Tomorrow Titans – The Next Generation
Saga Arc #1: Charnel House
Chapter #5: "New Enemies"
Disclaimer: As usual, I'd like to say that I do this not for money or any kind of gain at all, and that barring some exceptions, such as Nightstar and other DC/Marvel original characters, the rest are either mine or belong to my friends, as stated before. It'd take too long to go into detail, but some characters belong to, or are inspired by characters owned by, Black Panther's Knight/Whatever name he uses if he changes it at a later date, if that happens. Any other character that appear that I don't indicate who owns them, and they're not mine, then their respective owners will know who they are, if that does happen, though it probably won't..
Author's Notes: Same warning as from the previous chapter. Oh, and a warning that strong language may be used, as well as the presence of off-'screen'/between scenes violence.
A loud klaxon sounded in Titans Tower, Death's Head sleep cycle cutting off as he was reactivated from his 'slumber', grunting a bit as he headed out of his room and began banging on the bedroom doors as he walked down the hall, some of them opening, others not. Sighing, he headed for the subbasement where the Quinjet they had been loaned, which had arrived during the impromptu supper, and began waiting for whatever members of his team he could get, not holding out much hope for a full line up.
The first door to be banged on was May's, who groaned loudly and ran a hand through her long hair, which was hanging over her shoulders and chest. She tried to get up, and felt a weight on her. She couldn't place it, till she slapped her forehead – which was minus one chakra gem – and looked down on the person lying at her side, and on a good half of her – Felicity. The two had spent the night together, rather passionately at that, and had fallen asleep together. Now the gothic-looking girl extricated herself from her girlfriend, and looked about, groaning. She headed for her closet, and grabbed a familiar costume out of habit, and slid into a pair of underwear before pulling on the lower half of the costume, and then the top half after putting on a thin bra, pulling the mask down over her face, before sliding on the gloves and boots that went with it. Yawning, she headed out of her room, and ran down the hall, guessing she was to head to the hangar, not realizing she was wearing the wrong costume…
Ranko woke up rather quickly, having been trained to wake up at a moment's notice, used to dealing with lechs and pervs and crazy people wanting to stamp her life out just because she was born. And so, she bolted out of bed, still wearing most of her costume, and pulled on what she wasn't wearing, the top, the vest, the boots, and grabbed her mace, and headed out, noticing May ahead of her, and the odd costume she was wearing. Chuckling a bit, she ran alongside her teammate, and tilted her head a bit, regarding her curiously.
"What's with the costume?"
"Huh? What do you…aww, damnit!" The pale girl cussed as they made it to the elevator, and pressed the call button, waiting for it to arrive…as that was the same method Death's Head used to get down below as well. "I put on the wrong costume…I didn't even know I had this one left…huh."
Tossing and turning. Tossing. Turning.
Those three words were what summed up Jace Lawrence's nights ever since becoming Speed Demon, tricked into accepting the power in a moment of weakness, and becoming demonically-empowered, seeking out those who committed crimes of various sorts and punishing them in various ways, as well as getting some free reign over what he did. But it was beginning to get old. No one his age should have to see the things he's seen, to do the things he's done. And even now, even in a world that wasn't his own, he was forced to pay for his rash decisions, never a moment's peace as he tried to sleep.
When the alarm set off, it woke the teenager up easily, and he jumped out of bed, heading for the door, the sound of burning flesh arising, as well as the stink of sulfur, and thus Speed Demon exited the room, running at the same pace as a normal, non-Speed Force wielding person, meeting up with the rest of his team in the hall, just as the last door in the hallway slid open…
In the guest room near the elevator, Alice was awoken, from a rather vivid dream, about one of the new guys – Jace. The way the light shone off his red glossed hair, and those gold eyes…it just attracted her. Not that she was one to talk about unusual hair and eyes. She had a unique parentage on her mother's side, and used the 'gift' her father had given her recently to hide that parentage, except from May, who was like her in a lot of ways. Except for the part about her choice in girlfriends. That part was where they differed – Alice saw Felicity as a superhero hanger-on, using the gifts from her mother to live a lifestyle she couldn't normally have, and at times her presence was actually of counter-benefit to May, who ended up getting hurt more protecting the other girl.
