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formeregalitarianaquagirl-blog · 8 years ago

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Alliances Part 1 and 2 (DC Fanfiction)

((Editor’s note: I wrote Part 1 several months before Part 2. Part 1′s quality is significantly lower than Part 2, but I am uploading it so people can see the progress I’ve made so far. The story takes place in the DCUO setting, so concepts like the Emerald Mist of Ion appear in the story. Aquagirl (Lorena Marquez), is currently in a relationship with Bombshell in the fic. Constructive Criticism would help so much, please tell me any errors/inconsistencies you might have! Anyway, enjoy!))

Part 1

Praetor Raven

Midway City. 2:48 AM. Praetor Raven finishes tying up the criminal to a chair in the warehouse. He swore he knew nothing. At least, nothing Raven wanted. Raven’s been hearing rumors about a rising gang. They’ve been getting bolder. More bank robberies, more murders. Most recently, stolen Promethium from Star Labs. Raven doesn’t know what exactly they’re after. Just that she should probably stop them before they use their stolen goods for anything widespread and major.

Raven wipes the informant’s blood off her silver suit, the moonlight shining through the window making the blood stained on her gloves show off even more. Raven needs to clean up. Before she can, the bloodied and beaten criminal wakes up, groaning. Raven draws her bow, and takes an arrow out of her quiver. The informant gasps, and before he can even struggle, Raven nocks the arrow, letting him hear the drawstring go back.

“Don’t make it harder on yourself and resist.” Raven tells him. Her voice modifier in her mask seems to work. Raven switches her red eye lenses to X-Ray, and peeks at his heart rate, which seems to be increasing. “I’m going to ask again. The gang you’re a member of. I want a name, I want a headquarters, and I want to know what they’re planning next.”

The informant begins to breathe in short, rapid breaths, his heart beating rapidly. Raven switches out of X-Ray mode, and she can see sweat building on his brow.

“I-I can’t- “

Raven lets the arrow go before he can finish. He bellows in pain as the arrow suddenly pierces his shoulder blade. Blood instantly stains her silver, skintight suit. Tears form in his eyes as he struggles to breathe normally.

“Last time I’m going to ask nicely.”

“If I tell you, t-they’ll have me killed!”

Raven chuckles darkly, trying to inspire fear into him. It’s working gorgeously. “You’re going to want to die once I’m halfway done with you.”

“O-Okay! You m-made your point.” He stammers. “I-I don’t know e-exactly what they d-do, but there’s a f-facility in S-Seattle. T-There’s supposed to be a meeting there next week. P-Please, that’s all I know!”

Raven pauses, thinking. He’s not stupid enough to lie again. But Seattle? All her sources pointed towards Midway… is this gang really stupid enough to work in the Green Arrow’s home territory? Raven considers Arrow to be the kind of guy not to take too many things seriously, but he would definitely take this seriously. He’d likely catch on… Why Seattle?

Raven looks back at the whimpering informant, and knocks him out with a smash of her bow. Once he’s out, she carefully removes the arrow, and when she does, puts her hand over the wound to stop the blood flow. The blood is leaking through her fingers; she doesn’t have a lot of time. Raven pulls out a bandage, wrapping it around the wound tightly, and pressing on it, applying pressure. The blood begins to leak through the bandage, creating a large red stain on the otherwise white bandage, but the blood flow eventually stops. Raven then just leaves him there, to save himself. He’s scum anyway. Already enough that she stopped him from bleeding out. Raven sighs, and heads for the door. Next stop, Seattle. This should be fun.

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Seattle. One week later. 11:47 AM. Raven watches the facility carefully. It was just a small building in the heart of Seattle. People were bustling by, but none of them noticed Raven. Considering she was in civilian clothes, the only odd thing about her was her dark blue hair. Everything else: The white tank top, jean shorts, and white sandals, didn’t stand out. Besides some guys taking second glances at her, though. She sits on a bench, pretending to be waiting for the bus, watching the building.

One week of waiting, and nothing. No one has gone in to prepare anything, no one had done anything involving the building. Raven had broken in and investigated; there was nothing strange to be found there. It just seemed like a regular old abandoned building. But there’s still about 12 hours left in the day. Plenty of time for someone to start prepping, and for a meeting to start.

A woman then sits next to Raven, and Raven just gives the woman a slight nod. The woman was middle-eastern, for sure. She was wearing a black burka, so Raven couldn’t see her face. This puts Raven on edge, preparing for a fight, just in case. The woman then taps her, and Raven turns quickly, hands already being raised, but the woman just wanted Raven’s attention. Raven puts her hands on her own knees awkwardly.

“Hello.” The woman said. The woman had a thick middle-eastern accent. Raven couldn’t place it. “I was wondering, do you have any mints?”

When the woman spoke, a thick brown mist emitted from the burka’s headpiece. Raven coughs at it engulfs her, but it didn’t smell bad. It smelled like the sea. Specifically, the same ocean shore where Lance once proposed to her. Raven relaxes, losing her guard.

“Uh… No… No. Sorry ma’am, I don’t have any on me right now.” Raven tells her, dazed.

The woman simply nods. “I’m sorry, I must be going. Thank you.”

Raven waves goodbye, and leans back on the bench, still a bit dazed. After a minute or two, she shakes her head, clearing it. Something felt off to her, but Raven couldn’t place it. All she remembers is waiting for someone to go into the building. Then there’s a sudden scream, and Raven turns quickly. No one was there, but the scream sounded closeby. It was like no one had heard the scream at all. Raven can’t wait though. Another scream cuts through the air.

Raven gets off the bench and rushes to the alley a few blocks away where she stashed her gear. Changing quickly back into her suit, grabbing her bow, and slinging her quiver on her back, Raven begins to investigate.

-----------------------------------------

Raven follows the shrieks to the Pudget Sound. When she gets there, the shouts suddenly cease. Raven looks around, and sees what was the source of it. A tortured corpse, laying on the edge of the sound. Raven goes down to investigate it, and touches the body. Warm. This happened recently. Cause of death… an arrow to the head. It was stuck through the side of her head, like those headbands that people buy as a joke. This woman experienced the real thing.

Before Raven can investigate, she’s suddenly tripped up. Before falling into the sand, Raven rolls backward, drawing her bow and nocking an arrow, then looks at her attacker. A girl in a blue and black suit. The suit doesn’t cover her stomach, which showed off impressive abs. Blue scales were on her forearms and shoulders. Her long black hair fell back beautifully, and in her hand was what tripped Raven up, a silver trident.

“Who are you?” Raven asks, but the girl simply laughs at her.

“Seriously? Tu me vas a attacar a mi? You’re going to attack me? We are near the ocean. You must not be very smart, Silver Arrow.” The girl taunts.

“Who are you? Last time I’m going to ask nicely.” Raven asks again, keeping a tight grip on the arrow nocked in the bowstring, ready to fire.

The girl smirks. “You’d think that even someone as stupid as you could figure it out, just from looking at me. The scales and all, you know.”

“Answer the question!” Raven demands, and the girl just laughs again.

“Aquagirl, estupida.” Aquagirl answers.

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Aquagirl

“Aquagirl.” Raven repeats, monotone.

“I’m glad you were able to understand!” Aquagirl replies snarkily.

“Catchy name. I’m going to say this once. There’s been a murder, obviously. Get out of the way so I can investigate, and you won’t be next.”

Aquagirl lets out another annoying laugh. “Yeah, a murder you committed! Besides, I’ve faced and beaten better people than a bootleg Green Arrow. Why don’t you turn yourself in, before this gets ugly?”

“Funny joke. I didn’t do it.” Raven tells her.

“Porque mientes? Why lie? The murder clearly happened recently, the blood is still flowing. You’re covered in blood I can assume is the victims.”

Raven looks down at herself, as if not realizing she was covered in blood.

Aquagirl seems to size Raven up. She’s experienced, clearly. Lorena probably can’t take that archer girl head on. She could call for backup, maybe the Titans…? Lorena doesn’t have time to do that, though. Raven lets her arrow go, and Lorena barely has time to parry it out of the air. Then, before Lorena can even realize what happened, Raven is up close and personal, striking at Lorena’s pressure points. Lorena tries to stab Raven with her trident, but Raven simply uses her left palm to shove it aside, and leaves Lorena open for a counter. Raven quickly kicks Lorena in the stomach, then slams Lorena’s face on Raven’s knee.

