Both Jaime and Julia were resisting the urge to smack all of their teammates. Not only had the pair of Guardians started off on bad terms and settled into a glaring contest, but now the Bumblebees were arguing again over options, all of which amounted to the same two: wait and see what turned up or go hunting through the weird landscape.
Ironically, only L'gonn and Le'gon seemed be perfectly at ease with each other. When Jaime had questioned them about it, the Atlanteans had grinned and explained the story of the dimension-swapped Teams several years prior, and how their current mindset sprang from it. Julia admitted aloud that thinking of their alternates as siblings-at-arms was probably the simplest way to proceed.
Not that anyone else seemed eager to follow through with that. Even easygoing Gar was having a hard getting over his suspicious staring at Gabby, who returned his exact gaze with her own expression of distaste. In fact, Jaime doubted that anything would have gotten the two groups to start cooperating...
... If it hadn't been for the sudden black tendrils that started whipping out at them from the grey mists.
Startled, the pair of Statics shot out lightning bolts, which fried the tendrils a bit but didn't deter their attacks. Both Bumblebees shrunk down and began firing their stingers, while the double Blue Beetles activated their pulse cannon. The rest of the young heroes fought off the tendrils as best they could, but it was clearly a losing battle.
"Heads up!" L'gonn yelled, before his inflated form hurled Beast Boy through the air, the kid shifting into crab mid-flight and clamping on to one of the black things. He tried cutting through it with his pincers, but Jaime watched in horror as the act only released some nasty looking gas right in his teammate's face. Morphing back to his teen form and coughing violently, Gar only had a moment to land on his feet before the same tendril smacked into his thin chest, hurling the green shapeshifter off into a cloud bank.
Concerned when his teammate didn't come running back right away, Jaime turned to go after him, only to be beaten to the punch by Beast Girl in cheetah form. When the two of them came back into sight, Gar's arm was slung around Gabby's shoulder, and no one could miss the look of alarm on the girl's face as her alternate didn't stop coughing and hacking, barely able to stay upright.
"Okay, that's it! I rescind my previous opinion! Let's get the heck out of here!" Karl yelled to the other Bumblebee, who had the presence of mind to ignore her urge to call back an 'I told you so'.
The twelve heroes hurried away from the direction the tendrils were coming from, not stopping until all signs of the frenzied black things had vanished in the mists behind them.
-DS-
Dick frowned as the sounds of fighting died away. He was glad that the whatever-it-was that continued to hold them prisoner hadn't gained anymore captives, but by the same token he didn't like the idea that the thing could so easily chase off other heroes. The young man didn't have to look around to know that his friends and their alternates were wearing the same worried expression as him.
"Think they're okay?" Supergirl asked not long after the skirmish ended. Several of the others murmured small assurances, but Artemis and Apollo, who had not spoken since the being that controlled the tendrils addressed them all, remained markedly silent. Beside Dick, Dixie tried twisting around enough to get a look at them. She made a subdued noise of confusion, prompting the male Nightwing to check behind him as well.
Both the orange and black-clad heroes were staring off in a direction completely opposite where the noises of fighting had been coming from. They wore matching looks of shock and hope.
"Pol?..." Dixie called out questioningly. The rest of the captured young adults turned to look as well, which meant that they all saw the next occurrence of the sight that had claimed Tiger and Tigress' attentions.
A very, very brief flash of orange light, inside of which a pair of letters were sketched out in the grey mists before they vanished again: KF.
-DS-
"And as soon as we got far enough away, they disappeared as quickly as they'd come." Mal finished explaining to the gathered heroes. Only a few minutes after leaving the weird black tendrils behind, the dozen Team members had stumbled out of a thick patch of mists and straight into what amounted to an army of Justice Leaguers.
Nearly every adult hero and their alternate version was there, though the handful of those still missing was weighing heavily on the backs of everyone's minds. Especially since about half of their number had run across the same black tendrils at one point or another, and been forced to retreat. No one could say for sure that the heroes who hadn't appeared yet would have willingly run from such opponents.
Aquaman and Aquawoman were trying to arrange some semblance of order amidst the growing volume of the gathered heroes, and not having much luck. Sharing a look of disgust, the pair of Blue Beetles flew up into the air and hovered side by side.
"HEY!" They shouted simultaneously. Dozens of gazes swept up to look at them in surprise, and the teen heroes floundered for a moment.
"Look," Jaime recovered first. "We're all having a not very good day here, but without a little cooperation between all of us it isn't going to get any better."
"Mi hermano es absolutely right, folks." Julia jumped in. "So, either dial down the noise and let one person talk at a time, or we may as well scatter again." At first, the pair was nervous that they were going to be dismissed out of hand, but then they realized that the wide eyes still turned upwards were not, in fact, aimed at the two of them.
"Blue Beetle is right." A deep voice projected out across the crowd. The two teens snapped their heads around, and gaped at the pair of S-symbols hovering just behind them. On the ground, several of the other missing heroes arrived, causing more than a few murmurs to ripple out across the crowd.
While the two Supers started addressing everybody, Jaime dropped down in front of Bart and grabbed the speedster in a concerned hug. "You okay there, Ese?"
"Yeah, I'm fi- well, no, not really, I mean I could be, but I might not, it kind of depends..."
"Impulse, you need to explain or the Scarab's going to insist I slap you."
Bart grinned weakly at him, mirroring his alternate's expression to a similarly displeased Julia. The two of them launched into a mini-version of their conclusion even as the pair of adult Flashes explained to the crowd at large.
Everyone seemed to have a different reaction to the news: some were overjoyed at the prospect of the red haired speedsters still being alive, while others focused more on the knowledge that there was something darker responsible for taking some of their teammates.
And then Wonder Boy spoke up. "So... Where are Robyn, Batlad and Batwoman?"
-DS-
"Hyaa!" Robin sent another birdarang flying through the tendrils trying to attack him. All six of the Gotham heroes were racing about, launching their weapons and avoiding being caught by the mysterious vines or breathing the gas that was released when they were punctured.
"Does this remind anyone else of fighting Poison Ivy?" His counterpart Robyn called out, ducking her own attackers.
"It hadn't, but thank you for pointing out that pleasant comparison." Batgirl grumbled. She took a running leap, flipped over a tendril aiming for her heart, and went straight through the mist bank it had emerged from.
What was waiting on the other side nearly shocked her into freezing stock still.
A/N: I'm so sorry folks, I feel like I haven't updated this in (/checks calendar), oh, lookey there, a couple weeks.
/Hides face in shame
I'm afraid school's been throwing some curveballs at me, along with college application season and a enough crappy weather I've had to dedicate my weekends to getting some better shelters up at my mom's farm... I hate my life so much right now...
The good news is I've cobbled together enough of a groove today to finish throwing this chapter together and deliver it. The bad news is, well, I'm not sure when the next time I'll have available for a serious writing session will be. I'll try to get this story wrapped up over the next couple weekends, but we're still going to be touch-and-go until Spring arrives and I get a little time off.
-Triscribe