BIALYIA
FEBURARY 20 2016 00:12 UTC +2
So far, the mission had not secured what they were looking for. All the bases and hotspots for Boom tube activity they checked had turned up empty. Most of them seemed abandoned, which Mariposa knew made sense. It would make sense to be as transient as possible, so as to not leave evidence behind or have people milling around with information to spare.
But Alpha Squad still had one more spot to check out. This one was just a mile or so short of a cliff side in Bialyia, and Mariposa was willing to bet that this one was going to go just a little bit better. `Three white industrial buildings sat evenly spaced apart, steel garage doors lining their front. Betty watched from their position from a sand dune, narrowing her eyes at the various RTVs and other vehicles lining the stone slab that they had created to even the sandy field for them. Missiles and other weapons were littering the field.
"The other Boom tube hotpsots have all be busts –" Batgirl started, projecting into the mindlink.
"But this much security must be guarding some high-tech alien stuff, right?" Wonder Girl asked, cutting off her older teammate. Miss Martian furrowed her brow.
"That's what we're here to figure out," Miss Martian answered. The five of them moved back from where they were peeking over top a sand dune, and Mariposa waited for Miss Martian to set mission parameters. Her issues with Miss Martian non-withstanding, Mariposa knew to defer to Miss Martian. She was chosen as leader by Nightwing, and Mariposa at least respected Nightwing enough to respect judgement at least.
"Batgirl, take the north hangar and Bumblebee, you'll take the middle. Mariposa and I will take the south," Miss Martian ordered, pointing between them.
Mariposa wrinkled her nose slightly, barely enough to be noticeable, but did not say anything. Her dirty laundry with M'gann did not need to be aired now, during a mission. And the mission was more important than her harsh feelings toward M'gann. Betty and M'gann may not be on the best of terms, but Mariposa and Miss Martian were teammates, and Mariposa knew the danger in letting their personal feelings get in the way.
"What…what about me?" Wonder Girl asked, noting her omission from Miss Martian's orders.
"Wonder Girl, you'll be holding position," Miss Martian explained. Wonder Girl's eyebrows shot up.
"What? Why?" Wonder Girl demanded.
"Because you're Wonder Girl, not Stealther Girl, honey," Bumblebee explained for Miss Martian. Wonder Girl frowned and crossed her arms.
"I can do this!"
Wonder Girl was many things. Brave, kind, outgoing. She was a wonderful addition to the Team. But Wonder Girl was not stealthy. She had taken the more Wonder Woman style rather than the Batman approach to heroics, and so the covert part of their missions was often a struggle for the blonde. It had taken extensive training to even get her to this point and she still often had to run point.
Training. Mariposa shivered internally. She would soon after to start Honeybee on stealth training if she ever wanted to introduce him to the Team.
"No one is knocking your enthusiasm, Cass," Batgirl comforted. "And if this was a fire fight, there is no one else I would rather have beside me, but…" Batgirl trailed off and Mariposa picked up for her old friend.
"This situation is complicated, Wonder Girl," Mariposa finished for her. "We need to avoid an international incident."
"And avoid a fight," Miss Martian continued. She looked at Wonder Girl sternly, an unspoken reminder to stay put in her eyes. "Use the psychic link only. The Bialyians have the tech to intercept our radios. Anything goes wrong, we meet back at the rendezvous point. Clear?"
"Clear," Mariposa, Bumblebee, and Bargirl spoke into the link in union. Wonder Girl hesitated but then sighed.
"Clear," she spoke. Miss Martian was satisfied with this, and the four set to invade the hangers set off down the other side of the sand dune. Miss Martian activated her camouflage , while the rest of Alpha tried to remain hidden with their stealth suits. Bumblebee and Batgirl branched off to their respective hangars without a word, while Miss Martian and Mariposa made their way to the middle hangar.
