Hello there, and welcome back to a new chapter of the Chimera! Now, onto the reviews!

Diabolos Aides: Thank you my man.

Death Fury: I'm glad you think R&R was awesome. And for the record, Jessica is a Green Lantern. The second most recent one, in fact.

starseedchild: Well, today's your lucky day! Here's another chapter!

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I move from the surprisingly grainy surface, groaning. What the fuck happened? The last thing I remember is that I didn't go to sleep with a headache. How does sleep make a headache appear? Not to mention, why is my mattress all grainy?

I then open my eyes widely and take a look around before checking myself out. What the fuck. Instead of my bedroom, I see that I'm in a fucking desert in what looks to be a superhero uniform with a very realistic Omnitrix and a sudden six pack!

There are a few conclusions to this: Either I'm dreaming or I'm somehow in an actual superhero universe. After thinking things through, I'm believing that I somehow ended up in a superhero universe. Because if all of… this is a dream, then this would all be a bunch of trippy stuff. Not to mention, I'm not a lucid dreamer.

Now, where am I? Maybe I can ask some locals-

Suddenly, a memory comes over me. It's of Batman, surrounded by holographic screens. He's addressing me, what looks like the Jackson Hyde Aqualad, a Kid Flash, a Robin, Miss Martian, the clone Superboy, and some blonde asian archer (I may be many things, but I am not capable of identifying asian ethnicity on sight).

While chunks of Batman's speech is garbled and distorted, one sentence comes clear. "Assume everyone outside of the Team is hostile unless proven otherwise."

And just like that, the memory fades. So, I'm on a superhero team. Probably the Teen Titans, but I doubt it because Batman's handing out missions for us. And somebody erased my memories of a chunk of my life. How much did I lose? Hours? Days? Weeks? Months? Years?

I force myself to breathe deep breaths. I can worry about it later. Right now, I need to find my teammates, figure out where we are, find why we're in this desert hellhole in the first place, and make the memory eraser pay if it was intentional and malicious.

I look more closely at the Omnitrix on my wrist. It's exactly like the Omniverse one, but with the whites replaced with black. I smile. Finally, a dignified Omnitrix look.

I put two fingers on the touchscreen, and I see a half-covered ring with five faces on the top and a square indicating what I selected. I run through the faces to see what I have available, and it's a neat semi-versatile lineup. Fasttrack, Swampfire, Shock Rock, Overflow (the reboot one, not any of the fan aliens with the same name), Gutrot, Upgrade, Spider-Monkey, Blitzwolfer, a Kryptonian, a Thanagarian, a Martian and Big Chill.

For some reason, the Martian icon fills me with dread. It's not like I can turn into a Burning Martian. Or can I? Best not to find out now.

All in all, not a bad lineup. It could be better and worse, but I'm glad that I don't have Walkatrout or The Worst in my active playlist. Without a moment's hesitation, I dial in Fasttrack and I transform. With Fasttrack, I get to search for my team as fast as possible. It's a win-win situation! Or at least, that's what I hope.

Now, how do I deal with telling the team about me? Should I go with the whole truth, a partial truth or outright lies? That's the real question. I don't want to drop a bombshell on people I technically have never met.

I shake my head. God, when did my life get so weird? Yesterday, the most I had to worry about was college classes for transferring to a university, and now I'm an Omnitrix wielder on a superhero team.

A few minutes later, I see a small sandstorm come my way. Looking closer at it, I see a truck with a bunch of troopers, who aim their machine guns at me and open fire. I run around the gunfire, and I pull each trooper out of the truck and I move them to areas where they won't be hit by speeding trucks.

Once that's done, I grab one of the troopers and I glare angrily at them. "Now, I hope you're awake because I have a few questions I want to ask you. If you don't answer them, well," I chuckle darkly "I'll make you answer them."

Internally, I frown. I was never one for intimidation, and I'm a bit horrible at it. Dammit, I hope this works. It's a long shot for this trooper to tell me everything but something to start with is good enough.

The trooper chuckles before mocking me. "Bialyan Troopers are trained to resist torture to the highest known extremes. Not to mention, you wouldn't do anything, Chimera, you've only been active for nearly four months, and you've lost six months of your memories. And you'll only know that if you speak fluent Biayan Arabic." He sneers.

I smirk. "Thanks for the info. Shame I couldn't get anything more useful out of you." And with that, I punch him unconscious, which is surprising since I never threw a punch until now. Muscle memory, perhaps?

Thinking about what he said gives me some information. First, he mentioned Bialya, which means I'm in a DC Universe, but I don't have enough info to figure out which one. Next, he mentioned I lost half a year's worth of memories. And last, he mentions I'm a superhero known as Chimera who's been active for four months. Not enough, but it's good enough for something to start explanations with when I come in contact with the rest of my team.

There's also the fact that the troop assumed that I couldn't understand him means that I didn't share the translation function to the general public, but that's something that I don't need to worry about for now.

I decide to run around some more. Hopefully, I can find some more information, a ship or maybe a teammate. But knowing my luck, it's gonna take a while.

Suddenly, the Omnitrix beeps, and before I can adequately stop, I time out, leaving me to tumble on the desert floor. Huh, that was what? 12 minutes? 15?

