18 Roanoke part - 2

Words 3,188

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The green girl closes her eyes in concentration, and before you could react, her attack begins, one which you had never faced before.

It's like bullet tears into your head, a searing, overwhelming pressure that drives itself straight into the center of your brain. But, you can feel it moving, flowing through your mind, digging its tendrils deep for a purpose that could only be bad for you.

Get Out, you want to shout, but no sound escapes your mouth. The world around you fades into nothingness, the floor disappears, and you fall into the void with a wordless cry.

There is no great collision that turns you into a Cadcake, but when you open your eyes, it's to find yourself floating amidst a clear sky. The Martian girl floats right across you.

"What the fuck are you doing?" you blurt out.

She looks almost put out by the question, as though not expecting you to wonder what she's doing inside your head.

"Uhm, keeping you distracted?" she offers.

"By raping my mind?"

"No! Just, entering it...and subduing you."

She flies towards you throwing something close to a punch, which you dodge easily, the same for the next one, and the five after that.

You give her a deadpan look, belying the burning anger building up inside of you with each attack, like a bloodhound on the hunt, baying for prey.

You didn't have it in you to deny it. "You want my mind, then have it."

Always Forward, Never Back. But a cycle, nothing said you couldn't do that. Let's see how this bitch likes reliving some of your favorite moments over and over.

"What-" her eyes widen dramatically as golden threads materialize all around her, encasing her in a cocoon.

"You fucked with the wrong person, enjoy the movie!" you say cheerfully as the spindle begins to speed up dramatically.

You hear her one final cry before the dreamscape collapse, falling part all around you, and you return to your body, leaving the intrusive telepath to the tender mercies of your subconscious.

You tumble back into the world of the living, thoughts clearing as the crippling pain fading to a dull ache until it's nothing more than a little buzz trapped in the back of your mind.

Then, the telepath cries out and collapses bonelessly to the ground, a thin line of drool slipping past her parted lips.

"Miss Martian!" You hear Dick say from somewhere, but you have little time to take note because of the bright-yellow fist materializing in front of your face.

Crack.

Your head turns to the side abruptly like it was pushed by a strong wind. Wally's face morphs into a pained grimace. You see the second punch coming before he even thinks about it, catching the speed-infused punch easily with an open palm.

His eyes widen to the size of half-dollars. "Oh, shit."

Your responding punch sends him skittering across the ground, one of the red lightning bolts flying off, no doubt never to be found again.

Instinctively, you duck, and a whip of water passes over where your head at been, and then your leg lashes out of its own accord solidly connecting with the kneecap of the unseen attacker behind you.

The Kryptonian crashes to the floor, breath leaving him with a loud oomph.

You need just one second to concentrate, but they aren't giving you even the time to catch your breath. Frustration mounts with each failed attempt to distance yourself. It's hard enough to control time alone, but with six plucky heroes hounding your every step, well, it's an exercise in patience.

Kid Flash yelps as your arm shoots out, catching him by the scruff of the neck and launching him across the room. A vase shatters into a million pieces followed by a groan of pain.

Whirling on the backfoot to avoid a Batarang, you come face to face with an arrow trained right at you. The response to the sudden threat is automatic.

Your towel falls. Her face goes red. The arrow pings off the wall to the far right of you.

The second it buys you is all the time you need. The snap of your fingers echoes throughout the room, a heavy weight settles throughout your body, and the world comes to a stuttering halt.

You tumble back into the world of the living, thoughts clearing as the crippling pain fading to a dull ache until it's nothing more than a little buzz trapped in the back of your mind.

Then, the telepath cries out and collapses bonelessly to the ground, a thin line of drool slipping past her parted lips.

"Miss Martian!" You hear Dick say from somewhere, but you have little time to take note because of the bright-yellow fist materializing in front of your face.

Crack.

Your head turns to the side abruptly like it was pushed by a strong wind. Wally's face morphs into a pained grimace. You see the second punch coming before he even thinks about it, catching the speed-infused punch easily with an open palm.

His eyes widen to the size of half-dollars. "Oh, shit."

Your responding punch sends him skittering across the ground, one of the red lightning bolts flying off, no doubt never to be found again.

Instinctively, you duck, and a whip of water passes over where your head at been, and then your leg lashes out of its own accord solidly connecting with the kneecap of the unseen attacker behind you.

The Kryptonian crashes to the floor, breath leaving him with a loud oomph.

You need just one second to concentrate, but they aren't giving you even the time to catch your breath. Frustration mounts with each failed attempt to distance yourself. It's hard enough to control time alone, but with six plucky heroes hounding your every step, well, it's an exercise in patience.

Kid Flash yelps as your arm shoots out, catching him by the scruff of the neck and launching him across the room. A vase shatters into a million pieces followed by a groan of pain.

Whirling on the backfoot to avoid a Batarang, you come face to face with an arrow trained right at you. The response to the sudden threat is automatic.

Your towel falls. Her face goes red. The arrow pings off the wall to the far right of you.

The second it buys you is all the time you need. The snap of your fingers echoes throughout the room, a heavy weight settles throughout your body, and the world comes to a stuttering halt.

