Young Jusitce: Everymen
Walls And Doors: The One in Which Cassie Faces the Labyrinth
Warning- Mild gore in this chapter, nothing that will boost the rating but also something worth the warning.
"I'd like to have a go at the Labyrinth," Cassie said, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop herself. Her voice seemed to echo around the padded training center as her face turned bright red.
"No," Black Canary said flatly and, after giving her a lingering look, turned away back to helping The Challenger.
Cassie blinked. Was that it? Just a curt "no" as a response and she was done? Cassie opened her mouth to respond, paused, thought better of it, and then closed it. Wait, what?
"What?" Cassie asked, her mouth moving on its own again. And she frowned yet again. Demand it girl, don't ask, she scolded herself.
"You've been here a month," her teacher replied, "and your partner is in the medical bay right now. You're not ready and you have no back up. Anyway," she added, "I'm not even qualified to give the assessment. We would need the Regional Director Janice Morgan."
"But..." Cassie started, raising up her hands in defense, ready to spew out an on-the-spot argument about why she totally deserved this, when she was totally needlessly (but thankfully, all the same) interrupted by a new voice.
"Oh, I don't know, Black Canary," Lex Luthor said, walking into the middle of the training room, dressed as always in a suit so expensive, it seemed to shine, and cuff links so polished they produced a blinding glare that made Cassie want to look away, " I'd rather like to see the Labyrinth in person."
It was the second time that Cassie had met Lex Luthor in person but his presence still seemed to fill the entire room, like a giant reaching out to all four walls, his head staring straight down as to not tear through the ceiling. The first time meeting him, of course, was that fateful afternoon with the personal proposal that he had delivered himself to Cassie. She shuddered as she looked back at that man. There must have been a chill in the sweaty training room or something because she couldn't have gotten these goosebumps on her arms any other way. It's not like she was scared or anything.
"Mr. Luthor," Black Canary said, walking up to the businessman as Cassie grimaced at the oddly formal address, "She's not ready. No one is yet."
"Don't count her out just yet," Luthor said, looking at Cassie. "I would like to see her take a run in the Labyrinth in about," he glanced at his Rolex, "three minutes." he turned towards the door. Cassie blinked but did not move.
He looked at Cassie standing there. "And when I say three minutes..." he trailed off, not finishing his thought, but the assertion was still completely received.
"Ms. Sandsmark," he nodded towards Cassie, "Black Canary."
Luthor walked to the door and turned around and to a young man in a black suit and Aviator sunglasses. Luthor was talking to him and then nodded to Cassie. Cassie, to her surprise, hadn't noticed Luthor's bodyguard walk in behind the businessman, despite the bodyguard's noticeable, vivid orange hair. His face, even though they were obscured by a pair of sunglasses, seemed familiar to Cassie, although she could not place exactly where from. Maybe it was just one of those faces, she thought, looking him over again. The bodyguard nodded to Luthor's gesture and followed him out the door, clicking it shut. Cassie frowned.
And then realized: what the hell had she just done?
"What makes you so special, huh?" Hotshot's voice came from behind her.
She tried to ignore him. Tried. But then her mouth opened while she was still deciding whether to respond or not.
"Maybe because I don't 'accidentally' burn off my partner's clothes on a regular basis, Alex. Come on, we all know your real motive," Cassie said cooly, still looking at the closed door.
Then she continued: "Because, I know if I burned off all of my partner's clothes it totally wouldn't have been an accident, y'know?"
Yep. Nailed that comeback, Cassie thought proudly as she watched the speechless, dumbstruck face of Hotshot as she walked away towards the doors and out towards the Labyrinth.
The elevator ride down to the correct floor was brief- too brief in Cassie's opinion- and as the doors dinged open, Cassie saw Luthor's bodyguard leaning against the wall and looking at his smartphone, waiting for her outside the entrance.
"Uhh...yes?" she asked as she approached.
He looked up with a lazy look.
"Luthor's up in the observation deck where he'll be assessing you. You're not allowed to fly over the walls or knock through them to get to the exit," bodyguard said, reading off of his phone. "Repair costs," he explained, shrugging his shoulders and pocketing the phone.
Cassie nodded. Made sense.
"If you make it to the exit, it's generally considered a pass, though you will be assessed independently of that fact as well."
He stood up straight and started walking toward the elevator, Cassie assumed to rejoin his boss. He paused and let out a deep breath.
"There are security cameras in there," he said turning around. "And watch out. There's a few of surprises in there," he waved his hand and continued towards the door.
"Don't die."
Cassie gulped as bodyguard walked away. She walked towards the doors leading in.
There was the sound of a bell and then the doors opened, letting in a draft of cool air.
Cassie walked forward into the Labyrinth.
She felt the change in temperature almost immediately as goosebumps prickled up her arms. The walls were huge; a good twenty-five feet straight up and were made of concrete. Her eyes followed up the walls and there she saw a tiny windowed room suspended over the maze. She guessed that was where Luthor was.
The door slammed down behind her, making her jump and realize that she'd better get moving.