I shake my head. Recording my Omnitrix's time limit comes later, if it'll come back at all, since I'll know it when I get my memories back, if I can g-no, no, I'll get them back. Happy thoughts, think happy thoughts.

Still, I need to figure out food, water, all that jazz. If I'm correct, A human can only survive three days before dehydration kills, so I only have two days and a few hours before I become a corpse. How morbid.

All of a sudden, I hear Tula, please... I love you.. . Looking around, I see the Jackson Hyde Aqualad (will gills down the neck, I should note) mumbling in… Atlantean? I can't tell since the Omnitrix automatically translates, but I can tell he's dehydrated due to his Atlantean physiology, and he's losing it.

I check my Omnitrix, and I see that it's fully recharged. I move the selection wheel so that Overflow is selected, I press the lock button, and I push the Omnitrix core down.

Once I do so, I fire some water at Aqualad and he gasps, like a drowning man having recently gotten to the surface of the water.

Aqualad breathes, throws some water on his face and he grabs two hilt-looking things from his backpack before the remaining puddle of water moves into two sickles pointed at me.

He glares at me. "Who are you?" He all but demands.

I hit the Omnitrix, hoping to detransform. I do so, and Aqualad moves his hard water sickles downwards in a direction that implies he won't attack if I don't. I move my hands in a placating gesture. "Hello, I'm Chimera. I've been a superhero for nearly four months, and I'm on a team with you. The reason why you never heard of me is that we've lost the last six months of our memory, and those memories include any and all memories of my superhero career."

Aqualad frowns. "I am inclined to believe you, but know this: If you betray me, then I will apprehend you and send you to the Justice League as soon as possible."

I move my hands in a placating gesture. "Understandable." What I don't mention is that I should be more than capable of breaking out of normal prisons.

Suddenly, we hear rumbles and explosions. We carefully move from our hiding position, and we see Superboy just growling and going on a rampage, throwing tanks at Biyalan troops. Of particular note is two things: First, there's a blue aura around Superboy and the tanks, and with Superboy's movements causing the tanks to move, that means that whatever happened, he got telekinesis out of the deal in addition to baseline Kryptonian powers. Wonderful.

The second thing is the chalk-white skinned man with an exposed brain man in the business suit and black cloak. Psimon. Given his position here, it's safe to say that he's the memory eraser.

The third-and most surprising- thing is Miss Martian heading to Kid Flash-who's strangely clad in black- and the blond archer clad in green.

Aqualad takes one look at the three and says "We need to head to the three over there. It is likely they have pertinent information on the situation."

"We should. They're on our team as well." I inform him. "Do you mind if I carry you to get over there?"

Aqualad frowns. "I appreciate your offer, but how will we get over there?"

I turn into the Kryptonian sample, grab a surprised Aqualad, and fly as fast as possible before I land in front of the trio. The archer loads an arrow and aims her bow at me and Miss Martian goes into a threatening pose before Kid Flash jumps in front of the line of fire. "Wait, wait, wait. I know this guy!" He says, pointing at Aqualad.

"And the guy with Superman's powers?" Artemis asks. I hit the Omnitrix and I destransform before pulling my hand out in preparation for a hand shake. "Hello, I'm Chimera. You've never heard of me because the memories we lost include all the knowledge you have of me."

The archer glares at me before aiming her bow at me. "How do we know you're not lying?"

I glare back at her. "If I was lying, I would've just killed all of you right here, right now without breaking a sweat."

The archer-I should really learn her name if I don't remember it-backs down. "Fine!."

It's only then Miss Martian steps up. "Alright, now that most of us are here, I can go ahead and restore our memories."

Miss Martian puts her hands on the sides of her head and her eyes glow. Suddenly, we're all transported to a purple tinted realm where moments of our lives are on repeat.

Miss Martian appears in front of us. "I brought you into my mind to share what I've remembered so far, but I need your help. Together, our broken memories can form a whole if you open your minds to mine."

The archer steps back and snaps "You wanna go through our private thoughts?!" If I had to guess, she's disgusted by something in her past and wants to limit the amount of people who know about it.

Miss Martian raises her hands up and informs us, "I have no wish to intrude but-"

Aqualad continues where Miss Martian left off. "You need access to our minds to undo the memory erasure."

I shrug. "Alright, but keep whatever you find in there to yourself. I have a bunch of secrets best left… well, secret."

"Try not to let my brilliance overwhelm you." Kid Flash flirts.

I look at Kid Flash with incredulity. "Seriously, you're flirting now?!"

The archer ignores us, walks up to Miss Martian and demands "Last six months only. And only what you need."

Miss Martian nods, and astral projections of hands come from her. In an instant, a flood of memories from the missing months come up, stopping at a particular moment.

Robin looks through a bunch of binoculars before dropping them, while Superboy carries a supercomputer, flying as he does so. Everybody else, including me, is on guard for any ambushes.

We walk to the site as marked on the map. It's a tent surrounded by military personnel, scientists and boxes. Nothing else of interest is shown, most likely because it is hidden inside the tent.

"Set up here." Aqualad orders. Superboy gently sets the supercomputer on the ground and twists a dial, turning the supercomputer on.

Robin walks up to the terminal and rapidly types stuff out. "We'll be up and running in no time."

