8 Chapter 8: Playing The Game.

10 advance chapters on P@treon.com/Saintbarbido.

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(Angel's ACTUAL P.O.V)

"Young Master Savage...all the preparations are complete."

Shade whispers to me from the shadow of the chair I am sitting on.

"What about the other thing?"

I ask.

"All 60 petabytes of data in this base has been copied and stored."

This might not be the Watchtower but the database here still holds considerable information.

Useful information that can further my plans. What plans you ask? Well, what does any self respecting Villain want? World domination of course.

Good.

I swing my feet onto the ground, still keeping tabs on the League standing on the outside.

Black Canary must have informed them about my acceptance of a mind read. As a result, I can see them headed to the door of my interrogation room.

Batman places a hand on the door handle and that's when I give Shade the signal.

"Do it."

The word has barely left my lips when a loud explosion goes off on the outside.

(General P.O.V)

Shade liked to think of himself as normal.

Or at least the true result of giving an average man special powers. He wasn't as altruistic as a hero. Nor was he maliciously self serving as a villain.

As long as he was treated well and paid, he wouldn't mind living his life under someone. He wouldn't mind using his abilities for them.

Most people just wanted to feel needed.

And despite his young age, Young master Savage knew how to use him. Through the years, Shade had seen the boy grow in the shadow of his father, from a stubborn brat to a terrifying force of elemental prowess.

He had seen the challenges the Young Master had gone through.

He'd seen him fight creatures like bears and tigers and live when he was only 6 years old.

He had seen him go up against a highly trained squad of mercenaries who were protecting the Young Master's target, and kill 4 of them, before making a deal with the rest.

The mercenaries had wisely brought him the head of his target rather than fight the Ice Devil, as they had started calling him when he froze the entire perimeter. Electing large ice walls to prevent their escape.

But that was not all. Any mission given to him by his father, the Senior Savage, had been easy to accomplish for the Young Master.

He possessed a keen intuition and intelect that had seen him topple a government, prevent an ACTUAL alien invasion and become an honorary prince of Almerac (the queen had recognized his strength and potential, thus betrothing the Young princess to him).

And all that was before he had turned 9!

And if his intelect and mentsk fortitude was something to envy, then his special powers were a different subject all together.

Shade had never seen anyone with such intuitive control over their metahuman abilities.

Half hot and half cold would be the name but the Young master insisted on calling it Icyhot.

He'd seen the Young Master evaporate an entire lake, before freezing the steam into a block of ice that fell onto the dried basin.

He'd seen him freeze an entire Volcano. A feat that had Professor Ivo, one of the Young Master's contacts, whistle in shock.

A volcano could reach over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Taking into account the extreme heat and sheer volume of molten rock involved, it would mean the Young Master was capable of producing millions of kWh or was sustaining a steady production of a billion joules just to cool it.

Through all that, Shade had been by his side.

And through all that, he'd learned, never to take the Young Master lightly.

Anything he touched would turn into gold.

Any plan he made would succeed. And this one would be no different.

-0-

Connecting with every shadow in the premises might have been something impossible for him a few years ago, but call it a hunger for power, but Shade had done his best to push his ability to it's max.

All that so he could be useful to the Young Master.

Mount Justice was a structure filled with hidden rooms, paths and was a blend of technology, modern living spaces and a beach front.

It was perfect for a superhero base and Shade felt all the more regretful that it wouldn't be left standing for long.

His shadow portals worked on the principle of 'if he wanted them to do something' they would.

He could travel through them, allow passages from one place to another depending on his memory or sight.

He could store anything and bring it out later without any time passing in the real world.

Hence, storing a specialized grenade designed to specifically deal with the League was doable.

And then he dropped the grenade in the room with 3 members of the League through a shadow in the room.

The grenade went off in less than 0.02 seconds, releasing a point blank concussive explosion with a specialized magnesium chemical to deal with the Martian Manhunter.

The other two could easily be dealt with by a normal explosion.

To his credit, Batman was fast enough to throw himself on top of Canary just as the explosion went off, displaying crazy reactionary speeds.

-0-

"It burns! It buuurrns!!"

'Someone is screaming...'

Batman noted off handedly as his head buzzed in pain.

