"Don't look now, but he's not alone," Kara said, knocking the clone version of Beast Boy with a burst of super breath.
"Lovely," Rachel commented dryly and she knocked down her enemy with a casual flick her wrist.
Cyborg dropped down, and this version was more machine than man. Slade's versions of the classic vintage Teen Titans were rather corrupt. That was one thing that Harry noticed, as he faced his adversary. The young man aimed an arm cannon at them, ready to fire.
At first they froze, until they reminded themselves of one thing.
"Not the original, good, then there is no holding back," Kory said, and she blasted him with the full brunt of one of her own star bolts.
The man staggered half of a step back, but he returned fire at her. The redhead princess dodged each attack with expert precision and even more expert fury. It was almost like she took these attacks as a personal insult.
Harry flipped his wrist and it shorted out the electrical components. He tried not to be too lazy with using magic, but the solution pretty much bitch-slapped him in the face right here and they ran low on time.
That being said, he dinged him pretty bad and he smiled.
"Even the best defenses are going to have a flaw in them," Harry told the girls and then almost on cue, a thump hit Harry on the back of the head.
He dodged the second attack, and saw someone hovering in the shadows. Another shot knocked Harry off guard, and he moved through the shadows, using the acrobatics that made him part of the Flying Graysons.
"My thoughts exactly, and since you have their best line of defense….. you're very flawed…"
A large wooden staff with a blade concealed in it nearly came down into Harry's throat, but the young wizard blocked the attack.
"The biggest flaw in your defense, Mr. Grayson, is you should never start running your yap unless you have your opponent knocked out for sure," Harry said, knocking Nightwing back. With an acrobatic flip, he stuck a firm landing on his feet.
"I'll keep that in mind for when I kill you," Nightwing said with a feral grin and he lifted up several throwing daggers, but Kara helped Harry destroy them in midair.
"Yeah, and you never knew when to shut up," Donna said, trying to drive an elbow down onto the back of Nightwing's head, but he caught her arm and twisted it.
"You super powered people are all of the same," he said.
He slapped her down onto the ground, and pinned her shoulder down to her back, twisting it.
"Too confident in your little power set."
Donna squirmed, but it was hard for her to escape when he had a leverage. That being said, that she didn't need to, as Barbara swooped in, zapping him with a stun gun in the back side, pretty much literally.
"Tell me about it," Barbara commented, with a grin and she kicked him backwards into the wall, before firing a running kick to his face, knocking him loopy.
Nightwing tried to struggle to his feet, but Barbara was on top of him and she could get on top of any enemy pretty quickly. Her elbow pummeled the back of his head really hard, and rendered him unconscious.
Suddenly his body started to spasm, and he started to speak in a weird strangled number of tongues.
"And he's not speaking in any language that I've ever heard," Kory said, watching the progress, and Beast Boy was up to his feet, giving a feral roar, spitting acid as he did so.
"Well, they're having a mental breakdown," Harry said, raising his hand and he sent a bolt of energy at the creature, but he dodged it.
"Yeah, and with something like that, a physical breakdown is sure to fire," Barbara said.
Sure enough, this proved her right, seeing the weathered and damaged face of Nightwing, as it looked like he aged about fifty years in the facial area in the span of about five minutes. It had to be very painful.
"Listen, you're not….."
"Don't you dare nag me, always uptight, always a bitch….."
Kory nailed him in the back of the head, causing his head to explode. She looked shocked at what she did. The decapitated Nightwing clone dropped to the ground.
"Not the real thing, remember," Rachel said, putting up a barrier that Beast Boy tried to claw his way through.
"Give it to me, give it to me, GIVE IT TO ME!"
Kory nodded numbly, but it wasn't too hard. She could see Cyborg drop off to the ground, but he opened his mouth.
"This is funny, oh funny, you want to tell them why this is funny, BB?"