Tick Tock. The Clock begins its everpresent tune.

You're going to make these intrepid troglodytes suffer, you promise yourself utilizing many of the words Ms. Aclis likes to use to describe your homeroom class, rewrapping your towel and pacing around the slightly trashed apartment.

At this point, what's the problem with making it a little more trashed if you got some entertainment out of it? It's not like you're going to hurt them, much. You don't want the League breathing down your neck.

Like a curator putting up an exhibit, you go about executing your conniving plan.

Positioning the charging Kryptonian in front of an open fridge door, you make sure to tie his shoelaces together as well.

Kid Flash gets the shoelace treatment too, but he's left a few inches from running face-first into a wall. Serves him right for trying that cheap shot.

Artemis gets a towel thrown over her face. Plain and simple but incredibly effective. And the telepath, well, she's already gotten punished judging by her very green face.

Surveying the scene, you frown. Something's missing. A very annoying brat. Looking up, you find Dick clinging to the roof like a spider monkey.

Letting out a sigh of annoyance, you contemplate getting a step ladder and dragging him down, but a seed of an idea stops you. Placing the Atlantean right beneath him, you pick up a loose Batarang and throw it at the ceiling, the projectile freezing in mid-air the moment it leaves your grasp.

You wipe off your hands with satisfaction taking in the sight of your new modern art exhibit. Fishing out a drink from the fridge, you take a comfortable seat on the couch, and with a snap of your fingers, let the chaos unfold.

Tick Tock.

The wheels of time resume their inexorable turn with nary a groan, and with the same ease as unpausing the TV, the world spins back into motion.

A cacophony of noises consume the apartment as Superboy tumbles headfirst into the steel fridge door, sliding to the ground and leaving a Kryptonian-shaped indent in his wake. Someone would pay for a mold of that you imagine, might be something to look into later.

Flash craters straight into the wall, head disappearing through the sheetrock with a loud smash, his headless body hanging through the hole in the wall.

The Batarang slips through the air. Robin yelps in panic and the Atlantean gets out a pained shout as a hundred pounds of spoiled brat falls straight onto his face.

Artemis's panicked shrieks could have put any opera singer to shame had she not immediately tripped over her own two feet and fallen face-first to the floor. And the Martian, well, she remains just as she had been since the beginning of the fight, blissfully unaware of the embarrassment that is her team.

And just like that, the Young Justice team has been defeated. Water may not have a taste, but right now, it tasted like sweet sweet victory. You remain where you are, idly wondering how long it'd take them to get back up, and if you had enough time to get back in your bedroom before they're back on their feet.

"Who am I kidding? Of course, I do! I've got all the time in the world."

" Hmm, maybe not the best pun, you'd have to ask for feedback from your captive audience before they left.

But, there's a problem, the screaming hadn't stopped. No, it's growing louder, and it's coming from outside. The screaming of children and teenagers, frightened and terrified. The horrible screech of rending metal, the shattering of glass.

It's the sound of pure and unadulterated chaos. From the streets. From the other apartments. From everywhere.

And it turns your blood cold, like ice water in your veins.

Tick Tock.

You rush towards the window overlooking Gotham's skyline. You don't know what you expect to see when you look down. But, what you do see...it's madness.

The streets are littered with cars, thrown around like children's toys, plowed through storefronts, smashed together into some vehicular centipede, and some are still driving, but if it's as though their drivers are blind to the roads in front of them as they go straight into the meatgrinder.

And, even from high up you are, hundreds of feet away, you can only hear the keening cries of children, their little figures running through the streets, no adults to be heard, or seen.

From behind, you can hear the team of heroes stumbling their way back to consciousness, and readying themselves for a fight again, blessedly ignorant of the hysteria unfolding in the streets below.

"Dick," you say with a calmness that belies the roiling tide of revulsion and anger building up inside. "call Batman."

"What?" he asks incredulously from where's he climbing off the Atlantean. "you ready to give up?"

A sardonic laugh is your response. "No, come look at this. No, this isn't a trick, I'm being serious, come here, all of you. I'll even keep the towel on this time."

You can hear Wally chuckle from where he's still buried in sheetrock. "What happened to make this guy go all serious? And what's with all that screaming? Someone listening to Nirvana?"

In one of the greatest twists of fate, your three torturous months with Dick had taught the both of you much about each other, so much so that he knows you're being completely serious.

"If this is a trick..." he says warningly but approaches nonetheless.

"It's not. Look down."

The heroes stand by side with you on the balcony's edge, and as one, they react to the horror of the scene below, gasps and grimaces aplenty, with more than one tear here or there.

"Watchtower comms are dead," you hear Robin say. "Aqualad?"

"Atlantean coms are unresponsive,"

"I can't get to Green Arrow either."

"No word from Flash on my end."

"Do you have any idea who could do this?" you ask aloud.

"Shouldn't we be asking you that question, Mr. Penguin Killer?"

A taut cord snaps. You round on the Speedster, sending him fumbling back at the sudden display of anger. "This isn't the time for games," you snap. "give me an answer."