The tension between them was thick, so thick it could be but with a knife. Mariposa wondered why, what with their recent disagreements, Miss Martian would decide to pair them up for this mission. She had to know Mariposa was still angry with her on behalf of Conner. But, Mariposa thought, she must also know that Mariposa would never let her personal feelings get in the way of mission. She had been in the game for far too long for that.
They managed to sneak past the outer defenses and make their way to the middle hangar. Miss Martian flew upwards to the top while Mariposa took the grabbling hook out of her utility belt. Years ago, she might have used her lasso, but she had retired it when she gave up Honeybee for Mariposa. That was Honeybee's weapon, and she was no longer Honeybee.
She shot the grabbling hook at the top of the building, and it latched onto the side. She hurried to the top of the building, following after Miss Martian. By time she reached the roof, Miss Martian was already slipping inside through the use of her density shifting, and she could only barely spot the camouflaged Miss Martian's head because she was looking for it.
Miss Martian completely disappeared inside, and Mariposa reached for the exit grate for the vents of the building. She tore it off and slipped inside the vents to enter. It was not a quick way to enter by any means, as despite what televisions and movies had to say, they were actually not that roomy for the most part. It was just large enough for Mariposa to move inside of, and she moved along as fast as she could.
"Miss Martian?" Mariposa asked in the mind link, and she received a quick response from Miss Martian.
"Inside, checking the west side," Miss Martian told her. "You take the east?"
"Alright. ETA under a minute," Mariposa replied. Eerie silence replaced the sounds that used to accompany the mind link of a mission. Aqualad had always sought to keep them on task, but regardless of that there was always some kind of chatter. Kid Flash and Artemis's constant bickering (even after they became a couple), the witty comments of her other teammates and even her own sarcasm biting back.
But on this mission, there was none of that. Wonder Girl was most likely still in a bit of funk about being sidelined, so there would be nothing for her unless of an emergency. Batgirl and Bumblebee were most likely too focused on the mission at hand to offer any kind of snark. Or maybe it was because Miss Martian and Mariposa's tension was palpable enough that no one dared offer anything.
Mariposa made it no secret that she had ended her friendship with Miss Martian. She was not screaming it to the rooftops or making a big deal out of it, but the whole team had caught onto the fact that things between Conner and Betty and M'gann had become rather icy. To put it mildly. But even Mariposa was willing to follow her lead on the mission, that didn't mean Mariposa was necessarily thrilled about it either.
So gone were the days of the early Team, when they had been able to joke and laugh while performing their duty.
"I miss it."
"Miss what?" Miss Martian asked.
Mariposa blinked. She had meant for that to be a private thought. The line between thinking and speaking in their mind link was often blurred, as they had learned over the years. And the line could be crossed without someone realizing they had crossed it in the first place, so one always had to police their thoughts.
"Nothing, Miss Martian. Just thinking to myself."
Mariposa shook her head and opened a grate over the right side of the building. She leaned down to look over the side, making sure there were no guards present nearby. Once making sure it was clear, she slipped through silently and landed on top of a metal walkway in a crouch.
Miss Martian's voice soured in the mind link.
"You can still call me M'gann, you know?"
Mariposa frowned and flipped over the side of the catwalk, landing in between a series of metal crates. She ran a hand along the top of the lid and checked for any kinds of markers that would give away what was in inside. She found nothing, and she slowly and quietly began to pull off the lid to check the contents.
"Should we really be clouding up the mind link like this, Miss Martian," Mariposa thought, pointedly using Miss Martian's code name.
"I have a separate one set up for us," Miss Martian explained. "Since we were going to be in the same building, I thought it might be better for sharing information rather than taking up space in the other one." Miss Martian made the closest thing one could make to a sigh psychically. "Look, I know you're not my biggest fan right now, but I'm not the enemy here. We're on the same side."
"Look, Miss M, I'm willing to follow your lead and fight by your side," Mariposa shot back, "but I'm not going to pretend that we're still friends. Not after what you did to Conner."
