Chapter Thirty-Nine
Museum of Antiquities
Gateway City
United States
17:28 – Pacific Standard Time
March 17, 2007
Green Arrow had taken up position opposite the museum. He knew of the tip-off Nightwing had received, but with the museum closing in two minutes, he saw no sign of them which was either a good sign or not so good.
He contacted Canary and Stargirl. "Either of you seeing anything?" The reply from both was a resounding "no". It was starting to look like the tip-off Nightwing had gotten had been just a ruse.
"Anything?" a voice asked.
Arrow looked around to see Nightwing was stood behind him. "Nothing," he replied. "I saw the curator's daughter walk into the museum, but nobody suspicious."
"Starfire is joining Stargirl and Wonder Woman is going to meet up with Canary," Nightwing informed him. "If something does happen, we'll be doubled up and we'll be ready."
"You think it will happen within the next few minutes like that note said?" Arrow asked.
Nightwing gestured down to the street. "It's already begun."
Arrow looked down to see a group of eight women, one of them obviously being Catwoman, the other easily recognisable ones was Cheetah and Volcana, the others he didn't recognise, at least not from this distance. They also had two large cases with them, probably to store the artefacts in.
"Where did they come from?" Arrow questioned as Volcana struck the front of the museum with a powerful heat blast, causing the glass in the doors to shatter as they burst open.
"They just appeared," Nightwing explained. "Now let's move."
Green Arrow fired a zip-line arrow which struck the building next to the museum, where it went unseen. Nightwing reported the start of the heist to the others as Arrow slid down it. Nightwing then followed as the group of villains headed into the museum. All except two, that was.
They moved in to take down the two women that stood by the entrance. As they approached the purple haired woman levitated off the ground and the red-head beside her began to grow. That's when Starfire and Stargirl showed up along with Wonder Woman and Canary.
"Circe!" the Amazon called out in surprise, anger and with a hint of fear. The last time she had seen Circe, she had spent some time as a pig. That wasn't something she wanted to repeat.
The purple-haired woman in the pink dress smiled. "How was your time as a pig?" she asked, as though it was something the Amazon could possibly forget. "Perhaps this time, I'll turn you into something more creative." Her grin then grew larger. "Then I can have Batman sing to me some more in exchange to change you back."
Circe turned to the growing woman. "Giganta, let's have some fun."
Circe began to fire magical blasts out in all directions. Arrow and Nightwing were forced to dive out of the way as the magical energy cracked the concrete where they had just been standing. As they got back to their feet, they saw that they were now between the two villains and the main doors. Nightwing and Green Arrow slipped inside, unseen by Circe and Giganta.
Starfire flew at the magic user, but the sorceress; with the help of a powerful spell sent, her spiralling down where she crashed through the museum wall. Stargirl followed soon after when she went to attack and was knocked out of the air, where she tumbled in through the hole Starfire had made only moments prior.
Giganta watched at her full height of around forty feet, unsure of what to do. With every injury the heroes were dealt, she felt the approval and forgiveness of Flash, of Wally, become more and more unlikely.
She stared as Circe flew towards Wonder Woman, the Amazon backing off cautiously.
Then something struck Giganta, something loud and very painful. She looked down to see Black Canary looking up at her, her mouth wide open as she screeched at her. Giganta stumbled back slightly but recovered as Circe held her hands out wide, laughing.
"I'll turn you into a rat this time," Circe shouted out. "Or even better, a bat. Then you and the Batman can truly be together as soul-mates."
Giganta knew that this was it. She either remained a coward forever or she did something brave for once in her life.
She did her best to ignore Canary as she let her have another blast of her Canary Cry, but she stumbled, almost stepping on the blonde hero. She recovered as quickly as she could and swung her hand out, just as Circe began to fly towards Wonder Woman at a faster rate.