Lorena is dazed, her vision blurred as she falls into the sand. This girl… she was amazing. She can hear Raven begin to walk away, and Lorena gets up, quickly recovering from her beat down.

“Hey! Para!”

Raven then turns around, and Lorena can almost hear her smirk.

“Porque no tratas de parar me?”

Lorena registers the Spanish, and grabs her trident from the sand, determined not to let Raven get away into the city, where she can commit another murder. Raven fires an arrow at Lorena again. This time she is ready, snatching the arrow out from the sky, but is suddenly enveloped in some sort of hard foam. Lorena can’t break out of it, not fast enough. Raven slowly walks up to Aquagirl, and Lorena can see Raven’s red goggles analyzing her, checking her pulse, everything. This girl was a beast, and Lorena can’t beat her without help. Then, the archer says something odd to Lorena.

“I’m not a murderer. We’re wasting time. I’ll help you catch the real murderer, if you promise not to try and poke me with that trident.

Lorena is a bit puzzled. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. No need to fight when we can work together.”

Lorena looks at Raven for a minute. Lorena feels like Raven’s telling the truth. And if she is… Lorena should work with Raven.

“Fine. I’ll help you. But you step up one time, and I’ll make sure each point goes through that suit.” Lorena says.

Then Lorena, with a grunt, breaks out of the foam, prepared to strike Raven, but Raven doesn’t even move. Lorena and Raven just stare at each other for a minute, Lorena sizing her up, then sighing. If this archer really WAS evil, it would be better to keep her close, just in case.

“Thanks for the help, Aquagirl.”

Lorena doesn’t say anything.

Raven nods, and begins to head back to the body. Lorena follows her, but the body was gone. So was all the blood on Raven.

“Woah. Que paso?” Lorena asks.

Raven looks down at herself again, seemingly confused. “I have… no idea. What happened?”

“If I knew, I would tell you.” Lorena replies. “It all just vanished. Is this some power of yours?”

“No.” Raven says. “No, I can only manipulate water and ice. Making things disappear… not in my skillset. Well, not this quickly, anyway.”

“I think we’re gonna need more help with this.” Lorena taps something on her belt, a silver “A”. “Aquaman can probably help us. Maybe get the Justice League involved if it gets bigger. For now, let’s just wait till he shows up.”

“Any place we can rest?” Raven asks.

“Si. My girlfriend’s place. Her name’s Bombshell. Heard of her?”

“Nope.” Raven answers. “Let’s just go.”

“Sure.” Lorena says, and the two head out. They don’t even notice the man who was watching them from a nearby lighthouse. He had on a skintight blue suit, tattoos on his arms, and an eyepatch over his left eye. The man puts the binoculars down, and picks up a phone.

“Thermal?” He says into it, sounding a bit cautious. “Situation. Going to investigate quietly. I’ll be fine.” He hangs up on his old partner, and stands up in the Lighthouse. Why would Aquagirl start working with that Archer who has a reputation for being over the top and brutal?

Chilled Fury was going to find out.

-----------------------

Arcane Kunoichi

Emily, also known as the Arcane Kunoichi, looks at herself in the mirror. It’s so… weird to see herself as full human. Dark skin, long black hair, hazel eyes. Normal. But it wasn’t her. She’d never be truly normal. Truly human. No matter how hard she tried. No matter how much she hated it, Emily would always be part demon. Then her mother comes downstairs, fussing over her.

“Come on now, Emily, you are going to be late!” Her Mother, a true human, who simply looks like an older version of Emily, starts doing some last minute combs to Emily’s hair.

Emily herself groans. “Mooomm, I’ll be fine! Please! Don’t coddle me on the first day!” Her mother simply huffs.

“But it’s the last time I’ll have you home all day! I’ll miss you!” Emily’s Mother teases, and Emily crosses her arms, blushing a little from embarrassment.

“Can we just go now?” Emily asks.

“Do you have all your money?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, you can go. Promise you won’t get into trouble? It’s straight from here to the school, understand? That little house, that’s where the instructor should pick you up.”

“I won’t get into trouble!”

“Promise to call me as soon as you get there?”

“Yes!”

Emily’s mother smiles and kisses her forehead, giving her a pack of gum.

“Just in case you eat something and- “

“Okay!”

Emily heads for the door, as her Mother watches. When the door closes behind her, Emily smiles. A school! Finally, she can learn about her abilities, and not just read from those old textbooks. Though now that she thinks about it, she’s probably gonna have to study from old textbooks… Doesn’t matter. She won’t screw this up. Emily waits outside patiently, and her Lyft comes, honking her horn to alert her. Emily takes a deep breath, and goes into the Lyft, taking a seat in the passenger seat. The Lyft driver smiles and says hello, and they head off to the house. Take on Me playing on the radio, one of Emily’s favorite songs, AND going to her first school that won’t think she’s weird! It seems like Emily is gonna have a great day today.

Sudden Emily coughs. Weird. Some kind of weird, brownish mist came out of the vents. Gross. But that won’t ruin her day. What could go wrong?

Well, apparently, some demon king or evil spirit was feeling like messing with Emily, because halfway there, disaster happens.

As Emily’s Lyft enters downtown, they attack. Dozens of evil spirits, on a scale bigger than Emily has ever seen, go into host bodies, possessing them. Including Emily’s driver. As soon as he gets possessed, his stomach rumbles. Hunger demon. The Driver tries to take a bite out of Arcane, literally, but she manages to, with great effort, use the palm of her hand to push away his cheek. As she does, she mutters an incantation. As soon as the spell takes effect, her clothes change. She gets a hood and a mask, red and black. Her clothes themselves turn tighter on her, and red, with ancient symbols crawling over them, and a small cape with the demonic word for “Hope” on the back, and what she called her demonic running shoes. She kicks the driver in the chest, causing him to fall backward against his door, then she puts her forearm to his throat, preventing him from moving, just long enough to get the spell to work.

“E-E pozs uai ais, y-y-yjed zheles, xopn blat swy hdofyz ab kytafep bely ab qwepw u-uai poty!” The possessed human hisses, his mouth opening. A thick swarm of gnats fly out. The demon itself. Arcane quickly kicks open the door of the car, tumbling out as the gnat swarm flies out behind her, apparently still hungry. As it swarms like a giant, buzzing, black cloud in front of her, it somehow screeches, and in a flash of Hellfire, vanishes. Back to Hell. Arcane breathes heavily, turning around her, wondering why she hadn’t been run over yet.

“Oh.” She whispers to herself. It wasn’t just a dozen random demonic possessions. Hundreds of people, people who were driving, people on the road, even animals became possessed. Hunger demons feasted on people who hadn’t been possessed yet. Vampiric demons were sucking the blood out of their own hosts. Some demons who didn’t use hosts would appear, stretching in delight at their physical form. This was… too much for Arcane. She needed someone else with powerful magical energy to even begin to fix this. Then suddenly, she’s tackled from behind.

Instantly, Arcane rolls on her back, using her legs to kick the attacker off, then jumps to her feet, prepared for a fight, when another person grabs her, and demons surround her, smiles on their faces. Incubuses. And with a chill, their leader walks up. She recognizes him. One of the first demons she, well, thought she killed.

“Well well well…” The Incubus leader smirks, his tone filled with that sensual undertone. “It appears I’ve caught myself a half-breed.”

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Christopher Lincoln

Seattle L.A. Fitness. 10 minutes before the demonic attack. Christopher takes another swing at the punching bag, knocking it backward with a wicked punch. He rubs his knuckles, wincing a bit. Suddenly, next to Christopher, something shimmers into existence. An ethereal figure, a deep purple alien, with short tentacles serving as hair. He has a cocky smile on his face.

“Christopher. Whenever you are ready to stop displacing anger on that punching bag, I have something important to tell you.”

