M'gann screamed.
The sound echoed throughout the hangar, racking her throat raw. She screamed until she thought her lungs would shrivel. She had never felt so much pain.
Helplessly, she struggled and kicked and punched trying to push Perfection back with her telekinetic powers and her fists but it had no effect on the android-human hybrid. She felt something like a piercing stab in her brain and screamed again, keening in agony as Perfection grinded the sharpened point of her own mental prowess into the depths of M'gann's brain.
Now that Conner had forced Perfection from the telepathic link, the android-human hybrid was taking her revenge by pilfering through all of M'gann's thoughts. She could feel Perfection rending her way through her head, ruthlessly ransacking her consciousness and memories. She uncovered identifies and locations and faces then she dug deeper, to the time before the heroics, before the bio-ship, before Earth itself, back to the red world of Mars and all of M'gann's secrets there.
"Oh…" Perfection said, surprised for just a moment before her mouth curved into a cruel grin. "Wow you have been keeping secrets, Meg. A lot of ugly secrets."
M'gann sobbed in pain. "Get out of my head!"
Perfection clicked her tongue. "Don't try to order me around, Meg, I hate being told what to do."
"Tiff, you had your issues before but you were never like this," gasped M'gann tears flooding her eyes. "Don't do this!"
Perfection shook her head and slammed M'gann into a broken box of plane parts. "Same old optimistic, Megan, can't help but trying to see the good in everyone, but I was always like this Meg. It was just that the old Tiffany didn't have any prospects, any power, but don't worry, all of me is still in here, deep inside. Just like you're deep inside that pretty green LIE of yours, isn't that right White Martian?"
Perfection canted her head to the right, staring at M'gann like a hungry cat would a wounded mouse. "Does Conner know what you really look like?" Her scarlet eyes pulsed as she continued to ravage through M'gann's mind and discovered the answer by force. "Oh no he doesn't and neither does anyone else, not even 'Uncle J'onn' or your new prospect La'gann. You've been lying to everyone for a very long time. Maybe we should have it all out in the open for them when they get here." The face of Tiffany melted away, replaced by Robin. "Call for back-up as we go, Aqualad. Let's go save our friend," she parroted perfectly then dropped the Robin guise, her normal face staring at M'gann once more. "But that's not going to happen is it? Mr. Big Bad Android isn't going to show up to save them which means I get to have all the fun I want." She shrugged suddenly. "Well, maybe not all the fun I want, Lex told me the only one I had to spare was Superboy, but that just means I don't get to kill him, never said anything about not hurting him."
A mock pout of thoughtfulness crossed her face and she tapped her chin ponderously. "The only question is, how to do it. How to destroy them?" She snapped her fingers, as an idea brightened on her face. "Oh I know. We'll let everyone see you for what you really are and let them do the rest."
M'gann stared at the cruel, transformed Tiffany in horror. Her green fingers gripped her wrists trying to push herself away from the former cheerleader, but it was futile.
Perfection thrust out a hand at M'gann's neck and phased through flesh. Fiery, brutal fingers clawed M'gann's throat and physically gripped the vocal cords, twisting and raking them. She held them in a strangle-hold and used them as an anchor to bash M'gann into a nearby metal pillar. Another hand came down onto her forehead but didn't phase through as her mental claws dug into M'gann's flesh and her mind assaulted the Martian's.
All was pain, inside and out. Perfection ripped at her flesh and her psyche and finally found the neural pathways that helped her control her Martian abilities.
A bright white light blinded M'gann as Perfection hammered viciously at her Martian mind. Each blow of her mental abilities stunned M'gann, making her mind twist and writhe in pain with nowhere to hide and no way to be free. Perfection wouldn't even let her drift into unconsciousness. She felt Perfection's mind seizing her neural abilities battering and battering and battering until she felt a sickening snap like the breaking of bones.