Giganta's hand made contact, swatting Circe like a fly. The purple-haired sorceress was knocked clean over the nearby building and disappeared from view, a car alarm going off several blocks away, indicating where the sorceress had landed.
Giganta then began to shrink down, holding her hands up in surrender. She had made her decision and now she would live with it. News in the criminal underworld spread fast and her actions here would shape her future and the future she chose was with Wally.
Inside the museum, things had taken an unexpected turn for Aresia. With the arrival of the League, her whole plan had gone into disarray.
Still, she intended to get three items. The Sandals of Hermes, the Gauntlets of Atlas and most importantly the Sword of Athena. The sandals and the sword were most useful to her as she already had the strength. The sandals would give her the ability to fly like Diana and the dream of being able to cut both her and Hyppolita to ribbons with the sword was something she could not give up on. They had forsaken her and she would have her revenge on them.
Aresia allowed the man in black and blue to approach her. So far she hadn't shown her strength and planned to take him by surprise.
Which she did.
As he threw an arm forwards to grapple with her, she grabbed it and with a sharp twist it snapped. Much to her disappointment, he didn't cry out, instead, he managed to take her by surprise and swept her legs out from under her. She hit the ground hard with an audible "Oof," as the man clutched his broken arm and began to retreat. But she wasn't going to let him get away, not that easy and most definitely not so soon.
Aresia clambered to her feet and chased after him. He turned to face her off, knowing that his friends were too busy dealing with the others to help him. She smiled as she thrust her fist forwards. He ducked. It was lucky he did or her fist would have gone right through his skull. He tried to knock her off her feet once more, but this time, she was ready.
She pushed her whole body forwards, her shoulder connecting with his chest. There was a crack and he was sent flying into a pillar. Aresia was about to laugh at the pathetic man when something hard struck her in the face, sending her flying.
She struck a pillar, and went clean through it, before sliding to a halt. She sat up to see an orange blur shooting towards her. Aresia jumped to her feet knowing that whoever this orange girl was, that she was going to be a challenge. Luckily, she enjoyed a good challenge.
Meanwhile, Green Arrow had caught Volcana and Emmylou by surprise, knocking Emmylou down with an impact arrow, before he was forced to dodge out of the way as Volcana took to the air and shot out gouts of flame in response.
After coming out of a roll, Arrow saw an opportunity and fired a freezing arrow at the pyromancer. She went to move, but it skimmed her shoulder and exploded into a freezing gas. She cried out and was knocked out of the air. Arrow didn't have time to recuperate, though, as he was forced to jump back to avoid a sharp katana wielded by Tsukuri, which nearly sliced his arms off.
He aimed his bow and fired, but Tsukuri deflected it, before jumping at him. Arrow rolled to the side, dodging what would have been a lethal strike. While he was backing up, he didn't notice as Cheetah got behind him. She went to tear at his back when she was hit by an energy blast from an angry Stargirl, only for the blonde to be knocked out of the sky by Emmylou, who threw a large ancient vase at her, which shattered on impact.
Nightwing gripped his broken arm, while leant up against the pillar he had been thrown against. This wasn't usually how things went for him. Usually, it was the criminal that was taken down in the first few seconds, not him. An arm gripped under his shoulder, on the side of his non-broken arm and he was helped to his feet. It took him a moment to realise who it was who had helped him.
"Selina?" he questioned.
"The one and only."
"Are you gonna help us?" he questioned. "Because I'm out of this fight." He clenched his jaw, really not happy with himself. "Within the first few seconds as well."
"I'll get you to safety, but I'm not helping you take down Aresia."
"So, you're running?"
"Eventually, but if you think I'm leaving here empty-handed then you're mistaken."
"You never change, Selina," he commented. "I guess if you help me, then I can forgive you this one time."
"You're so gracious."
She helped him get his other arm around and headed for the door, where they were blocked by Tsukuri, who had seen Catwoman go to help him.
"Traitor."
"I was never on your side," Catwoman informed her.