For whatever reason, no one else in the gym sees or even acknowledges the ghost, simply going about their business. Sighing, Christopher puts a small Bluetooth device in his ear, and turns to Raiti. As he does, someone bumps into him. Chris doesn’t catch their face, but trailing behind the person, was a brown mist. Weird. Christopher wrinkles his freckled nose. The mist fades quickly, and Chris looks at Raiti.

“I’ve ain’t got no anger. Just staying fit.” Christopher replies to the ghost. He turns back to the punching bag, taking another swing. Raiti smirks.

“I’ve ain’t. Have you even taken a look at an English textbook, Christopher Lincoln?”

“What’ve you got to tell me, partner? I ain’t got time for no silliness about the Tribunals. They didn’t let me in. So what?” Christopher grabs a nearby water bottle, and starts to drink.

Raiti says nothing. “Well, I’m not even getting near that. I was just thinking you’d like to know, there is going to be a massive demonic possession in Seattle downtown.”

Christopher chokes and spits out some water, and people turn to give him strange looks. He blushes, embarrassed, but the sweat-drenched white tank top he was wearing managed to hide all the water he had just spit on himself.

“W-Why did ya wait so damn long ta tell me?”

“Are you serious?”

Christopher instantly jogs to the locker rooms, getting his gym bag. “We gotta call the Tribunals, they’d know how ta- “

“If I may.” Raiti interrupts. “The Justice Tribunals are very…. Closeminded, when it comes to Magic. They do not know how to appropriately approach a situation, other than punching things. You understand.”

Christopher grabs his gym bag and rushes out of the gym, and hurries to his car, fishing out his keys from the bag and gets in. “How do I stop it?”

“The massive possession?”

“Yes!”

“I’m not sure. Can you perform an exorcism?”

“I ain’t ever really tried.”

“Ain’t ever.”

“Raiti!” Christopher says angrily, unlocks the silver car, starts it up, and hurriedly heads downtown. “How do I do one?”

“It does take years to master.” Raiti says, floating in the passenger seat. “Why not use your power?”

Christopher swerves onto the highway, clearly speeding.

“ ‘Cause I don’t get ta choose who possesses me.”

“I’m sorry Christopher, did you have a better idea?”

Christopher begins to retort angrily, but suddenly, a car rams into them. The car skids and turns over.

“What ta hell?” Christopher wonders out loud. He tries to get out of the car, but someone rips off the door. Christopher takes a look at who it is, and it’s a demon, clearly. This one was all black, toned. His mouth… it had blood seeping from his lips. Vampiric demon. Raiti chuckles next to him.

“Christopher. Perhaps now is a good time to use your power?”

Christopher punches the demon in the knee, hard, causing it to buckle, and ignores Raiti. He hates it when Raiti is right. Christopher takes a deep breath, and shuts his eyes. His body shudders for a minute, his fists clench, and when he opens his eyes, they are pure white. Christopher then takes time to examine his own hand, slowly. “Interesting…” Christopher says. His voice is strange. The Southern accent remains intact, but a more feminine voice is also in sync with his. When the vampire gets up, it lunges, trying to attack Christopher again, but it suddenly stops mid-lunge, floating in midair. Then, from nowhere, the rim of a wheel slices the head off the Demon. The front portion of the car removes itself with a creak, and Christopher stands, admiring his own body.

Raiti laughs. “A Euphorian? I didn’t realize any of you knew how to even use Magic.”

Christopher turns to Raiti, and smirks, his synced voice sounding a bit… weird. “Where am I, spirit?”

Raiti crosses his ethereal arms. “Earth. Your host requires a task from you.”

Christopher raises his eyebrow. “And what might that be?”

“Can you perform an exorcism?”

“Of course. But that Demon was not possessing a ho- “

“You know what I am talking about. It’s happening, now.”

“I see.” Christopher says. “And you want me to stop this? Why does Humanity deserve my help?”

“They don’t. But no one deserves what will happen if this is left unchecked.”

Christopher sighs, and puts his hands on his hips in a very feminine gesture.

“We need a mage. I cannot do it alone, and this body is… not ideal.”

Before Raiti could answer, an Incubus rushes past them, apparently trying to get somewhere. It catches Raiti’s attention, and Christopher’s, and they turn to see what he was after. A horde of Incubi is all heading in the same direction. Some girl.

“I think I found one.” Raiti tells Christopher.

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Praetor Raven

Seattle. 5 minutes before the demonic attack. Raven and Aquagirl both lay down in a foliage of trees by the pier. Both have been waiting hours for anyone to show up. All they had so far was a couple on a walk, and a couple old men. No murderer.

“You sure you have the right intel?” Lorena asks Raven, yawning from boredom, and putting down her sleek black binoculars. Raven grimaces. There’s certainly a chance that the murderer wouldn’t return to the murder scene.

“No.” Raven retorts, lying through her teeth. “There’s no way.”

“Well, something’s wrong then. There’s not even a TRACE of them! You absolutely sure you don’t want me to call Bombshell?”

“I’m sure.” Raven says curtly. Lorena gets the gist, and she falls silent with a huff. They sit for another heart wrenching minute. Raven is about to tell Lorena to get up, that the murderer wasn’t going to return, when suddenly, an ice shard comes flying at them from behind. Raven rolls out of the way, with Lorena in her arms (“Hey!”), and nocks an arrow, trying to see where it came from. Nothing there but trees… Raven goes Thermal vision. Nothing showing up on the infrared… until she notices a large, cold mass moving between the trees. Before Raven can even fire, however, a dozen more icicles come out from the woods. Raven is ready this time, raising her hand, and making the icicles stop in their tracks.

“Lorena!” Raven shouts, struggling to keep the icicles in their place. Someone was fighting to move them. Either way, Lorena was already one step ahead of her, rushing into the woods to fight the unknown attacker while Raven keeps the icicles in one place. Lorena then suddenly comes flying out of the trees, skidding back on her feet, breathing heavily.

“H-He’s not bad.” Lorena pants, clearly out of breath, and blowing the hair out of her face. Then, a man walks out. He has a black eyepatch over his right eye, dark skin, and a short buzz cut. His blue suit was pressed tightly to his body, and tattoos ran down his exposed arms.

“Who are you?” Raven demands, keeping her nocked arrow aimed at his chest.

The Man doesn’t say anything for a second, looking at Raven fiercely. “Chilled Fury. Leave Seattle.”

“Excuse me?” Raven asks, sounding a bit confused. “Why don’t you want me here?”

Lorena then turns around and gasps, but Raven pays no notice to this. She keeps her eyes dead on Fury.

“You’re a criminal.” Fury says shortly. “I don’t want to fight you.”

Raven laughs condescendingly. “You’d lose.”

“Raven?” Lorena says, a bit quietly, still turned around.

“I would.” Fury agrees. “If I was alone. I can call the Tribunals here at any second.”

“And they’d go down too.” Raven replies.

“Raven. Take a look at this.” Lorena says, a bit more sharply.

“Lorena, why don’t you do us all a favor, and shut the hell u- “

“RAVEN!” Lorena shouts, and forces her to turn around. This also gets Fury curious, and he turns to where Lorena was pointing. The pier. She sees why Lorena was a bit concerned. A portal, right in the center of the water. It was blood red, and humming. Out of it was… hundreds of demons, coming out. Some flying in the air, into the city, and some… leaping out onto the land. They smile, and look at their physical forms, clearly pleased on how they came out.

“Alliance.” Fury says to Raven and Lorena. Lorena nods before Raven can respond with doubt.

“Si.” She whispers back. But it was to no avail. The demons turn to them, smiling. And they begin charging at them. An army of seemingly endless demons, against Raven, Aquagirl, and Fury. Great.

Raven nocks an arrow, aiming it at the center demon. Lorena readies her trident, prepared to defend Raven while she shoots her arrows, and Fury generates ice all over his body, as a kind of thin armor, and creating a small, personal blizzard around him.

“At least we’ll go out fighting.” Raven says glumly.

“Not going out.” Fury says, in his usual short manner.

“Ai, no hablas aci!” Lorena says, apparently confident. “Let’s focus on how many WE take out. I’m betting I’m getting at least 40.”

With that, Lorena and Fury charge at the demons, and Raven lets her arrow fly. Time to kick some demon ***.