M'gann screamed as her body un-morphed of its own volition. Her mostly human form and green skin melted away revealing the seven-foot-tall, bone white Martian beneath. She was completely hairless. Her eyes were lozenge shaped, the sclera black and the iris's amber. Her boney, spindly arms past her knees and her two fingered hands swayed limply. Her skin was scaled and leathered and her body was long and angular with its large brain protected by the reddish, nearly translucent stretch of skin that wrapped from the back of her skull to the top of her spine. Large, pointy teeth for rending stood on full display, no lips to be seen.
Perfection shape-shifted herself back into her normal form of Tiffany, her face filled with disgust. "Ew, you're even more disgusting than the mental images implied. I can't believe I thought Conner was the only freak in school!" Perfection stared at her a moment more then with an easy flick of her wrist dropped M'gann from midair.
M'gann hit the ground in a heavy heap, her body arching with pain and jarring from the high fall and impact. She looked up weakly as Perfection floated to the ground, cracking her knuckles with eager anticipation. "While we're waiting, let's see how well a Martian body holds up to a beating. I really hope it does better than your mind…."
Before Perfection's feet could touch the ground the sound of a huge crash filled the air. The hangar shook violently as another sonorous crash followed the first. "M'gann!" Conner's voice thundered from the outside of the hangar, louder even than the hissing wind. "M'gann where are you!?"
An irritated sigh crossed Perfection's smirking mouth. "They're here already? Well a girl can't have everything I suppose." Tiffany began to float back up, her body becoming translucent and she shifted back into invisibility. "Still, this should be fun."
M'gann's world spun. She barely heard Tiffany, barely understood what she was saying. There was a ringing headache in her skull, nearly blinding her with migraine like pulses one after the other. She tried to push away the pain, to ignore it, but her agony wouldn't be denied. Her body hurt too much. Her head hurt even worse. She couldn't control her morphing, the mental capacity had been bludgeoned to a pulp.
As M'gann tried to come to her feet the far left wall of the hangar shivered and the center of it burst inward, sending a huge chunk of stone flying through the air. The dust from the destruction was whisked and whirled by the sandstorm winds, revealing the team. Conner's eyes searched the destroyed Bialyan hanger then, as the dust settled, his gaze fell on M'gann. Shock stamped his face as he gazed at her, surprised beyond words to see the seven-foot-tall thing looking back at him. He didn't know her, not in this form, but his brow knit as if for a moment some recognition sparked in him but the sight of it was gone a moment later as La'gaan stepped in front of him, his amphibian eyes hatefully searing into her. "Another one of you monsters! What have you done with M'gann!"
M'gann stretched out a hand and tried to shout but the only thing that came out was an inhuman screech.
La'gann took the scream as one of hostility. He inflated himself and leapt towards M'gann. Her body screamed in pain as she rolled out the way just as he crash-landed, his bare feet leaving a five-inch crater in the floor. She tried to speak again, to utter his name but her vocal cords were bruised and battered and only a terrifying keening would come out. She tried to reach out mentally but the mental beating Tiffany had put on her had savaged all of her psychic ability. She realized, to her horror, she couldn't use any of her powers.
"Don't you see what this beast has done to your precious friend!" Perfection laughed as she reappeared, floating high above their heads. "Your hot little girlfriend isn't here anymore! She's dead! My monstrous pet here so graciously killed her off for me."
Perfection waved a hand at a mountain of rubble and M'gann saw herself in her green humanoid form lying under a heap of stone and metal girders. Her lower half was trapped under the tons of rock metal and plane parts and her upper half was sprawled out, unmoving her green eyes glazed over in death. It was simply an illusion but before a deeper look could be taken, before the team even knew their minds were being manipulated once more, she released the illusion and telekinetically rained down a pile of debris over the illusioned M'gann.
La'gann roared in rage and sent a fist down to smash M'gann in her true Martian form. M'gann hastily flung herself back but as La'gaan continued his assault she had no choice but to defend herself. She bunched her long, spindly legs up against her strange, narrow torso and kicked out, catching him in the stomach. La'gaan shouted with pain as he went sailing backwards. M'gann painfully clambered to her feet and looked around trying to pantomime that it was her but stopped the moment she managed her raise her one good arm; who would believe her? Who would understand that she was this thing? She was a White Martian hated by her own kind, how much more humanity?