Tsukuri charged them only to be tackled by Black Canary, who had entered the museum with Wonder Woman and Giganta. Tsukuri hit the floor and her Katana flew out of her grip. She Looked up towards the three women who had just entered and her face contorted in anger as she saw Giganta with them.
"Another traitor!" Tsukuri spat as she picked herself back up off the floor.
Giganta bit her lower lip. "Yeah, well I never wanted to rob this place anyway."
Tsukuri dived for her katana, only to be intercepted by Wonder Woman, who grabbed the bladed weapon first.
Then a voice Diana found familiar shouted out. "Get the artefacts, they'll help you fight them!"
Wonder Woman turned to see Aresia fighting against Starfire. She was overcome with shock. She had been sure she was dead. That she had died in the ocean. But here she was alive and causing more pain.
"Aresia!" the Amazon Princess shouted heatedly, flying towards her, Tsukuri hot on her heels, running after her sword which Wonder Woman still held firmly in her grasp. Wonder Woman swung the sword at the former blonde Amazon. Aresia raised her bracelet, the sword shattering as it struck. Wonder Woman discarded the smashed katana and decided to go the old-fashioned route and simply use her fists.
Giganta and Canary found themselves facing off against Cheetah and Volcana. The cat charged and Giganta took an involuntary step backwards. She wasn't fighting heroes this time, which meant that the consequence for failure wouldn't be prison time. It would be much worse.
"Time to prove yourself," Canary said to the size-shifter, as she began to tussle with Cheetah.
Giganta cautiously looked to Volcana, who slowly flew towards her.
"I guess you and Catwoman told the League our plan," the fire-villain said with disdain.
"I didn't tell anyone anything," Giganta said as she began to increase in size.
"Liar!" Volcana fired a gout of flame, which Giganta in her now ten-foot tall scale was unable to dodge due to her decreased speed.
The giant stumbled backwards shielding her face from the onslaught. This was not at all what she wanted to be doing. In fact, even though she had complained at the time, she would most definitely prefer to be at a pizza parlour on a date with Wally.
Instead of doing that, she was here, her forearms were being turned into roast beef.
The flames stopped. Giganta lowered her painful arms to find that Stargirl was attacking Volcana. She knew she had already gone too far to back down now, it was time to go all the way. Giganta moved forward, her fist drawn back. She then threw it forward, connecting with Volcana, sending her hurtling across the museum floor and crashing through a display.
"Careful!" she heard Canary shout from behind her as she still fought Cheetah. "Try not to destroy the priceless artefacts."
"Sorry," she offered.
"So she's on our side, now?" Stargirl questioned, eyeing up Giganta suspiciously.
"For now, it seems," Canary answered, as she dodged Cheetah's claw and knocked her feet from under her, sending the cat crashing to the ground.
Volcana recovered from the strike thrown by the giant and found herself squaring off against Green Arrow, who without delay shot another ice arrow at her. The pain from being hit by it the last time still fresh in her mind, she evaded, shooting a gout of flame at him. He moved behind a support pillar and prepared another arrow, noting that he only had four ice arrows in total, which meant he had already used half of them.
He moved out of cover and fired another arrow. It would have hit on target if Aresia hadn't been thrown into Volcana by Wonder Woman.
The arrow sailed past and struck the ceiling, exploding into ice. Both Starfire and Wonder Woman flew at Aresia and Volcana who were recovering from the throw and mid-air collision, however, the two of them were more interested in the blonde than Volcana, who moved away from them and caught sight of her target, Giganta. Arrow decided to use this opportunity to get the museum staff; who were currently huddled behind a rather large display, out of the museum.
Giganta found herself squared off against Volcana once more. The giant turned her back to shield herself from another blast of flame and cursed under her breath. She then turned as fast as she could and managed to grab an unsuspecting Volcana out of the air and threw her towards the ground.