Miss Martian recoiled mentally. This was the first time the two of them had discussed amongst themselves what had happened with Conner, it had always gone left unsaid. There had been no confrontation, no big blow-out. And Mariposa was not willing to have this fight in the middle of a mission.
"Look, can we talk about this later or –" Mariposa started, but then she felt a sharp nanosecond of pain. A familiar pain, one that alerted to Mariposa that the mind link had gone offline. Mariposa blinked in surprise and immediately slipped back into the shadows, trying to stay from being seen by the guards. With radios off-limits and the mind link shut off, that put her officially on her own until she could meet up with one of the others or return to the rendezvous point. The rendezvous point was to be her best course of action, as it would allow her to regroup with the others rather than fight blindly.
Mariposa slipped one stinger out just in case she encountered a guard, and she remained on the outer edges of the compound. She quickly made her way back up towards she had removed the grate to the vents, intending to use it as an exit point. Mariposa was surprised but not unthankful to find that it remained unguarded, and she slipped back into the vent.
"Miss Martian, Bumblebee, Batgirl, Wonder Girl?" Mariposa tried but found no response. She was not too surprised she had not felt the link be reestablished, but she had also become so used to it that half the time she didn't even realize it was there. Almost six years of mental communication would do that to somebody.
She scrambled to make to it to the place she had entered, and she popped back out on the roof. She wished not the first time for some kind of superpower, as getting from here to the rendezvous point was going to be the hardest part. She peeked over the side of the building and discovered that the guards were on higher alert.
She frowned and reached for the grapple gun again, shooting it out towards a truck on the ground below. She had no attention, however, of it using it. Before she let go of the gun it was attached to, she stuck an explosive stinger in it and then let go of the gun. As it connected with it's grapple, the stinger went off, setting off an explosion that sent the truck it was connected to up in smoke. Metal parts were sent flying across the compound's front and was burning, the smell of twisting and burnt metal being smelt all the from where Mariposa stood on the rooftop.
The compound was sent into chaos because of this, as several guards began to approach, looking for what could have caused it and with fire hydrants and hoses to try and put out the fire. A little chaos was exactly what Mariposa needed, as it would allow her a distraction to escape. She looked towards the sky, making sure there was no ariel defenses she should be worrying about but found nothing. Good, this would make her job a lot easier.
Getting down without a grabble, however, would prove much harder than with one. But she had trained for this. She moved closer to one of the side edges of the roof and pulled out an extra bit of grabble line they used in case of emergencies or to tie up unconscious thugs.
"Too bad Honeybee's not here," Mariposa mumbled to herself. "He could use the stealth training."
If it wasn't for the possibility for being caught and causing an international incident with Bialyia and Queen Bee, this would be great for Honeybee to get used to stealth under less than ideal circumstances. Sneaking around Gotham was one thing, but a military base in a hostile nation was another thing. But Mariposa supposed that kind of thing came with doing the thing. And he would, eventually, when Mariposa finally introduced him to the Team, the mysterious third condition under which she had taken him under her wing. She just wasn't sure on when that was going to be.
Mariposa shook her head and tied the end of the grabble line around a pipe jutting along the side of the roof. Making sure the knot was secure, she threw the bulk of the rope over the side of the building. She slipped over the side, planting her feet firmly on the metal wall and gripping tightly onto the grabble line as she started to shimmy her way down to the ground.
"There!" a man shouted in Bialyian, and Mariposa cursed under her breath. She case one quick look over her shoulder to asses the situation, and she found three soldiers staring up at her with cocked guns. She sighed and quickly spung into action. She did a backflip off the side of the building, letting loose three stingers as she went, which landed in the barrels of their guns before exploding just as her feet made contact with the ground, landing behind the three of them.
One was knocked unconscious by the blast and fell back to the concrete ground with a loud thud. The other two cast their currently exploded guns to the ground. They landed with a clatter and Mariposa steadied her feet for the fight, bringing her fists up defensively.