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Arcane Kunoichi

Emily hates Incubi. They always win her over, making her anxiety levels go through the roof. She can’t ever seem to resist them. And the gorgeous one leaning over her, thank god, can’t see her blushing through her masked face and hood. All the same, the Incubi smiles, running his hand on her masked cheek.

“And where are you off to, little half-breed?~” Despite the insult, his voice was like warm milk, it flowed through her, and compelled her to answer.

“I-I was on my way t-to the A-Academia.”

“During an invasion, my love? That’s… unwise, don’t you agree?”

“Y-Yes.”

“I’m so glad you can see reason.” The Incubus leader tells her, running his fingers along her mask. He begins to lift it, about to show her face. She can’t help but blush when his fingers stroke her cheek, but before he can lift the mask fully up, he goes flying into a nearby building. He crashes into it, and before he can get up and see what attacked him, the building above him rumbles, and it collapses. The other Incubi share similar fates, flying all over the place. Emily gets up, pulling her mask down, stumbling backward, prepared for an attack… but none comes. At least, not until a man, in a white sleeveless tee, generic cowboy hat, dirty blue jeans, and sneakers lands in front of her.

“I could not help but notice you were under attack. Why would demons attack you?” The man asks. His voice is strange. It has a high, gentle feminine tone, but under it, a deep, southern accent. It’s like two people were speaking in sync. “I will not be asking again.”

“R-Right, sorry.” Emily stutters out. “T-They attacked m-me cause I’m h-half human.”

“And half what?” The strange man asks.

“H-Half Demon. Rakashi.”

Then the man says something even stranger. “No. I believe her. She would not lie to us.”

Emily is really creeped out. It’s like the dude who already sounds like he’s half-possessed, is speaking to someone who isn’t there. Then, it gets even weirder. The man starts gasping and grabbing at his throat. His hat falls off, revealing short, sandy blonde hair. His eyes roll up, showing only white, and he struggles to breathe, then suddenly relaxes. He lets go of his throat, and his eyes roll back into place, showing their regular hazel. Then he resumes acting crazy. Only this time, minus the weird feminine aspect.

“Jaysus, shut up Raiti. The Euphorian was scaring her, what was I supposed ta do?”

Arcane is totally dumbfounded. “I… Who… are you talking to?”

Christopher bends down, putting the hat back on snugly. “Much better. Name’s Christopher Lincoln. Ya can call me Chris, Christopher, Lincoln, whichever yer comfortable with. As for who was I was talkin’ to, it's a long story. Someone called Raiti. Only I can see or hear him. It’s a curse.

Arcane just nods slowly. “Right…. Did you just exorcise yourself?”

Christopher groans, for no apparent reason. “Shut up Raiti! I guess ya could call what I did exorcism, on myself, sure. I don’t really do anythin’ magicky, I just kinda, y’know, tell ta spirit ta leave. And it does. Listen, that ain’t ta point. I need yer help.”

Arcane doesn’t say anything, staying silent, trying to understand just who this guy is.

“Uhhh, hello?” Christopher asks, confused. The Demons that were attacked begin to stir, getting up, flaring their teeth at Christopher and Arcane. “Have I scared ya?”

Arcane shakes her head, signaling “No”.

“Well er, they’re waking up. We can do a mass/exorcism and banishing, if you can help. Will ya?”

One of the Incubi hisses, and charges at Arcane. Christopher notices this, and shoves her out of the way quickly, before she can answer. The Incubus slashes at his chest, three large gashes come from result of it, and Christopher falls to his knees. Arcane snaps out of her confused trance, and grows angry. She growls at the Incubus, and charges at him. The Incubus tries to go for her throat, but she easily parries his slash, grabs his wrist, and flips him over on the ground, and snaps his wrist. It’ll heal soon, but Arcane takes the moment when she has him pinned, and puts her hand to on his face. He tries to bite her hand, but his eyes suddenly grow with terror.

He begins to breathe heavily, and dashing away from Arcane, who is still pointing her palm at the Incubus. The Incubus begins to sob, clawing at his own face, for whatever reason. The Incubus eventually ends up tearing off his own face, screaming, then tearing out his own eyes. A mix of tears and blood are in his eye sockets, and falls to the ground, shuddering. Arcane puts her hand down, still angry. A torture illusion. He deserved it. Arcane then rushes to Christopher, who’s slowly bleeding out. Arcane doesn’t know any healing magic, but she rips off her red hood, and tries to stop the flow of blood, as the other Incubus begin to head in her direction. Arcane is dropping tears, trying desperately to stop the flow of blood… when she realizes something. Arcane turns to face the Incubi horde, who are flashing their teeth, and they pounce at her, prepared to kill. And Arcane lets them.

--------------------------------------------

Aquagirl

One hour. That’s how long Chilled, Raven, and Aquagirl have been fighting. Chilled hits one that vaguely resembles a crab in the jaw with a giant ice boulder, killing him instantly. Dozens more take his place. Chilled keeps generating and throwing icicles at the demons, keeping many of them off Raven, who is shooting them down from a distance, but it won’t be enough. Chilled ends up grappling with a huge, buff demon, but is jabbed in the side by one with horns, causing him to back up into Aquagirl. Demons surround them, and some rush towards Raven.

“Retreat.” Chilled tells Aquagirl, and she nods, understanding. Chilled generates a massive amount of water, swallowing up the three heroes, as well as the portal, and the demons. The demons are surprised from the sudden change to 360 degree combat, giving the Aquatic heroes the advantage. They break through the demon horde, Aquagirl in the lead, followed by Raven and Chilled, and they break away from the bubble of water. Chilled, with Raven’s help, freezes the massive bubble, causing the demons, as well as the portal, to be frozen in place.

“Won’t last long.” Raven says, out of breath.

“No.” Chilled agrees, and points towards the city.

“You want us to GO to the city, when there’s a demon army on our ***?!” Aquagirl exclaims.

“He’s right.” Raven tells her. “We have a better chance of finding some kind of exorcist in the city. And we need to save any civilians. We don’t know if that’s the only portal.”

“… Fine.” Lorena says exasperatedly, crossing her arms.

“Let’s go.” Chilled tells them, and heads out. Aquagirl looks at Raven, shrugs, and follows. With a groan, Raven follows along, headed towards the demon-infested city.

----------------------------------------------------

Arcane Kunoichi

The Incubi horde leaps on top of her, and one of them tears off her mask, revealing her demonic face, which was dark, with red eyes. Arcane says nothing, staying monotone, not reacting. The Incubi hisses in her face, and she doesn’t move. Slowly, Arcane stands up, and the Incubi just look intimidating.

“Illusion.” Arcane states, to no one in particular. She raises her hand again, and the Incubi, Seattle, hell, even Christopher, vanish. Arcane stands in a white, blank, nothingness now, nothing around her but more white space. Arcane grimaces, and waves her hand again, using more force into her illusion-breaking charm. “Reveal yourself!” Arcane demands, and the white space breaks away, and the illusion melts away… revealing Arcane in chains. Held up against a wall, with a woman standing over her. The Woman looks vaguely Middle-Eastern, with dark eyeliner and thick eyeshadow on her dark brown eyes. Long, brown hair flowed from her scalp, and she has an evil, yet curious, smile on her face. The Woman rubs her hand against Arcane’s cheek, humming softly.

“Gorgeous~” The Woman mummers to Arcane, still stroking her face.

“Who are you? Why did you put me in the illusion? What did I do?!” Arcane asks fiercely.

“You? Nothing you did, it’s something you might do. And thus, we must make sure what you might do, never comes to pass. It would greatly hinder us, to say the truth.”

“Let me out!” Arcane demands.

“I’m afraid not. I can’t release you, or your little comrades.”

“Comrades?” Arcane says to herself confused. She turns to the right, and sees them. That cowboy, Christopher, tied to a chain, looking blankly at the wall. Then there were three others. Aquagirl, that one she knew. There was one man, in tight blue spandex, and black eyepatch, who had a fierce scowl on his face, staring right at the wall, but making “hrnn..” noises, as if he’s somehow fighting back. And on her left, was one woman. She was in a silver, tight suit, her face had a scar running along the cheek. Her deep blue hair fell over her eyes, she looked completely defeated.

