Ch 11: Confrontations
AN: Happy 4th of July, everybody! Except my non-US readers, because it's the fifth of July for most of you, so Happy Fifth of July!
Also, thanks to everybody that let me know someone had started plagiarizing this story. It got taken down, but some of the author's other stolen stuff is still up. :( Crazy though, huh?
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"You know, we should stop coming to Paris." Wally calls, dodging another laser blast.
"Baywatch, if we stopped going to cities just because people attacked us there, we would eventually run out of cities." Artemis back rolls, taking cover behind a stone park bench. "And we can't give up. We haven't gotten the Louvre blown up yet. Obviously we're going to have to come back eventually."
They just wanted to spend one weekend in Paris – without a world crisis. Clearly, this was too much to ask.
They had spent the morning touring some of the most famous sites in Paris. Wally had dragged a (supposedly) reluctant Artemis to the Paris Museum of Science ("The biggest Science Museum in Europe! I know you secretly want to…") and she in turn forced him to walk ("Don't run! This is a Palace!") with her through Versailles. They had stopped at a café (well, four separate cafés in succession, for Wally) for lunch when things had gone wrong.
It started with a vortex in the sky. Red and black swirled, distorting light and casting and eerie glow across the city. "You know, I'm not even surprised. Is it a problem that I'm not even surprised?" Wally says calmly as they grab their bags and duck into an empty side ally.
"Nah. We're overdue for a Trans-dimensional vortex. Call it now; invading alien army or accidental magical backfire?" Artemis is changing quickly; glad to have a bow back in her hand for this fight.
"Mmm. No other similar incidents are being reported yet on League channels. I'm betting an accident."
"That's cheating. But fine. The Anomaly's probably making me paranoid, but I'm betting intentional. Loser does the dishes for a week." They've both changed now, and it is Flash who grabs Artemis and zips them to a more favorable (and familiar) battleground; Le Parc du Champ de Mars, at the base of the Eiffel Tour.
The… portal? is stabilizing now, and a figure steps through, standing in the sky as if the air were solid ground.
"Cessez de regarder fixement! Sortez d'ici! Laisse-le!*" Artemis calls to the few civilians left staring rather than running away. Even as she warns the bystanders off, she readies her bow.
The figure has noticed them now, and is flying closer. A hoard of smaller figures follows it from the portal.
They can see now that it is some sort of android. A super-powered android.
"Are those Ivo's MONQIs following it?" Artemis questions, as the smaller blurs get closer.
"Oh, Conner would love this." Wally mutters, and Artemis can't but let out a snort of agreement. Louder, he yells to the robot, "Oi! Robot-Android thing! This is the Flash, of the Justice League. You're invading a protected planet! Declare your intentions, or we're going to have to attack you!"
For a moment, the robot merely looks at them. Then, in monotone it declares, "I am Amazo. My directive is to eliminate the Flash. Prepare to die."
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"Why did you think that was a good idea?" Artemis screams at Flash from where she's taken cover from the MONQI's. They'd done a great job of tearing up the park so far, gouging up the earth and tossing heavy objects until the previously open park is littered with obstacles that are, thankfully, more obstructive to their enemies than to the two heroes.
"He looked like he needed a hug!" Wally's zipping between the obstacles, alternatively smashing MONQI's and hiding from Amazo.
"So you tried to make friends with him? He literally just said he was trying to kill you!"
"The Amazo we fought here just wanted a family! I thought it wouldn't hurt to try!"
"Wouldn't hurt? Now we have a flying, evolving android with superspeed!"
"I didn't say I was right! I'm just explaining what I was thinking! Ah!"
The topic of their discussion had finally caught up to the speedster, slamming him into the base of the Eiffel Tower. Artemis immediately leaps from her cover, taking a moment to shoot a flash-bang into the air to buy her enough MONQI-free time to take aim for Amazo. Her explosive arrows don't seem to do him any damage, but they give Wally a chance to roll away from him, and run, taking down a few MONQI's as he goes.
Amazo turns to face her, so she nocks two more of the arrows Ollie gave her.
'These are only for an emergency. Use them both together, and make sure you're far away when you fire them. Like, really far away.'
'What are they?'
'Quantum arrows.'
"You don't really believe this tactic will suddenly cease being ineffective," the android intones, allowing Artemis to take the shot without fear.
"I guess I deserve that, since you probably learned sarcasm from me. You can blame Flash for the hubris, though," she quips, and releases the arrows. They crackle to life in midair, forming an electromagnetic connection strong enough to be visible as they fly towards their target. Amazo only has a moment to look surprised before they sling around him, binding him up with their electromagnetic fields.** They wrap back around him and slam together in a flash of blinding light. Even from this distance, she's thrown back by the shockwave that emanates from the blast. Luckily, strong arms catch her before she slams into the ground, and she's carried to cover under a pile of fallen trees.
"That was impressive, Babe. What'd it do?"
"Not sure. Green Arrow gave them to me, but I've never used anything like that before. It better have worked though; those were the strongest arrows I had."
"Erm, that's kinda unfortunate," Flash says, peaking over the tree at the new crater where their foe had been. "He's kinda regenerating." Artemis mutters a string of curses under her breath, and pulls her quiver off her back to take stock of her arrows.