A few seconds later, Kid Flash beams up. "Jackpot! The site's lousy with Zeta Beam radiation."

The computer whirs a bit and Robin turns his head to the tent. "Detecting non-terrestial radiation from the tent."

Miss Martian speaks up. "I'll check it out in camouflage mode."

Aqualad speaks up. "Good idea. Go."

I speak up for the first time since the mission began. "Maintain telepathic contact. It'll be easier for communication."

Miss Martian nods. "I will."

We all return to the real world, and I grimace at Batman's information not including a fucking telepath on Biayla's payroll. Oh, I'm gonna have words with Batman.

Miss Martian fake-coughs. "That's as far as I-we-can remember. But who or what erased our memories?"

I speak up. "Psimon. I saw him in cahoots with Biaylan soldiers, so he likely erased our memories. He even managed to bypass the Omnitrix's psionic defenses." I smile darkly, like what you see from a serial killer. "And he's going to learn why you don't mess with us."

Kid Flash speaks up. "You're gonna need to rethink your revenge plans, Chi. We landed 12 hours ago. I'm running on fumes, Artemis is a bit short on arrows, and we're all a bit tired. We need to end this now."

I raise my hands. "First, we need to restore the memories of Superboy. Miss Martian, can you do that?"

Miss Martian smiles before frowning. "Yeah, but why can't you do it? You have a Martian form as well."

I wince. "Martian Manhunter was lucky to survive the training experience without me burning him alive. He's still afraid of my Martian form."

Aqualad voices what's on everyone else's minds. "Aren't Martians pyrophobic?"

I turn to Aqualad. "Yep. Fortunately-or unfortunately-for us, the Omnitrix changes that little detail. There's a reasonwhy Martians don't know their prehistory, and it's the fear of what they'll do once they find out." I chuckle.

The Team looks at me with a mix of fear and confusion. Kid Flash eventually speaks up. "Alright, let's shelve that for now."

"Agreed." Aqualad speaks up. "Every minute we waste is a minute of Superboy on the loose in hostile territory. Chimera, can you map the locations of Superboy, Robin and the site?"

"Should be no problemo." I program the scans into the Omnitrix and I see two red dots and I feel my already boiling anger rise. "According to this, Superboy is at the site, which means Superboy's been kidnapped and is most likely being tortured or brainwashed as we speak. Meanwhile, Robin's moving closer to the site as well. Oh, I'm gonna break Psimon."

Miss Martian speaks up in worry. "But you're inexperienced in psionic combat!"

I wave off her concerns. "I think I can manage." I know I sound cocky, but given what I've dealt with in the past four months, psychic combat with an experienced psychic is gonna be a bit difficult but it should be manageable.

However if I manage to overwhelm Psimon enough with my constructs, then either the Omnitrix times out and Psimon's rendered brain dead from my rewriting mind, or Psimon surrenders after getting assaulted by my constructs.

Artemis speaks up. "What about Robin?"

Kid Flash dismisses her concerns with "He can handle himself just fine. Not to mention, he'll most likely be at the site where Superboy is at as well."

Aqualad looks at us. "We must hurry as soon as possible."

And so we take off, walking to the site as fast as we can. It took hours to do so, with day becoming evening becoming night, with wonderful desert dunes that practically glowed in the day becoming nothing more than a dull brownish yellow. The heat became more bearable, so much so that I stopped refilling my water bottle with Oceania's water.

Finally, after hours and hours of walking, we reach the camp. We see Robin head over to the supercomputer, only for Biaylan troops to appear from the sand, one telling the other that Queen Bee wants Robin alive.

As they head over to Robin, he throws a smoke bomb, causing them to cough violently. In the cover of smoke, Robin punches two unconscious, ties up another two in bolas, punches yet another one, and throws a few shuriken to three troops before jumping on one of them and using them to beat two others.

Just before they open fire, I transform into Shockhenge (I was disgusted that I had to use the canon names for my forms. I know Ben 10's a saturday morning cartoon, but couldn't they at least try to make most of the alien names roll off the tongue?) and I yoinked the machine guns from the soldiers' hands before beating the troops on the head with their guns using electrotelekinesis.

After that, Kid Flash zooms by, and punches each trooper unconscious. He then turns to Robin, grabs a trooper's leg and throws the soul a small but significant distance.

With Aqualad, Miss Martian and Artemis taking care of the remaining soldiers, we manage to end the ambush on Robin.

Robin turns to Kid Flash. "KF! It's good to see a familiar face."

Kid Flash responds with a cheerful "Yeah, good to see you too. Let's wrap these guys up before we do anything more serious, though."

Immediately after he says that, I turn into CheMystery and I whip up a gas that turns into a solid when exposed to oxygen. I then blast the soldiers with it, and the yellow-white gas immediately turns into sticky foam. Once that's over with, I turn back to human.

"Alright, now that these mooks are stuck in foam for a few hours, I think we're safe here Miss Martian, so can you please restore Robin's memories?" I ask Ms. Martian.

"I got it." With that, Miss Martian's eyes glow white and Robin's memories are restored.

I nod my head. "Now that that's over with, let's take a moment to plan what we're gonna do next."

Aqualad speaks up. "First, we need to assess our opposition at the base."