She took a step forward, and then another. And then she started to jog down the corridor of the maze, following the bend in the straight-away.
And she felt something collide with her back. And then attach itself.
Cursing herself for not checking the blind spot in the turn, Cassie did the first thing that came to mind to get rid of the thing attached to her back: smash it against the concrete wall.
And so, not waiting for anything, Cassie rammed her back up against the wall.
There was a crunch. And then silence.
Brushing the bits off of her back, Cassie looked down at what had attached itself to her.
In its unsmashed-state, Cassie supposed it would have looked like a little goblin, with green-grayish skin, and beady little eyes, it's body about the size of a garden gnome. But smashed, its insides resembled more of a toaster with wires and gears and little metal bits sticking out of the crushed body.
They had animatronic attack gremlins as obstacles in the Labyrinth? Cassie sniggered.
"Take that, you pervy Tickle-Me-Elmo! That's what you get for messing with Collateral Damage Girl!" Cassie yelled, doing a little victory dance at the first obstacle cleared. She had completely forgotten about the security cameras Luthor's bodyguard had warned her about.
She had also forgotten to realize that there were probably more things residing in the maze quite nearby.
And so as she released some of her anxiety through some uniquely choreographed dance, the sensors of the many remaining robotic G-gnomes (for that's what the automatons were) picked her up almost immediately.
Scuttling out of the tunnel the first one had attacked and screeching they launched themselves at the noisy, blonde intruder.
Cassie swore as the whirled around to see at least ten more launching themselves at her. Catching the closest one to her, she used it to bat several out of the air and sent them flying into the concrete walls, sending wires and sparks flying.
She threw the one she had been using as a bat into a couple others as thy crumpled to a heap. She snatched the last two and smashed them together and dropped them to the ground.
She dusted off her hands and looked at her dirty work. The rubber skins had peeled off the gnomes, revealing the metal parts underneath, sparks jumping over the debris. It would have looked sad if the mechanics weren't so obvious.
"Well, that was easier than expected."
She heard a distressed chirping for behind her and saw one last gnome crouched in the corner, looking at her.
"What are you looking at?" she said to the creature.
It just stared at her with its vacant black eyes.
"I know you're just gonna attack me when I turn my back," she said to the gnome. It looked at her. Cassie's heart melted.
"How can a robot be so cute?" Cassie wondered out loud as she held out a hand to the automaton.
It scuttled forward towards her arm and without a pause perched itself on her shoulder.
"Maybe your crazy monkey attack option is turned off," Cassie mused as she looked at the gnome. "You're not gonna rip my face off, are you?" She tickled it under its chin.
It looked at her. Cassie shrugged.
She set off jogging again, her foot falls making a slight clacking sound as each foot hit the ground, the gnome swaying back and forth as its talons dug lightly in to Cassie's shoulder to stay on.
The maze was surprisingly quiet after that and after a few minutes, Cassie had reached the first fork in the road with no disturbances.
She stopped. The paths looked exactly the same, except that one went left, and the other right.
She closed her eyes briefly, trying to visualize where she was now from the entrance and in what direction the exit would be. Then she realized she had no idea where the exit was.
"I can always just turn around anyway, right?" She asked the gnome.
It blinked.
She shrugged and took a left.
And she continued like this, wondering what was so hard about THE Labyrinth, anyway.
After a few minutes and more than a few dead ends, Cassie heard something on the outer reaches of her hearing. The scratch of metal on concrete.
Cassie brought her forearms up over her face, blocking the swipe from her surprise attacker, hissing in pain as the claws slashed into her arms, a wet trickle of blood running down towards her elbows, the heat of it steaming from the frigid air of the maze. Ducking under robot's arms, she slammed its body, throwing it back against the wall.
The attacker was a skeletal robot with long claws and a feline body. Cassie would have called it a leopards but it was bigger. A lot bigger. It was about the size of a grizzly bear.
She ran towards it, ready to incapacitate it as another leopard leapt on to her back, again leaving gashes and ripping her tanktop.
She gritted her teeth together, grunting in pain as she felt the wound get exposed to the air. Spinning around, she snatched the paw before it could retreat enough and pulled, ripping off a robotic arm. The body wobbled, unstable without the fourth leg, before it righted itself and leapt towards her again.
Cassie doves it this time, jumping off the ground and flying up towards the top of the wall. She took a sigh of relief at the clearness.
But her safety was very brief.
The first one to attack had gotten up after the quick throw Cassie had given and had ran up to one wall and laughed itself onto the other before leaping into the air and colliding with Cassie's legs, its flaws scratching at her legs.
And in her distraction Cassie lost control of her falling and plummeted to the ground to where the three legged one was.
She closed her eyes at the last moment, and willed her self to fly. She felt her fall slow and the stop ans she breathed a sigh of relief. And opened her eyes three inches from the concrete floor.
She quickly righted herself and took advantage to rip off the three legged one's other forearm.
But she then heard more ticking of metal claws on the concrete floor.
