=====A=====

It wasn't hard to find where he wanted me to go. The airport was obvious enough, but more than that one of the massive plane hangars had started emitting a GPS signal. Miss Martian's GPS signal. The conversation between me and the rest of my team while I had been en-route had been both brief and tense. They relented though, and as I flew past the border fences of the airport my team moved out of their hiding places and charged after me.

As I approached the hangar I didn't bother with the door. Arcing downwards toward the building, the apertures on my hands opened to fire beams of green plasma at a spot on the roof. A spot a few meters wide was blown open and I dived into the gap. A second or so later I slammed into the hangar floor, my gaze fixed on a spot in front of me. Almost the entire hangar was empty, save for a few cargo containers… and the small comm device at my feet.

I heard a snap in the air, and the sensors in my body went wild. Looking up at the hole in the ceiling I made, I saw the barely visible shimmer of a barrier, and radio communication was cut off. That's when I heard the slow clapping, and my gaze was brought up and to the side, to the figure standing on the catwalk.

I felt a moment of confusion as the first thing that entered my mind on seeing him was 'Cyborg'. His body was armored in a slightly patchwork fashion, bits of tanned flesh exposed on his torso and arms. His right arm was gauntleted, while the other was some kind of cannon down from the elbow (making the clapping a somewhat awkward affair). A good portion of the right side of his head was plated along with a red optic that replaced his eye, and his lower jaw was completely artificial.

But the New God circuitry patterned over parts of his frame indicated just where the tech had come from. And there were also some things I'd describe as more 'personal' touches. The curve of the shoulder plates resembled epaulets, and the plate covering his left breast was etched with designs that reminded me of military medals. Add that to the beret he wore and the man gave off the air of a generalissimo.

"And there he is, right on time." The man drawled, his voice no less metallic in person. "And yet so restrained, you only punched a hole through the roof. I half expected you to tear it apart from the air."

"Where is she?" I asked, remaining motionless.

A cruel smile formed on his face. "Ah of course, you couldn't risk harming your teammate. Well, she is busy being disciplined. As will the rest of your children once we catch them."

I could see from my drones that were outside the hangar that several of the enemy drones had also made an appearance. I set my drones to follow attack protocols, but as none of my team had made it into the hangar with me, they were forced to scatter to avoid the incoming firefight.

But regardless, the man continued. "You on the other hand are a different matter. I know full well of how you resist such discipline. Of being shown your proper place. Now, it has been arranged that this can be corrected, through your destruction."

I tilted my helmeted head. "Is that what all of this has been about? Sabotaging the city's reconstruction efforts, using psychics to mind control the populace of the city into being more violent... all just to get my attention?"

"Only the latter bits." He replied. "This operation did not account for your interference, but it was adjusted. After this city falls to chaos, the broken forms of you and your team will be found, as a testament to your failure. And if the manipulation of the media afterwards is done right, the Titans will be blamed for both the police overreaction and the destruction of the airport." He paused a moment, then shrugged a little. "But maybe that's hoping too much. Either way, I'll be satisfied so long as you're rust."

Even though I stood still, every sensor on my body was pinging the environment around me. "And you think taking us down will be that easy?"

"Oh you will struggle to be sure, but you'll learn your place before this is over." He grinned with shining teeth. "Now, release the warhounds."

It was only because I was scanning that I noticed something rushing at me from behind. I spun out of the way before firing an energy blast from my palm at the thing that almost slammed into me, not that it did much damage. The large mass slid to a stop and I got a good look at it.

The thing that stalked back towards me resembled a mechanical wolf, though one big enough that it stood as tall as me at the shoulder. It's lean body was covered in chrome, along with vicious spikes along it's torso. The thing let out something between a growl and the screech of metal on metal as it opened it's jaw, and I saw a red light bloom in its mouth.

I stepped to the side in time to dodge the dark red energy that poured from its mouth, something between plasma and a slow motion flame. I burst towards it and ducked low before I came up, slamming my hand into the thing's jaw. It flew back from the impact, and for the moment the mouth closed the flames backed up and burst out the seams of its neck. It sputtered and coughed, like a real animal, and though damaged it was still standing.