Alice may have been a friend to both girls, but she didn't have to tolerate such needless things.
When the alarm went off, she screamed in pain, her pajamas ripping and becoming a blue and white second skin, the gooey substance flowing over her exposed skin and sealing her off, a mouth with jagged teeth forming, and a long tongue wiggled out of her mouth, the girl gripping her head tightly. The skin finished forming, parts of the costume raising up in a ragged web-like pattern, forming a distinctive spider logo on the chest and back, similar to her father's, and the web designs on the front torso, hands, legs, and head mimicked that of the old Spider-Man costume. Snarling, the transformed teenager stormed out of the room, tendrils extending from her suit and tearing into the walls, finding the alarm's connection wire and tearing it out, causing the painful sound to fade. While nearly everyone tensed up, the girl saw a familiar face – May, in her own black/blue and white costume, snickering a bit as she kept her face mask down around her neck.
"Nice, Alice. You do realize you're going to have to pay for that."
"They can bill us." She-Venom/Venom II snarled as the elevator arrived, and she joined the others on it, as they all headed down to the subbasement.
When they arrived, Death's Head was sitting at the base of the retractable walkway to the Quinjet, looking as bored as he could manage, since his face couldn't really convey that much emotion, but his voice? His voice was quite effective at expressing how he felt.
"What. The. Hell. Took. You?" he said those five words, on their own, with a forceful edge to each word that made all four teens flinch, and flinch hard. Without bothering to say anything else, he stood and boarded the aircraft, hitting a switch on his wrist band to open the back-door passageway for the jet to enter and exit the building's lower level. The others shared a look at each other, then boarded as well, May tugging up the mask that was around her neck, covering her face with a black/blue mask with white eye lenses, that went up to her hairline. The front of the costume had a similar spider logo to Venom's, and a similar color scheme, though with white on the gloves, and around the bands on her legs, and could also sport a backpack, though she didn't have that with her. Speed Demon eyed the two, and whispered to her.
"Nice outfit…you two have a common fashion sense…" He remarked, in an obvious fashion, though to be fair he had never seen either outfit before in his world. Before he could say anything else, Death's Head began speaking.
"Okay, before we all socialize our heads off, we have a job to do. It's a job some of you won't like. We have to defend what's left of a Lexlabs building from an as-yet-unknown threat that seems to be doing a hell of a lot of damage." There was a loud groan from everyone there, as they all know what getting involved with a Luthor, Lex or Lena especially, entailed, even if they all weren't from the same universe, or ran in the same social superhero circles. "Yeah yeah, it sucks to be us. Anyway, the place is apparently doing cyborg research, though I haven't been able to find out what exactly because I didn't have time to cyber-hack into the main computer. Now, I want all of us to be on our guard – the threat is apparently a cyborg itself, armed with a variable weapons system…" As Death's Head spoke, a flicker of recognition appeared in his eyes. "Oh no…" with that, he gunned the engine, blasting the jet out of the building and zooming towards the battlesite, not bothering to let the others do up their safety belts, nearly dislodging everyone from their seats.
"Hey, what the hell?!" May shot, gripping her seat tightly, using every ounce of her considerable strength to stay where she was, looking furiously at the team leader.
"This thing sounds a lot like something I've fought twice before, alright? And in both instances, this thing spelled bad news for everything that's alive. If whatever's attacking this lab is anything like what I'm thinking it is, we have to take it down hard and fast! If we're lucky, we'll be able to kill it…literally speaking."
"Sounds serious," Ranko spoke up, yawning loudly, causing everyone else to groan a bit and slap their foreheads.
"Oh, it is, it is…" the former mercenary spoke darkly, in a tone that worried those that were sharing the Quinjet's space with him.
By the time the jet had arrived, half the building had been leveled, the creature having moved on to one of the lower levels. Death's Head went first, running forward, and snapping only two words – "Blaster Configuration!" – as he ran, his arm transforming into a rather large blaster with a magazine in it, running through the burning wreckage and wrecked steel, while Speed Demon ran through the mess at super speed, checking for any survivors. When he rejoined the group, his posture was more sagged than it was before. May looked at him, pulling her mask down and gagging a bit at the acrid smell of burning earth, metal, and even flesh, quickly pulling the mask back up.
