Neron, who was in Ray's body had taken Constantine. I gathered the team together, except for Zari who was at the Time Bureau.
"If Neron wanted John dead, he would have killed him then and there." I explained. "We need to find him before he can get what he wants."
"Who knows what he's doing in Ray's name, or his perfect body." Natalie responded. We had not found a way to return her to normal. John was currently 0-2 with those spells.
"How do we know that Haircut is even there?" Mick asked.
"We don't, but we don't know that he's gone either." Ava pointed out. I was glad that she was being more optimistic.
"Everybody calm down. Gideon is already trying to find them." I explained.
"I've attuned the magic-ometer to Mr. Constantine's frequency." Gideon explained. I wished that we had come up with a better name than thought because it sounded kind of stupid. "When he uses his abilities, I can zero in on his location."
"What do we do until then?" Natalie asked. I could think of a few things. There were some movies that I always wanted to catch up on, including some that had come out while I was dead.
"Drink." Mick declared.
"I agree." Charlie remarked before taking a sip out of a flask.
"Look, all we can do right now is wait." I pointed out.
"I'm gonna go call Zari to see how everything is going." Natalie responded. Because Natalie had been changed into a woman, Zari was now in charge of the Time Bureau. You know I never thought about how much turnover they had. They had been around for less than two years were already on their sixth person in charge. Of course, Rip got demoted and then killed, Director Bennett got killed, Ava got turned into a child, Hank got killed, and Natalie had been turned into a woman. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to have Zari be in charge.
Later, Ava and I went to our room.
"So are we really just going to wait?" She asked.
"I was thinking that maybe we could have a movie marathon until Gideon finds something." I declared.
"What movie would we even watch?" She challenged.
"Well I've always wanted to watch the Hannah Montana movie." I declared.
"What's Hannah Montana?" She asked. I couldn't believe that she didn't…oh right she didn't know anything about pop culture.
"It's this show about a teenage girl who lives a double life as a popstar." I explained. "Miley Cyrus is in it."
"The singer? I didn't know that she used to be an actor." Ava declared. That made me wish that Miley would act some more.
However, before we could start the movie, we were interrupted.
"I've picked up an alert with Constantine's magical signature." She declared. Man. I was really hoping that we would have more time. We then headed to the bridge. "He's in America several million years ago. The settlers resorted to cannibalism from lack of resources."
"Gideon, there is a thing as too much exposition." I told her as we all strapped in before we took off. We landed in the Ice Age and saw the two of them.
"Captain Lance, don't you look adorable." Neron declared. "If you're looking for Ray, he's not here right now."
"Is Neron on comms?" Ava asked. Well he had Ray's, so it wasn't too much of a stretch.
"Sara, open fire now." John remarked. "It's your only chance."
"You can't do that. That's Ray." Natalie pointed out. I couldn't believe that I had to make such a tough decision.
"Ray's made a deal with a demon. We can't lose anyone else to this bastard."
"We can't lose you either." I told him.
"Blow us both to Kingdom Come. I'll be happy to go down if I'm taking him with me." John stated. Somehow, I felt like it wouldn't even work a powerful demon probably couldn't be killed by mortal weapons like ours. However, I had to try.
"Gideon, let's do it." I remarked.
"Hey. If we kill Neron in Ray's body, Ray dies too." Natalie pointed out. It wasn't like I didn't already know that.
"We can't let Neron walk." John replied.
"I'm waiting orders, Captain." Gideon responded. It was at that time that I heard something. I didn't know if anyone else heard it, but I felt it too. I quickly ran over to Mick and covered his mouth before he could get anything out. At that time, Neron disappeared with John.
"Hold your fire, Gideon." I responded.
"Why did you do that? We had our shot." Mick responded.
"Don't you hear that? The snow is loose. If we fired, we would have caused an avalanche." I declared. They all looked at me. "Right, I'm the only one with enhanced hearing."
It was then that I noticed something in the sky. Neron had definitely planned ahead. I fell to the ground in pain.
"Gideon, get us out of here." Ava commanded as my bones started to shift. "Return us to the temporal zone."
I felt the transformation stop as we returned. My clothes were slightly ripped, but not to the point where they were falling off. I would still have to get changed immediately though.
"I can't believe that we almost fell for that." I stated. "Neron was going to trap us in the snow with a werewolf ready to kill all of you."
"What are we going to do now?" Ava asked. "Now we have no idea where he is."
"I don't know, but we should probably avoid anywhere that it is a full moon." I commented. "I really never thought that this would be an inconvenience that our enemies would be able to exploit. I'm just glad that you were able to get us out of there in time."
"Maybe we should go back and try to come up with a new plan." She suggested. I would also need to talk to Mick.
We headed back and I got the team together.
"So thankfully we managed to escape, no thanks to Mick." I remarked.
"When a teammate goes dark, you take them out." Mick declared.
"Well your plan nearly got us trapped." Charlie remarked. "Not to mention, it almost caused the pup to kill us all."
I thought I was finally getting past her calling me that. She definitely didn't have respect me for me as a captain.
"How did Neron find out that you're a werewolf anyone?" Natalie asked.
"He may be able to access Ray's memories." I proposed. "It's possible that he might know all of our weaknesses."