“Now that we know your potential, we can’t put you back in the illusion.” Says the Woman, with a sick smirk on her face. “We’re going to have so much fun with you, little half-breed.”

Arcane opens her mouth to say something back, but the Woman breathes a familiar, brown mist into her face. Arcane grows sleepy, and despite her efforts, passes out, unable to help herself or the others. She was at the Woman’s mercy.

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Part 2

Lightning Android

Lightning has a problem. Her memories, which she didn’t even know she had, come back to her in violent flashes. She doesn’t know why or how. The memory flashes are totally and completely random. Lightning wasn’t particular happy with the flashes. The memory flashes are always dark and gritty. One that haunted her especially, was a recurring memory flash. Lightning sees herself in a wave of children, all rushing at her, and Lightning creates a wave of electricity, which shocks and kills all the children all at once.

It didn’t make any sense. Lightning Android, at first, thought they were hallucinations, induced by an enemy of some kind. As more and more flashes came, she began to realize, that wasn’t the case. The memory flashes, they felt real. If they were… Lightning has a lot to atone for. She has done some terrible things.

In the dark night sky of Bludhaven, her pink, gold, and pearly white body was extremely bright. The pink lightning bolts that run up her arms and legs glowed brighter than her mostly pearly white body, and golden eyes and hair. The bright gold lightning bolt on her chest was so bright, it could likely be mistaken for a spotlight. Working in Bludhaven with this outfit, at night, was not very good for stealth, but with her abilities, she doesn’t need stealth much. However, the flashes make working in Bludhaven a lot more dangerous.

The memory flashes happen at random. They take a long time to go through, and when it happens, she can’t easily shake off the distraction. If she’s in combat, and gets one… it might not end well. However, she does not have even the slightest idea as to where to go for repairs. There are no shops for highly advanced androids here. Then it hits her. She might know someone who might know a repair shop.

Lightning, then, without hesitation, runs. She moves faster than the eye can see, running down the building, through the streets. People turn to look at her, but by the time they turn to the direction she was in, she was already 4 blocks away. In a short 5 seconds, she skids to a stop under a bridge.

The water around her was so densely polluted, Lightning could likely walk upon it. If she could smell, Lightning could safely assume the stench was overwhelming. The water wasn’t even clear, it was dark, resembling mud. That, however, is irrelevant. Under the bridge, there was a pile of trash. Lightning walks over to it, and rummages, before picking up what seems to be a severed android head.

The head was gray and rusted, but it’s eyes moved perfectly, humming light blue. There was even a mouth, that moved like normal lips. Lightning was envious of that feature. It would be much easier to use that instead of sign language when she spoke to deaf people. Then the android head groans loudly, distracting Lightning from her envious thoughts.

“What? Whatddya want, Lightning? I was busy!” It says. Its voice was totally synthetic sounding, like a better working version of Siri.

“Hello, BH13.” Lightning replies. Her voice was clearly different. It was synthetic as well, but there was something behind it, a warmer, kinder voice, as if two people were talking at the same time. One Siri, one human woman. “I require assistance from you.”

“From me? What the heck!? How can I help you? I’m literally a severed head!” He retorts angrily

“You have knowledge that I require- “

“Oh, really? Really? Me? I’m old! Used to be a war android! Governments, they would kill for someone like me! Now look at me! Stuck at the bottom of a bridge, talking to an Android who thinks she’s a superhero!”

Lightning is totally unfazed. “I simply need you to tell me where I can get repairs.”

“Repairs? For what! You look fine to me! More than fine! Way better than me!”

“I am having random flashes of memories. I do not know where they come from or how. When they come, I am temporarily incapacitated. I fear it will hinder me in battle. Do you know someone who can repair me?” Lightning asks.

“Memory trouble, huh? I knew a droid like that once! He would suddenly remember something, get distracted, and boom! Killed by a goddamn Chinese Meta! Did I tell you we fought the Chinese?”

“Yes.” Lightning replies. “I need someone who can- “

“Alright! Fine! Go to Anthony Simmons. In Gotham. He runs a store; it’s called Gotham General Repairs. He’ll fix ya up! Now, leave me alone! I was thinking!”

“Okay.” Lightning sets the babbling android head down, and turns to leave.

“Wait!” The android says suddenly.

“Yes?” Lightning asks, curious.

“I get bored here! I need something to do! Bring me something!” BH demands angrily.

“What do you need?” Lightning asks.

“I don’t know! A book! A board game! Something to keep my mind busy! I’d appreciate a body!”

“Okay. I will return with something to do soon.” Lightning replies. Then, before BH13 could say anything else, she was gone.

Lightning didn’t have much time for repairs. If she leaves Bludhaven alone, more people could die from the rampant crime. Lightning decides to run faster, way faster, then normal. Gotham was 33 minutes’ drive from Bludhaven. Lightning didn’t have 33 minutes. She increases her speed, more and more, and hits a sonic boom. Perfect. She’s moving at the speed of sound, but she needs to go faster. She pushes it, and time slows around her. Approximately 400 million miles per hour. In less than a second, she’s in Gotham. Now, to slow down. She decreases her speed to a near sudden halt. All the force comes back to her at once, causing her to fall face first into the ground, rolling until she hits a tree. That probably didn’t help. Lightning begins to get up, but the crash must’ve done something to her. Another memory flash.

Images burst through her mind. Her running alongside a blond man, who wore blue goggles, and a tight, black suit, with lightning bolts streaked across the chest. “I’m faster than you!” Lightning calls to him. Her voice was more human and less synthetic at the time. As if the synthetic voice was in the back. The man laughs, and they continue racing. Then it switches suddenly.

Lightning is now in some kind of room, alongside… other androids. One blue, who seemed serious, arms crossed. One who seemed to be made of dirt and rock, not serious, but simply quiet. And next to Lightning, one who was totally silver, with synthetic hair similar to Lightning’s. She was smiling and lecturing them on how to treat humans. Lightning was confused then. She couldn’t believe she had to work with humans…

Once again, the image changes. This time, she’s in some kind of futuristic city, running through the streets, killing soldiers, throwing them on the ground, trying to get to someone, who was escaping. The massive amount of soldiers blocked her. Lightning couldn’t call electric storms fast enough to kill them.

The image changes again. She’s in some kind of armory, next to a woman with long blue haired, and tanned skin, firing arrows at a target. “Hey, sorry about trying to kill you.” Lightning tells the woman. The woman laughs. “It’s okay Lightning. I don’t get killed easily.” Lightning smiles. The real Lightning is confused. She can smile?

And suddenly, like a train crashing, Lighting is jarred back to reality. New memories. Lightning shakes her head, confused. She needs a moment to… recover. Who were those people? The ones that interested her the most were the other androids. Why would Lightning not want to work with humans? That doesn’t make any sense…

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Alicia Grey

“You know, Dad, when you said “Miami”, I assumed a vacation. That’s always fun.” Alicia tells her Father. She overlooks a weird warehouse by the docks. People were coming in and out, but none of them resembled workers. They either looked like everyday people, in casual clothing, or they were exceptionally weird. Bright purple skin, scales, Alicia SWEARS she saw someone with a tail. All weirdos, going into the same place… why? What’s there? What’s going on that’s making people meet up at a warehouse in the middle of the night?

“I told you, we would go to Orlando and visit Disney after we find out more information on these people.” Her Father says over the communicator.

Alicia sighs. “Yeah. What was I thinking? Being a normal family? Pfft. Stupid idea, right?” Alicia mutters to herself. Then Alicia sees something strange.

The girl. She didn’t know who she was. But the girl had two different color eyes. One pink, one blue. They were extremely noticeable. Alicia got a feeling that was natural, not from contacts. This girl was enchanting. Her bright pink, short hair helped as well. She wore a small pink skirt as well. She was extremely short, but she has the feeling she was way older than 18. The girl looks directly at Alicia. Alicia got the sudden feeling that she needed to investigate further. She absolutely had to infiltrate whatever that was. Without even telling her Dad, she teleports down, then behind the warehouse.

Alicia never realizes this, but the girl vanishes from her memory. As if the girl had simply never been there.