Volcana was able to stop herself from wiping out on the concrete and fired a jet of flame right into Giganta's face. She stumbled and wildly waved her arms about, trying to hit Volcana.
She made a connection and sent the fire-thrower flying into the wall with a crack, before the giante fell over backwards, smashing her head into the ground, knocking herself out.
Volcana managed to recover from the hefty strike dealt by the giant just in time to avoid an attack from Stargirl, who blasted at her with a beam of energy.
Volcana fired a stream of fire back at her. Stargirl avoided it, then avoided another blast. What she didn't realise was that Volcana was slowly forcing her downwards and towards Emmylou Brown.
Stargirl got a lucky shot, hitting Volcana hard and knocking her into the wall once more. The fire-thrower slid to the ground unconscious.
"Take that!" Stargirl said, satisfied.
She didn't notice Emmylou get behind her until the southern girl had punched her in the back of the head, knocking her out also.
Emmylou looked around at the others. Aresia was still fighting Wonder Woman, Starfire was squaring off against Tsukuri, who was expertly evading all of her strength and energy attacks and Black Canary was fighting Cheetah. Giganta, the traitor was unconscious and had shrunk back down to her normal height, as was Volcana and Stargirl.
Green Arrow was busy with the civilians, which meant no-one had their eyes on her. Emmylou smiled to herself. She decided to do as Aresia had instructed not too long before and make use of the artefacts: The Sandals of Hermes and the Gauntlets of Atlas. They were here for them after all, she might as well make use of them.
She found the sandals first. She smashed the glass and grabbed them out, quickly throwing her own boots to the side and put them on, a huge grin on her face. If what Aresia had confided in her was true, then they would give her the gift of flight.
Then she took to the air, a laugh escaping her mouth. Now she needed the gauntlets, which would make her as strong as an Amazon.
She scanned the room and found them only two displays over. With her new found gift of flight, she flew over and smashed the glass and grabbed them. She was ecstatic as she put them on excitedly. Now she was not only very strong like she had been, she was now extremely strong.
She saw the archer heading towards the exit with four civilians in tow. She grinned even wider as she flew over and landed in front of them. Blocking their path. The southern girl then gripped the support pillar next to her and tore it free from the ground and ceiling.
"These gauntlets and boots are great. You won't believe how light this feels," she cried out in glee.
Green Arrow notched an arrow, aimed right at her. He then fired. Surprisingly, Emmylou deflected it with her gauntlet, still clutching onto the pillar with her other arm.
"Try again," she said as she swung the pillar at them. They all dove to the ground, avoiding being turned to paste as the several tonne column of concrete flew over their heads and crashed through the wall.
"We need some help over here!" Arrow called out.
Wonder Woman hearing him pointed. "Koriand'r, go help."
Starfire, who was still unable to get in even a single strike against Tsukuri, broke off the battle and flew off towards Emmylou Brown, just as Wonder Woman used her bracelets to block yet a punch thrown by Aresia.
The Tamaranean reached Emmylou and threw her fist at her. The southern girl blocked the attack with her gauntlets, before throwing her own punch, striking Starfire in the face with a haymaker, sending her hurtling through a wall.
The museum curator, Helena, was becoming increasingly distraught at what she was seeing. "You're destroying the museum!" she shouted.
Then a baseball-sized piece of debris flew up at Emmylou and struck her right between the eyes.
"Oww," she cried out, rubbing the spot where she had been struck. She then turned to who had thrown it, only to have another piece hit her in the face. She growled.
"Cassie, no," Helena urged her daughter as she picked up a third piece.
"No Mom, they're wrecking the place you've spent so long trying to build up"
Emmylou approached them menacingly. Helena jumped in front of her daughter to protect her.
The southern girl chuckled. "Ya can't stop me from snappin' yer kids neck. Yer nothin' compared to me now. Not while I have these." She raised her wrists and rolled her feet indicating the gauntlets and sandals.