His entire body felt raw and hot, there was something lying on him- the table, he realized. And a couple of his ribs felt tender. Most likely cracked.

What happened...

Was it an attack?

It had to be.

And not just any attack either. From the outside, he would have spotted the enemies from a mile away.

Which meant it came from the inside. And the only security risk in the entire Mount Justice was the boy.

Angel, of course.

The screaming had stopped. Now reduced to whimpering from one corner of the destroyed room.

Batman's hand inched towards his wrist computer. The base's alarm system had most definitely sent an S.O.S to other Leaguers but just to be safe...

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

A voice spoke, accompanied by a foot that stepped on his wrist, immobilizing his hand.

Looking up, the Dark Knight's eyes were met with the short figure of their suspect.

"After all the trouble I went through trying to block out the signal."

The boy shook his head.

"I can't have you ruining that.m by sending out another."

Then he raised his left leg, the foot covered by ice. The last thing Batman saw before his world was overtaken by darkness, was Angel's cold expression.

The arrogant smirk from before was nowhere to be seen.

(Angel's P.O.V)

Superman was attending a very convenient party hosted by the one and only Lex Luthor in Metropolis.

Zatara was dealing with a scheme involving some kids lost in the woods. He had just found some Wendigo tracks and was following them up with funnily enough, Red Tornado.

Green Arrow or his civilian identity, Oliver Queen was patrolling Star City with his young protege, Speedy.

Aquaman was in Atlantis and to ensure he would be unavailable, someone had leaked out information on the whereabouts of a few notorious pirates.

Hawkman and Hawkwoman had won a surprise getaway trip to Hawaii.

Billy Batson aka Shazam had also won an all expenses paid for family trip to you guessed it, Hawaii. He had taken his Uncle and foster family.

Green Lantern Hal Jordan was off planet.

Green Lantern Stewart on the other hand, was actually patrolling above the base. He was Batman's contigency just in case something went wrong.

But luckily, he was too far away to hear the explosion, as it had been contained in one room.

All the League members were currently occupied.

And I had Shade's shadow portals close to each of them broadcasting a counter signal to disrupt any transmission from Mount Justice.

All except for one.

I looked around, noting the state of the room.

Martian Manhunter was nothing but a quaking form covered in white fire at the corner, Batman was on the ground, using his body to shield Black Canary.

All of them were alive. And for a second, I wanted to rectify that. The Justice League posed the biggest obstacle to world domination.

A spike of ice formed in my hand and I found myself taking a step toward Batman.

It would only take a single slash...and he would be dead.

"Young Master...we have incoming."

Shade whispered from the shadows.

A few seconds ago, the Flash was in the Sahara.

Now he was entering Rhode Island on a direct path towards me.

"Count yourself lucky."

I muttered down at Batman's prone form.

The League still had some uses to me. Even if it was just as a shield against some scary opponents or a tool to be used to further my goals.

And while I knew the villainous thing to do would have been to deal with this problem once and for all, I also realized escalating things by killing them, would have the rest of the League on my ass long before I was strong enough to take them head on.

You didn't survive this world by being an outlier. You had to play the game.

The Flash had just entered Happy Harbor.

Finally.

"Shade, Shadow me."

I gave the order and my lackey was all too quick to follow it. The shadows in the room rose up and consumed me.

I found myself in a world of darkness with swirling vortexes around which represented the various shadows in the room outside the shadow veil.

Now, Shade's powers were strange. He didn't exactly travel through shadows but instead entered a realm of darkness connected to ALL shadows.

In that realm, he could interact with the material world in a very limited scale without physically being there.

But one thing he could do was sense 'space' and after months of training, he could share those senses with me.

Meaning the second the Flash entered the interrogation room, I instantly became aware of it.

And without fail, Shade opened up portals throughout the shadows in the room, and the climax to a plan that had taken almost half a decade to conceive arrived.

I pushed my hand into one of the shadow portals and immediately,

"Flash freeze!"

Unleashed the most powerful ice attack I could into the room. The ice entirely froze everything and everyone, including my target- The Flash.

The Shadow Veil fell off me, returning my physical body into the material world.

Before me, still in a running pose, covered in ice was Barry Allen, self proclaimed the fastest man in the world.

But not for Long.

Thus, the hardest part of my plan to steal the Speed Force, was successful.