Robin coughs. "There's a few dozen scientists, another few dozen troops and Psimon at the base. Other than that, we're good."

I click my tongue. I'm simultaneously impressed that Robin got all that information from observation and concerned that he knows about Psimon. Maybe Miss Martian included that bit in the memory dump?

Speaking of whom, Miss Martian cries out in distress. "What about Superboy?!"

Robin types something into his wrist-computer (Why the fuck aren't they commercialized tech?) and pulls up a GPS map. He takes a look at it and says "Superboy's at the base as well. He's probably stuck there, if we're being honest."

"Then I'll do the fighting while everyone else extracts Superboy and restore his memories." I all but order.

"Woah, woah, woah. You think you can handle fighting Psimon mano a mano?" Kid Flash skeptically asks.

"No, but I'm willing to take the risk." I grimly replied. "Besides, I think I can overwhelm him just enough to get away scott free."

"Yeah, but what happens if you detransform?" Artemis questions.

"Let's find out, shall we?" I move the Omnitrix close to my mouth. "Omnitrix, what happens if a telepath is connected to my mind while I'm switching forms? Without any safeguards engaged to protect the telepath, I might add."

"The telepath will be placed into a coma from the backlash if brain death does not occur." The Omnitrix replies.

"I see. Omnitrix, can you disengage any and all safeguards that protect all telepaths from the mental effects of transformation for half an hour?"

"Action unauthorized." Well, that's a shame.

Everyone looks at me in horror and relief, except for Miss Martian who has a look of rage. "Don't you think that's a bit cruel to render Psimon comatose, if not braindead?" Aqualad fearfully asks.

"Well, he was willing to erase our memoriesand leave us dead in a desert without our loved ones knowing what happened to us, so I'd say it's a fair trade." I point out.

"Still, I cannot believe you would do so without appearing calm."

"Calm? Kaldur," Everyone tenses at that since I never refer to my teammates by their civilian identities on missions, "I'm furious. I'm just good at limiting how my emotions control me."

Aqualad clicks his tongue. "...I see. However, I will have to report this to Batman."

"Oh, I'm planning on reporting this personally to the big bad bat. After grilling him on why he didn't tell us why Psimon was on Queen Bee's payroll. While it's true that a good chunk of missions have faulty info, the fact that Batman didn't tell us that we might run into Psimon reeks of either incompetence for failing to figure it out, misinformation on his part on telling us, or a lack of information when he was preparing the briefing for us." I point out.

Aqualad steps back before putting on a look that can be summed up as 'I disagree with what you're about to do but agree on why you're doing it'. "I cannot fault your reasoning, but I do wish that you should not be going to such extremes over the Team."

"Honestly, if our positions were reversed, I'm sure you'd be the one doing this." I ponder.

Aqualad grimaces. "Understandable."

"So, shall we get on with the attack on the camp?"

"We shall." Aqualad nods.

"I'm gonna need your permission to use my Martian form, remember?"

Aqualad facepalms, apparently having forgotten that fact. "Chimera, your request for permission to use your Martian form is granted."

As if on cue, Aqualad makes a sword and shield from his water bearers, Robin gets his staff out, Artemis loads her bow, Miss Martian and Kid Flash get ready to use their powers and I dial in my Martian form.

Artemis fires her arrow, which explodes on impact, and I take that as my cue to transform.

My cells become more malleable and capable of being ignited, my skin becomes orange, my head becomes more angular, my forearms get more muscle, my waist thins while my legs and upper body bulk up. My head becomes angular, my hair gets destroyed as my brain grows and rewires itself to be capable of telepathy and telekinesis and a glowing orange orb appears on my chest, with the Omnitrix on it.

With that done, I shout out "Mindburner" before I set myself on fire. Miss Martian takes one look at me from what I can tell from her thought process and her serious attitude is replaced by a fearful one. She stutters out "C-cursed." and shudders out of fear.

Aqualad pants, partially out of fear, partially out of the increase in temperature my pyrokinesis does to the environment.

Awe comes from Artemis before the emotions change to rage and determination as the sounds of a bow being fired is heard.

A whole mess of emotions comes from Robin. Fear. Surprise. Awe. Joy. Confusion. Interest.

Kid Flash, looks at me, stunned before looking at Miss Martian, processing just what happened that caused the Guardians of the Universe to lock this power away.

The Biaylan soldiers take one look at and open fire, only for their guns to fail as I yoink them with simple telekinesis. A combination of my pyrokinesis and agility to make fire whips that scar them across the chest make them realize just how fucked they are.

As I loom closer, with the sand at my feet becoming glass as I step on it, I smirk. "Well, well, well, look who we have here. A little Biaylan coming to serve Queen and Country? I think there's a much more noble pursuit you could be doing. So, here's what we're going to do. You are going to tell me everything about the base and you will give me that info. We can do this the easy way, the hard way or the fun way. Your choice." I spike the fire upon saying fun, figuring it would make it more intimidating.

"Y-you think I'll betray my own country?!" The trooper replies, somewhat fearfully. Good, they're starting to break. Makes my life easier.

"No. Not willingly, anyways." I roll my eyes and I put one of my arms on the soldier's arm, increasing the temperature just enough for it to be felt through the armor. "Which makes this all the more entertaining."