"We need to get them off of her," Arrow said, wondering not only how to do that, but to stop her from eviscerating them. The answer came to him before he had finished the thought. He notched a flash-bang arrow and fired it.
Emmylou blocked it, but it still went off, temporarily blinding her. It was long enough for Arrow to fire his more gimmicky boxing-glove arrow, hitting her in the face, followed soon after by an explosive arrow, which knocked her out of the air.
The southern girl emitted a screech as she hit the ground hard and rolled. Arrow knew he didn't have much time. He rushed forward to where she had fallen and grabbed her right hand, yanking off the gauntlet and casting it off to one side.
Then Emmylou grabbed him by the throat with her other hand. He struggled in her grip as she stood up.
Arrow heard a female voice shout out from behind him, but he couldn't quite tell what they were saying. Mainly because all blood was being blocked off to his brain. It sounded like the Curator, Helena's voice though and she sounded distressed.
"All I have to do is squeeze," Emmylou said in a seemingly muffled voice. "And yer head would fly off like a cork."
Twin green lasers hit her on the side of the face, causing her to drop Arrow. He landed on the ground clutching his throat, gasping for breath. Then Emmylou was punched and sent flying. Not by Starfire, but by Cassie Sandsmark, who had picked up the discarded gauntlet and put it on.
Starfire flew and intercepted the still-hurtling Emmylou and punched her down into the ground, where she landed, cracking the floor.
The Tamaranean landed and yanked the other gauntlet off and threw it aside, but before she was able to get the sandals off, Emmylou slipped out from under her and took to the air.
"Y'all can't stop me!" she shouted, as she looked for the gauntlet.
She saw it and rocketed towards it, only to have Cassie grab the glove before she could get there.
She stopped as the teenage girl put on the other glove and looked up at her.
"You wanna try and hurt me now?" the teenager threatened.
"Gimme the gauntlets," Emmylou demanded.
"Come take them."
"Cassie, no!" Helena shouted to her. She would have run to her daughter, but she was being held back by the Registrar, Gerrold and the older security officer, Barker.
Starfire came in and grabbed Emmylou around the waist from behind.
"Remove her shoes of flight," she said to Cassie.
"No, don't!" Helena shouted out. "Let the heroes deal with it."
Cassie ignored her mother and ran towards where Starfire was holding Emmylou, both floating around six-feet off the ground.
Seeing the teen moving swiftly towards them, Emmylou shot upwards, taking Starfire with her.
They both crashed upwards through the ceiling and up into the sky.
Cassie shielded her head from falling debris before she saw someone running at her from the corner of her eye.
"Look out!" her mother cried out.
Cassie turned to see Tsukuri running towards her, an ancient sword in her hands, which she had obviously pulled from a display. She swung the sword down at her with a graceful ferocity, but somehow Cassie raised her gauntlets in time to block the attack. However, not without consequence.
The sword, which was the ancient Sword of Athena struck the Gauntlets of Atlas and had an adverse reaction.
Cassie found herself flattened as she was knocked violently to the floor. Tsukuri was also thrown backwards, the sword flying out of her hands towards where Aresia and Wonder Woman was fighting.
Aresia saw the sword hurtling towards them and rolled under the hovering Wonder Woman and caught it out of the air as she came back up. She swung it wildly at her opponent, who moved out of the way, but not quickly enough. The sword cut a gash along her right leg.
Wonder Woman ignored the pain as she circled around Aresia, looking for a chance to strike the now armed former Amazon.
Meanwhile, Canary had just finished off Cheetah with a haymaker to the Jaw, Knocking her out. She turned to look at where Green Arrow was, seeing him firing arrows at Tsukuri, who was dodging them, while also dodging wild punches thrown by Cassie.
Canary decided to help out, then get the civilians to safety. She began to run forwards but was forced to stop as Volcana landed in front of her, having recovered from being struck by Stargirl earlier.