"Oh, this is absolutely hilarious," Beast Boy giggled insanely, as he was about ready to succumb to the tell tale signs of clone degeneration. His mind had absolutely gone. "You see that chemical in your hand….. well….. it's one of the two doses… you got one….. and the boss has the other one…"
"Yeah, yeah, and…. well, I'm sure that you can synthesize an antidote to that part of the compound, but…" Cyborg said, hacking up a lovely combination of blood and battery fluids. "By the time you do that, it will be too late."
"Much too late."
They degenerated into a pile of nothing on the floor.
Harry came to the lovely realization that they just got duped.
Then there was a group of three fresh clone Titans and the dance continued anew. They didn't have a long shelf life, which was the intention.
Chloe made her way to the facility, leading a team with Karen, Diana, Imra, Tinya, Zatanna, and Ayala. She placed her hands on the lock and slowly it began to spring to life. She effortlessly hacked the locks.
"Pretty high tech lock in a place that was abandoned about five hundred years ago," Zatanna commented.
"Well the person who built this facility was very paranoid," Chloe said with a smile. "And also ahead of his time."
"And kind of creepy judging by the décor,' Karen said and Chloe smiled.
"That too, that too," Chloe agreed, and the girls were ready for a fight. A revenge of the Clone Titans or something like that, she was pretty sure that this adventure mandated some cheesy title.
Imra could not read any thoughts, but that didn't mean anything. Someone like Slade would have the best of mental shielding, especially since he knew of her from their last encounter. Adaptability made Deathstroke an extremely dangerous enemy.
"It feels like we're walking into something from a 20th century horror movie," Tinya said, trying to keep herself nervous.
"Oh, are those any good?" Ayla asked.
"Kind of campy, really," Karen said, then again, there was a lot about Earth entertainment that she didn't really get. Their ideas about life on other planets was the height of comedy.
"According to this report from the terror twins, we should be right on top of the component, in fact, it should be right through that vault."
Karen smiled, and did the honors. She grabbed onto the edge of the vault, ripping it off of the hinges.
They prepared to get the component, the last one on the list, but they only saw a slip of paper, with a taunting message.
'Sorry, your chemical is another castle.'
"I really, really hate when the bad guys mock you," Karen groaned and Chloe patted her on the shoulder.
They had left a note, but the note also left a clue. There was a residue on it, that shined bright in her eyes. The blonde scanned the note rather carefully.
"Okay, I'm sending you this residue sample….. I want to see if you can find anything about it," Chloe told Tess.
"On it already, this might take a few minutes….. and yes, I'm well aware that we don't have that kind of time," Tess agreed, but such genius could not be rushed. The redhead worked through the process of figuring things out and made a high amount of progress.
"And are you working on a potential antidote to the chemical weapon?" Chloe asked and it was time for the Luthor twins to shine brightly.
"It's difficult…"
"But not for someone of our prodigal scientific intellect," Alexis commented with a wide smile on her face.
"We should be able to complete the chemical compound that will negate the effects of the poison within an hour…"
"Barring any complications…"
"Like the experiment blowing up in our face….."
Chloe always felt tired when dealing with those two, she wasn't going to lie. Yet, that caught her off guard. "Don't….. don't blow up Headquarters."
"Well, it's unlikely to happen, only a twenty two point nine probability…"
"Actually twenty three point seven," one of the twins corrected the other. They had to strive for accuracy in this situation after all.
"Oh, is that all?" Chloe asked, she tried to keep the biting sarcasm out of her voice, but that was kind of hard to do.
"Relax; I'm sure that they are good for this."
Chloe tried to relax; she really did to be honest. Diana looked into the shadows.
"Whoever was there, they must have been in and out a long time ago," Diana said. "Which means that he's thinking one step ahead of us."
"At least three," Karen amended, she really hated it when the bad guys grew a brain. It made things a fair bit more difficult for them.
"Well, never mind that….."
There was a gasp on the other side and Chloe tensed up when she heard Tess.
"Please tell me that was a good gasp and not a bad gasp, because I don't think that I could deal with a bad gasp right now."