Robin shakes his head slowly. "I don't, but I may know somebody who might. Calling Mount Justice, come on, come on, pick up. Yes! Zatanna can you hear me? Are you okay?"

A girl's warbling voice comes from the transmitter. "R-robin? Yeah, I can hear you. They're all gone! My dad, Batman, Superman, they're all gone!"

She sounds on the verge of tears, which isn't far from where the rest of the team is.

"It's a lot worse than that, listen, we're heading straight there, get your gear ready."

"Alright. I completely forgot, did you ever catch the guy who killed that mobster?"

Robin gives you a sidelong look. "Change of plans, he's coming with us."

The communicator goes dead, leaving you to stare at each other in awkward silence.

"So, truce?"

He and you clasp hands firmly. "Truce."

You snap your fingers, and they all tense, something you take no little amount of pleasure in. "Oh, one more thing. Rose, wake up! Shit's going down!"

There's no caustic response from the bedroom, and for an unending heartbeat, a cold and sudden fear tightens around your heart. What if she's disappeared too?

Your worst instincts are assuaged by the sound of feet padding softly across the floor, and when you enter the room, you find her slowly dressing in a skin-tight blue and orange costume, a litany of weapons seen and unseen easily accessible across her form.

Her movements are abrupt and precise, almost mechanical as she prepares, you wonder if she realizes you're there.

"Slade's not responding," her placid words belie the veritable tsunami of meaning behind them.

The relationship between the Wilsons had never been something you'd been privy to, and even with the bond you had with each, it wasn't uncommon for you to feel almost an interloper between them at times. You'd been a student, maybe something approaching award, but that paled in comparison to whatever they had, the bond of father and daughter.

Who would have thought that Deathstroke of all people could engender the love of his children?

Your hand falls hesitantly on her shoulder, almost expecting her to lash out or bolt.

"Hey," your arm wraps around her waist, pulling her close. "we'll find him."

"I'm not worried about that," she says, turning in your grip to face you. "I'm just thinking of what I'm going to the idiot who did this once I get my hands on them."

Her eyes like chips of ice, and with her tied into a long silver braid, you realize that you're not in a room with Rose Wilson anymore, but Ravager. Sometimes you wonder which one is the real woman, Ravager or Rose, which one's the mask. That's a question for another time, maybe one you'd never really a get a straight answer for.

"You and me both, Rose."

A feeling of surrealness overcomes you as you open the false wall behind your bed, revealing pristine armor and weapons you hadn't worn or even spared a thought in months.

Guess Fate has different plans for you.

A simple sword hangs horizontally from the far wall, hanging above a table laden with cartridges of ammunition and a utility belt connected to a pair of handguns.

But in the forefront of the room, is a simple grey mask that had once borne the features of a man, but as though time had taken its pound of flesh, all that was left of its atrophied features are two eye slits and the barest resemblance of lips.

Aeon stares back at you impassively as your hand traces its grooves lightly, almost cautiously. You had only worn it once, Gotham's street had run red and a kingdom was brought crashing down as a result.

What would happen this time?

The thought harries you as dress yourself with the same speed and urgency that had been drilled into you by Slade until it was all but second nature. Before you leave, your eyes catch onto a glowing object sequestered into the corner of the room, confined to its own case as though radioactive. The weapon's pearly exterior, covered in thin translucent tubes flowing with crimson fluid, wholly unlike anything you've seen anywhere else. Apokoliptan, you remembered the goons saying.

What'd be a better weapon for the apocalypse than that? The weapon almost seems to hum in agreement with your thoughts.

The sidekicks had finished recuperating by the time you came out again, Rose in tow, in of itself drawing a raised eyebrow, look of confusion, and a salacious grin from one very soon to be dead speedster, that is if Ravager doesn't get to him first.

The telepath's back on her feet as well, but pointedly avoiding your direction. The one time you catch her looking, it's like looking down a deer in the headlights. What had she seen while stuck in your mind? You aren't that fucked up in the head...at least you think you aren't.

"So what's the plan?"

Dick's fingers are a blur across his wrist transmitter. "We got to get all these kids off the streets. No contact from anyone else on the League, so we find somewhere safe, maybe Gotham High, then we meet up at the Watchtower. Where'd you get that outfit from? And why is she here?"

"Birthday present," you reply glibly. "And we're a package deal."

The wonder boy scowls in distance. "Just keep those swords sheathed, this is a rescue op, so don't go cutting up a kid because they cried too hard."

Ravager's reply lives up to her reputation. "Does that apply for idiot sidekicks?" She turns to glare at the yellow Speedster nakedly staringat her.

Jealousy isn't a feeling you're much used to, and it clings around your thoughts with a loud suggestion of bloody intent. You don't particularly like it, but the sentiment doesn't make it magically disappear.

In a stunning moment of self-preservation, Kid Flash averts his eyes. Ravager does not. The need to break his kneecaps subsides minutely.

"Just like the good old days, isn't it Dick?" you ask sardonically as you leave the apartment.

He laughs mockingly, derision dripping from each inflection. "Yeah-yeah, just like the good old days."

It's funny. You don't remember any good days at Wayne Manor.