"Don't worry my most hideous pet, I'll help you!" Perfection laughed insanely as she joined the fray once more. She came down like a glossy streak of deadly lightening, punching at Aqualad with the power of Superman, moving against Kid Flash with the speed of the Flash, and blasting their minds with Martian aptitude.
M'gann wished to aid them but she was no help in her state. Her mind… it hurt. H'ronmeer how it hurt. La'gann lashed out at her again, still trying to fight her but a flying chunk of rock from Perfection sent him tumbling across the half-destroyed hangar. He was on his feet in an instant, hatred hard in his amphibian eyes. "Forget this flying sea-devil! Get the monster! It killed M'gann!"
"Ah ah ah not so fast now!" Perfection said as she pushed them back with the force of Red Tornado's cyclones.
M'gann panicked. They were going to attack Perfection and her if she didn't escape. In her injured state they might very well kill her. Desperate, she lumbered painfully to a hole in the floor the fighting had created and jumped down into a fetid sewer. It was pitch dark. She tried to summon her powers, any powers, but a searing throb of pain took her to her knees once more.
She grabbed her aching head and with sheer force of will alone made herself get back up on her feet. She couldn't stay. She had to get out of there anyway she could.
A blast from above rocked the sewer, sending M'gann tottering. She leaned against a filthy stone wall right below the fray, trying not to fall again, unable to do anything but listen to her teammates desperately fighting above while she tried to recover even a scrap of strength.
"Red Tornado, come in Red Tornado," Aqualad repeated into his communicator. "We need extraction – now!"
"I'm coming kiddies, hold on!" Perfection mocked in a perfect imitation of Red Tornado's android voice.
M'gann looked up from the hole and saw Perfection fly by with Conner in tow. She clutched his head with both hands and her eyes brightened maliciously with laser vision. The beams erupted from her eyes and Conner screamed in agony as they bore against his chest.
The scream, that horrible scream stopped M'gann cold. She looked at the dark sewer where freedom no doubt awaited then back up through the hole. No matter how hurt and afraid she was she couldn't abandon them. She had to do something to help. They still needed her.
Giving a mewl of pain, she grabbed bits of jutting rubble and struggled back the way she had come, determined to help her friends. She had to do something to help them. She had too.
0000
Everything had gone so wrong.
It was one thing to get cover blown on a mission. It was quite another to be so out of your league you knew if things didn't change you were going to die.
Still, the team fought on.
Conner stared balefully at the creature that called itself Perfection. He panted hard, feeling the weight of her blows heavy on his body.
Perfection strutted towards him, basking in her power. A final arrow from Artemis came shooting in her direction and exploded on impact against her shoulder. Thick black smoke rose from the explosion but as quickly as it came it curled away as Perfection continued to saunter towards Conner.
There wasn't even a mark on her shoulder.
Kid Flash sped in trying to pummel her with a thousand punches, trying to penetrate her impenetrable shell.
She kept walking.
Aqualad's water-hilts came down like hammers on her body.
She kept walking.
A victorious smile was perched upon her lips as she neared Conner. She transformed her hands into axes, letting them sway by her sides. "We've got some unfinished business me and you, Superboy. I'm going to find out how you kicked me out of the mind-link and, trust me, I'm not going to be gentle."
Perfection raised her axe-hands, and dipped into a small crouch, preparing to race like the Flash against him but before she could take a step Conner saw a flash of white at her feet. From the pockmarked holes in the Earth something punched up through the fragile ground and grabbed Perfection's ankle. In any normal circumstance it wouldn't have stopped the android-human hybrid but the ground was churned and unsteady and whatever had her pulled hard.
The floor gave a groan and began to heave, taking Perfection off guard as the ground began to give way. It wouldn't stop someone like her for long, but for the heartbeat it would take her to respond it was enough. She went sinking down as Superboy jumped up.
"Zatanna, try to contain her!" Aqualad yelled from somewhere in the destruction. "Conner hit her hard – VERY HARD!"