"Oh, it's good," Tess said with a smile on her face and triumph dancing in her eyes.
"Tell me then," Chloe said, impatience was dancing through her voice.
"So is that all of them?" Kara asked, seeing the third wave of Clone Titans that they fought crumble into a pile of decomposed clone yuck.
"Yes, and I'm setting up a field that if they enter here next time and get exposed to open air, they will be destroyed," Harry told them.
"Yes, that's all well and good," Barbara said with a smile. She tried to keep her mind on the situation. "But they've got four of the five chemicals."
"Five out of the five actually," Chloe chimed in through the communicator and that caused everyone to jump up and take notice.
"Great," Kara groaned, this day just kept getting better and better. The blonde shook her head at it.
"Maybe not, just because he has the chemicals, he might not be able to put them together correctly," Harry told the group and Tess decided to break in.
"Well, I've got some good news and some bad news."
"Can't we just ever have good news and even more good news?" Donna asked and Rachel turned towards her former and current teammate.
"Keep dreaming that impossible dream," she told the young Amazon Princess, who folded her arms over her chest, with a slight scowl upon her face. Rachel lightly patted her on the head which did not improve her mood.
"I wish that I could, I really wish that I could," she commented, and the scowl grew even more prominent the more that she glared forward.
"Okay, you want the good news first, so we can soften the blow."
"No, let's have the good news last, that way we can end things on a high note, and actually some hope," Kara said. "Because so far today, we need pretty much any ounce of that we can get."
"That was the most morbid thing I've ever heard you say."
"It's not less true," Harry told Barbara, who shrugged.
Tess allowed herself a moment to get her thoughts together, composing herself. The bad news could in fact be very bad, so she wanted to let the entire group down as gently as possible. Even though there would be some problems.
"Okay the bad news is we're dealing with an extremely deadly poison that will destroy any super powered person that breathes any oxygen that it breathes."
"So, Slade is going to put his pet Titans on the line and himself…"
"It's Slade, of course the plan's absolutely nuts, but something tells me he's not acting on his own accord," Rachel said and the group faced her. She sighed. "I mean, think about it, someone had to bring him back from the grave. Genocide is not Slade's game, at least it wasn't."
"Well, time changes us all," Kory suggested, but she had to concede to her friend had a point.
"He only made a deal with Trigon the first time so he could get his old body and life back," Rachel reminded them all. "And it was done very teeth grittingly."
"That's very true," Donna said, remembering that, but she shook her head. "Okay, we've got the bad news so it's time for the good news."
"Hopefully the good news is really good news," Kory said, the excitement and optimism brimmed from her eyes and her voice.
"Well, we're getting close to tracking down his stronghold," Tess remarked to the girls and Harry smiled.
"And he's likely to have an army waiting for us…"
"The other team is our way here," Karen said.
"I'll come over to meet you," Cir-El told her cousin over the communication link.
"And we'll be over here too, as soon as possible," Harry said, but there was something to all of this that was very unsettling. Slade was not the type of person to give up any time soon, but yet he didn't come to face Harry himself.
Original and clone, Harry honestly had no idea what he was dealing with. All they could do was move onward and hope that they could find a way to deal with the problem.
"So, there's nothing left here, right?"
"Yes," Harry said and Kara nodded.
They had the other component, but they had to take it with them. Something that dangerous, even on its own, falling into the wrong hands, would mean the end of the world as they knew it and they could guarantee that very few people would be feeling fine.
"Should I wait to pick up?"
"Yes, Tess, arrange for pick up."
He placed the chemical at the same point that they were sent here and a flash of light beamed it up.
Then it was onwards to find Slade and Harry had a feeling that he could be walking into a trap, but at the same time, what choice did he honestly have?
The fate of millions hung perilously in the balance.
"Oh, and I've got worse news as well."
"Just now you spring this on us," Chloe said, agitation boiling from her voice.
"There's a bomb across from the facility, which will release the chemical…"
"Take your team and take care of that, I'll deal with Slade," Harry said and there was an agreement that was a damn good plan.
