STAR CITY
September 18, 20:16 PDT
It wasn't the first 'Vault' or even the second. It was just the latest in a long line of safe houses/weapons caches used by the heroes of Star City, sometimes only half-jokingly called the 'Arrowcave'. It was now being used by Tigress, Catra and Melog to suit-up before catching a Zeta-Beam to the Justice League's orbital headquarters.
Catra stood in front of a full-length mirror, appraising her new costume. At first glance, it looked much like her old Force Captain uniform, minus the Horde's bat-winged insignia. But the differences went far deeper than that.
She tapped a discreet spot hidden in the fabric somewhere near her clavicle. Instantly the dark red material turned night black. Another tap and it was dark red once again.
Melog trilled approvingly.
"If you keep doing that, you'll go blind!" Tigress called from across the room, loading her quiver.
"Wait, seriously!?"
"Nah, just an old Earth joke. But you will annoy the Hell outta your new team-mates."
"Sorry, it's just… augmented reality contact lenses, stealth-tech… we never had anything like this back in the Horde?"
"Really? I thought the Horde was supposed to be a somekinda super-advanced galactic empire?"
"Honestly, I think Hordak was just cheap."
"I'm guessing fancy new threads aren't the real reason you're so fidgety?"
Catra almost clammed up, before Melog gave her an encouraging nuzzle.
"It's just… I'm not good with, you know… people."
Tigress clasped her shoulder. "Hey, you'll do great. Just… speaking as the voice of experience, try not to be defensive. You got nothing to prove to anyone up there."
Catra snorted. "No promises."
The three felines stepped into the Zeta-Tube, its built-in computer scanning their biometrics as it powered up.
Recognized:
Tigress-B-Zero-Seven,
Melog-C-Zero-Six,
Catra-B-Three-Nine.
[-]
THE WATCHTOWER
September 18, 23:19 EDT
Catra stepped out of the golden glow of the whirling Zeta-Tube, just behind Tigress and Melog. The polished floor of the Watchtower's main foyer was cool beneath her bare feet as a breath caught in her throat.
This wasn't Catra's was far from Catra's first time in planetary orbit. Still, it wasn't easy getting used to the sight of an entire world suspended in the starry black. Earth dominated the view from the massive panoramic window that filled a whole wall of the vaulting hall, two stories high and at least that wide.
It was an intimidating sight, though not quite as intimidating as the five youths who stood in a loose knot in the foyer, casually chatting.
"I'm going to need a while to set up for the briefing," Tigress said. "Why don't you go mingle?"
Catra's guts twisted. "Maybe I could help you-"
Tigress waved back, disappearing into a side room. "Go. Mingle."
Catra stood there, as though bolted to the polished floor before Melog shoved her forward with a not too gentle head-butt.
"Quit it," Catra hissed under her breath.
One of the figures turned, a dark-skinned youth in a dark hooded costume. Their face instantly lit up.
"Catra?!" Halo trilled.
Too late.
"H-hey, Rainbow!"
Violet Harper, AKA Halo, had been one of the first Earthlings to try and befriend Catra during the Apokolips crisis, and one of the few to actually succeed. It was an admittedly odd friendship. Halo was the kind of person Catra would normally have found insufferable, tooth-achingly sweet, eager to help, a kind word for everyone. But at the time, Catra had desperately needed a kind word.
"Come on," Halo tugged Catra's arm. "I'll introduce you to everyone."
Catra allowed herself to be led toward the rest of the group when a far less welcome voice intruded.
"Well, well, finally made it, Probie?"
Roy Harper was clad all in black and red, wearing a tiny domino mask that Catra figured was supposed to hide his identity. He smirked smugly.
"Welcome to the big leagues."
Catra couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic. "Hi, Roy."
His smirk vanished. "It's 'Arsenal' when we're on mission, Probie. Throwing around real names with bad guys in earshot is a good way to get people killed."
"Wouldn't that be a shame?" she deadpanned.