Their faces were covered by their helmets and goggles, making it hard to see their expressions. But she could make out their angry frowns, which told Mariposa they thought this was going to be an easy fight before their guns had been blown up.
"Devastation!" they called out, and Mariposa did not like the sound of that. Devastation was a rather infamous foe of Wonder Woman and could easily outpace Mariposa in raw strength. If Mariposa could take out these two guards before Devastation showed up, then that meant she might stand a chance.
She gritted her teeth and accepted this was going to be a long night. Or morning. Whatever.
The two of them rushed her and she raised an arm to block a punch. She leveled her own punch at one of them, and it hit them square in the jaw. They let out a short cry of pain and she used that as distraction to kick them with her knee in the stomach, sending them to the ground. She grimaced at the one remaining and started to rush him, the guard was quick to level a kick her way. She avoided it by dodging with a lean before pushing out to hit him with her palm directly in the nose. This caught him by surprise, and she used that surprise to her advantage. She stepped back and threw a stinger that sliced at his arm, leaving a thin cut but nothing that wouldn't be fixed with a bandage and a good wound cleaning. But it hurt, which was just what she needed as a distraction. She slipped down and kicked her legs out to kick the legs out from underneath him.
In time to the thud of his head meeting the concrete, Mariposa felt her arm be jerked by it being picked up by someone with a much larger palm. She looked to see the face of Devastation sneering down at her and she was none too whelmed about this.
"Looks like I found a little bug," she smirked, and Mariposa rolled her eyes.
"Like I've never heard that one before," she shot back. Devastation growled and yanked her up, throwing her into the side of one of the metal buildings. Pain cascaded from the points where her body met metal and she shut her eyes on instinct, letting out a grunt and hiss one after the other. She fell to her knees and her hands broke her fall, her gloves preventing her from scraping the flesh on her palm.
She looked up with a scowl, letting a stinger loose to hit Devastation. It did not stick, as Devastation was invulnerable just like Wonder Woman herself. But it was set to go off just before it reached her, detonating itself and throwing fire and smoke back in Devastation's face. It did little to stop her, only slowed the mass of a woman down from reaching her.
Mariposa launched into action, moving to jump onto Devastation's shoulder when she felt a sharp, paralyzing pain just north of her spine.
"Psimon says go to sleep!"
And then it all went black.
BIALYIA
FEBURARY 20 2016 01:45 UTC+2
Mariposa was startled back to the land of the living with a sharp burst of pain to her chest, and she opened her eyes with a start. She was unsure where she was – the lighting was a dark red, and it was hollow and narrow. She looked to her side to see a Batgirl lying in a metal tube leaned straight up, the front missing. Mariposa blinked and looked down to see she was in a similar type of pod. Oh well, that was great.
She looked in front of her to see Bumblebee shrunk down, fluttering in mid-air on her wings.
"Sorry girls," Bumblebee apologized. "But we've got a cargo hold full of abductees here, and you two are the only ones capable of flying this thing to safety."
Mariposa blinked and looked around the hold to see that Bumblebee was right. There were at least a dozen teenagers in the hold, contained in human-sized pod-like tubes. All of them were mercifully asleep, which meant getting them out of here would make things much simpler.
"Which is ironic," Bumblebee continued, looking between Mariposa and Bargirl. "Considering you two are the only ones who can't fly."
Batgirl coughed once and rubbed at her chest. "Yeah, ironic."
Mariposa took one step forward and fell into step beside Batgirl as they followed Bumblebee to the cockpit of what Mariposa assumed was a jet. Mariposa quickly slipped into the pilot's seat, and Batgirl wordlessly followed suit to the co-pilot's chair. Mariposa pulled on a radio headset at the same time Batgirl did. With no words being spoken, they began to flip the switches and check the various dials that needed to be in order to get this het flying.
"It's scary, how you Gotham girls never need to speak," Bumblebee commented, still flittering at their shoulders.