I rapidly launch various mini fireballs from the palm of my hand, similar to what Bakugou does. The Biayalan soldier squeals in pain before I hear S-stop, please! I beg of you!

"A deal's a deal. I'll stop with the pyrotechnics if you give me the info." I reply in what I hope is an honest tone.

"Fine." I stop the fireworks. "The only superhuman enforcer is Psimon. He's the one in charge as well. Other than that, the base is studying this metallic sphere and as of a few hours ago, that Kryptonian with telekinesis."

"Thank you for your time." And with that, I punch the soldier unconscious. Now, for the big fish. I shift my density and walk through the tent. Upon regaining my mass, I immediately breathe fire and spread it across the room, causing the scientists to flee. Once done, I move the sand to extinguish the fires. No need for Miss Martian to suffer.

Well, someone's certainly a glutton for punishment. Psimon says... forget!

As if on cue, a mental representation of Mount Justice being consumed by white appears. I summon all of my willpower and channel it into a concentrated beam, pushing the whiteness back before I start shaping the mental landscape into something more my liking.

You have potential. With such power, creativity and speed, I think-

And that's my cue. I'll show this idiotwhy you don't mess with the Team, especially when I'm here.

I summon the final battle from Spectacular Spider-Man, with it's rapid fire pumpkin bombs, Green Goblin on the Goblin Glider firing various rounds and the various pumpkinheads either on rooftops launching spiked orbs or on aerial vehicles firing goblin goo. I then shape the mental mindscape into something resembling Manhattan before I yell out as the Green Goblin, "Think fast! Think faaaaster~! 'Cause tonight, you're in an unfriendly neighborhood Psimon!"

As one can expect, the continued barrage of Gob-webs, Pumpkin Bombs, Sparkle Blasts (That's what Gobs calls his lasers, no joke), Spiked orbs, and Razor Bats keeps Psimon just off balance enough that I can counteract whatever psionic attacks he can, due to their crude nature.

"This is irritating." Psimon says, in an annoyed version of Josh Keaton's Spider-Man voice. "Why can't you fight me man to man?"

"Because when I'm fighting for my past, I'll do so having a blast!" Oooh, that rhymed. Now, what next? Hmm, I know!

And with that, I summon one of many things that can challenge Psimon: The barrage from the Divine Beasts of Hyrule.

Streaks of white-blue lasers fire down from the sky at rapid speeds. Despite Psimon making a barrier, the lasers pierce through the shield and hit him. They aren't hard enough to kill him, but they'll still sting.

The screams of pain that Psimon yells out bring me joy. After all, he hurt the Team, so it's only fitting that I hurt him just as badly.

"Oh, you infuriating insect. Is there no end to this onslaught?" Psimon complains, somewhat staggered.

"Oh, don't worry. The fun's just getting started." I smirk. If I'm correct, I just need to hold out for five more minutes before detransformation. Best case scenario, Miss Martian joins in and we tag team Psimon into the dirt. Worst case scenario, Psimon beats me.

Seeing that I'm feeling merciful, I decide to go with a light attack this time. 'Light' being a point-blank bazooka, of course. Hell, I might even let him try to attack me once.

Speaking of the devil, I see that he's charging a red and black laser after he recovers from the bazooka. I summon a pot lid from Breath Of The Wild, and I hold it in front of me. Psimon sees it and sneers, "A wooden pot lid? Do you really think that will save you?" And without further ado, Psimon shoots his laser, only for the pot lid to deflect the laser back at him.

I reply with "Yes", just to further rub the salt in the wound.

At this point, it's very clear that despite whatever facade he's putting on, Psimon's about to break down from the mental injuries of our battle.

I mean, I knew that I was lucky, but I didn't expect that I was that lucky. Oh, well. Psimon snoozes, Psimon loses. I take a look at him (or rather, his avatar) and I see his clothes are ragged, he's bleeding from his nose, and his breathing's strained. If he wasn't heading towards a coma, then he's headed for several vacations at the very least as he tries to recover from a bad beating.

"How? How are you doing this?" Psimon asks, weakly.

"Spite and imagination, mostly. Who knows what horrific things I wasn't using because I wasn't desperate enough for that?" Psimon pales at the thought that despite my inexperience, I was still powerful and creative enough that it matched his experience with psychic combat.

Suddenly, I feel a telepathic presence enter the mindscape. I 'look' around and I see it's Miss Martian, who puts a finger on her lips in a 'be quiet' gesture.

"When I get out of this hellish fight," Psimon begins, "I will make sure that I will destroy your friends first while you watch to make you suffer. Then I will kill you as slowly and painfully as possible."

"Oh? Then perhaps you should get a taste of what you'll deal with." As if on cue, Miss Martian's eyes glow white and she and I hit Psimon with our strongest attacks at the same time. By the end of it, Psimon's a drooling, blankly staring mess and the mindscape just cracks and breaks open into the real world.

Looking around, we see that the temporary lab appeared to blow up due to the psionic backlash, with unconscious bodies and scientific equipment scattered everywhere.

Miss Martian then turns to me. "Alright, we should probably go now. I restored Superboy's memories, but Robin says that the Biayalan military is going to send more reinforcements right now."

I gesture to an unresponsive Psimon, disinterestedly asking "And this guy?"