“Alright…” Alicia mutters, looking through the window that was behind the warehouse. Near her were giant shelves of boxes. All stacked neatly, but there was a parting in the boxes, right by a large, red curtain. That’s Alicia’s chance. She teleports inside, through the window, and walks to the edge of the boxes, just barely enough to peek through the little space.

There were chairs everywhere, arranged to be all facing the small stage and podium that was in front of the curtain. On the stage was a woman, who looked like she came from California. Long blonde hair, skinny, tanned, the whole 9 yards. Next to her, on her left was a man in a dark black robe, hood over his face. He was so still; it was like he wasn’t even breathing. Then on her right, was one of the scariest people Alicia has ever seen. He was huge, bulky yet looking extremely mobile. He was wearing full combat armor, grey and red. His arms and hands had weird black spikes protruding, and they looked sharp enough to pierce… Alicia can only see him from the back, so she imagined he looked a lot more intimidating from the front. He had a grand total of 6 pistols on him (What kind, she doesn’t know. Her Father might, but she’s suddenly lost the ability to speak, and can’t ask.). Two on his waist holsters, and four strapped around his thighs. On top of all that good stuff, he had a super shiny, silver sword strapped to his back.

Alicia swallows her fear. Just a guy. He doesn’t even know she’s here. And if he sees her, she’ll just teleport away. No biggie. She’ll be fine.

“Everyone, sit down!” The woman suddenly says through the microphone. There weren’t any seats left. So that command was useless. Even so, everyone began to fumble and fight for seats, eager to listen to her. Alicia even felt the urge to rush and sit down on a chair. After a minute or two, the woman sighs.

“Okay, calm down. Do you know why you’re here?” The woman says. Her accent was even the stereotypical Californian.

As soon as she asks her question, people shout “Yes!”, some grunt, others say some kind of animal cry. Perfectly normal meeting to Alicia. Clearly, nothing is going on. Thankfully, her Father isn’t on the communicator and ordering her around. He’s just as interested as she.

“My name is Stephanie. Let me remind you why you’re all here. You’re being initiated into The Metas! We are tired. So, so tired, of those inferior humans, regulating us, ordering us around! Tired of their Token Metahumans, who fight for their protection, when we, the true Metahumans, should rightfully rule! Aren’t you tired of people hiding from you when you pass them by?!”

A lot of people shout and agree. The loudest ones are the ones who are somewhat deformed or odd looking. Metahumans who don’t look… human.

“They look at us with disgust, because of our gifts! That is NOT right! With The Metas, we will usurp the Human tyranny, and we will govern ourselves! We start with America, and from there, the world! Who is with me? Who wants to finally get rid of the damn humans? Who wants to be able to walk down the street without getting looks of disgust? I know I am!” The woman shouts. The people cheer loudly.

Jeez. Lot of talk of discrimination coming from a person who probably looks exactly like a human. But mostly everyone else… they weren’t. They had huge scars, deformities, or just look plain weird. I mean, Alicia is a Metahuman herself, but she can’t help but stare when people pass them by. They just look odd. She knows it’s not respectful, but… she never thought it could amount to this.

“Who wants to come up here and tell us why they decided to fight with us?” The Woman asks. Everyone is eager to go up. The woman picks someone to come up, and at the same time, the terrifying man on her right turns in the direction of Alicia, just a little. Not enough for Alicia to notice it.

The person who comes up looks… normal. She looked Caucasian, wearing green, and bright red hair. Irish, by the looks of it. And when she speaks, the accent confirms it.

“My name is Grace, I’m from Ireland.” Grace says to the crowd. This should be interesting. “Uh, when I turned 18, I moved away, and went to England. London. Already, I wasn’t treated with respect. I was not allowed into certain places, some police officers would harass me, and taxi drivers wouldn’t pick me up. All because I’m Irish. Then it happened.” Grace takes a deep breath. “I was um, walking down the street, going home from work, and I found this weird stone on the ground. It looked pretty, I thought I could sell it for a few extra pounds. But when I touched it, something came over me. I felt this… pain. I screamed, and the plants around me started growing and growing until the neighborhood looked like a forest. After that, it got worse. Not only English, but the Irish community began to shun me. They didn’t like what I could do. Called me a freak. I thought the Irish would understand but… I’m here, because Humans are despicable. They hate those who are different from them. And they can’t be trusted to rule this world, when they do stuff like this! I want to fight!” People cheer again, and Stephanie thanks her as Grace walks her off the stage.

Woah. What happened to her was all messed up, but hating humans? That’s not right. Not all humans are like that, after all… Hating for no reason.

“So, thank you Grace. That is a prime example as to why Metahumans should rightfully rule! And you all seem eager to join. If you pass initiation, we will be sure to- Marcos?” The woman is cut off, as Marcos, the man who made Alicia want to turn and run, turned around fully.

His helmet didn’t have anything but two eye holes, like visors. They were bright red, and they looked… directly at her. Crap.

“Drake.” Marcos says. His voice was deep, but it sounded weird… like steel scraping against stone. It made Alicia get sudden chills. She was about to teleport away, but the hooded man turns around, looking at her as well.

The hood didn’t cover this guy’s face. He literally looked like he was dead. Pale skin, dark hair, and his eyes… Alicia couldn’t look away. They were normal dark brown, but they enticed Alicia, causing her to sway. She then gets lightheaded and nauseous, and collapses on the ground.

“Urgh…” Alicia mutters. She tries to stand, but she’s unable to keep her balance. Marcos comes up to her, standing over her. Alicia was sure she was going to die. She could hear her Father in her ear vaguely, telling her to leave right now. Marcos grabs Alicia, holding her up by her arm. He takes the communicator out with his other hand, and crushes it.

“A spy.” Marcos says. The woman simply laughs.

“Not your lucky day, huh kid? Can’t have you going out and telling other people about us just yet. Marcos, you know what to do.”

Marcos nods, and raises his arm. The spikes on the ends of his hand rush down at her face, prepared to stab.

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Arcane Kunoichi

Emily is thrown on the ground on her cell by the two guards. Then slam the cell door behind her closed. Time to get to work. Emily, also known as Arcane Kunoichi, rushes to the corner of her cell, just behind the food scraps she used to build a sort of wall. Behind it, was scratches and markings, forming symbols. Summoning spell. Hopefully, this’ll work.

She’s been held hostage for almost… actually, she doesn’t know the days. They barely let her sleep on her own, and when she has time, she doesn’t. However, what she assumes is a few days ago, she was captured and held hostage by an illusionist. The illusionist had long brown hair, and looked like a Middle-Eastern Princess. She had trapped her, and a few others in an illusion. Reason? Unknown.

The people, however, are what Emily is trying to focus on right now. In the cell on her left, the cowboy she had met in the illusion. Christopher Lincoln, that was his name. Like Emily and the other prisoners, he was totally naked. They took their clothes when captured, apparently. He didn’t look so bad naked. On her right, was a woman with pale skin, and short blue hair, and scars all over her body. She had a scowl on her face, like pissed that she was in an illusion. A cell down from blue-hair was another woman. This woman had tanned skin, and long black hair. She looked super fit, almost like a swimmer. And in the last cell, was a man with an eyepatch, short black hair, tattoos all down his body, and dark skinned. He was super ripped, Emily was impressed when she looked at him. But those muscles won’t save him from the illusion he’s trapped in. Only Emily can right now. And to do that, she needs to summon a ghost.

In the illusion where she met Christopher, he mentioned that he had a ghost following him around. Only he could see him, but Christopher said “Raiti” when talking to the ghost. With the ghost’s name, Emily can summon the ghost. Thank god she paid attention in her lessons at school. Otherwise… she’d be stuck here.

She finishes the last scratching on the ground, but before she can cheer, the guards come back in, grabbing her by the arms, forcing her out. Back to the torture.

It was the worst thing Emily had ever felt. Being half demon didn’t have many upsides. They splashed her with holy water, which burned on her skin. Emily winces, but no longer screams. She’s growing used to it. Realizing this, the guards do something new. Not good. They get a knife, shaped as a cross. Oh no. Emily is stabbed, and she lets out an animalistic, primal wail of pain. They didn’t even ask her questions… they just tortured. This went on for hours. Forcing her to drink holy water, stabbing her with the cross, even starting spells to send her back to Hell, which was never pleasant. They purposefully never finished the spell. Then, as routine, the middle-eastern woman comes back in, that annoying smile on her face. Here we go.