"Har har," he deadpanned back at her.
"And this is Thirteen." Halo gestured to a girl with almond eyes and red-brown hair tied back in a ponytail. A small green lizard perched on her shoulder. "Thirteen, Catra."
"Hey, Thirteen."
"You can call me 'Traci'," Thirteen said. "Since last time I checked, there aren't many bad guys skulking around the Watchtower," she added loud enough for Arsenal to hear.
Catra snorted. She liked this one.
Melog chirped approvingly.
"Whoa," Thirteen kneeled 'til she was at eye level with the alien fey. "Are they yours?"
"Melog's not my pet, if that's what you mean," Catra answered. "They belong to themself."
"I get it, Leroy's the same way," Thirteen replied, giving her lizard a quick chin scratch. She extended an open palm. "May I?"
Melog chirped their consent. Thirteen placed her hand on the fey's brow, her eyes glowing a soft purple.
"Incredible," Thirteen murmured. "It's like they're made of living magic. We haven't seen anything like this on Earth since Faery Courts cut off contact back in the Sixteenth Century."
Catra was sure she had understood at least half of those words. "Oh… neat?"
"Traci is Earth's Sorceress Supreme," Halo added by way of explanation.
"Technically, I'm only Sorceress Supreme one week out of four," Thirteen said. "The other three, I'm just a basic witch."
A new figure strode forward, clad in high-tech glossy black armor stenciled with a grinning scarlet demon. The eyes of his flat manta-helm burned blood-red as they locked on Catra.
Catra immediately tense, as though for a fight, before Halo intervened. "Catra, this is-"
"No need for introductions," the armored figure intoned; the speakers of his helm made his voice deep and dark as an oceanic abyss. "I've been waiting a long time for this, Catra."
He removed his helm to reveal a smiling boyish face with light brown skin and dark golden curls, gill-slits running down his neck. Catra's brain took a moment to catch up before recognition dawned.
"Sea Angel!?"
"Actually, I go by 'Devil Ray' nowadays," the young man spoke in a light Ozzie brogue, extending an armored hand. "But to you, it's always 'Angelo'."
"Whoa, Angelo!? You look badass, dude!" Catra trilled, taking armoured gauntlet by the wrist. "When the heck did all this happen?!"
"Yeah, well, after… everything, I decided to give the ol' Team game a try," Devil Ray said, holding the black helm in the crook of his arm. "Kaldur'ahm was sound enough to spot me his old manta-suit, to make up for… well, you know yourself?"
Angelo del Rey, formerly known as the 'Sea Angel' had been one of Australia's few metahuman heroes before being abducted by the alien organ thief called Modulok. The combined efforts of the Outsiders and the Etherian 'Best Friend Squad' had succeeded in saving the young hero, but not the graceful manta-like wings that had inspired his original codename.
"Yeah…" Catra said softly, before pointing out the wispy foreshadowing of a beard on his chin. "That's new too?"
"HRT, just another miracle of modern science," Devil Ray chuckled.
"Looks good on you."
He stroked his fuzz thoughtfully. "Ya think?"
He laughed, Halo laughed, Thirteen laughed, and Catra laughed. For a moment, Catra thought this was actually going to work out, then it all came crashing down.
"Oi, Andie!" Devil Ray called jocularly. "Came say hello to the newbo!"
Catra froze at the sight of her last 'teammate'.
Andrea Murphy, AKA Mist, a petite Hispanic girl with light brown skin and a bob of silver-white hair, was the youngest hero there by about two years. She glared at Catra with undisguised venom before turning to walk away.
"Hh, what's got her all crook?" Devil Ray mused.
"I'll go talk to her," Halo reassured Catra.
"No, it's fine," Catra sighed resignedly. "Honestly, she's handling this better than I'd be."
"Handling what?" Thirteen asked.
Catara winced. "I may have kinda, almost… ripped off her girlfriend's face off."
Thirteen blinked. "Oh."
"Heads-up, Team!" Tigress' voice rang out. "Briefing time!"