Miss Martian smiles sweetly in a 'I can mess you up and you'll be happy about it' sort of way. "Oh, since you couldn't render him braindead by yourself, I decided to help you with it."

As soon as she finishes, I hear the beep beep beep of the Omnitrix signaling a time out. After a few seconds, I process what I did as Mindburner in a more empathic mindset and I stagger for a bit before I vomit in disgust.

"Are you okay, Chimera?" Miss Martian asks worryingly.

"Yeah, I'm just processing," I remember the fact that I'm prone to stress vomiting, and that the whole situation that occurred while I had amnesia was more than enough to cause some, "everything. If anything, I should be asking you that same question."

"I'm fine." Miss Martian replies, somewhat unconvincingly, "But what was going on in your head? I couldn't feel any emotion outside of rage and satisfaction. And then there was that feeling of wrongness that kept growing."

I wince. "Let me explain to the rest of the Team simultaneously. It'll be a lot easier on me emotionally."

"Alright, but you will explain it." And with that, Miss Martian puffs up her cheeks, trying to threaten me. She fails miserably, and I chuckle. Once I get it out of my system, we start walking outside and I ask "How's everyone?"

"Well, they're all a bit horrified at you. Superboy freed the sphere and took it with him, declaring the sphere a female and naming her Sphere; Kid Flash isn't going to be able to do anything with his powers for a few days, Artemis clammed up a bit for no reason, and that's about it." Realization sets in on Miss Martian's face. "Actually, Superboy is brooding over his telekinesis.."

I think about Superboy's telekinesis for a bit. Didn't his prime counterpart have it for a bit before developing the Kryptonian powerset? "Hmmmm, I'm going to need to talk to Martian Manhunter over getting Superboy some training with his telekinesis, aren't I?"

"Yeah, you do." Miss Martian comments.

Quarac Airspace

September 5th, 2010 02:52 EEST

"Alright, are you gonna tell us what's with Mindburner or what?!" Wally yells at me. He's a bit impatient because I wanted to definitely make sure that nobody overheard us, and that meant moving to the Bioship.

Artemis hits Wally on the noggin in a semi-playful way. "Give him time, you dork."

I smile at their continued passive-aggressive flirting and I hear some curious beeping from Sphere, who's somewhat confused at the antics yet enjoying them all the same.

I cough and all eyes (except for M'gann, who's steering the ship) turns to look at me. "Alright, before we begin, the story I am about to tell you is full of inaccuracies and is supported by whatever records the Green Lanterns could scrounge up from the Martian Archives and the Book of Oa, lots of very detailed scans of Mars, and whatever theories we made from the provided evidence."

I clear my throat. This story is going to take a while. "Back in the early days of galactic civilization, when the surface of Mars was still habitable, there were the Burning Martians, so called because they were like modern Martians with a few key differences: They were psychopathic and pyrokinetic with all Martians being of equal social standing (Keep that last bit in mind, it'll be important so much later)

Of course, this was during the early days of galactic civilization, so the Burning Martians didn't even have the capability to travel within the solar system. Hell, they couldn't even get off the planet.

So, they did what they did best: They fought each other, leaving lots of devastation in their wake. Eventually, when the Green Lanterns elected to establish a presence in the sector, they found Mars and reported it to their bosses.

The Guardians, being the well-meaning pompous upholders of peace, order and justice that they were, decided that the best thing to contain the Burning Martian threat was to render the surface of their planet inhabitable, destroy all previous records of Martian history (including all Martian memories) and render their most desired weapon their most feared weakness.

After a little species wide thought manipulation here and a little geoforming there, Mars's surface was rendered uninhabitable and the Burning Martians were no more, gone because of an artificial instinct planted into the species' collective psyche: the fear of fire.

With all that done, the Burning Martians were nothing more than a classified chapter in the Book of Oa. The first modern Martians grew and developed, eventually splitting into three ethnicities (for lack of a better term): The royal Red, the working class Green and the second class White.

After checking up on the Martians enough times, the Guardians deemed that they didn't need to interfere any further, and as such, they covered up their involvement and left it to collect dust in the deepest parts of Oa's archives.

It wasn't until my first transformation into Mindburner that Martian Manhunter and the Green Lanterns got the hint," -despite my multiple attempts at informing them prior to said event- "that something was off with Martian History. After I was contained until I detransformed, the three Earth Lanterns and Martian Manhunter pooled their resources to figure out what happened.

A quick check of the Omnitrix's instinct mapping function revealed that the fire weakness was not natural, and after searching for information and informing the Guardians about me to get access to the chapter in the Book of Oa, we came up with this story and informed the rest of the Justice League."

Everyone's jaws drop. And why wouldn't they? They just learned that everything they know about an alien species-or their own in M'gann's case- was built on lies, brainwashing and edited history records.

"W-what?" Artemis stammers. "Why would the Guardians do that? To mess up the development of an entire species?"

"Because they were afraid of an army of properly trained Burning Martians wreaking havoc across the cosmos." I point out. "Fear is a powerful motivator, as I'm sure everyone here knows."

Everybody just sorts of looks at me, clearly agreeing yet not wanting to speak about it. I clasp my hands. "So, onto less depressing topics. Connor, how the fuck did you develop telekinesis?"