Now it was time to enact it.
"Very disappointing, they should have returned by now."
If there is one thing that could be taken to the bank with interest that was that Slade Wilson absolutely hated to have to wait for someone to come and his impatience only grew by each passing second.
Slade folded his arms, the look on his face growing most foul. The clones had not returned. He sent his three freshest batches out there.
He made his way over to the equipment, checking the bio-metric signs, which flashed across the screen, given him warning bells of what to expect.
These clones were not responding as they should, in fact they appeared to be not responsive.
"Clone degeneration, it's a horror show, isn't it?"
Slade turned his attention to the pods that had more of his beloved Titans inside. It was enough Titans to overthrow a small village, if they didn't have such a short time of about twelve hours or less.
Fighting accelerated their degeneration, but it was no great loss. Slade was strong and his mind was clear thanks to access to the Pits.
That being said, there was still a lot to do and his benefactor would be contacting him soon to give him the next phase of the plan.
The doors blew off its hinges and Harry Potter walked in to face him. Slade stood, unblinking, and spoke one calm statement.
"You know, it was unlocked."
Slade armed himself with a miniature cannon and started to fire. A sinister whirl echoed as the bolts shot towards Harry.
He got down, ducked, rolled, and then sent the arm cannon out of his hand. The cannon blew up and Slade doubled over, clutching his burned hand and charred fingers in misery.
"Guess we're doing this the old fashion way."
He charged Harry, his hand outstretched. He tried to ram his palm into Harry's throat to knock the wind out of him.
Harry dodged the attack and Slade crouched down to duck the slicing spell that he used on him.
"Fine by me."
Harry grabbed Slade by the ponytail that was coming out from underneath his mask and whipped it back.
Slade landed on the ground, but he pulled out two daggers. He flung them at Harry at super speed.
Super speed was not fast enough, with Harry waving his hands and they exploded.
Slade kept rolling, avoiding the next attack, which would have left him a greasy smear on the ground. Pulling himself up, he once again charged Harry.
Harry propelled himself up into the air and repelled Slade's next dagger attack back at him.
Slade was quick, enough to avoid the attack. The man continued to roll on the ground.
"So we end this right now."
He whipped a chain out, with it about to wrap around Harry. Or at least it would have wrapped around him, had Harry not deflected the chain back at him.
The chain wrapped around Slade, pulling him into a crushing attack on the rebound. There were only three words that Harry gave in response.
"My thoughts exactly"
Slade flew backwards, with the chain wrapped around him. There was a meathook hanging from the ceiling.
The meathook ripped through Slade, hanging him up to dry.
"You might have stopped me, but it's too late," Slade whispered, the sickening black blood draining from his face, as he tried to pull the hook out of him.
"It's never too late, you should know that by now."
He could see Slade slowly wither, slowly die on the hook. The force of the injury caused whatever he was doing to stall the clone degeneration to settle in and he was being reduced to a molten pile of white goop.
Harry picked up a communicator.
"I've got something," Harry said to Tess.
"Oh?" she asked.
"Coordinates, I'm feeding them to you right now."
Sure enough the bomb was where they said it would be. With Cir-El and Karen keeping watch outside, and the rest of the members of the Legion scattering around, Chloe made her way in to complete her magic.
The problem for most hackers was that this was the most complex device in the world. If you messed up one thing trying to disable the bomb, then the timer, the three second timer, would go off and they would be utterly screwed and not in a good way.
The good news was that Chloe was not most hackers. She had the technology of one of the most powerful computers in the world running through her body.
"Okay, let's see," Chloe commented, placing her hands on the bomb. She knew that one wrong movement and they would be blown to Kingdom Come.
Become one with the machine, and feel the machine. Her heart skipped a beat as she could feel herself interfacing with the technology underneath her palms. The blonde bit down on her lip firmly and felt things flowing into her.
That caused shivers to go down her spine, but the blonde once again had to focus. One single misstep and it would be done.