The six young heroes, and Melog, formed a semi-circle around Tigress.
"Okay, first thing's first, a little history lesson," Tigress activated a holo-screen depicting a glyph or symbol that resembled nothing so much as a hooded serpent coiled about a globe. "Kobra, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to - what else - rule the world."
Catra couldn't help noticing the rest of the Team tensing in revulsion.
"Kobra is a fanatical cult that claims to have received its dogma from the 'Naga-Emperors of prehuman Lemuria'." Tigress noted a raised armored hand. "Yes, Ray?"
"Um, I've actually been to Lemuria," Devil Ray began. "And I can already see at least five things wrong with that?"
"No doubt," Tigress shifted into full lecture mode. "More conventional scholarship traces the cult back to the 'Esoteric Order of Nulla Pambu', an obscure theosophic sect founded in the Nineteen-Thirties by Hungarian occultist Yosef Vrolock. The original Order's theology was a patchwork of garbled Hinduism, Neo-Gnosticism, and old sword and sorcery pulps.
"In 1973, radical members of the Order abducted a newborn Jeffery Burr from the maternity ward of Gotham General, believing the infant to be the prophesized incarnation of their deity. Shockingly, raising a kid to believe they're a literal god is a pretty surefire way to screw them up for life.
"Jeffery Burr, now styling himself Lord Naga-Naga, assumed full control of the Order on his twenty-first birthday, and spent the following decades transforming this obscure sect into a world-wide terror network. Kobra's had its scaly coils in everything from dealing in illegal super-steroids, to ritual assassinations, to mind-control, all to accelerate the Kali Yuga or 'Age of Chaos'.
"The Outsiders captured Burr early last year. Without their 'god', we all assumed Kobra would eventually fracture and collapse in on itself." Tigress sighed. "That was before late June of this year, when Kobra detonated a mutagenic bomb in the heart of Coast City."
Arsenal hissed something obscene under his breath.
Tigress nodded in understanding. "The bomb released a carrier-virus. Near as we can tell, it was supposed to mutate ordinary humans into a literal snake-people. But… most of those exposed didn't survive more than a couple days."
Now it was Catra's turn to shudder. One of her very first Bowhunter jobs was helping escort a relief convoy to Coast City. She vividly recalled the medical tents, hastily erected when the hospitals began to overflow. She also recalled limbs fused to torsos, skin covered in cancerous scaled growths.
"Shouldn't the Lanterns be in on this?" Thirteen asked. "Coast City's their home turf after all?"
"All Earth's active Green Lanterns are off-world, along with half the Justice League," Tigress answered. "Trying to track down Hal Jordan after his… episode."
Tigress was quiet for a moment.
"We finally managed to get a bead on Kobra through one of its suspected front companies, ARBKO Ltd."
"Oooh, it's an anagram," Halo said. "That's…"
"Brazenly obvious?" Arsenal finished.
"For the past few weeks, ARBKO's been clandestinely shipping tech and weapons to a secret location," Tigress continued. "But thanks to the hard-working men and women of Bowhunter Security, and a discreet tracking device, we've finally pinpointed their main HQ…"
Tigress brought up the grainy satellite image of a lonely island in the middle of a desolate sea. The atoll was a thin crescent of forested green, dominated by a dark lagoon that almost eclipsed the isle like a blue moon.
"Isla Diablo in the South Pacific, supposedly uninhabited. Based on satellite imaging, we believe Kobra's fortified itself in the main caldera of the island's extinct volcano. The plan is a two-pronged infiltration; Halo, Devil Ray and me are Alpha Squad. Arsenal, Catra, Mist and Melog are Beta. Thirteen, you and Leroy are on babysitting duty."
Thirteen groaned. "Do we have to?"
"Sorry, Traci, but your specialty is urban magic and a desert island is about as far from urban as it gets. Plus, we'll need a quick getaway if things go south."
Catra shot quick uncomfortable glances at Arsenal and Mist but said nothing.