THIS is why they tortured her. So she’d be off guard when that woman comes back. The woman pulls up a stool, sitting on it, and looking into Emily’s eyes.

“Emily Green…” The woman says.

“Urgh…” Emily replies. Real nice. Emily really told the woman that time. Maybe next time, she’ll hit Mirage with the Ugh, that one’s a classic.

“Come on now… I know it hurts. But you can escape it all. Through my Mirage…”

When the woman says mirage, a brown mist comes out of her mouth. It smelled like Emily’s house. It made her homesick. She wanted to go back. Emily can even see it now… the apartment, her Mom smiling, macaroni and cheese ready… Emily smiles, but shakes her head. It wasn’t real. Emily gasps, jarring back to reality, looking at the disappointed Woman’s face.

“Take her away.” The woman orders. The guards grab her by the arms, throwing her back into the cell. Emily takes a minute to collect herself. Her body feels raw and weak from the torture. Her throat is weirdly parched. She probably won’t be getting water soon. That’s unimportant anyway. Now’s her chance.

She rushes over to her hidden symbols, and bites her thumb, hard. When she feels blood rush into her mouth, she presses her thumb in the center of the symbol.

“Deceased Spirit, I, Emily Green, command you to reveal yourself. Raiti, curse of Christopher Lincoln. I, Emily Green, command you to reveal yourself to me. Powerful spirit, one who may assist me, I, Emily Green, implore you to reveal yourself to me.” Emily whispers.

At first, nothing happens, and Emily has to hold back tears. It didn’t work… but she’s so sure she got the spell right… then, someone clears their throat behind her.

“Yes?”

Emily jumps backward, breathing heavily. This weird guy, with short purple tentacle instead of hair, ethereal body. He had a weird suit on too, but Emily didn’t care about that.

“Raiti…?” She says.

“The one and only, Miss Emily Green. Thank you for summoning me. You are, of course, correct, I am the key to helping you get out of here. Now for the love of all the Gods, help me free that buffoon Christopher Lincoln.

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Theta Lantern

“Gotcha!” Jessica exclaims. She grabs the kitten in the alley, who squirms and hisses. Not Felicity. “Dang it!” Jessica exclaims. She sets the cat down, and floats back up into the night sky. Ever since she had come back to life, she’d tried to tried to find her cat. No luck so far.

She knows she shouldn’t be. Jessica should be trying to figure out how exactly she even came back to life. All she remembers is waking up, filled with rage. Strangling the man who brought her back. And being infused with Emerald Mist. Ion. That’s how Jessica makes what she dubs the “Hard-Mist constructs” and most of the powers a ring gave her. Minus the ring itself.

Jessica really should try and find the scientist who brought her back. Maybe call Michael- No. Jessica keeps getting vibes that he doesn’t want to be around her much anymore. She doesn’t want to bother him. He saved her life, but that’s because he’s a hero. Not because he has feelings for her. Besides, getting Felicity is her top priority.

Jessica flies around Seattle, searching for the damn cat for hours, but finds nothing. Maybe it was because it was nighttime, and Felicity was harder to spot. Great. Almost like Felicity is purposefully eluding her. Jessica wouldn’t put it past her. Though they love each other, Felicity is often very hot-headed. For a cat anyway. Jessica sighs, floating in the sky above the Space Needle. Maybe she should just give up… Felicity could be dead by now from starvation. The thought pained her greatly.

Suddenly, an explosion chases the thoughts out of Jessica’s mind. “What the hell?” Jessica wonders aloud. She creates a Hard-Mist binocular construct, peering through them. Not too far away, another sudden explosion rocked a pretty huge hotel. It was in danger of falling. Not wasting a second, Jessica flies over, rushing to help.

The green colored hotel was about to tip over. Thank god Jessica was there. Jessica creates a huge construct of herself, and holds the hotel, stopping it temporarily. Jessica smiles, but quickly realizes that she wasn’t in any uniform. Better get into superhero attire.

While going to the building, thinking of a way to get the people inside the building out, she creates a uniform for herself. Silver this time, not white, and Emerald Mist running through little lines all along her suit. They all connect to her chest emblem, where she creates a Green Lantern emblem. She then creates her usual mask, which resembles the one Kyle Rayner wears. Perfect. Only downside, the mist from the constructs float over a little over her eyes, obscuring her vision for at least half a second. Oh well.

Stopping at the building, the people are at the windows, screaming for help. Jessica creates several slide constructs, all leading down to the ground safely. Having no power limitations really helps. Still though, Jessica misses the feeling of a ring on her finger. She’d trade in the Emerald Mist for the ring in a heartbeat. Once all the people are safe, she flies down, ready to talk the local authorities. Unfortunately, someone else was waiting for her.

The person was wearing super-suit as well, but clearly wasn’t a hero. His eyes shone with malice, his fair skin had dozens of scars, probably from years of fighting. His slick black hair was greased back. The suit itself had a large “C” on it, in bright red. The suit was skin-tight, bright orange. Gross.

“Jessica Rodriguez.” The man says. His voice sounded caustic, as if he was already planning how to murder her.

Jessica, without hesitating, creates a truck construct, with all the rescued civilians inside, and the car drives away to safety, leaving only one building in danger of falling, Jessica, and this “C” guy. Great.

“That’s me. Can I help you?” replies Jessica.

“Help?” The man laughs. His laugh rang in Jessica’s ears, making her unnerved. “Yes, you can help me, Jessica Rodriguez. You can come with me, and be placed in an illusion, to be trapped in for the rest of your life. It’s not a bad fate. The illusion will be nice. You will not even remember you are trapped.”

“Illusion, huh? Thanks, but no thanks. I prefer reality. Who are you, anyway?” Jessica asks.

“I am Crepitus. God of Explosions.”

Jessica laughs, loudly. “You’re not a God. Gods don’t look so goddamn stupid.”

“We will save the philosophical debates for later. Come with me.”

“You caused the explosion. You threatened innocent lives. I’m not going anywhere with you. And I’m definitely not going to willingly become a prisoner for a supervillain!”

“Perhaps not willingly. But you WILL come.”

Crepitus’ expression changes to one of slight, just barely slight, concentration. Jessica realizes what he’s doing, and just barely creates a protective aura around her body. The explosion her was so loud, Jessica was sure she would go deaf. The aura protected her from the smoke and debris, so she can still see him. His look faded, he was… trying to see if she was still alive. Sucks for him.

Jessica rushes him, flying at him as fast as she can, slamming into his chest. He skids backwards, a look of anger on his face. Maybe fighting a supervillain in the middle of a densely populated city wasn’t such a good idea. Jessica creates several chain constructs, which wrap around Crepitus, pinning his arms to his sides, and his legs together. Holding the chain, Jessica dashes out of the area. She just barely makes it the water before he detonates again, causing the construct to break, as well as Jessica’s aura. They both crash in the middle of an empty field. The closest place to them was a set of old warehouses in the distance. Perfect. Jessica lets out a sigh of relief.

Her relief doesn’t last long. Crashing into the ground, Crepitus gets up, roaring with anger. Jessica needs to keep him on his heels, or else she would lose. She creates a rhinoceros construct which rushes at him, but this time, Crepitus is ready. He punches the construct, and the explosion causes it to shatter, turning back into Emerald Mist. He then sets his eyes on Jessica. Before she can think of another construct, he creates an explosion behind her, sending her flying directly towards him.

Dazed because of the searing pain on her back, she can’t stop herself mid-flight. Crepitus punches her hard in the face as she came towards him, causing her to fall on the ground, nose bleeding. Ouch. Crepitus chuckles.

“This is all the fight I get from a former Lantern? I suppose I should not have set my hopes so high. After all, everyone knows, a Theta poses no threat. And a Theta who loses her ring? Even less.” Crepitus taunts.

This was the wrong thing to say.

Jessica growls angrily, and a train construct slams against his chest suddenly, sending him flying backwards. She creates another protective aura around her, and before Crepitus can recover, she grabs him by the throat.