Before I could press the advantage, another of the mechanical beasts charged at me from my right, forcing me to fly upwards. Several more of these warhounds came, ripping they way out of the containers to jump at me. I spun and weaved in the air, but when I had a clear shot I fired off a beam at the cyborg. But a shimmering half-dome of energy formed in front of him, blocking the shot. I was then forced to move as the warhounds beneath me spewed more of that red fire-breath in my direction. Since the hangar was massive though, I had plenty of room to get out of the way.

Given the moment of relative safety, I checked on my teammates, or at least tried to. Only the Zeta comms could get through the barrier that surrounded the hangar, which limited how I could keep track of the others. My drones just outside were having trouble keeping up with the action, but more importantly I was still getting a response back from all of their comms. I had to assume everything was still good on their end.

I refocused on the cyborg. "What was the point of all this?" I yelled out. "Why force a city to raze itself to the ground? What's there to gain? For that matter, what could you and your cronies possibly gain by helping Ocean Master kick off the Deep Night?"

The man strolled a little on the catwalk, almost amused by my question. "A barbarian like you will always fail to see the larger picture. Plans of a scope you couldn't possibly understand."

Even as I rained more energy blasts down at the dogs nipping at my heels, I audibly sighed. "So, you don't actually know anything, and are just trying to puff yourself up. Figures I'd get another lackey."

He stopped his strut, and a frown formed on his face. "You'll that I a great deal under my comma-"

"Yeah, whatever." I interrupted. "I know your type. You like to think you're part of the elite, but you're always just someone's lapdog. And more importantly, it always ends with you sniveling and begging after you lose."

His face twisted in pure fury as he slammed his arms down on the rails, bending them. "How dare you, you insolent scrap?! You think that cabal controls me?! Without the technology I provided, they never would have been able to control those monsters in the first place! And without my guidance, they will continue to flail in ignorance against you and the League! I will show you all the so-called light!"

As he yelled this, one of the containers in the hangar suddenly burst open and a small swarm of those X-shaped drones flew out. Half of them formed up behind the cyborg but the rest came after me, firing off a barrage of energy beams. My movement suddenly curtailed, I did my best to dodge and fire back at the machines swarming around me. I managed to pick off a few, but most of my effort was spent dodging and trying not to be completely surrounded by them. When half a dozen of them formed into a loose ring around me I was forced to hurl myself back towards one of the hanger walls to avoid the crossing energy beams

As I slammed into the wall, one of the warhounds that had been waiting below me took it's chance to strike. It ran clear up the wall and with a mechanical snarl bit into my leg. It didn't penetrate my armor, but it was enough of a grip to drag me down to the floor. It slammed me into the ground twice, but as it lifted it's head up for a third time I blasted the machine at the base of it's jaw. It's grip loosened and my momentum sent me tumbling.

I rolled to my feet and found that the circle of drones had reformed into a tight group around me. But they didn't open fire. Instead, lines of red electricity arched between them before connecting to the ground around me. All of a sudden the air became charged and… thick, for lack of a better term. I could barely move, my body still like it was buried in mostly dry concrete.

The glow around the drones increased as I heard the cyborg say "A concentrated electrostatic field, powerful enough to completely dissolve the connections between your nanites. Something I had made just for you." I didn't see so much as feel his vicious grin. "And thus you end, at the hands of a foe you don't even remember. Goodbye, Machina."

The whole space I was in was suddenly filled with blinding light and crackling energy, and I let out a scream.

Luckily, after several long seconds, I heard Superboy yell over the comm "Found her! Western service tunnels!"

I stopped screaming. Ok, enough acting.

The field was hard to move in, but not impossible, and after a few seconds I pushed out of the red field and came to a stop in front of it. I calmly looked up at the cyborg, who was suddenly very confused by what he was seeing. "I'm sorry," I said, "Was that supposed to do something?" Without looking I pointed my hand back and blasted one of the drones, causing the field to collapse.

"What?! How?! I designed that to attack your very foundation perfectly! You couldn't have possibly adapted to it!"