She whirled around. "Crap."
An even bigger feline robot appeared, this one about the size of an elephant, nearly taking up the entire corridor by itself, blocking the path from where she had come.
Cassie turned to the corridor in front of her and saw that the two smaller robots were standing there. It was times like these that she really wished she had some long ranged abilities or that she had invulnerable skin or something.
And so trapped and losing blood from all of the gashes on her body, Cassie did what any sane person would do in a situation like this one.
And it wasn't surrender or run away.
She jumped upwards with all her might and then jumped down, smashing the floor with her fist.
The floor collapsed beneath her, bringing along her three opponents.
Cassie groaned as she kept the rocks from crushing her with her superstrength.
No.
I watched in horror as I saw what happened to me almost happen to her. And I saw a giant boulder of concrete come falling down. She didn't see it. I wanted to shout to warn her.
But she caught it with an effort as a sickening pop was heard from one of her shoulders.
Cassie sunk to her knees. Her head a little fuzzy as she felt the pain bleeding from her shoulder as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. The first thing that hit her more than anything else was the warmth. It was so warm down in the dimly lit corridor, so much warmer than it had been in the Labyrinth.
She blinked her eyes and tried to take more in. She saw a faint robot limb sticking out from under the pile of rubble and she knew her opponents hadn't survives, though she had.
She heard a chattering coming from her uninjured shoulder. She turned her head to find the G-gnome still perched there.
"How'd you survive?" Cassie asked wearily, looking at the creature with a certain amount of respect.
It blinked.
Cassie smiled at its reaction, like a well-used but well-loved punch line to a joke.
She turned her head and looked at the hall. The walls were tinted red, with large dark bulges emerging from the walls like large warts. They seemed to move ever-so slightly, almost as though they were alive. But how could they be?
She put her hand to the wall and felt the warmth coming out of it.
There was a noise and Cassie jumped. Squinting, her vision coming blurrier and blurrier, she saw an outline of a... man?
It was probably the blood loss, Cassie thought grimly, as she swore she saw leathery, grayish skin and protruding horns on the man's head.
Suddenly she felt very sleepy and she watched helplessly as the gnome left her shoulder, scrambling to the weird gray man's outstretched hand. She reached her arm out and groaned. She didn't want the gnome to go.
But she forgot about that thought when she laid herself down and allowed herself to sleep.
"Hmm," Luthor said, turning off the monitors with one touch of the remote.
"That's your reaction?" his bodyguard said, pointing to the tv screens in the observation deck as if his boss hadn't seen the battle.
"It will be a mild bother to repair the floor, though" Luthor continued, "The neighbors might talk."
The bodyguard shook his head, disbelievingly. "Did you really have to make the claws that sharp? Seems a bit harsh."
"Not much else can harm her. The wounds will heal."
The bodyguard shrugged.
Lex Luthor walked up towards the window, looking down at the maze.
"Go retrieve her body and send her to the medical bay."
The bodyguard nodded and headed towards the door. He was used to his boss asking him to leave his sight. But he also did not find it smart. With a sigh at the world's stupidity, the bodyguard left on his errand.
"Did you extricate the information from the genomorph?" Luthor asked as Dubbilex appeared in the observation deck.
"Yes."
"And did you find anything troubling?"
"It was as you predicted, Mr. Luthor. Her mind is clean and pure. The g-gnome had no problem putting her to sleep," Dubbilex said, barely standing inside the doorway.
"Good," Luthor said, seemingly lost in thought, seemingly dismissing him.
Dubbilex knew he was not.
"And the progress on my side project?"
"Which one, sir?"
"Both."
"One is steadily developing. The other however is having trouble breaking the theoretical stages."
Dubbilex watched as his boss's shoulders hunched a little bit. Luthor's voice came out a little strained as he forced out a reply: "Send me a complete report of the G-gnome's findings later today. You are dismissed."
Regional Director Janice Morgan was very good at her job. From coordinating admissions, to observing assessments, to working from 5:00 am to 1:00 am everyday, she could proudly brag that her region was the very best out of the Everyman Institutes.
And so, after an exhausting night of updating the Institute's security protocol, it was quite understandable that she would need a little extra rest.
So when, yawning and pulling off the paperwork that had stuck to her face, Janice woke up after her little cat-nap to find her work phone filled with texts and messages announcing that someone had decided to face the Labyrinth and that her supervisor was observing, she decided she could put off sleep a little longer.
And so, with a whole three hours of sleep under her belt, she left her office, systematically deleting all the messages, ready to face the hospital/potential court case that would be waiting for her on the other side.
Damn, she needed a pay raise.
AN: Next on Everymen: Tim finds a closet but it doesn't lead to Narnia...
To be clear on Cassie's powers: she has superstrength and flight but only mild invulnerability. She can withstand crushing pressure and blunt objects and mild electric currents, cold, and fire but this invulnerability does not extend to the vast spectrum of sharp objects or bullets. Making her run with scissors is just as a valid way of defeating her with a gun.
Thanks for reading and don't forget to review!