"Did you…?" She started, before Speed Demon shook his flaming skull/head.
"They're all dead…and the devastation…even if those guys work for Luthor, this is no way to go…" Everyone shared those sentiments, as Venom walked through the mess, sidestepping any fire uneasily, the surface membrane of the symbiote 'skin' turning into a dripping, wax-like substance as she walked, threatening to peel away from her and fall around her in a puddle…and as she was only wearing a small bra and matching panties, that would be highly embarrassing. May snickered softly, and walked past her friend, making sure her own gloves were down around her wrists, exposing on each wrist an odd pattern on the skin, almost a deformation, and then put her middle two fingers together, pressing against her palm…and with a squirting sound, a white sticky substance shot from the spots on her wrists, splattering all over the fires and putting them out.
"Thanks, May…" Alice sighed in relief as the other girl went ahead of her, continuing to put out the fires as she went along.
"Think nothing of it. I wasn't called Spider-Girl just because I could stick to walls, after all," the purple haired girl finished putting out the fires, and managed to see the team's leader jump down a broken elevator shaft, and sighed. "Come on, people. He ain't making this easy…" She chased after him, and jumped down the shaft, moving to the side, and making contact with her fingers and feet, adhering to the surface of the shaft, and began crawling down, Venom following after her, with Speed Demon sliding down the shaft's cable slowly, occasionally tightening his grip to slow down and loosening to go faster, Ranko doing the same thing and being careful not to hit him with her mace, as she had it had her side, dangling off the hook on her belt. "Man, what stinks…?" May grunted as the smell of something foul penetrated her mask. When they made it to the bottom, May and Venom were the first to climb out of the doors, pushing them open as they did, then taking a look around as their teammates emerged. Speed Demon began zipping through the halls, eventually finding a trail of very fresh destruction, and motioned for everyone to follow him, which they did.
By the time they got there, they could see Death's Head screaming at an attractive redheaded scientist, who was cowering, and several partially destroyed Minion cyborgs, all looking like more sinister versions of the already-sinister enough Death's Head II. The cyborgs were repairing themselves, though, and would be on their feet in seconds…if not for Venom and May webbing them down with a thick double-layering of webbing, which began to exhaust the pale girl, whose own webbing was harder to replenish on the fly…as her father once said, she'd have to eat a whole lot of twinkies to get over this. Death's Head paused in his berating of the woman, who was visibly shaken by something or another – perhaps whatever had caused all of this mess in the first place – and wasn't looking any better once her reinforcements were tied down.
"Hey, boss, what's going on?" Ranko…Thunderstrike…asked as she walked up, looking around curiously. Death's Head sighed, before pushing the redhead forward, Venom and May catching her easily as she fell over.
"This is Doctor Necker, the nutjob that made this body and caused the fiasco that resulted in me being Death's Head II. She's been making illegal Minion-type cyborgs here…cyborgs that are constructed primarily by A.I.M. She's saying something blue came down here, and started wrecking the building, looking for A.I.M's HQ, not realizing this is a Lexcorp building. Secure her, please." At that, May and Venom both bound Necker's hands behind her back, and then stuck the woman behind some rubble, webbing her in place before going back, and noticing they were in front of a large vault that had the door burned open. Intermittent vapors would emerge, cold vapors. "This is where Lexcorp had an Iceborg installed to keep in contact with their A.I.M partners…big ugly must be in there, trying to find out where to go…come on people, stay close, but not too close – be ready for anything."
Everyone nodded, and followed the blue cyborg, entering the freezing vault, and gaped at what they saw inside, when the massive blue monster turned. Everyone froze, even Death's Head, his jaw dropping. The figure looked almost exactly like Death's Head, the same shades of blue and red, the same red hair/neck wires, the same horns, the same skull-faceplate, the same everything, only twisted and distorted and skewed into a monstrous form. Death's Head growled, and took aim with his blaster, finally speaking. "Charnel…"
The creature looked surprised as its name was used. "You know who I am? Curious…you appear to be the original Minion…tell me, what reality am I in?"
"One where Minion absorbed the first Death's Head, and made me…I've dealt with other versions of you before, Charnel…you'll go down as easy as they did."