She glances between some of the branches and sees that the android has reassembled itself enough to begin scanning for them again. She also notices the slightly darker red of blood staining her boyfriend's leg and realizes why he didn't move in to finish the android or get them out of there while he could. "What happened?" She nods to his leg when he looks down at her.
"Some of the MONQI's got me when I was dodging Amazo," he admits.
"How bad is it?" That, he doesn't answer, but she sees a twinge of fear in his eyes. "Oh."
"I already tried calling in for help from the League. Only techs are left on the Watchtower. Apparently they had to bring in everyone when a bunch of 'robot monkeys' showed up and started interfering with their attack on the Legion."
Artemis closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and then opens them, her face serious. She pulls out a League-issued compress to make a quick patch for Wally's leg then slings her quiver back on. A swarm of MONQI's has organized and is closing in on them from all sides. They're out of time.
"We're on our own; there's no one else to call." With a last glance at her, Wally darts from their cover, drawing most of the robots off of her. She knows he won't last long. This more than qualifies as an emergency.
"Yeah, there actually is."
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Conner's bored out of his mind, and that's putting it politely. He's a reporter as his cover here (and he is going to murder Clark for that suggestion when they finally get home) and is sitting in a press conference held by someone that he thinks might secretly be a supervillain, with boringness as a super power. That's the only explanation for how the man can still be droning on. His communicator buzzes, and he's immediately brought back to full alertness.
Glares from around the room roll off of him as he ducks out of the room with only cursory apologies, sure of what this is.
He only moves more urgently when he sees whose name is on the screen.
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The 'phone's' screen displays a picture of a smirking blonde girl.
"Nightwing, someone's calling you." It had taken her weeks to learn enough about the mysterious new hero's patrol pattern to ambush him on duty. Then it had taken her far longer than normal to convince the man to let her patrol with him, and then to invite her back to his place. Now he was getting calls because he didn't even turn off his phone before he offered to get them some wine. She's not giving up on the night yet, though, and says disparagingly, "Some girl named Artemis?"
"What? No!" He dives for the table to check his phone, then immediately begins pulling his utility belt and other weapons back on. She pouts. It had taken her ages to get him to take those off.
"You're leaving? What's so special about her? Am I not… enough for you?" She makes sure to exaggerate her… ample assets as she leans over the couch to plead with him.
"Sorry, Kory. You're beautiful and all, but she's more important to me," he excuses himself as he leaves.
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Kaldur doesn't excuse himself when he leaves. No, courtesy is for when the people you care for most aren't in danger. He simply hurries out of the League debriefing, ignores the confused questions behind him, and pulls out his TD teleportation 'remote.' He syncs it to the location of Artemis's distress call, presses the button, and watches the Watchtower dissolve around him.
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M'gann's concern for her oven disappears as a battlefield seems to dissolve into place around her. Her teammates are in various states of materialization around her, but as soon as they're all fully present she pulls them into the mind link. She spots Artemis taking cover in under some trees and pulls their final teammates onto the mindlink. This world's Flash darts around the Eiffel tower trying to avoid a hoard of little robots.
Artemis, report! Kaldur takes immediate control of the situation.
It's not good. The Anomaly's sent us an Amazo and a whole bunch of MONQI's, and is keeping this League too busy for back up. I've already used my most powerful arrows, and Wally's been hit, so he's not exactly at top speed. The Team mentally flinches when Artemis uses Wally's name (it's the Flash, never Wally, when they talk about the people they're protecting), but Artemis doesn't respond to the implicit accusation that she's been emotionally compromised again. Instead, she just adds candidly, Also, Amazo has superspeed. Try not to let him see you, we really don't need him any more powerful.
Artemis and Kaldur continue to confer even as the four newly arrived heroes leap into the battle.
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Nightwing immediately heads for Flash's position; he needn't worry about Amazo seeing him and copying his powers like the others. As he approaches the iconic structure, he throws a few well-placed batarangs, destroying several MONQI'S and buying the Flash a little bit of breathing room. Flash promptly uses that room to backpedal away from him in shock.
"Holy cow! Where did you come from?" Dick internally frowns. He had assumed that if Artemis was working with this dimension's Flash that she at least had the courtesy to brief him on the situation. An uneasy feeling forms in his belly; she wasn't trying to woo Wally, without the baggage of his dead counterpart this time, was she?
"Relax, Flash. We're friends of Tigress's. I'm Nightwing, that's-"
"Superboy, Miss Martian, and Aqualad. Yeah, I know, I'm-"
"Watch out!" Dick cries, shoving the Flash out of the way of another attack. Damn. It looks like Amazo was finally back from wherever it was he had retreated while he finished regenerating.
"Thanks, I was trying to say that I'm-"
"Fight now, talk later!" Dick calls, whipping out his escrima sticks to take on a trio of MONQI's that are tag-teaming them with Amazo.
Holy similarities, Batman, he thinks. Do all Wally's have to have such big mouths?
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*Stop staring! Get out of here! Now!
**This is complete BS, but I don't know what the Quantum Arrows 'technically' do, or how else to describe it.
AN: I'm so evil. See you guys next week! *Hides from the mob*