"Noted," Mariposa said, borrowing Beast Boy's catchphrase. "Where are Miss Martian and Wonder Girl?"
"Miss Martian is engaging Psimon," Bumblebee informed. So, Psimon was back in operation? Mariposa was not surprised. He had had been the one to knock her unconscious physically, but Miss Martian could handle Psimon. She was sure of that. "Wonder Girl is just outside, waiting for the signal for defense."
Mariposa nodded.
"Go, help Miss Martian."
Mariposa out of the three of them ranked the highest on the Team as a senior member. Mariposa knew any orders she gave would be followed unless Miss Martian belayed them, as the official leader of Alpha for the mission. And Miss Martian most likely wouldn't, not when it offered her more help.
"On it," Bumblebee said, disappearing out of the cockpit. Batgirl and Mariposa lapsed into silence as they started the final preps for getting the jet in the air. Her experience with jets had been limited with Waspia, as they did not exactly have the cash to afford a personal jet for themselves, so any and all access had been on League and Team missions. After repairing her relationship with Batman, he had quickly taught her all the skills he had felt she had been lacking. It had also been a way to put Jason more at east during training, to have someone learning along side him.
"Closing the hatch," Mariposa informed. There was a shock and a stutter of the metal, and then it was closed. "Preparing for take-off in three….two….one!"
The wheels of the jet started to turn, but Mariposa with a start heard the sounds of alarms and she saw the hangar doors start to close. That would not bode well for an escape.
"Mariposa –"
"Stay on course," Mariposa ordered. "Our friends have us covered!"
On cue, the doors to the hangar were ripped apart right before they shut. The metal doors went flying off the hinges, revealing to the world Wonder Girl. Mariposa smiled at the sight, and then Wonder Girl flew inside and over the jet. The plane shook with the pressure of something hitting it's tail, and Mariposa grit her teeth as she tried to keep the plane on course. Batgirl did likewise and let out a hiss.
There was another shake and Mariposa felt the plane tip to one side, and she looked out the side of the window to see one of the wings of the plane was gone.
"This does not bode well," Mariposa said. The plane scrapped the side of the cavern, ripping off another wing of the plane. Mariposa tried to bring the plane to stop, but neither she nor Batgirl could stop it with the brakes. The plane was already going too fast, there was nothing they could do.
They dipped off the side of cavern, and Mariposa and Bargirl both knew it would be of no use to try and dip the plane upwards. With no wings, it would be fruitless.
Wonder Girl flew over them and gripped onto the nose of the plane, trying to bring them up. But it seemed to be of no avail, as they just kept zooming closer and closer to the ground. But then as if by magic, they were no longer plummeting to the ground, but they were ripped upward towards the night sky. She let out a sigh of relief as she felt the return of Miss Martian's mind link.
"Bio-ship has connected to the jet, and is currently flying us to safety," Miss Martian informed, and Mariposa for once was happy to feel Miss Martian in her head again.
MOUNT JUSTICE
FEBURARY 20 2016 03:45 EST
With the mission briefing over, Mariposa started to make her way towards her guest room in the Cave. Tonight seemed like a fine night to spend the night here, rather than return to Gotham and walk all the way back to her apartment. Especially since she had a bed right here that was basically calling her name. She slipped inside the room and pulled off her mask, revealing to the room her brown eyes. She sighed, putting the mask down on the bedside table as she basically threw herself down onto the mattress, smushing her face into the pillow. She should change into the pajamas in the dresser, but she was inclined to hold off on that for a little while longer.
She heard a knock on the door, and her first instinct was to ignore it. She flipped over onto her back and threw an arm over her eyes.
"I'm sleeping, come back later," Betty trilled out.
"Betty?" M'gann said after a moment of hesitation. Betty's eyes opened and she sat up, looking at the door in pure confusion. M'gann? Why would M'gann be seeking her out? Blinded by confusion, she swung her legs over the side of the mattress and made her way to the door. She allowed the door to slide open, revealing M'gann, still dressed in her mission outfit.