Conner's jump took him to what was left of the roof. He grabbed one of the metal beams and wrenched if free of the ruin. He wielded it like a spear as he came down and slammed it directly atop Perfection. Zatanna was incanting backwards as he forced the beam deeper into the earth. Her magic began to make the iron and steel melt it over her body as Conner kept working the remains of the beam further down in the ground. It wouldn't keep her for long, he guessed, but for the moment it was a reprieve.
When the beam was finally wedged firmly in the hole Conner leapt to the rubble pile that had buried M'gann and started to pull away the huge chunks of rock.
Robin jumped down from the wing of a ruined, hastily tapping on his gauntlet. The blue screen appeared overtop his arm and jerked statically, frizzing and flickering from the sandstorm's interference. "That's not gonna keep her down for long," he said, voicing Conner's own thoughts. "And the sandstorm is still jamming our communication. I think RT is probably in a fight too. That… android thing was waiting for us."
"Yeah, I don't know what you guys saw but before it attacked I thought I saw my sister Jade," Artemis revealed as she joined the two beside the plugged crater.
"Yeah and I saw my parents," said Robin hastily.
"That thing must have all done something to our heads. When I snapped out of it I was just running in circles," Wally added.
"Something broke us out of our trances though," mused Robin as continued to try and get a signal.
"It must've been M'gann," Conner concluded still digging in the debris. It was futile to try and pull it all up but he had to try. "She is the only one who would have been able to do it."
"Yeah and look what that android bitch did to her!" Lagoon boy shouted, his breath coming heavy and panicked. "Chums we are so in over our heads!"
"We are," agree Aqualad.
"Then let's get out of here before that thing comes back!"
"We can't leave M'gann," Conner argued.
A strong hand pulled on Conner's shoulder, pulling him away from the rubble pile and turning him around to face the team. "M'gann's dead, Conner," snapped Lagoon Boy. He tapped a finger hard to his own skull. "Can't you feel that she's not in here anymore."
"She's not dead," Conner growled. "Even if there is a chance she is still alive we can't abandon her."
"Staying here is suicide!" La'gann insisted in a yell. "Did you see that other monster or was I the only one who saw a white skinned, seven-foot-tall thing with thin long arms and a mouth full of gnaw-your-face-off sharp teeth creature feature shrieking at us two minutes ago! Perfection is bad enough, but that monster killed M'gann! Either we get back-up or we get the hell out of here."
"As much as I hate to say it Lagoon Boy is right," Aqualad said as he looked to the rest of the team. "We have no idea what that else we will have to face. We need Red Tornado. I know what you must think about M'gann..."
"M'gann's not dead!" Superboy yelled.
Robin shook his head. "Conner, Z can't get a read on her at all. There's so much rubble. She hadn't learned to phase yet. We saw…."
"You saw what Perfection wanted you to see," Conner insisted, pain filling his voice. "It's not true! It can't be!"
"I'm sorry, Conner," Aqualad said, "but we can't jeopardize the team. We need–
"Team to Red Tornado." The voice of Red Tornado sudden crackled to life over Robin's gauntlet. "Can you hear me?"
"Red Tornado we're here!" Aqualad said, relief filling his voice. "We need extraction – now!"
"Affirmative…." The voice crackled again, choppy. "I am struggling to narrow in on your coordinates. This sandstorm is not natural. I was attacked by Mister Twister above Bialyan airspace. I am coming for you."
The link went dead.
"Well, at least we know the calvary is coming," Robin said grimly.
"I'm sure he is," Perfection laughed as she levitated through the floor. Her eyes glowed blood red as she hovered over them. "Let's see how many of you I can make scream before he gets here!"
0000
M'gann's Martian body shook with both pain and shame. Her boney limbs felt as heavy as iron and her heart heavier still. She bled thick green Martian blood from a dozen wounds or more. How she had managed to escape the cave-in she didn't know. She had been operating on survival instinct alone. It had taken the last of everything she had to grab Perfection and jerk her down into the crater. She had hoped it would be enough. She hoped they would take the reprieve and escape but, of course, they hadn't.