"Remember, this mission is strictly recon," Tigress concluded.
Thirteen tried to stifle a knowing snicker.
"I mean it this time. Kobra's likely to have a small army waiting for us. Once we have the lay of the land, we call in the Outsiders, the League and whatever else it takes to tread on these snakes for good."
[-]
BABY
September 18, 18:31 UTC-10
From the cockpit of the Martian bio-ship - affectionately named 'Baby' - Catra watched as the desolate waves of the South Pacific raced far below. Not one scrap of land could be seen from horizon to horizon. From here, it was easy to believe the entire planet was just one solid sphere of water.
Tigress and Halo strode into the cockpit, both clad in slick black wetsuits.
"Thirteen, what's our ETA?" Tigress asked.
"About five," Thirteen answered, sitting in Baby's command chair with Leroy curled on her shoulder.
"You heard her, Team," said Tigress. "Get traught."
Catra sidled up to Tigress. "Hey, can we talk?"
Tigress double checked her quiver was properly waterproofed. "Make it quick."
Catra dropped into a low whisper so the rest of the Team couldn't overhear. "Are you sure about these squads? Maybe I should swap with Devi-"
"No."
"What? Why?"
Tigress looked her straight in the eye. "Catra, do you really want to make this work?"
"You know I do."
"Then grow up. If this goes well, you're gonna be going on a lot of missions with Mist, Arsenal and probably a few other people you don't particularly like. So, you're all just gonna have to be professional about it."
Catra blinked. "Okay… harsh but fair."
"I try." Tigress patted her on the shoulder.
"We're here," Thirteen reported.
Tigress zipped up her wetsuit. "All right, Team, it's go-time."
The floor of the cloaked bio-ship quivered and dilated, opening to reveal the central lagoon over which they now hovered.
Devil Ray sealed his helm before gesturing to the opening. "Ladies first."
"Such a gentleman." Tigress affixed a rebreather before leaping out the opening.
Devil Ray turned to Halo expectantly.
"I'm not a lady."
"Me neither," Devil Ray shrugged, leaping after Tigress.
Halo shot Catra a reassuring glance before affixing their own rebreather, following Tigress and Devil Ray. All three were soon lost beneath the midnight blue surface of the central lagoon.
Arsenal took a moment to take in his squad; one insubordinate extraterrestrial, one anxiety-ridden metahuman and a magical shapeshifting cat. "Guess it's just us chickens then."
[-]
ISLA DIABLO
September 18, 18:59 UTC-10
Three Kobra cultists marched along the well-worn dirt paths of the twilight forest, a grey fog beginning to coil about the hems of their crimson robes. Each was armed with a hi-tech staff weapon of clearly alien design. Their leader paused to wipe droplets of condensation from his fanged metal mask as the mist rapidly thickened.
"By the Serpent! This fog is thick as soup. We better return to the temple an-"
A pair of pantherish snarls rang out behind him. By the time he turned, his Brothers were already gone, swallowed up by the mist. Panicking at what he thought were shadows moving in the fog, he fired his staff blindly, a blast of crimson energy shattering a tree to smoldering splinters. The jungle went preternaturally quiet, save for the pounding of his own heart.
The cultist backed away slowly, until he suddenly bumped into something. He spun on his heel, bringing his staff weapon around only for it to be caught in the grip of a cybernetic hand.
Arsenal smirked. "Boo."
[-]
Catra kneeled to examine one of the staff weapons discarded by the panicked cultists. It was tipped by a wickedly curved blade for close-quarter combat, crimson circuitry inlaid in its ebon shaft. Melog hissed in recognition, main flaring scarlet.
"These are Apokoliptan weapons."
"Not surprising," Arsenal replied, tying the trio of unconscious and disrobed cultists to a tree. "Kobra and the Light have been in bed together for years now."
Mist recorporealized from her namesake element.
"Hey, cool trick with the fog thing," Catra said. "You really saved our butts back there."