Canary rolled to the side to avoid the gout of fire that was shot in her direction.
"I've always wondered what fried Canary would smell like," Volcana mocked, as she let loose another stream of flames.
Outside, Catwoman was helping Nightwing set the bone in his arm. He was feeling completely humiliated over what had happened. he knew that he was lucky it was just his arm, but that didn't console him very much.
He looked at Catwoman. "You aren't going to leave me to rob the place then?" he questioned as she helped wrap his arm using a straight piece of metallic debris as a splint.
"I doubt there'll be anything worth stealing once they're done by the sounds of it."
"You're not going soft are you?" he asked.
She chuckled. "Are you?"
"What do you mean by that?" he asked offended.
She pulled the cloth they were using as a bandage tight, causing him to grit his teeth.
"That should hold it," she said. "At least until help arrives." She listened to the wind. "And it sounds like the cops are on the way."
She looked back at the crowd that was starting to form. "We should probably get them out of here, or else they might end up getting injured."
"You are going soft," Nightwing repeated in surprise.
"You know me, Dick." He scowled at her using his name, she ignored him as she continued, "I'm in it for the thrill, not the bloodshed."
"You could grab some priceless artefacts and get out of here while everyone's preoccupied. No blood would be on your hands."
"I could, but I don't want this mess to be part of my resume, either directly or indirectly. It's a total blunder, one that I'd rather not be a part of. Not anymore."
"If you change your mind, you better do it quickly. The police will be all over this place in the next few minutes," Nightwing told her. "Besides if they see you here, they'll probably try to arrest you, so you should probably head off while you can."
"When they're a bit closer, I'll take my leave."
"Why not go now? There's no reason to stay," he pointed out.
Catwoman smiled. "You're right." She turned and walked away, pushing her way through the crowd.
Nightwing smiled to himself as he watched her go. She wouldn't admit it ever to anyone, but he believed that in her own way she cared. There were times when she had put herself at risk to help both him and Batman. Even so, he didn't trust her, not entirely anyway.
"Alright people," he said loudly. "Back it up, there's a fight going on inside."
They ignored him, far too interested in watching the fight that was visible inside the damaged museum. He sighed. No matter what the danger, the crowds would form and the people would gape.
Inside, the fight was still continuing. Wonder Woman was evading attacks from Aresia, who was clutching the sword of Athena and Canary was still trying to fight Volcana, who was evading her attacks simply by hovering out of reach.
Having finally had enough, Canary simply opened her mouth let out a cry. Volcana clutched her ears, her eyes tightly shut in pain as she fell to the floor. Canary punched her out, before running to where Cassie was fighting Tsukuri, while Arrow tried to get the civilians out of danger, which was proving difficult as Helena didn't want to leave her daughter behind.
Canary swiftly moved up behind Tsukuri and swept her legs out from under her. She looked up to Cassie. "You shouldn't be fighting. Get out of here," she said as she restrained the villain.
"I can fight, I have these," Cassie said, raising her gauntlets.
"No, you can't," her mother, Helena shouted. "Just take them off and let's get out of here."
"Be easy on her," Arrow said. "She did well."
"You shouldn't have let her put them on," Canary said, as she knocked Tsukuri out.
"We were all like her at one time," he pointed out. "All it takes is the right push to become a hero."
Canary was about to retort when the front of the museum exploded inwards, sounds of shouting and screaming coming from outside. Nightwing came flying in and bounced off of one of the few remaining support pillars, followed soon after by Catwoman, who hit the ground and rolled.
Both Wonder Woman and Aresia, who were the only ones still fighting, at least inside the museum, turned and looked to see Circe flying slowly through the dust and debris and she didn't look at all happy.
Wonder Woman knew that the sorceress might actually be powerful enough to hold all of them off on her own. This whole situation was getting out of hand and despite it hurting her pride, she knew that it was time to call for back-up.
Updated December 2017