Part of her was glad she didn't have any energy left to find a way free of the sewer. She wouldn't, couldn't join them. They wouldn't see M'gann, they'd just see the monster. La'gann had only said what everyone had ever said about her. Monster.
For a moment M'gann was almost angry that Perfection hadn't just killed her. Better to be dead than what she was now. Better death than this final, horrible secret. But she wasn't dead, at least not yet.
Her amber gaze looked into the thick dark gloom of the sewer. Red Tornado was coming. She had also heard his voice over Robin's computer gauntlet. That meant there was only one thing left to do – flee before Perfection came back and hope to H'ronmeer that Red Tornado made it in time.
0000
Conner felt numb. Though his body should have been screaming with pain he couldn't feel anything at all. He felt almost detached from the physical, his mind in a limbo that couldn't accept what the world was telling him.
M'gann dead. It couldn't be. He had felt her mind link. It was still there, wasn't it?
"M'gann answer me! Please please please, M'gann!" he shouted in his head but he couldn't find the mental link anymore. It seemed to have vanished… almost.
It was the almost that kept him with the faintest kernel of hope she wasn't dead. There seemed to be just a trace of her left. He didn't know if he was imagining it or it was true, but at the moment it didn't matter. It was the only thing keeping him on his feet.
"Man, I'll give it up for you guys, you just don't quit," Perfection laughed easily. "But, unfortunately, I'm getting bored, so what do you say we wrap this up? Gotta be in bed by one!"
Like the Flash she raced towards them and grabbed Wally by the throat. As he sputtered for air she sent him flying into Artemis. The pair collided painfully, both laying in heaps beside the rubble mountain that had buried M'gann. "Oooh let's add two more heroes to the pile of dead wanna-be's!"
Conner raced to stand in front of his fallen friends, his fists raised and shoulders lowered. He bled from a half-dozen places but he wouldn't let her lay another hand on them.
"Oh come on, you've got to be tired. Just sit down like a good little clone and wait for daddy to come pick you up," she laughed nastily.
Her steps drew nearer, leaving depressions of her heeled shoes where she walked. This was going to hurt, Conner knew without backing down. It was going to hurt a lot.
As she neared there came a thundering crack from above their heads. She looked up just as Red Tornado shot down into the destroyed hangar like an angry red comet. The impact to the earth made the ground shake and shudder. Dust and stone billowed upwards as the android kept pushing Perfection down deeper than the team could have ever done alone, miles and miles and miles through rock and sand.
The damaged building shook as the entire place began to rumble from the final blow to its structural integrity. "It's coming down!" Aqualad shouted.
"Down here!" Superboy punched the frail, nearly destroyed layer of the floor. The members of the team who could still walk grabbed the more injured members. Huge hunks of the ceiling came plummeting down just as they jumped into the sewer below.
Pitch blackness bound them until Zatanna uttered a backwards word and a blue witch light illuminated the sewer revealing not only the rubble strewn filth of the sewer but a tall, chalk-white figure at the far end of the tunnel desperately trying to limp to a large round sewer grate leading to the outskirts of the Bialyan military base.
"There goes ugly, after it!" Robin yelled.
Unintentionally the shout sparked the last of the destruction from above. The ground shook again and a huge avalanche of rubble broke through the surface, cutting off the chalk-white creature from its exit. The creature gurgled what sounded like a screech of rage and turned towards them, its long arms thrust out.
"Nowhere to hide now, monster!" La'gann screamed. He puffed to his fullest and jumped while the others raced behind him.
A crash rippled through the sewer as La'gann hit the creature straight on. The creature's back hit the wall of rubble and smacked against it limply. Large chunks of upper floor and iron cascaded down and the rubble that had blocked the sewer exit gave way, spewing them into the outside world.
Rubble and sewer water exploded out of the burst tunnel in a shower of dust and debris and filth. The creature shrieked as its body sailed through the hole and fell six feet into a nearly rubbish heap filled with rusting army vehicles and training debris. The creature rolled thrice only stopping as it collided with the side of a defunct Bialyan tank.
