breasted bird as their hands stretched out into impossible lengths. Noodle arms swung slender and wide as log-sized hammers formed at the end where their hands were supposed to be. Before Robin could even fling a batarang in any direction, he was set-upon by the Kid Flash clones and sticky clay swallowed him whole.


Splayed out across the foyer of the warehouse, a large puddle of terracotta mud stained the floor whilst the gentle, drip, drip, drip of a leaky pipe continued to sing somewhere in the back of the building. Raven floated at least an inch or two above the muddy ground, not wanting to dirty either her recently cleaned shoes or the hem of her cloak; however vain it may have of seemed. She just didn't particularly want to have to spend time scrubbing out the muck when this mission was done. Still, with the way things were going, she probably wouldn't have a choice.

Almost as soon as they had arrived at the warehouse, the Team had split off down different paths in search of the aforementioned 'Clayface' (as cleverly dubbed by Robin) and they were only accompanied by each other's voices intermittently crackling over the comms when a trail was spotted or came to an end. They were like rats in a maze as they each twisted down their own paths in the hopes of tracking said villain down; some with the goal of enacting revenge for their earlier foray and others in order to finish this damned dirty mission once and for all.

Playing around in the dark sewer tunnels and tumbling about in muddy puddle of clay was not how Raven thought that this day was going to go, and if she were being honest, she would have of preferred playing with her brother instead. At least then, she could have of had some fun whilst they tumbled about like cats in the street. So lost in her thoughts as she was, Raven didn't even notice the moment when Clayface erupted from the sludge behind her. In fact, it wasn't until he was practically on top of her, that the little witch began to struggle; but it was no use. With no more than a blip of magic escaping in her panic (a small shockwave that rattled the stacks of cargo in the warehouse), the little witch knew no more.


How could I have become so distracted? How could I not insist on a coordinated attack? Against an opponent with so many unknown capabilities, at best? Aqualad despaired as he traipsed through the eerily quiet storage warehouse; all senses on alert and gaze continuously roving as he looked for anything that was out of place or anything that would give a clue as to where their elusive enemy had drifted off to. Annhax Orin would have of had my head! And Batman? He will just take my job—my dream—away from me.

Guilt whirled about inside the atlantean as he tried to find heads or tails of this new situation that they found themselves in—hadn't he learnt ANYTHING from their past missions?—a situation, mind you, that they would not have been in had Aqualad been in the right frame of mind. Had he not been away with the fairies when the Team were discussing their next moves, then he would have of been able to steer them towards a more reasonable plan of action. Instead, he had distractedly agreed with whatever had been said and now they were seven seas apart & drowning in radio silence.

"—Oh!" Aqualad jolted from his thoughts as Raven stepped out of the shadows, her little violet cloak trailing through the mud at her feet. "Raven? Did you find any sign of Clayface?"

"Clayface?" Raven quirked an unimpressed brow at the name, before she quickly recovered herself. "Uh, no, no; there's no…Clayface here"

"Is there any word from the rest of the Team?" He pressed, eyes continuing to rove about as he relaxed slightly, glad to have one of his teammates at his back. Or so he thought.

"No, sorry" Raven apologised again as a snaggletoothed grin overtook usually childishly stoic features. As it emerged from the depths of her cloak, what had once been her hand now formed a large terracotta club; complete with spikes and a blunt head.

It was all Aqualad could do to throw his twin bearers up to catch the blow; mud mixing with water to form a sloppy sludge that dripped between the two. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the figure before him was not his youngest teammate, but that of the villain that they had been trying to hunt down this whole time. As it turned out, it was less a situation of them hunting it and more a situation of it hunting them. A thought that was proven when a third arm erupted from its enlarged chest (something which looked comically funny atop childish legs) and knocked the atlantean clear across the warehouse.

RROOAAAARRRRRRR!

"Unnhf!" Aqualad wheezed as the breath was knocked out of him as he impacted against the opposing wall, leaving naught but a small indent behind. Slumping to the ground in a heap of limp limbs, the atlantean was barely able to catch sight of his teammates lumped together in a pile of unconscious bodies before the final thought whispered through his mind. And so it ends, my teammates—my friends and I—down for the count. And though I may face certain doom; still my only regret is Tula.

KRRRSSSH!

The last thing Aqualad saw before the darkness dragged him down, was the sight of Batman falling through the ceiling with his cape flared out behind him like the dark wings of an angel. The Dark Knight had come to save them; to save them where they had failed. Where he had failed.


27 August 2010
Mount Justice, Happy Harbour

Back at the Cave, the mud-splattered sidekicks trudged inside like a litter of downtrodden puppies. "…I need to talk to Aqualad" Batman intoned as they shuffled into the Cave, "The rest of you, hit the showers and head home"

"Yeah? Home?" Superboy scoffed as he stomped passed, practically shoulder-checking the bat as he passed. "We are home!"

"Just Aqualad" Batman reiterated as Robin paused to listen to the debrief as well.

"Hmphf!" Robin huffed, sparing a side glance at Aqualad and then at his mentor, eyes narrowed in frustration.

"C'me on, Robin" Raven tugged the other bird after her as they head towards the showers; only a step or two behind the big kids.

"…I am so sorry that you had to intervene" Aqualad apologised as he watched the rest of his team trickle out of the room. Head bowed in cowardice, hands hung loosely at his sides as the Dark Knight stood over him, casting an intimidating shadow even on a bright sunny day like this one. Thankfully, he—like the rest of the Team—had recovered from their injuries somewhat on the flight back, though the guilt and bitter tang of failure still lingered. "I know that the Team performed poorly—"

"—The Team performed adequately" Batman interjected, his tone firm and his masked face displeased. "The problem was you"

"No! You are—!"

"—You are their leader, but your head wasn't in the game"

"…You are correct. Of late, not even I am convinced that I belong up in the surface world" Kaldur murmured dispassionately, softening the bat only a little, "For so many years, it had filled my every thought—! But now that I am here, all I can dream of is Atlantis…"

"…Atlantis?" Batman quirked a brow, his tone unnaturally gentle yet somehow still stern, "Or someone you left behind?"

"Huh?" Aqualad's head jerked up towards the Leaguer in surprise, although it shouldn't have been such a shock to the atlantean considering that he—and his protégée— were world renowned detectives.

"You can split your time between the surface and the sea, but not your mind" Batman advised, sounding strangely like he was speaking from experience, "Either you're here one hundred percent or you need to walk away. Make a decision, Kaldur, and make it soon. The Team will not suffer the consequences of your indecisions again"

But there is no decision to make. Aqualad thought to himself as he watched the bat stalk off into the recesses of the cave in search of his wayward bird. I MUST return to Atlantis! To Tula!