37 Hellfire Invasion(2): Carnival(2)

The night kept chugging along, hammer crush, loop throwing, basket the ball, everyone was having fun, they won most everything, of course, they did, they were the Titans, bringing bullshit powers into a game.

Wonder how those hosts would react if they found out that little tidbit? Would they smile at the attention of their idols or frown at the unfairness? Well if they considered them idols they wouldn't mind. Or if they were pragmatic, then they would just use it as a selling point.

Taking a bite of my corndog, I sighed at my thoughts. I should be keeping an eye out for Raven's family, they would be trying to take Raven back soon, and I would hate to be caught off guard by them, or was I not in that universe? I mean, this was similar to the Dark universe but it had oh so, so many differences. Gotham was one.

I shuddered, the feeling of dread gnawing at my bones, one that grew stronger and colder with every passing day. What awaits me tomorrow? Is it Darkside and his army? Is it Flash, ready to unleash the Flashpoint paradox? Is it Slade's blade and Hive's experiments? Is it the power that sent me here–whatever it was–ready to tease me with a flick of its wrist? A whisper of its breath…It made me feel numb.

It doesn't even need to be something super. A sniper out of sight. A doctor with a plague. That's all it would take. Because that's what I am, frail, helpless—I took a deep breath. "Calm down," My lips parted, giving a pitch to my thoughts, "Calm down. You are not dead yet."

"Dead yet?" I was jolted out of my mind by a mild voice, I turned to the source. Raven was walking over in her black jacket, my eyes only reflected her for a second before I said, "Nothing, a random thought."

"Random thoughts that end in you assuring yourself of your life?" She raised a brow at me.

Shrugging I replied, "Existential dread don't really care now."

She stared at me for a good minute before nodding, "True but I know how to take one's mind off it," She leaned back as she gestured to the two BBs—Beast Boy and Blue Beetle—of the team having a dance off on the stage, "Enjoy the party."

I took a deep breath and let my lips loosen into a full smile and pointed to my corndog, "After one more."

She nodded and walked off, "Sure."

My hands almost moved by instinct to wave her away, but I pulled them back down. Breaking my eyes from her retreating figure, I looked at my corndog. It was oily and cold. My hunger dimmed. I tossed it into the garbage and pushed myself to follow her.

Then my senses shivered—not mine, but my foragers' senses. An image of the carnival formed from the top of the Ferris wheel; another came from the top of a canvas tent.

Raven was surrounded by dozens of red demons morphing from human beings, and I could see it all—a woman's body twisted, her pupils dilated, her lower jaw cracking as if trying to twist off from her socket. It took a moment for her brain to catch up and another to start screaming as her jaw moved, ripping apart her cheek. Her nails bent into claws. It was like something was taking over her body, twisting it for its purposes. In her case, a lean and tall hound humanoid.

She had a conversation with me minutes ago. And now she was a fly trapped in a web.

Then the panic erupted in a deafening orgy of sound and screams. People started fleeing in all directions. Men, women, and children screeched. I severed my connection. I jumped over the counter of the stand, the host had fled by now and I scampered to hide underneath the table covers. Making sure I was out of sight, my hands snapped to drag my phone out of my chest pocket. Tapping it I swiped to the emergency contact screen.

It should have been the 911 contact instead it opened Bruce's, /Demons-Raven./ I typed out and sent as I pulled a half-face mask from my pocket and wrapped it around my face before sliding the phone back in. I was now empty-handed. Unclipping my two guns from my thigh holsters, I pulled one in each hand and flicked the safety off.

Reconnecting to the Foragers the information that entered my mind made me wince. The Titans were nearly Trashed by three Demons, now there were about thirty. Not good odds.

I took a deep breath as I took a moment to contemplate my options.

Fight? Risk-Very High. Reward-Trust of everyone, potential to demand better equipment from Batman.

Flight? Risk-Low. Reward-Loss of trust, possible expulsion from the hero community.

Well, fuck me sideways.

I had to fight. And to survive I needed every advantage possible.

Letting my connections to the Foragers go to their limits my mind expanded to the view of the whole park. Their senses were now my own. I had a top-down view of the carnival, a side view, and my own. Surprisingly it felt extremely comfortable.

Raven and Starfire were in the skies fighting some sort of flying reptile and on the ground, Blue Beetle and Beast Boy were side by side with Robin running interference, all of them being pushed back by and losing ground with each fight against all sorts of twisted red humanoid beasts. That got up again and again.