Red Tornado must have finally defeated Mister Twister for the sandstorm had ended. The night was clear and a gibbous moon hung pensively over the ruined army base as the last of the high intensity winds billowed out over the desert.
The team of heroes stood at the opening of the sewer, glaring angrily down upon the creature. The chalk white creature tried to get to its feet but couldn't. It tried to scramble backwards but its bumpy spine only hit the derelict tank.
Finally, it was trapped.
"This is for killing M'gann, beast!" La'gann shouted angrily and jumped from the opening of the sewer.
Dust and sand kicked up under his webbed feet as he quickly began to close the distance.
Conner ran right behind him, his gaze boring into the creature, feeling once again that something was wrong. The creature looked at them with features Conner couldn't place. There was nothing human about them, but he thought he saw sadness and desperation in the eyes. Those black and amber eyes.
They weren't green like they normally were but they were eyes that he knew well.
Realization struck like lightning. "STOP!" Superboy screamed but La'gann, enthralled in his anger, ignored him. Despite his injuries Conner forced himself into an extra burst of speed and jumped, leaping over the enraged Atlantean. He landed in front of Lagoon Boy and pushed him, stopping La'gann mid-charge by sending him sprawling several feet backwards
La'gann scrambled to his feet, snarling at Superboy. "Traitor! This thing killed M'gann!"
"This is M'gann!"
"That Perfection creature must have messed with your mind, chum," La'gann shouted as he marched angrily towards Conner. "This is not my Angelfish." He screamed in his face. "I might not be from the surface but even we Atlanteans know a monster when we see one!"
Conner's fist crashed into La'gann's head before he even knew what he was doing. "Shut up!"
Zatanna spoke a backwards word and Conner felt himself skidding backwards as the magic pushed him away from La'gann.
Zatanna stood between them, looking from Lagoon Boy to Superboy. "Lagoon Boy you know we don't hurt enemies that are obviously no longer a threat, no matter what we might feel," she chided then turned to Conner. "But Superboy, La'gann could have a point."
"He can't be seeing what we're seeing," La'gann challenged. "Even if it is M'gann why would she chose to morph into that? Are you looking at the same hideous creature we're looking at?"
"Perfection was able to get into our minds," Aqualad said added though he did not have the same vehemence of La'gann. "I saw my king die right before my very eyes. Thought I was holding his broken body while Bialyan soldiers were disarming me. This might be another one of her cruel tricks, trying to make you think this creature is M'gann."
"No," Conner gritted out with all certainty, "it isn't."
Before another word could be said he turned away from the team and walked slowly towards the creature with no hesitation at all. The creature's black and amber eyes gazed at him pleadingly, shamefully. It tried to push away from him but it was too hurt, a chitter of pain burbling from its sharp-toothed maw.
Conner eyes never left the creature as he knelt before the battered being "M'gann?"
Several heartbeats passed in tight, gut-wrenching anxiety then the creature gave a single, frightened nod.
Relief flooded Conner's face. "M'gann." He reached out a hand to touch her leathery skin but she shied away, turning her head and throwing up her long, spindly arms as if she didn't want to be seen. A ragged, strangled sob growled from her tortured throat.
"It's alright I've got you," Conner soothed gently. He wrapped his arms around her odd frame and slowly helped her up. She leaned her full weight against him unable to support herself in any capacity. She slumped into his arms and he could feel her hazily slipping in and out of unconsciousness.
Despite his own injuries and fatigue, Conner held her strongly, keeping her upright. Though helicopters were starting to fly in and alarms were blaring all over the army base, he felt himself in a sea of relief so vast he thought he might drown in it. He hadn't lost her. M'gann was alive and that was all that mattered.
"I'm taking you to the bio-ship, R'egga," he whispered tenderly as he saw her eyes start to flutter close, letting her know with her last shreds of consciousness she was safe. "I won't let her hurt you again. We're going home."
