Our Flag Still Flies- War of Rebellion Chapter 17: Dark Clouds, a dc superheroes fanfic

Our Flag Still Flies – War of Rebellion Arc -

Part Seventeen: Dark Clouds

It rained heavily over the skies of East Bluddbechian lands. The city folk locked their shutters and the bravest ones, went to market and back. The rebels in question had taken to a church outside of the city to hold their every motive. A bribe that the gods of this place could never condone. Yet, the west and east of Bluddbechian life were not the same, not as the group had later discovered. The Eastern side wanted the war to end, where they were currently was a place that opposed it fiercely.

Seeing Tara was a scare for the priests there, yet Oliver could speak his way into the high life with his wit alone.

Now, Princess Tara Marvkolia sat in a seat within the church's many walls within the nest of the rebellion, drinking in every spineless act that followed. She saw little to convince her of these, wrongdoings. Every smirk, and every glance she could not judge before her return to power. She'd have to thank Wilson for giving her reason to do this, to be corrupted and to not see the light she had missed basking in properly…. To defect and work to restore her family's crest while outwitting the blind lamb he kept to. She scrunched her fists as in the corner of the room, Rachelle sipped her bitter tea and said nothing.

Garrison walked over to Tara as she flinched right away. No, no contact –

"Are you not well? The General has no manners, no….he surely doesn't, lov."

Tara's strict blue eyes tore at the olive toned lad with a bit too much spice to add to her pot right now. He was in her way, a pining idiot. How could she use that, to wonder….

"He was only worse to the ones that turned him down in the beginning. Yet like a mob, they grow. He is the feed that grants them a new life. It is why leaving his ranks is near impossible once you've been swayed."

"Yet, how did you come to escape?"

Rachelle interrupted while the door, then came to it a knock.

Oliver and one other were there with a third. A blonde, and Tara jumped from her chair. "Why do you have him??" She rushed over as none stopped her. "Joseph…...What, did these sorry people harm you?"

He smiled at her softly, his voice not coming out but in signs of his hands, he spoke mostly clear. ~I was saved by them. I learned to think on my own feet. The General is planning a culling that is unjust…There was no time, you are here so you may then help us to stop his plans. ~

"Wh – How do you know of any of these misleading…?? The men did not bring you to assimilate?"

"No, lov, we are against using force like that. What could you even do with a brainless brat –

"John." Ollie hushed the magi. "We are sure that this plan, Project Starfire is not the only plan brewing in the walls of that place you left. There is more, and it involves Lord Ra's of the east…"

"There is a plan, that involves –

"The way that your friend here could channel into worlds beyond ours is astounding. Of his own will, he saw a demon and Ra's was selling his all to setting it free. Just, not sure how or why."

"Then, what about the Jumperei Knights?" Garrison piped in. "They have the ability to do as before; to stop the tyrant and whatever acts are being kept secret from the people."

"The, legend?" Tara raised up a blonde brow. "That is only a fiction from the past. The real warriors never won any such titles."

"No, they existed." Oliver told the team. " I was the Green Knight, the one who last fell and lost the golden goddess in her right. She fell, and the rest of us divided."

"That…there are no such things!" Tara shouted. "Joseph?? How can you be so foolishly swayed?" Rosa died to see you out…. –

~ You never cared; the General was only yours. We just carried out orders. In fact, my sister was too envious to be my fellow ally. ~Joe told the team. ~ She was as horrid as Grant was to me and to Robin –

"Robin??"

Rachelle's tea spilled as she placed it down to an extra table. "That cannot…. he is the same one?? Our , Richard??"

~ Yes. ~ Joey told the few. ~ HE is the reason why the Owls and Talon gather as well. Why the courts arranged that he help stabilize the war efforts. He, is also bedding father to keep you all out of harm's way. ~

"WHAT??"

Korina was in the halls and down them to assist Victor in understanding the forlmula that used her energy to fuel the supposed new weapon – one that was doomed to wipe them all out in no time. "There can be no time that not to see to a way to counter –

"Korina…" Victor turned to the red head as she still looked into the notes they'd acquired with Jason, Cassandra and Luke's help. "You can cry if you need to. You've barely slept all this time –

"I cannot!" Korina shook her head. "Richard is in danger and I must know what that foul man is planning before…before…." She held a hand to her lips and choked back a further bilious aftertaste in her stressed state.

"This is what I am saying! Seat yourself and you may return once you are well enough to act…."