I rolled out of my hiding spot. Immediately I levied my sights on a beast I knew would be there before I even had to think and pulled the trigger. A hole blew through its head, it fell like a puppet. It would reanimate soon. Like all its pals.

Switching to my other gun and I aimed at a stall and tearing through the canvas of the thing came another leaping beast, spotted by my Forager. I squeezed and it flopped onto the found mid-jump. Then to the sky, a flying demon stopped as he tried to dive.

'Seeing' the first Demon's body begin to twitch again, I bolted forward, my destination? BB² and Robin.

As I ran the density of Demons increased, I leveled my sights on any that came in my path. One…two…three…four…I kept pulling my trigger, they dropped and almost as if to laugh at my efforts more got up to replace them.

But as my bullet punctured another one and the red ink of the beast's skin faded I knew I was making progress. Still, there was one catch. The Demons did not leave normal human bodies behind, they left mutated corpses, but with one refocus later I knew it was not my problem alone, any beast that Blue Beetle euthanized stayed euthanized.

Ignoring all the implications I kept my pace forward putting down beast after beast till I had to jump to the side and quickly change direction by grinding into a corner, I had attracted own my swarm. And it runs directly towards me from the direction of my destination. How fucking lucky!

I dumped a magazine into the crowd behind me and pressed the magazine release, flicking it loose. I had caught one? Yeah. One. Damn it.

The next cross-section of stalls I turned, it gave me a side view of the swarm, allowing me to take two accurate shorts and shoot the one in the middle. He fell and his body caught the legs of the one behind, throwing them both into an uncontrolled spiral.

It delayed a few as I started towards the three heroes again. Shooting another few waiting in ambush through the tent's thin fabric. I finally caught sight of them in my vision. BB² tossed back three hounds together and Robin threw an explosive bomb into the crowd in front of him.

The commotion of the trampling mod chasing me and my gunfire easily shifted their attention to me, "Mira!" Blue Beetle shouted with a smile, perhaps happy to see a familiar face as a hound slammed into him. Sending him into a stall where hot boiling oil dripped onto his metal suit. He showed no reaction if it were anyone else…the beast charged at him and Blue Beetle formed his arms into blue blades but he didn't need to use them on it as I drilled two holes in the beast's head with my guns.

He stood up and morphed his hands into blasters and started at the horde behind me. Then I saw another one at his feet twitch, so I remedied it with a bullet. My steps slowed as I crossed him and I turned, leveling both my guns.

And though I knew I had to ask one question, "Where are the others?"

"Beast Boy is helping Robin. And the girls are in the sky!" He shouted as a hound reached him and he quickly switched to swords.

I kept pulling.

We were both cut short when Starfire landed, well crashed two feet from us, she groaned as she pushed herself up a little, I eyed as Raven landed next to her.

Switching my guns to the sky, I started shooting, having to lead my shots only for the beats to change directions almost next to impact, even leading my shorts did not help, they were too far up in the sky for the bullets to carry any real velocity.

Another deep breath. I let all the world around me go. The sound of police sirens, my teammates' words, my heartbeat, and then started firing. One bullet–One kill. One bullet–One more corpse. My hands moved in a trance of shooting, reloading, aiming, and repeating.

Then I was ripped out of it when a strong pain hammered on my side, it took me a moment to realize what it was, Robin had been tossed into me. I rolled onto the ground, grinding against the grime and dirt, my lips skinned and my skin lacerated. I felt my sense grow dull and cut the connections. Only to feel soft hands press upon me. Raveeeennnnn…

I briefly felt my conscious go before I gripped it back and pulled myself out of it.

As my eyes regained focus I pushed myself off the ground and realized that I did not feel my guns on my body, my breath drew cold as I reached down to my ankle to pull out the knife strapped there.

Then my eyes went to our situation, we were inside a black dome pulled up by Raven on hand high in the sky and another over Robin, trying to heal him. The Demons kept pounding on the dome and I noticed the chunks of flesh hanging off one's mouth. I knew exactly what would happen to us when the shield broke. And judging by Raven's struggling expression, it would.

I rebuilt the connection to my other eyes and looked towards an awakening Robin, as he opened his eyes, I said, "We need to get out of here."

Or the League needs to get here.

[A/N: Damn man, a chapter of pure action. I don't like writing these. But it had to happen so here it is.

Also for those that don't know, a lot pilled up last Sunday and I could not write a new chapter.

Also you guys are amazing I had 800/900 power stones for this story the previous week. It was like an all time 2nd on the rankings(Fanfics). Thank you guys.]