"Well besides you and Natalie, all of us are completely human." Ava pointed out.
"Yes, but he likely knows that you are a clone, that Charlie desires to get her powers back and that Zari can only use her powers while she's wearing the totem." I told them. "How is Zari doing? Gideon, can you call Zari, please?"
The screen popped up and we saw Zari.
"How's everything at the Time Bureau, Z?" I asked.
"Everything is fine, Captain. In fact, I think you should all come to the Time Bureau." Zari answered. I couldn't help but notice that something seemed off about her. "It would be easier for us to talk face-to-face and Gary is doing evaluations."
"Why are you letting Gary do evaluations?" Ava asked. I had to admit that it definitely sounded strange.
"We should probably go. We have to find John." I declared before hanging up. "Anyone else think that something is off with her."
At that point, everyone raised their hands, except Mick.
"I don't care. I'm going to my room." He stated.
"Okay, so Natalie, you need to go to the Time Bureau and find out what's wrong." I stated.
"Wouldn't it better if I went?" Ava asked me.
"Technically, but we as you just mentioned, Natalie has powers that could come in handy against any sort of unknown enemy." I pointed out.
"If I go, someone needs to watch the egg." Natalie declared.
"It looks like we're doing that." I told Ava before we headed to the lab. Inside, there was the egg with a heat lamp near it.
"Do we have any idea how long it's going to take this thing to hatch?" She questioned as we sat down. To be honest, I wasn't completely sure why we were watching it.
"No, but I can get us something to do." I remarked. I headed back and grabbed my Switch. I was glad that I had gotten a copy of Super Smash Bros Ultimate.
"You know these moves are completely unrealistic." Ava remarked as we began to play.
"They're not supposed to be," I pointed out. "A lot of these characters come from fantastical settings."
We ended up playing for another hour. I was having a lot of fun playing video games with her and I was glad that she was letting her guard down a little. Video games were a great way to relieve stress and there really wasn't anything more stressful than having to deal with one of your friends being possessed by a demon. I found that she was becoming really good with Kirby. To be honest, I wasn't even sure what Kirby was, but he probably wasn't something that you would want to meet in real life considering that he had the ability to eat people and absorb their powers.
Before we could get too far, we were interrupted by a message from Natalie. I was about to win too.
"So, there is definitely something wrong here and I think I need some backup." She remarked. "Everyone keeps talking about how great Gary is and it's extremely unsettling."
"We'll be right there." I stated.
The two of us headed to the Time Bureau. I was glad that Ava hadn't insisted on putting her suit on before we left. I did notice that the place seemed to be strangely calm considering that Neron was on the loose. I could tell that I didn't like it.
"So what are we doing?" Ava asked me. I began to listen around for specific voices.
"We need to find Zari and Natalie." I responded. "But I think that it would be better if we stick together."
We headed down the hall and found people were working. The place was never this calm. After a little while, I managed to catch a familiar scent and there was Zari.
"Z, what's going on?" I asked. "Why is everyone praising Gary all of a sudden?"
"Gary Green is all the man we need." Zari declared almost mindlessly. That's when it hit me. They were being mind controlled and Gary was somehow behind it. I would put money on Neron being behind it. She then grabbed both of our hands and began to walk us down the hall. "You two should see him."
I figured that the only way that we would be able to stop him would be to actually see him, but also knew that we would have to avoid falling victim to whatever form of mind control he was inflicting on everyone else.
We were taken to Gary's office…which was actually Ava's office.
"Well, well, well, you two have been very bad little girls." Gary declared. I couldn't help but realize how creepy that sounded. "We are going to have to fix that."
He then unbuttoned his shirt and before I could even think of how inappropriate flashing young girls was, I saw the real thing. There was an eye where his nipple was supposed to be. I quickly looked away and covered Ava's eyes.
"Don't open your eyes." I told her. As we were prepared to fight. I grabbed onto him and threw him across the room. I was glad that I had super strength now.
"Help." He called. There was then a blast of wind and the doors opened.
"Get away from him." Natalie remarked. I supposed that I couldn't be surprised that he had gotten to her as well. We were going to have a very interesting battle.
That was when I got an idea. I grew some claws on my hands. I would have to do it in a way that didn't kill him and I would have to deal with how disgusting it was. I went over to Gary and ripped the nipple/eye/whatever right off of his chest.
"What happened?" Zari asked.
"We need to get back to the ship. I think Gideon's found John." Ava remarked. We headed back and the Middle Ages, just in time for John to send himself through a porta and then we saw something that I definitely didn't want to see. Neron was kissing the Fairy Godmother.
"So the Fairy Godmother is Tabitha." Natalie responded. "I'm not sure whether or not I should be surprised about that."
"Well all I know is that we have to find a way to get Neron out of Ray's body. Ray wouldn't give up on any of us and we can't give up on him." I declared. I didn't have a plan but we would figure it out because we always did. 'Now, let's do this, for Ray."
So Sara's abilities on both the positive and negative came up again. They did not see the Fairy Godmother go to Gary. There's only two more chapters left of this. I do have plans to at least do Crisis on Infinite Earths, and I may do something with Season 5 as well. Please don't forget to review.