She shot him a glare, storming out as Royland was busy taking a stroll. "The church was a perfect place to lay in wai –

Kori threw herself into his chest and wept bitterly. "Ri – richard is not gone! Please …. Roy? You will make sure to do all you must…This was due to me; I left and took matters too far…I cannot be left unaccountable –

"My Lady…" He kept her close, propping up her sobbing chin as he eyed her fear in all its wretched face. "You are a victim; you are a rebel. Just as us all, we all want something to come from this war. Peace, and you are in no way the reason for this chaos. It began after the Knights fell. Oliver told me this is true."

She smiled and he let her go. "Thank you, Royland; come! We must, go greet the new guests. I have my own wish to meet the enemy in a brand-new light!"

Richard rose with his coughing fits and the General for once leaning over to address his treatment with tender resolve. "You did right by my son. I have to confess, that is a problem."

Richard winced as the man lifted the bruised teenager and shut the door behind them. "Rest, your wounds are nearly gone with the elixer's support. I made sure to keep you well for our trip. You tried to warn them, to seek out the enemy. What does that make you? No, it makes you look desperate enough to keep at my side. To make something better of you…but, that was not why you were taken here."

Here…. Richard's worn eyes were blinded by his lengthened bangs over them. "Sire…. Gen…..where are we?"

The man smiled, going to the controls of a large wheel. A design for a ship, until the shift was not that. The hatch opened to reveal the next person Richard would shy away from. "Cobb, will this be enough?"

"The energy for the weapon will subjugate the rebels and their followers. You wanted this boy for your own leader. Did you not?"

"He's broken in?"

Richard gasped at Cobb, only to find that he was afraid to speak. The man was grinning. Cob…. did no such things! Richard looked to see General Wilson not batting an eye. Was he not important? Just a thing to thow away?

"The time is right for both. When you've had your soldiers fire that weapon on earth, we shall be under it. Offering our own piece to the one willing to grant us far more power than a few nations falling."

"Wait! You had your time, why this??"

"Quiet, boy." Slade shot as the teenager gritted his dirtied fists. "We finally found it. The pools of Lazarus had the answer all along. This world and everything on it, will never be taken from the true rulers. Lady Korina's power is quite a marvelous source of outside energy, Robin."

"You need not call me that so, casually." Richard spat at Cobb. "Your laws only kill, only bring misery. The General is not so –

The man snapped his fingers as two more guards came by to rip the kid from the ground. "Stop!! This is insanity! The world cannot belong to anyone! How –

"With a bit of magic by the sorcerer himself. Ra's is a noble man with the intent to give us what the Court could never imagine in their lifetime." Slade told the noble son before calling over his shoulder. "Oh, and did I forget to mention? The only reason we put you in such painful circumstances, was as a living sacrifice to HIS god."

"W…. Slade !!! NOO!!"

The doors shut as the boy banged onto his with his foot, kicking like a screaming brat.

"Did you have to make him fear and hate us this early on? He's not going to die yet." Cobb sighed and shook his head at the General's remarks. "He had to know it. That if the god choses one of us, we can steal the energy to rule every facet of this known planet. Ra's may be old, yet he is withering away." Smirked the General. "The Lord Wayne also will be a sacrifice, and his child…. his family. They will feed the known god to grant us the same power that can destroy Ra's before he devours it himself. The living cosmos inside…."

"Ah, you intend to become a true immortal among us, to never fall again."

"Maybe I might even restore the child's life. Make sure Wayne knows it where the god dwells. Crushing the last of his bones to bits."

Cobb shuddered, thinking his role was of course a curse as well as a privilege. "My child Richard is, not going to lie in wait, you know this."

"He doesn't have a choice, William." Slade moved to the controls to see where the air ship was heading. "It is the rite your cult fated him with. To die and inherit the god's will."

Talia walked around the emperor's rthrone as if searching. Her son Damian was clearly entranced by the stranger's words so he came to her, pleadingly she saw him as her child and NOT the sole heir of the Demon itself and all she wished it to be. Just how her father was consumed with greed and the desire to live forever, did she seek the door to the pools while her child blurted out of turn.

"Mother! You must tell me everything; that Timothy is the son of Lord Wayne. That HE is my missing father! You have not lied, you hid us away…is this true? What is Grandfather's plan with me? Why am I being kept from the truth?"

Talia's eyes fell as not a tear was shed for her son. "My beloved boy, you are too naaive and good. That will not do. The god wants conquerors and those that are worthy. You know of the story? How your grandfather gained his fate, as did I?"

Damian saw her hands move, and them tendrils dragged from her body, morphing her partly to release what was trapped below. "The curse, gives and takes, yet only if you submit...I do not wish to harm you! Find that man….leave, before it is too –

She screamed out as the demon inside devoured her forever, the door to the seat she had been seeking finally opening to reveal Tim, in cuffs and unconscious. Wayne, dragged to see that this was not really their plan. But something more that lay below the cracks of the Al – Ghuls' almost perfect foundation.