My voice took on a more 'heroic' tone as I said. "I'll be happy to tell you how, after your surrender General Harjavti. Yes, in spite of what you seem to think, I know who you are. And your brother will be very disappointed in you." After the Bialya mission I had looked up as much information I could about the people at that base. Now, General Harjavti was not supposed to be there, considering he was a general from the neighboring country of Qurac (and the president's brother). But the medals he had worn when I fought him the first time were distinctive enough that I managed to figure him out. And him calling me 'scrap' earlier clued me in to who I was dealing with. Which made it rather easy to push his buttons.

The general grimaced, though he calmed slightly. "I see that you must always be difficult. Fine. There is still the mater of your captured teammate-"

"Oh don't worry. The rest of the Titans are seeing to that." At that moment, the image of all my teammates outside flickered and disappeared revealing them to be the hologram drone I had brought with me instead. They had been the big, obvious distraction while my actual teammate had searched for Miss Martian more discreetly. And as set up as our enemies were, it looked like my hunch was right that they weren't prepared to hide from Superboy's X-ray vision.

The general was about to say something when his artificial eye glowed and he stopped, no doubt getting an update from his own people about where my team really was. His face then twisted into something ugly. "Oh just destroy the piece of scrap already!"

I leapt back, taking a moment to destroy the rest of the cage drones as the warhounds converged on me. Surrounded as I was, I had no clean avenues of escape, and several leaped at me to prevent me from just flying upwards. Normally I would have to brute force my way out of a situation like this, but this time I had a different option. Which was due to the same reason I hadn't been affected by the field.

This wasn't my normal body.

Access: Kid Flash.

My internals shifted slightly, and as soon as I took a step forward every hound slowed down to a crawl. Even the ones in midair. I stepped around the one closing in to trap me, my fists lashing out at their joints. I couldn't quite punch with my full strength in this state, but it was enough force that I could feel things give beneath my fists. And the extra vibrations I added to my fist only increased the damage. I slid to a stop on the other side of them, and as I slowed down time resumed it's normal pace, the hounds slamming into the empty space I had just been in and crumpling.

It was an odd feeling, controlling a body that wasn't completely malleable in form, but there was no denying the efficacy of Ivo's work. I had worked on the second Amazo body I took from Ivo for months, both studying and eventually modifying it for my own use. I had started keeping it in that coffin-like container in Moya for just such an occasion when my nanite body would be a hindrance. Such as when I knew I was going to encounter someone who had a grudge against me, and was likely prepared for my usual tricks. I had managed to have a cloaked Moya meet me midway to the airport, and I swapped out before anyone noticed.

Though that didn't mean I had left my old body, quite the opposite. Aside from changing the outer chassis to match my armored form, I replaced the primary cpu with a high bandwidth Zeta Ansible. I had turned the android into a second body I could control remotely. I was still firmly inside my nanite body back in Moya. I didn't have the skill to control two bodies in combat yet, so for now I would have to pick one depending on the situation.

I picked up speed again as the remaining drones opened fire on me. They had a somewhat easier time tracking my movements, but I was still too fast to hit while in motion. Most were high up in the air, but I weaved in between the few that were ground level. I timed it just right so that several of them shot each other or some of the warhounds in the process. I had been emulating Starfire earlier, but now I had to get a little creative.

While most of my focus was on the fight, I still heard bits of what was happening with the rest of the team. And it wasn't going as smoothly as I hoped. "Superboy, don't!" "Rrraaagh!" "Damn it, we have to get her out of that machine!"

I suddenly broke away from the machines I had been running through, instead moving to run up a clear section of the hanger wall before I sharply turned and ran straight at the general. In my sped up state I could see the man strain as he turned to face me as face as he could, though I could tell he wouldn't even make it all the way before I reached him. My fist lashed out as soon as I got in range, but that same half dome shield formed to protect him. Something about the vibration of my fist caused it to destabilize, and suddenly it exploded outwards, tossing me from the wall back to the ground.

I hit the ground and tumbled, but just as I got my feet under me three of the warhound were already on top of me. I didn't have time to accelerate before they pinned me to the ground. They started to gnaw at my limbs and head, and I was forced to change tactics.

