What was waiting on the other side nearly shocked her into freezing stock still.
Nearly.
Three more tendrils whipping out at her from the massive black and purple blob forced Batgirl into defensive measures. She nimbly jumped upwards, spinning around and lashing her feet out at the incoming projectiles. Two of the tendrils were kicked away while the third served as her launch pad for getting back to the rest of the Bats.
"We don't want to go that way, trust me." The hero called out as she moved back into visual range of the others. "There's a gelatinous thing half the size of the Watchtower that these tendrils are coming out of. I get the feeling it's just trying to shoo us away."
"And we're supposed to do what it wants?" Robin yelped as he swerved to avoid a vine that suddenly changed direction on him.
"Until we know what it is or what it wants, yes." Batman said sternly. And with that, the six of them back-tracked away from the tendrils and the blob.
They didn't get very far, though, before a call halted all of the Bats in their tracks.
"Batman!" All six pairs of eyes jerked upwards and widened at the site of several heroes suspended midair by the same black tendrils.
"Nightwing?!" The younger four Gotham heroes all yelped upon seeing their respective elder Teammate trapped overhead.
"Behind you-!" Dixie was cut off with a gasp as the tendrils wrapped around her suddenly tightened, squeezing out all the air from her lungs. The others were similarly restrained before they could so much as open their mouths.
Batman ducked, grabbing Robyn's cape and pulling her down as well to avoid the sharply pointed tendrils that would have speared through them otherwise. He was glad to see Batwoman do the same for his partner, while the other two dropped to the ground on their own. The grown hero pulled out another razor edged batarang, launching it at the bindings that held his oldest protege captive - only for it to be snatched out of the air, the black substance that made up the tendrils completely absorbing the projectile.
ENOUGH.
A deep rumbling started to make the grey mists around them shiver and churn, even as more tendrils appeared out of them and circled around the suspended heroes, several of whom were having difficulty breathing by this point. Then, the lot of them began to shift further into the greyness.
"No!" Batwoman yelled angrily, seeing both Nightwings and the others being taken out of sight. She too pulled out another batarang, an explosive one, but instead of throwing it at the tendrils themselves she sent the projectile through the mists, in the direction where Batgirl had seen the massive being that controlled the foul tendrils. Moments later, they could see the shockwave of the explosion ripple through the mists, and all of the tendrils paused where they were.
Then, everything went wrong.
-DS-
Faintly, very faintly, Superman felt the ripple of an explosive shockwave. His eyebrows went up in surprise, and an exchanged glance with Superwoman proved she had felt it too. A few of the more air pressure sensitive heroes were also turning to look with confused expressions on their faces.
"I think we just got a lead on our missing Bats." Superwoman murmured. Several Leaguers glanced up at her words, and noticed those among their number who were all staring in the same direction.
"What is it?" Black Canary asked, slowly shifting her feet into something resembling a fighting stance. The Kryptonian briefly explained about the ripple through the air, and by then the four speedsters were heading towards where it had emanated from.
They didn't get that far.
Just as Barry reached the edge of a veritable mist wall, a massive intertwined web of the black tendrils came boiling out of it, forcing the speedsters to backtrack. And being hurled outwards from it were six black-caped figures, each struggling to land in something other than a painful sprawl.
Eyes widening as he saw the potentially fatal trajectory Batgirl was taking, Superman flew up in a red and blue blur, gently catching the young woman as she twisted midair. Batlad was similarly caught by Superwoman, as well as Robyn and Robin by their respective Amazonian significant other. All had relieved grins on their faces, once the shock of their sudden journeys wore off.
The elder Bats, though, retained the dire scowls, even as Wonder Woman and Wonder Man brought them to the ground.
"Are you alright?" Diana asked, concerned even as she concluded that the hero she set down had no immediately obvious injuries.
"Fine - now move! We need to get back there!"
"Whoa, Bats, easy there. What the heck happened?" Green Arrow asked, several other League and Team members asking the same thing. "And we've kinda been staying away from those vines, y'know."
"I'm sure." Growled Batwoman, getting to her own feet as well. "But that's not helping Nightwing or any of the others!"
"What are you talking about?"
"Whatever these tendrils are, and the monster-sized blob that's controlling them, they're holding the members of the original Team prisoner! We've got to save them!" Robyn projected her voice for everyone to hear. "They've been moved from where we saw them last, but if we go where the tendrils are trying to keep us away from, we're bound to find them!"
Her words were taken to heart, but sadly, not just by the gathered heroes.
Black tendrils snaked out of the mists towards them, and from all directions. Within seconds, it was mass chaos as the superheroes attempted to clear some room around them, to no avail. There were just too many attackers.
Rocket blasted through a trio of tendrils that were attempting to hold down his mentor, and Icon returned the favor not a moment later. The Atlanteans, without a ready source of water, were hard pressed to fight with their fists and feet, requiring aid several times from those with longer range weapons. Twin Canary cries resounded through the battleground, tearing partially through the bunches of tendrils, only for the black things to reform once the soundwaves ceased. The four archers kept close together, pointing out targets to each other in an effort to conserve their arrows, while the pair of cat-masked Cheshires leaped about to keep them relatively clear. Even the Kryptonians and speedsters, moving at their fastest, were barely able to keep a balance between the incoming tendrils and the rapidly tiring heroes.
And then, within the blink of an eye, it was over.
A pair of crimson and gold bands appeared, spinning around the League and Team members, sparks of energy flashing as the tendrils were cut off from their source. Instantly, they dropped to the ground and shriveled up, looking for all the world like harmless weeds.
Getting is rapid breathing under control, Barry slid to a halt just as the bands of color came together to form a pair of slender figures, still crackling with absorbed energy of the Speed Force.
The air from his last exhale caught in Flash's throat, and when he finally breathed it out, a single word escaped as well. "Wally..."