Connor looks confused. "I'm… not sure. I think when I was rampaging around Biayla, my continued exposure to blue-yellow sunlight combined with the stress of the situation resulted in me developing telekinesis."

I stroke my chin. "Hmmmm, that's a bit worrying. After all, we can't tell if it's your exposure to blue-yellow sunlight, the stress of the situation triggering something within your DNA or something else at play here. We need to report this to the Justice League so they can figure out what's going on."

"Do we have to?" Connor asks warily.

"Would you rather prevent a number of deaths because you knew how to use your telekinesis or would you rather be responsible for a number of deaths because you didn't?" I point out.

Connor blinks. "When you put it that way, I guess we'll have to tell the Justice League about it." Connor then looks down at his hands. "I don't get it, though. How did I develop telekinesis? I'm half-human and half-kryptonian."

Wally speaks up. "Maybe it's because of how your Krytonian and human DNA interacts with each other."

"Maybe." Connor grumbles.

I fake cough. "Look on the bright side. We managed to not only investigate the Zeta surge, but we got some very advanced technology out of Biayla's hands and we devastated Psimon in the process of doing so. Just imagine how Queen Bee and her cohorts are reacting."

?

September 5th, 2010 03:02 EEST

Savage sneezed. While the idea of killing the custodian sounded pleasing to his ears, it would hardly be worthwhile to do so given the logistics of running a conspiracy in the twenty-first century. So much vetting would have to be done for the replacement.

Lots of grumbling (partially fueled by Klarion for his own amusement) is spread out through the Light's video conference center, for lack of a better term. After all, why wouldn't there be no grumbling? While Operation: Eden's Apple was a success, it was a pyrrhic one at that.

Queen Bee got the sphere, yes, but while she put her top scientists on it, she couldn't get more than what affected the sphere and what didn't. The workings of the sphere were still lost to them. Not to mention, the pesky children interfered again. While Psimon did manage to erase their memories, he only bothered to erase six months' worth, meaning that only Chimera was impacted for it to be beneficial to their primary goals.

And while Queen Bee sent strike teams to kill Chimera when they had the advantage, it turns out that Chimera still managed to activate the Omnitrix and use it to their misfortune as if he had lost no memories on how to operate it and fight with it. Savage privately made a note to investigate on how he managed to do so. Something seemed off there.

On top of that, he revealed that his Martian form (which he was very elusive about) was that of a Burning Martian, something Vandal Savage was lucky to encounter once back in the earliest days of his immortal life.

And that's not mentioning the fact that the Superboy somehow managed to bypass the limiters without the shields, halting Operation: Papaveraceae before it even began. And he gained telekinesis, something that extensive testing on him revealed shouldn't happen even with frankly ridiculous amounts of exposure to yellow sunlight.

Topping things off, it turns out that Psimon was rendered brain dead in his psychic duel with both Chimera and Miss Martian, delaying Queen Bee's personal plans to expand Biyala into Quarac due to it being contingent on Psimon. Vetting another telepath will take up a good chunk of Queen Bee's time, something she doesn't have right now.

The only reason why the room wasn't filled with angry shouting was the promise of more technology from Darkseid.

Oh, how Savage dearly wished for violence as a catharsis. But that's a problem for the future. Right now, he had a meeting to lead.

With a fury equivalent to the gods, Savage slammed his hands down on a table that was there for that sole purpose. "Will you all quit bickering for a few minutes? The losses we suffered recently are infuriating, yes, but not all of those losses areirreplaceable. Now, Queen Bee, you have the floor."

Queen Bee looks at Savage, somewhat infuriated. "With Psimon's death, all of my operations requiring a telepath are down. As some -if not all- of you undoubtedly figured out, I am in need of a new telepath, but personally vetting a new one will take time."

Lex Luthor speaks up. "I'm sure that Project Cadmus is up to the task of replacing your telepath with a homegrown one. All we need is more details on what you desire and we shall make a telepath fit for you."

Ocean Master begins to growl. "Yes, I'm sure you're capable of doing so. After all, look at the Superboy. You said that he needed the shields to bypass the limiters, and that you made sure to make them as addictive as possible to have a secondary means of control over him. And yet not only does he demonstrate the full breadth of his Kryptonian abilities, he has also demonstrated telekinesis for no reason. Care to explain that, Luthor?"

"While it is true that I used G-Gnome DNA in Superboy's genetic makeup," Luthor begins in a contemptuous tone, "It was merely to hold the Kryptonian and Human DNA samples together. Not to mention, all simulations done on the limiters have shown that Superboy would require three decades worth of concentrated yellow sunlight to bypass the limiters. While he can bypass the limiters in minutes, doing so would require him to fly up to the sun and have his cellular structure break down as a result."

"So, you're saying that you're incompetent then?" Ocean Master sneers.

Lex Luthor slams his fists on his table, before he growls. "I am not incompetent!" Luthor calms himself down before speaking in a calmer tone of voice "Chimera is merely capable of defying expectations merely by existing. How on Earth he managed to destroy the limiters, I do not know, but I will make him pay for doing so."

"Speaking of defying expectations, shall I remind you of Chimera's Martian form? It was capable of Pyrokinesis, despite the traditional Martian fear of fire." Ra's al Ghul points out.