Access: Miss Martian.

Suddenly my rigid body became much more flexible and elastic, and my outer plates separated as the metallic mesh underneath stretched out. I twisted under their grip and one of my arms snaked around one of the warhounds' legs. I knocked it off balance and toppled it into the others, letting myself slip free and entangle myself with them more. The beast-like machine had no real way of striking at me, and I proceeded to slap them around with each other. It was almost absurd, my metal body stretching like Plastic Man, but Ivo knew what he was doing when he built the Physics Modulation Engine.

It wasn't exactly copying powers, it was more a form of emulation. The PME incrementally modified physical constants inside my frame using machine-learning methods, trying to replicate the readings from the sensors as much as it could. It was remarkably similar to what the Bleed manipulators in my original body did, just applied from a different direction. It was also the reason the two didn't play well together: two entirely different methods of altering physics tended to fall apart if they're occupying the same space.

At some point the general must have gotten tired of me manhandling the warhounds, because it wasn't long before I saw the drones line up in a firing line. I was just able to duck behind my three grapple partners before the barrage of energy beams lanced at me. My 'shields' were taking the worst of it, but they would get torn apart pretty quickly.

"What's happening to Psimon?" "Fire! Why is there so much fire?!" "Suffer!"

I took stock of my options. I only recently got the Amazo body operational, and I hadn't yet gained the League's permission to scan them for their powers, though I did have all of the Titans loaded into the body's memory.

With one addition, as he happened to stop by the day I was doing the test.

Access: Red Tornado.

Red wind spiraled around my lower half and I rose into the air on my own cyclone, the broken remains of the warhounds rising up with me. In moments I expanded the cyclone to fling the broken bits of metal at my attackers. I took out a fair number of the drones, even as their firing line scattered. Not wanting to lose my momentum, I threw out my hand and a lightning infused twister ripped out and slammed into the catwalk the general was standing on. As I dragged the twister towards him I saw thrusters fire across his frame, launching out of the way and landing on the more solid concrete ground.

I kept moving the twister to track him, but the cyborg hunkered down and the drones around him moved to form an interlocking shield in front of him. The swirling wind hit, but he held firm. So, I cranked it up. The entire hangar was filled with twisters and lightning as I poured out all the energy I could. The few remaining drones and warhounds were torn apart as the entire structure shuddered from the localized hurricane I was creating inside of it.

"M'gann, stop! You're safe now!" "What was that?" "Pull back, it's gonna blow!"

Eventually, I let the winds die down… and saw that while most of everything else in the hangar had been demolished, the shield of drones was still standing. And an instant later they parted enough to let the cyborg loose a shot from his cannon arm at me. I cut the cyclone supporting me and dropped, letting the crackling ball of energy pass overhead. I landed on the ground with a heavy thud and straightened. "Looks like I'm not the only one being difficult." I said loudly.

The wall of drones broke apart slightly, just enough to see the other man seething. "You, you still mock me!? If you could have done this the entire time, why did you bother pretending to be so pathetic?"

"So you would talk." I remarked. "You seemed like the type. Thanks for spelling things out, by the way."

The general scoffed. "Is that supposed to scare me? Make me think I slipped you some new information? Please, I did not tell you anything important or that you didn't already know."

"True," I agreed, before the air shimmered next to me and one of my last remaining recon drones appeared. The one that had followed me into the breach I made, and had just barely survived the typhoon I created.

The one that had been recording and transmitting the fight from the very beginning.

"But the public didn't know that. Smile for the camera, will you?"

At first, the general was unimpressed. "The radio jammers are still active, you don't have-" He cut himself off when I made a holographic screen showing what was happening back at the concert. How I had co-opted the sound system and main screen to show off our little conversation to thousands of people. His artificial eye glowed red for a moment as he checked for himself with his own network, and his face twisted into a rictus of hate when he realized that not I was telling the truth, but I was livestreaming it to the whole internet.