Mist turned away without another word.
"Oh c'mon," Catra muttered under her breath. "What does she want from me?"
Melog chirped sympathetically.
"Alright, kiddies, stow the afterschool drama 'til after the mission," Arsenal tossed Catra and Mist each a crimson hooded robe. "Kobra will be expecting these three to check in sooner or later. Let's not disappoint."
[-]
Three hooded figures approached a cave opening at the base of the extinct volcano. The entrance had been carved in the image of a great stone serpent, jaws gaping hungrily. Two guards kept vigil at the fanged gate, their chests bare and faces concealed behind golden cobra masks. They crossed their Apokoliptan staff weapons as the trio approached.
"Password?"
"Hail Kobra," the leader of the trio hissed low.
"That's not the passwo-"
The guard was cut off by a metal fist impacting his jaw.
"Worth a shot."
Catra pounced before the second guard could level her staff weapon, tackling the cultist to the ground and sending her off to dreamland with the flat of a palm.
"I thought this was supposed to be a stealth mission?" Catra said.
"Lesson one, Probie: stealth is relative." Arsenal cast off his hooded robe. "Now let's get these goons stowed away before the party really starts."
[-]
Devil Ray's head broke the surface of an underground river. It flowed lazily through what had - eons ago - been a lava vent leading directly into the volcano's fiery heart. Brackish water flowed in rivulets down his glossy manta-helm as he swept the pitch-black chamber with his infrared.
"Clear," he radioed, wading ashore.
Tigress and Halo emerged from the water behind him, removing their rebreathers.
"Halo, a little light?" Tigress whispered, removing the waterproof 'slicker' from her crossbow.
Halo obliged, their hand pulsing with a soft blue aura as they raised it to illuminate a dryer lava vent leading into the volcano's upper reaches.
Tigress affixed her mask, activating the in-built comm. "Alpha to Beta, what's your status?"
"Beta here," a staticky Arsenal answered. "We're positioned in a cleft overlooking the main caldera…"
[-]
"…though I can't say it's a pretty sight."
From their position, cloaked by Melog's glamor, Beta Squad could see the enormity of the volcano's vast interior as hundreds of hooded cultists entered in slow procession. The entire caldera had been carved into some kind of cyclopean temple, bounded by spiraling coiled columns. On the far end stood an empty stone throne, carved in the image of a hooded cobra.
Arsenal had to hand it to Kobra; they were committed to their bit. But what really caught his eye was the symbol that dominated the entire stone floor, eight arrows radiating in all directions from a central point like a giant compass.
He opened a channel back to the bio-ship. "Arsenal to Thirteen."
"Thirteen here, what's the sitch?"
"Looks like Kobra's gearing up for somekinda weird ritual. Tap the feed on my AR lenses and tell me if that symbol on the floor means anything to you?"
"Just a sec…" There was a sharp inhale of breath on the other end of the comm. "Oh carp."
"Thirteen?"
"This… might be really bad. That's the Eight-Pointed Star; the multiple arrows represent the infinite possibilities of disorder. It's usually used to invoke the Lords of Chaos."
"The Lords of what?" Catra hissed.
"The Lords of Order and Chaos are cosmic beings that are supposed to maintain the fundamental balance of the multiverse," Thirteen answered. "At least in theory. In practice, they spend more time waging a cosmic cold war on each other."
"Everyone, hold position and be ready to pull out," Tigress interjected over the group channel. "If Chaos is involved, then that means-"
"Brothers and Sisters!" a voice echoed across the caldera, belonging to a High Priest clad in crimson Kobra robes, his hands extended to the cold stars. "Prepare yourselves, for tonight, our Lord and Master walks among us!"
Suddenly, as if on cue, a pillar of crimson and ebon fire descended from the darkling heavens. It struck the very center of the Eight-Pointed Star, touching down like a fiery blood-red tornado.
"Behold, oh Sons of the Serpent!" The High Priest exalted. "Behold your True God, behold the Avatar of the Kali Yuga!"