"I believe I can answer that." Vandal Savage begins.

"Oh? Do tell." Ra's al Ghul voices the thoughts of everyone else.

Savage begins reminiscing about his encounter to make sure he got all the details correct. "Chimera's Martian form is that of a Burning Martian, a Martian variant that was rendered extinct when the Guardians of the Universe altered the psychology of the entire Martian species. I encountered one in the earliest days of my immortal life, and the duel resulted in me blowing up the ship we were in to kill it, causing the Toba catastrophe and the genetic bottleneck that resulted from it. My concerns about creating another one serve as the basis of Cadmus's policies on Martian DNA."

Ra's al Ghul strokes his chin before asking. "I see. Another question then: Was Chimera influenced by the form's instincts or by his rage at the events that transpired?"

Savage grumbles. "I would say that it was a combination of both. Burning Martians are naturally psychopathic, with pyromania thrown in for good measure. With the events that transpired, Chimera would be affected by his rage as well."

"That would explain how Chimera treated the Biaylan troopers." Ra's replies, satisfied before he frowns. "Though that would render the flamethrowers in the Plunder rifle replicas worthless."

Klarion cackles. "Not true! He has an ice making form! Had so for weeks now!"

"Why didn't you say anything, Klarion?" Someone- Savage was a bit annoyed to remember who- asked.

"I did!" Klarion replies, angrily only for a cat's screech to be heard. "Oh wait, I didn't? Huh. Never mind then." Klarion confusedly looks away, embarrassed to have forgotten.

"Why do we have Klarion here again? Other than the fact that he's supposedly a magical powerhouse." Lex Luthor grumbles.

"Because he's the closest to a magical equivalent of your Joker." Ocean Master answers. "If we refused him, we would have suffered horrible fates."

Everybody (other than Klarion) tenses up at this reminder. As Savage does so, he wonders how Chimera is doing.

Mount Justice

September 5th, 2010 22:16 EDT

I sneezed. Am I coming down with a cold or something? Best to stock up on medicine and vitamins just in case. I hope I remember that when I get my phone, because right now I'm about to do something widely feared among the superhero community: reporting to Batman with zero fucks to give.

"Report." And just like that, Batman steps out of the shadows, the cocky bastard.

"Why the fuck didn't you tell us that Psimon was in Biayla, you paranoiac? Thanks to that very important tidbit that we weren't informed of for some reason, we lost the last six months of our memories and are running on a partial set of said memories until Martian Manhunter patches them up for us." I all but spit out.

I see Batman flinch. Good. He at least knows of the fuckup he caused. "I was unaware of Psimon's presence. I have no excuse for this other than a lack of knowledge." That's as close as an apology that we're going to get, so I'll take it. I'm still pissed, but I think I can handle it. "Are there any other complications I should be made aware of?"

Connor speaks up. "I have telekinesis now, so I was hoping if Martian Manhunter would be willing to teach me how to use it?"

"I'll pass that along. How did the mission go?" Batman asks.

I speak up, since everybody else is still a bit shocked at my outburst."It was… salvageable, for lack of a better term. We managed to render Psimon braindead and recover the piece of technology that was involved with the Zeta radiation spike after wandering around Biayla fighting the military confused until we ran into M'gann."

Batman looks like he either wants to kill me or congradulate me for my handling of Psimon. "...I see. Do you have anything else to add?"

I wince. "I sorta revealed the truth about my Martian form, Mindburner to the rest of the Team and I rampaged a bit in Biayla, eventually rendering Psimon braindead."

"Interesting. Given the fact that you are inexperienced at psionic combat, I assume that Miss Martian helped you with rendering Psimon braindead." Batman glares at me. "Is there any reason for it?"

"Yes. It's the same one I have with my treatment of Mr. Bliss during our first and hopefully only clash, and it's the same one you have when you encounter Neo-Nazis in Gotham: Don't get on my bad side." I finish with a 'are we done here?' look.

Batman glares at M'gann and he coldly replies "I see. I'll have to discuss things with Black Canary and Martian Manhunter once I have the completed reports in order to deliver an appropriate punishment."

"Understandable." I replied. "Is there anything else, you hyperefficienct paranoid renaissance man or am I free to leave? 'Cause I've had a really shitty few days, and I'm gonna need to sleep before I crash. And I'm in a bit of a bitchy mood right now."

….I think that the more I'm sleep deprived, the less fucks I have to give. And my preexisting anger sorta just amplified that. And I hope that's the case, because I've never been up for more than 24 hours as far as I can recall. Well, there was that one time… No wait, that was me waking up at 4 AM due to an inability to sleep, so it wasn't 24 hours. And I wasn't being bitchy back then since I had no one I could bitch to and get away with it.

"All I need is your completed mission report ASAP, but you can deliver it tomorrow." Batman answers without batting (heh) an eye.

"Thank you, Batman. I'll deliver my report as soon as possible." I yawn before I wave goodbye to the Team.

While everyone else is stunned by my outburst, I head out of the mission, grab a set of pyjamas, head to the showers, and take a warm, hot shower.

After finishing the shower, I dry myself up, grab my pyjamas and put them on before I walk to my bedroom and I go to bed, ready to put this mess behind me.