"Oh really now? This should be interesting then." The creature's arm morphed, back into the pronged beam weapon it had used to enter the building, smirking…as it appeared to have one human eye, and a human lower face, rather than just gumless teeth and exposed skull. "Prepare to die…Death's Head."
"EVERYONE…SEPARATE!" Death's Head screamed as he pushed Ranko out of the way, causing everyone else to fall back as the massive weapon fired, the beam firing past the five Titans and slamming into the wall farther away from him, melting the way away and tearing into the sensitive wires and machinery, scorching the metal and plastic and everything else away. May then fired off a webline, which hit the blue monster square in both eyes, making him roar in outrage as he morphed his arm back to normal, to claw at the webbing on his faceplate. Death's Head took the opportunity to run forward, firing his own blaster arm repeatedly, the blasts slamming into Charnel, and driving it back, tearing into the metal shell that surrounded the malevolent entity, causing large amounts of orange nano-fluid/goo to burst forward, splattering over the floor and causing Speed Demon to nearly slip and fall down as he surged forward, and began ramming his Hellfire-encompassed fists into Charnel's abdomen, each one tearing into the monster, as though its hide was weak, and unable to resist the attacks of the heroes.
The truth was, while Charnel was off-balance, and unable to concentrate, his hide indeed weakened, enough that a punch or kick of sufficient force would penetrate and splatter nanotech solutions everywhere, but while the creature was on the offensive, it was near impossible to do any damage.
Thunderstrike took aim with her mace, and fired an enchanted blast of thunder, which burned through the alternate Charnel's outer shell, scorching a hole through him that began to seal almost as quickly as it was created. The redhead grunted in annoyance, and took aim again. When the hole began to seal again, Venom and Spider-Girl/May took aim themselves, and began filling the hole with web-fluid, which caused the healing process to become impeded, weakening Charnel considerably. Death's Head lunged forward, his arm shifting as he did. "Hammer configuration!" He cried out as his arm morphed into a large, blunt hammer, smashing it into the necromancer's solid faceplate and cracking it, exposing what appeared to be, but couldn't really be, human flesh.
"Away from me, worms!" he bellowed, lashing out with his arms and striking Death's Head across the chest, tearing deep furrows into his own armor and exposing his innards, though the damage began to seal as he fell back, while Charnel lifted a foot, and slammed it down, sending a shockwave that toppled Speed Demon and Thunderstrike, Spider-Man and Venom only still upright because of their ability to stick to almost any surface, though they trembled and shook and nearly fell anyways, bending a little back and forth, yelping as finally they stumbled back, and took up a battle pose. Charnel finally tore the web-fluid out of his eyes, snarling animalistically, regarding the heroes before him with a hate-filled gaze. "You filthy whores!" He directed at the two spider-themed heroines, and lunged forward, his stomach/abdomen beginning to seal up, as the webbing was dissolved by the nano-paste, gripping them both tightly around the necks and choking them, though after a few moments, her head swimming, Alice's symbiote responded by causing spikes to expand from her neck, and pierce the beast's blue hand, making him drop the first girl, at which point she used her own claws to stab into his other arm, forcing him to drop the nearly-passed out May, who began coughing violently as she struggled to breathe.
"Oh…th-thanks, Al…" she managed to say hoarsely, as her friend moved back a ways, Charnel lunging forwards. She raised one hand up, at which point it began to glow black, and with a loud sound like an beam firing, a black bolt of mystic force erupted from the palm of her hand, and sent Charnel flying backwards, smashing through the walls of the building as he came to a halt in the Iceborg chamber, barely managing to halt his progress before he smashed into the delicate machine. "Take that, a-hole…" she groaned, her friend helping her to stand as she wobbled and rubbed her neck. "Damn, that hurt…"
For a moment all was quiet, and Death's Head was amazed that they had lasted this long – he hadn't gotten around to training the team with the 'real' Charnel simulations yet, but here they were, holding their own against this other version. Of course, they could still die yet…
Charnel emerged from the chamber after a few moments, grunting. It was about this time that the new Minion cyborgs reactivated, and began advancing on the hastily assembled team, rather than Charnel, even Necker surprised for a few moments. Then she realized she'd programmed the cyborgs to fight their predecessor, and not any kind of Charnel, which was just enough time for the beast to go back into the chamber, and begin downloading information into its brain, smirking noticeably as it began asking questions and finding out what it needed to know, especially about the universe it landed in. Meanwhile, the ersatz Titans were surrounded, all the Minions morphing their right arms into weapons of various sorts, Death's Head trying to keep most of the team shielded with his own body, saying a number of foul things about the other cyborgs' parentage, including about Necker, which offended the redhead to no end.