"Did I miss something in the debriefing, or….?" Betty asked. The debriefing had been just shortly under a half an hour ago, and Betty could not remember if they had forgotten anything. After being clued in by the others, it became clear that Queen Bee was abducting teenagers for some kind of mysterious partner, and not at the behest of the Kroloteans, but for someone else. Betty believed they had reviewed everything with Nightwing.
"No, I, uh –" M'gann sighed. She motioned inwards towards the room. "Can-can I come in?"
There was perhaps nothing Betty wanted less in that moment than to let M'gann in the room. Because then that invited conversation, and Betty could not foresee any way that conversation did not end with a screaming match. Which she did not want to get into at almost four in the morning after a mission.
Betty sighed. "Look, M'gann, I'm really tired and –"
"Betty," M'gann said, more forcefully. "We must talk about this. We can't keep dancing around what happened forever."
"Oh, you mean when you tried to mind wipe Conner?" Betty hissed. M'gann cringed and looked down at her feet. She felt the familiar presence of M'gann enter her mind and she recoiled physically. A year ago, she would have welcomed the feel of her friend in her head without a second thought. But now that she knew exactly what said friend was capable of, she second guessed any intrusion not for a mission.
M'gann's head shot up at Betty's recoil and she frowned.
"Do you really think I would mess with your head, Betty?"
Betty raised a brow. "Honestly, M'gann? I don't know what you are capable of doing. After all, you messed with Conner's head, why not mine?"
M'gann crossed her arms.
"I made a mistake. One I apologized for profusely! One I know I will have to apologize for the rest of my life," M'gann defended. Betty scoffed.
"Just because you apologized doesn't mean you're forgiven," Betty pointed out. M'gann crinkled her nose in frustration. She attempted to take a step inward, but Betty blocked her from entering.
"I didn't hurt you, Betty, I hurt Conner," M'gann argued. "Why can't you understand? I made a mistake; one I regret and will do anything to make up for. Just-just tell me what to do and I'll do it."
Betty sighed. "It's like you said, M'gann. You hurt Conner. Not me. I'm mad because you hurt him, not because you hurt me. You have to make this up to him. You have to see what you're doing is wrong –"
"Oh, not you too!" M'gann bemoaned. "I am using my powers for good! To help your planet!"
"By hurting people!" Betty roared in her head. "By ripping into villain's head, destroying their identity, making them into vegetables. We're no better than them if we stoop to that level."
M'gann narrowed her eyes.
"Are you mad about all villains being treated this way?" M'gann seethed. "Or just worried about one in particular?"
Betty sucked in a breath.
Ivo. M'gann was talking about Ivo, who else could it be? This-this was what Betty had always feared. For her loyalty, her objectivity called into question over Ivo. Ivo had managed to dig himself into a hole and had not crossed paths with them yet since then. So no, Ivo had not been brain blasted by M'gann. And for the first time, Betty realized how real of possibility that might be.
M'gann's eyes widened, and she brought a hand to her chest, seeming to realize what she had said to Betty.
"Oh, Betty, I'm sorry, that was too far, I shouldn't have –"
"I think we're done here."
And Betty shut the door to the room, deciding for good that maybe her friendship with M'gann wasn't worth saving.
"And not only so, but we in glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience, experience, and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." – Romans 5: 3-5
It has been awhile, I know. Life hit me like a truck, as did that sweet, sweet writers block and also a depressive episode. So here we are. Not the best chapter, but I could not leave you all in the dark for much longer.
And I am not trying to villainize M'gann to push a BettyXConner agenda, I have plans to redeem her and make her a good friend to Betty and Conner again.
Review Replies:
Coco Baldwin: Thank you so much! I love writing it, so it makes me happy to hear people are enjoying reading it! I plan to keep this going, so more chapters are incoming. Thank you for leaving a review and have a blessed day!
-PrincessChess