The pillar of bloody fire was suddenly dispersed in a wave of chaotic energy that shook the volcano to its ancient roots. At the Star's centre now stood a deathly pale scrawny boy clad entirely in black. A gleam of childlike malice glinted in his ruby red eyes, an orange furred cat draped across his shoulders.
Tigress sighed over the comm. "It's Klarion, isn't it?"
"Eyup," Arsenal answered.
"Carp."
The High Priest bowed low. "Lord Avatar, You honor us with Your presence."
"Nice place you have here, Darren, very antediluvian," Klarion said, skritching behind his cat's ears. "Isn't that right, Teekl?"
The cat purred contentedly.
"Ah-Actually, Lord Avatar, my name is Brother Dan-"
"Don't contradict me, David!" Klarion snapped shrilly, his boyish face contorting into something not quite so boyish.
"I…" the High Priest began, before thinking better of it. "As you will, Lord Avatar."
"That's what I like about you, Declan, you know your role. Now, where are my M&Ms?"
"Okay, Beta, stay where you are," Tigress spoke over the comm. "We're coming to get you. Whatever happens, do not engage Klarion. I repeat: do NOT engage."
"Wait, are we talking about the kid?" Catra whispered. "He's like… nine?!"
"WHAT IS THIS!?" Klarion's shriek echoed across the cavern. He held up a piece of green candy, eyeing it poisonously.
"Muh-my Lord Avatar?" the High Priest stuttered fearfully.
"THIS IS A GREEN M&M!" Klarion screeched. "I said 'no green M&Ms!' Who's responsible for this atrocity!?"
Klarion's eyes blazed blood red as they fell upon the cultist who had brought him the offending candy bowl, a girl no more than sixteen. Doubtless, one of countless runaways caught in Kobra's orbit.
She didn't even try to run as tendrils of raw chaos enveloped her. Though she did try to scream, only for her mouth to suddenly melt into a single mass of blank skin.
Klarion's cackling devolved into shrieks of obscene delight as he continued to warp and twist the girl's malleable flesh. Limbs withered away then sprouted back again in no natural pattern. Reptilian scales and insectoid chitin waged war, frontlines constantly shifting across the girl's liquefied flesh. Eyes - slitted or faceted – erupted like boils across a writhing agonized mass that no longer looked even remotely human.
Teekl, still perched on Klarion's shoulder, mreowed.
"What do you mean I said 'no purple M&Ms' before?" Klarion blinked, pausing in his tortures to scrutinize the candy bowl. "Huh…? So I did. My bad." He shrugged, turning back to the mass of squirming meat. "Eeew! Someone take that thing away! It's gross!"
From Beta Squad's hidden vantage point, Catra stared in wordless horror as cultists dragged away the mass of mismatched flesh that was, even now, still slightly twitching.
"That answer your question, Probie?" Arsenal whispered tonelessly.
"So, Dylan, I was thinking it's time for a rebrand," Klarion flopped down on the Kobra throne, stroking Teekl as she purred contentedly in his lap. "How does the 'Cult of the Kat' sound? Oooh! We could put little kitty ears on your hoods!"
Before the High Priest could respond, the chill air of the caldera began to tense and crackle as a fiery vortex suddenly erupted in the center of the temple.
BOOOOOM!
Klarion grinned, eyeing the Apokoliptan Boom-Tube with all the avarice of a child on Christmas morning. "Finally!"
Four figures came tumbling out of the hellish maw before it snapped closed behind them; a teen clad in a white bodysuit with blue gloves and boots, a dark-skinned archer, a pink-haired mage, and an eight-foot-tall golden space-Valkyrie wielding a sword of pure light in one hand while holding something bundled in a purple robe tightly under her other arm.
Catra's heart caught in her throat. "Adora?"
Kara, Bow, Glimmer and She-Ra rolled to a halt at the foot of the Kobra throne.
"Oh, goodie," Klarion rubbed his hands greedily. "Presents."