"Hey! I heard that, Minion!" she shot back at the annoyed cyborg/mercenary.
"It's Death's Head, you damn lunatic! Get that part right!" he growled as he opened fire finally, his arm in the form of a grenade launcher-type weapon, the shell hitting the first cyborg approaching them and blowing it back, leaving a hole in its chest that began sealing up, but at a reduced rate. Death's Head huh-ed, then shot at the others, hitting each in the chest, though not all of them fell down. One of them continued to approach, while another staggered back. The first one had Venom's claws tearing into its insides as a result, causing it to short out and fall down in a heap, while Spider-Girl simply kicked the other in the abdomen, cracking it open there as it fell back as well.
"Huh, these guys break too easy." Speed Demon noted, prodding one of the fallen with the edge of his boot, jerking his foot away at super-speed when that mechanoid began to twitch and spasm abruptly, multicolored fluids spurting out from the cracks in its chest. Death's Head chuckled, and tilted his head back a bit, regarding the flaming skulled youth.
"They're inferior models, I'm guessing. Either they were made with sub-standard parts or 'donors', or Charnel there really softened them up…but we'd better hurry. While these bozos are down, we can stop Charnel from escaping. Trust me, if this guy gets away, we'll all suffer for it later in the worst possible way!" With that the blue and red cyborg charged the Iceborg vault, the teens all sharing a look before following after him.
By the time they got in there, the complex computer memory system had been destroyed, every bit of information necessary uploaded into the necromancer's mind, a wide grin on his face. "Thank you, Death's Head…children. Dealing with that little distraction gave me just enough time to get the information I need. I now know everything about this world…all you heroes, your weaknesses, your abilities…everything I need to take you down. And now, I'll bid you all adieu."
"NO!" Death's Head roared as he lunged forwards, arm morphing into a blade, and, followed by Speed Demon and Venom, brought it down through the space the alternate Charnel was occupying, space folding around the villain, resulting in a teleport affect. When he was gone, Death's Head kicked the remains of the Iceborg, then began to throw a fit, ripping the machinery out of the wall and tossing it about, screaming at the top of his synthetic lungs, hands in the air and outstretched, as he just vented all of his rage, frustration, and impotence into the loudest scream any of those present had ever heard, and even those who had no sonic weakness winced at the sound, which caused a slight ringing in their ears.
"Well, damn," the redhead Thunderstrike finally said, rubbing her ears, as were everyone else except Venom, who was twitching a bit, her second skin trembling slightly as the remains of the Iceborg exploded, catching the team's temporary leader in the explosion, but leaving him no worse for the wear. "Was that really necessary, boss?"
"No, but it made me feel better. Now, let's get the hell out of this rank hole before anyone shows up to ask stupid questions. Oh, and girls, grab Necker. We're making that bitch tell us everything she did here for Luthor and A.I.M. And don't forget the Ripoff Brigade is still 'healing' out there, so let's make it snappy." Everyone nodded, and Venom, Spider-Girl, and Thunderstrike pried Necker off of where the webbing stuck her, and 'escorted' her to the Titans' current mode of air transportation, the redhead struggling and trying to break free.
"Let me go, you…you…freaks!" she finally spat, which earned her a very harsh glare from the demonic speedster ahead of her. "Uhm…ah….uhhhh…s-sorry?" she said meekly, the eyeless gaze of Speed Demon quickly changing her attitude.
Everyone then shared a sigh as they bored the jet, and headed back to the Tower. The last words Death's Head said before he climbed on were "Come on, kids. At least you guys get to go back to bed. I have to babysit this idiotic cyberneticist all night…" The teens chuckled, Necker growled until she was glared at again, and then the jet lifted off into the air, and made its way back to Titans Island, everyone lost in thought.
End Notes: And so we draw this arc to a close, with the next chapter. I hope you've all enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. And yeah, it's another cliffhanger. Sorry, I'm just used to writing these fanfics like that.