Fun thing about Zeta Ansibles was that it really didn't matter what the local airwaves were like. I was bouncing the feed from myself, to the Mountain, to back to the city, but that little technical detail didn't matter to the people watching. All that mattered was that they knew someone had been manipulating them into tearing each other down.

I moved to casually lean on the drone. "So, you were saying something about being responsible for the Deep Night In-"

The general let out a scream of fury before pointing his gun arm at me and fired. I had been expecting as much and dodged out of the way, but I left the drone remaining where it was. It was promptly disintegrated by the ball lightning. "This means nothing!" He raged. "I will still destroy you, and then-!"

I didn't really pay attention, instead subvocalizing into my comm. "Starfire, mission complete. He monologued for all the world to hear. What's your status?"

"Miss Martian has been recovered." She replied, though there was a bit of tension in voice. "Psimon was killed when the machine he was connected to exploded."

"How's Miss Martian?"

"...She's going to need some time to recover." Just barely over Superboy's comm, I thought I heard a sob.

...

Access: Superboy.

The concrete beneath me shattered as I launched myself forward at blinding speed, near parallel to the ground. The ranting cut off and the cannon arm raised to fire, but my arm pierced into the ground beneath me before flinging chunks of concrete at my target. The pieces pelted the arm and face, throwing off the aim and letting me close the distance.

Before I could reach, thrusters fired on the cyborg's frame, causing me to only clip the shoulder with my fist rather than the chest. The pauldron shattered into metal shrapnel while my target pulled back, and with a sound the remaining drones moved back into a defensive formation to block me. I adjusted course and shot forward again, and my eyes glowed before firing heat rays at them. The top one melted almost instantly, the slag pouring down on the one beneath it as I swept in a line. A gap opened up and the cannon arm fired again, but I moved out of the way and around my target in a tight circle.

Again and again I punched the ground to launch shards of concrete, moving at the speed of bullets. The drones did their best to shield but they were taken down one by one through shrapnel or heat rays. The return fire was erratic, off balance. Eventually there were only two of the drones left, and I dashed in to simply grab both of them. I then brought my hands together in a clapping motion, the sheer force of it causing both the drones to disintegrate and a concussive wave to blast forth.

The cyborg was sent head over heels away from me, and by the time it was standing I nearly closed the distance. The arm cannon fired off another ball of lightning, trying to force me to dodge and gain distance. I didn't. I held up my left arm and charged forward.

The blast shattered the plating on my arm and part of my face, but I broke through the sound and fury and reached the cyborg. The exposed metallic mesh and wires that was my arm reached out and grabbed the faceplate, and a shift in momentum left me drive the cyborg into the ground. A muffled scream tried to make its way past my hand as one of my fingers crushed the artificial eye. The cannon arm raised to awkwardly point at me, but my free arm grabbed the barrel and shoved it aside, while the rest of my body came down hard. One of my knees slammed down into the stomach, and the other crushed a metal leg into bits. Then I started to pull.

A mix of both groaning metal and muffled screams filled the hangar. The New God limb was durable enough to resist brute force, so I used heat rays on full blast at the joint. The metal softened enough for me to finish the job, and the arm tore free with a shriek. I tossed it aside before my hand pieced into the still hot metal of the stump. I tore out more metal, digging deeper into the chest-

There was a sudden burst of light, and in the next instant there was a telescoping portal of energy between the cyborg and the floor. Gravity, no, something else tried to pull what was in my hands down into the well. I tried to fly up away from it. But my target was being pulled down. For a moment I hung in the air straining against the pull. I wasn't going to be able to both keep my grip and pull away.

My eyes locked on to the organic part of the face and glowed red-

Suddenly the weak organic arm moved towards the belt. I couldn't stop it without losing my grip, and a small device was pulled out. A button was pressed-

It wasn't an explosion as much as a raw blast of force which sent me tumbling back through the air, and I found my hands empty. I tumbled and rolled to my feet, but by the time I set eyes on the spot, the light of the Boom Tube winked out of existence. I stared at the spot for a long moment, then checked my sensory data.

[Target: General Harjavti - 87% to complete scan.]

Back in my other body, I let out a breath before heading out.

As always, there was some clean up to be done after the fighting was finished.