The blonde continued to pour herself into the bomb, and she could hear a clicking.
'Okay, good, means I'm in and means that I didn't make a really big boom with the first thing that I tried,' Chloe thought, she had a razor sharp focus on the bomb. Nothing was going to get her down.
The bomb once again rested underneath the palm of her hand and now that she was in, she could not move for anything.
The first gate was taken into and she had two paths that she could take.
'They would have to make this tricky,' Chloe thought, but no pain, no gain and no pressure, well what was the problem with a little bit of pressure?
The blonde managed to take the right path and unlatch yet another gate. Time was crawling, almost to a standstill and the blonde could feel the tension rise.
The third one had the most paths out of the first two.
'The third one would trip the most people up,' Chloe mentally added. 'If someone was lucky enough to slip on past the first two.'
The blonde could feel herself on the edge of the gate; it had the same energy signature as the other two.
The latch was pulled back and she ran headlong into a lot of binary code to be honest.
Then Chloe stopped, looking at the chemical in the tank. She disabled the bomb, but then slapped a scanner on one of the tanks.
It was giving high readings.
'LSD, potentially enough to screw people up, but not enough to kill Meta humans,' Chloe thought, the grim realization was really hitting her with a blunt force.
"We've hit a dead end," Chloe said, the horror hitting her suddenly.
"Of course we have, but that means that the real bomb is around here somewhere," Tess said and Karen paused.
"Cir-El and I will check out around the front, we thought that we saw someone roaming around."
"I dealt with Slade; Tess is currently trying to figure out the coordinates on his communicator, providing that's a location of any tangible value."
"Right, I guess I'll just finish disabling this bomb and we'll clean up now, still something we don't want lying around, every drug dealer in the city will be on this like a dog on a bone."
Karen swayed around back and forth in the air, she was pretty sure that she was close to coming on top of something. Cir-El followed her. Both girls looked like blurs when they shot on forward like corks.
"You know, Harry's not here, but you're the one walking into the obvious trap," Cir-El said and Karen sighed.
"Well, yes, I guess," Karen said, shaking her head. She hated when her cousin made sense, and now she made her way inside.
The walls were lined with lead that never was a good omen in getting what she wanted. Nevertheless, she hovered in, flying in.
"So far, so good, nothing too jarring on the trap front," Cir-El said, but nevertheless, she could feel her nerves heighten just a tiny bit.
"Yes, just because there's nothing now, doesn't mean….."
Almost as if on cue, something flew out of the shadows.
Cir-El prided herself on being quick on her feet and quick with her mouth. That being said, the flying punch that nailed her in the face caused her to get knocked off guard.
She crashed, knocking over a stack of rotting old crates. The wind was knocked out of her.
Karen turned, her eyes following the girl in the shadows, and her eyes glowing with malice.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Karen said.
She circled her, like a shark circling her prey. Smelling the blood in the water and Karen was not sure how she felt about that.
"So, the original, can't say I'm too impressed?"
Karen blinked, she realized that there had been something going on here.
"LexCorp had some of your DNA on file, so you don't mind, my benefactor took a nice hold of it and created her."
She sent heat vision at Karen but Karen dodged the attack. Her heart quickened the pace, with her turning in the air.
"Just who are you?"
She hovered out of the shadows. She had shorter black hair that stretched only to her shoulders. Burning blue eyes that had malicious intentions nearly glared around her. There was a tight black top that wrapped around her breasts, along with a flat stomach. Her tight black pants molded around her ass as well.
"You can call me Divine," she said, holding her hand out with a smile. "I'm kind of like you, only better."
Karen smiled, rising to the challenge. "We'll see about that."
"We will," she agreed, at those words, the two blurs knocked against each other with a sickening impact.
A shadowed figure watched.
"The next phase of the plan is going as planned, isn't it master?"
"Yes, it is, Ubu. Tell Ubu to prepare himself and Ubu for the third and final phase."
To Be Continued on September 4th, 2014.