"Grandson. It is almost time. Come, with us –

" Don't listen to him, Damian." Bruce shouted to the child, just a child as he gaped in awe. His mother was not herself any longer. His family…what were they??

The professor fiddled with a device in hand as the tele rang thrice. ~Professor Liet (Light.) The machine is up and running, I presume? Right now, the first phase has begun. Turn it on. ~

"Y – es, Alexi, sir! You will be astounded at how well I've harnessed this energy. This atomic ray is meant to take to the skies and like light – specks and spores, it will take apart every area it is designated to! There is –

~I don't need an explanation. Do it, and be sure to keep us informed. Good day. ~

Alexi watched as Jade looked onto the city of Metropoli. Alexi's hands came to encircle her as she didn't pull away. "Where can you have your child if it is not safe to raise her anywhere. You should become my mistress. It seems that your knight in shining armor has given his final say."

"Maybe, might I rest to think about it?" Jade batted her eyes and did not speak of much. Only that she'd considered swapping sides in Alexi's mind.

He had her escourted out and while she did only stay to lean into the desk earlier, out with her was a rather blunt pen knife. There was no way in the god's lands she could ever become what he was asking. She and her child…

She was escourted away and Jade found her smile to her chest as forelorn as a farewell to the man she would never see. Never that smile in turn. She had known every day what she was doing could have consequences, that Alexi was as big a monster as the General.

To her throat? Both. She made sure to pierce the flesh of her stomach as her body quivered, biting down the scream she could not cast. That this child, could never come into a world divided by greed and conquest. To that end, she took to her throat as blood spilled. She choked on it, the taste of her treachery. She was….no longer enslaved, but absolutely….

FREE.

(To sum that up:

Richard is taken on to an air ship that is on its way to Ra's capital.

Bruce is taken with Tim to direct Damian to fulfill his role of appeasing this "God" that everyone is trying to get from.

Rachelle knows it and believes the creature is the demon of her home that cursed her family because of her mother's relations to it. Not saying how yet.

Kori is upset because on a mission to stop the Minervan order and the General, she ended up being experimented on and captured. She was the one who made Richard stay and not try to fight back and she is also upset that the General and his allies are using her power of the stars to take control of the people by destroying them and their homes to build their empires. This is difficult but…think of it as cleaning up and rebuilding in one's image. That is the narcissist example of power.

Slade is actually going to try to kill Ra's before he has any chance to make a real contract for power with the god "Astarti" and when he does, he's going to possibly bring Richard back with his new powers to spite Wayne and keep himself company. Greed pretty much.

Cobb wants to rule the Order of Minerva as the head in charge and change things for himself and his doughty grandson, Richard. He thinks a bit smaller, saying that order is needed but it can't be downright done in a short time. He's going to fight both Ra's and Slade in this to get his way.

Damian is confused and sees his mother finally overtaken by the snake demon that she was cursed to harbor. Little does he know that the reason was to –

No spoilers!!

Roy is standing in with Vic to comfort Kori.

Rachelle is skeptical about Tara's intentions and she may even go as far as to take her revenge in the same way as Slade has. Dunno.

Dick is told HE is a sacrifice, yet he outright flips!

What else, oh. Joey tells everyone that his dad and Robin have been copulating for some time. Bad Joe, don't you know subtlety?

Rosa is actually dead, so we can't say much. Grant is running things to get –

No spoilers!!

Jade finds that the world will be in ruins and she can't live with the guilt of knowing she's the one who has helped too many mad men to achieve that. She guts her stomach while pregnant and slits her own throat to escape her fate….If she is found out?...

RIP…

John Constantine and Ollie are working together and they see what the General is up to through Joey's abilities aiding them. Now, there is the talk of the Knights of Jumperei.

Well, the golden goddess was actually Wonder Woman.

The Blue Knight was Clark who s –

No spoilers!

Gosh, I am terrible with keeping a secret…...nooo.

Bruce is the Black knight.

Barthemewl (Barry if I didn't add him,) is the red knight.

Oliver was the Green Knight, and then he went into hiding like everyone else once the rumors and scare of war had been laid to rest…. until the General brought it back.

Half of the Knights were destroyed. Barthemewl and Dia (Diana) were destroyed in the rebellion and as soon as their powers had been cut in half. Clark is apparently either under the control of Alexi or fighting and in hiding. That was not made clear, but will be soon!

A lot of scary stuff to come. And controversial! The best kind!

Find out!