A lot of explanations had to be given to the Barcelona police. And a lot of apologies had to be given to the local government. I also apologized to Daft Punk for interrupting their concert, but considering the circumstances they were pretty good sports about it. In light of what was revealed by my broadcast, pretty much all parties involved were willing to give some leeway, at least in the short term. There were also some damages that needed to be addressed, but that was the easy stuff. The hard stuff was going to take more work to fix.

Standing on the tarmac of the airport, I was left hanging outside of Moya's entrance. We were surrounded by a number of police cars and emergency vehicles, but most of my attention was on my team who had taken refuge in the bioship. I had only seen M'gann for a moment, enough to give her a check-up. Physically she was fine, but...

Lost in my thoughts, I almost didn't notice when a new car pulled up, a sleek black vehicle. The man that stepped out of it was dressed in a professional suit, and walked right towards me without even looking at anyone else. He was broad chested and had silver-white hair, even though he looked to be in his thirties. As he approached, I asked "You with the government? I already spoke with a few of you."

"Not quite," he replied, and he pulled out a badge from inside his pocket. "King Faraday, Interpol."

That brought me up short for a moment. "You got here fast," I eventually remarked. Considering the scope of what was uncovered here, it wasn't surprising that Interpol would take an interest. And they did have the capacity to actually do something about it, unlike the Interpol back in my home universe. Over here they had the power to actually investigate and arrest international criminals.

"I was already here," Faraday put his badge away and fixed his stare on me. "We had noticed some red flags with international shipping and aid. I was sent to investigate." His lips formed into a slight frown. "Then you and your team blew everything wide open."

"You're welcome." I said flatly. "Did you get my email about all the other things your agency apparently missed?" Email was a bit of an understatement. After the Deep Night I had sent dossiers on the people we had been fighting to most intelligence agencies connected to the U.N., but I also made sure Interpol got a copy too.

"We got a whole lot of information that's next to impossible to verify, yes." He shot back. "What happened to the general? I know for a fact he's not in custody."

"Got away. I tried to disable him, but it turns out he can make portals on demand. Don't have a way to counter that yet."

Faraday grunted. "I can't say I don't appreciate your help with… his type, but we both know that your excuse for being in the city to begin with is bull. You shouldn't be here interfering in international affairs, Titan."

"You're right. We shouldn't have to do your job." I pointed out. "We're supposed to punch supervillains and stop street crime, not chase evil covert organizations. But no one seems to actually be doing the latter, so we had to pick up the slack."

Faraday's flat expression didn't change, but after several seconds he said "While I don't care for your tone... you are unfortunately right on that last account."

I paused. "What do you mean?"

"No one was looking into the group behind the Deep Night. More than that, there's no record that any agency even tried." He elaborated. "Either before or after the event. I've been looking into it, and I've gotten more than a few unfortunately literal dead ends. A few agencies not bothering or not being in a position to investigate is understandable, but all of them?" He shook his head. "With what's happened here, it's looking more and more like not only are these people real, but they've already compromised the intelligence community."

"...How?" I asked incredulously.

"I don't know, we only have a very broad picture of what's happening. It's going to take a lot of work, careful work, to find out how far this goes. And while we're doing that, it's going to be difficult to keep track of what this organization is currently doing."

Ah, so that's it. "And you'd like us to keep going as we currently have, right?" I asked "Well, the Titans are always happy to work with law enforcement. And since neither of us is in the mood for dancing around, let me make something clear." I leaned in and my eyes narrowed slightly. "We'll work with you, not for you. If you want us to follow your lead, you're going to have to prove yourselves worth it first. Because right now, we don't have a lot of faith in your institution. Understand?"

Faraday held the stare for a moment longer before he grunted. "We'll be in touch," he said, turning away. "For now, feel free to celebrate. This is your win after all."

I stared at his back for a moment before I turned and headed into the bioship. "...I wish it actually felt like one."

=====A=====

A/N: Don't worry, I'm going to go over what happened with the rest of the team in more detail in the next part.

That said, the next bit is going to get... kinda rough. So get ready for that.