“Let’s see how well you can explode in space, Crepitus.” She tells him, determination in her eyes.

Jessica soars upwards, and Crepitus tries to explode, but he begins to lose oxygen and can’t concentrate. The explosions are weak, and Jessica’s aura protects against it. They pass the Mesosphere, and Crepitus is clearly panicking. He tries hitting her, but the blows simply bounce back against the aura. She ends up not needing to go to the Exosphere. In the Thermosphere, he finally begins to pass out. But Jessica wasn’t done with him yet. She turns around, and flies downward as fast she can, slamming Crepitus into the ground.

The boom from them landing was louder than the explosion. Jessica gets up, panting, putting Crepitus in a straightjacket construct to hold him. He groans in pain. His eyes look unfocused now, as if he’s looking at her, but seeing something totally different. Perfect.

“N-Now…” Jessica says, panting. “Let’s talk.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lightning Android

Lightning stops in the front of the shop. The worn down, rusted sign read “Gotham General Repairs.” in faded purple paint. She can only assume she made it. Lightning needs to hurry. She doesn’t want another flashback to hit her. They unsettle her.

The shop looked run-down, and the metal door was rusted as well. Strange. BH13 didn’t mention it was out of commission. If it was no longer in use, why would Simmons be here? This whole arrangement was quite strange. Lightning doesn’t believe that BH would purposefully give her a false lead, but maybe he thought she was a Chinese android again. Either way, she opens the door, walking into the run-down repair store.

The inside was horrible. Papers flown everywhere, scraps of metal all over the place. The place looked totally abandoned. If Simmons was here, it couldn’t have been recently. There are no signs of life. Lightning decides to investigate.

She moves quickly, which makes everything appear slower. As she rushes past to get to the front desk, papers flew upwards, but to her, it looked as if they were floating in midair. The front desk itself was made of wood, which looked dirty and had several coats of dust on it. But nothing to indicate any foul play. That is, until she begins searching through the draws, and finds a lever. Interesting. She pulls the level, hoping to find something.

At first, nothing happens. Then Lightning remembers the speed she’s moving at. She stops moving so fast, and next to her, the floor clicks, and slides apart, showing stairs leading to a secret room downstairs. Maybe he was there. She goes in, walking at a regular pace, and behind her, the trapdoor closes. She heads downstairs, with only her own body illuminating the way.

The downstairs was impressive. There were machines keeping the place updated, and it seemed to spread quite a bit. There were doors on Lightning’s left and right, as well as directly in front of her. Simmons seemed to be working on some kind of robot himself. It was a human figure, but the arms and legs were detached, and the head was being worked on. However, the famed Simmons was nowhere to be seen. Strange.

However, there was another workshop desk, with a computer she could investigate. Lightning rushes over there, and begins searching through the computer. Nothing so far… then she sees something. In his list of documents, there were a few audio files. Those may be useful. She clicks on the first one.

His voice crackles through the speakers of the computer. “Simmons here. Anthony Simmons, if you’re just meeting me. I’m a private repairman for the most advanced tech in the country. Not saying that to be arrogant, just a fact. Anyway, I just began construction on my War Android line. Prototype Alpha is going to help me test out a few kinks in the software, hardware, weapons, and the AI chip. Hopefully I’ll get something useful done. Earn some cash.”

Prototype Alpha. That must be the robot in construction there. Lightning clicks on the next file.

“Simmons here. So, I began pitching the idea of the War Android to several private businesses. Bad idea. One of them, Harrison Tech, was acting all weird. Someone followed me back to the shop. I couldn’t get a good glimpse at who, though. I’ve got to be careful. Getting the feeling that someone might start getting a bit lethal for the tech.”

Harrison Tech? Lightning hasn’t heard of that. She makes a mental reminder to investigate on that lead further. She clicks on the next file.

“Simmons here. Finally finished building the underground base. Gonna file bankruptcy and pretend to move out, see if I can get rid of these tails. Should work. At least, I hope it does. Production on Prototype Alpha is being halted while I get rid of this stuff. I only just now got the base for it done. Oh well.”

Lightning clicks the last file.

“S-Simmons here.” In the background of the audio, a large BOOM can be heard. “They’re trying to get in. A group of Metas. And I don’t mean Meta-Humans. I mean The Metas. If anyone finds this, I’m going to say all I know about it, right here and now.

They’re a weird sort of… gang/cult thing. I was investigating my tails when I came across them. The idea for their recruitment is Metahuman discrimination and anxieties. They capitalize on that. After they get recruits, they bring them into hiding, for the most part. Why? I don’t know. But, I was stupid. I found a base of theirs. I found a few papers, they mentioned a prophecy of some kind. I don’t think the regular grunts, or even most of the enforcers, know about this thing. Only the higher-ups in the gang. The prophecy says that The Metas will bring about Meta-Human domination on the planet. But it also talks about a group of heroes who have the potential to stop them. The Metas have already captured these heroes. They’re being held in-“ Another large boom is heard. Only this time, a crash is also heard. They had breached it the bunker. “Dammit!” Simmons’ voice lowers to a near whisper, despite the loud noises. Lightning had to replay this part a few times to hear what he says. It was only one word. “Guatemala.” The audio file ends.

Lightning takes a moment to process what she just heard. A prophecy. Simmons must’ve been captured for this knowledge. Whispered into the mic so they wouldn’t know he was recording. Guatemala. That’s where Lightning needs to go next.

It’s no longer about her own repairs. That’ll be useful, but it is now about stopping these Metas. If they really fight for Metahuman domination, that would equal homosapien oppression. Not good. Lightning runs out of the underground store, not bothering to keep searching the base for anything else, and speeds out of Gotham, headed south. To Guatemala.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alicia Grey

If he hadn’t just shown up, Alicia would’ve died. The spikes on Marcos’ forearm were coming down, directly at her face. Whatever that Drake guy had hit her with, it took away her powers. She couldn’t teleport. Then, as if by magic (Looking back, it probably was), a blue shield expanded in front of her. The spikes bounced harmlessly off the shield, and Marcos was forced to drop her. Marcos growls.

“Drake.” Marcos said simply.

“Don’t look at me, Marcos.” Drake replied. His voice is slick and slimy, which disgusted Alicia. “I did my work correctly. That is no power of hers.”

“Seriously, mates? After all this time, you can’t recognize my handiwork?” Someone said. The voice was deep, cocky, and with a British accent. Alicia couldn’t find the source of the voice at the time.

“Santorno.” Marcos said simply. The woman began ordering the recruits to stay in their seats and do nothing, which gave Alicia the urge to jump up and follow her orders.

“Yes, me.” The person materialized next to Alicia.

He was wearing a dark black cloak, with glowing blue symbols decorating it. On his chest was a weird, familiar symbol, burning in small blue flames. He had black gloves on, with a smaller version of the burning symbol on each palm. His hood was over his face, and all Alicia could see were glowing blue eyes.

“Now then, let’s get to business, shall we? I don’t think we need to stick around any longer.” Santorno said. Alicia realized then that he was talking to her.

“M-Me? Hold on. What’s going- “ Alicia begins.

“Stop him, Drake.” Marcos orders, his already horrifying voice was hinted with malice.

Drake turned, looking at Micheal, but Micheal simply coughed. The ground beneath Drake turned to quicksand, and he began to sink. Drake was distracted, unable to fight back, and Marcos slashed through the shield, which faded away.

“Promethium, hm? Nice upgrade Marcos.” Santorno taunted.

Marcos then lunged, sword ready, prepared to decapitate Santorno, but Santorno just snapped his fingers, and Marcos drops like a stone, grunting, unable to stand.

“Poor Metas. A bit of magic, and they’re utterly defenseless, aren’t they?” Santorno tells him, chuckling.

“Santorno…~” The woman says suddenly. Santorno then grunts, but turns, clearly resistant. “Come here, sweetie. I have a secret for you.”

“Hnng…” Santorno replied, struggling. “S-Sorry love. Maybe next time.” Santorno took a single step forward, he reaches out, and grabs Alicia. He touched her shoulder, and suddenly, Alicia was in another place.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That brings Alicia to now. When she opens her eyes, she instantly looks around, trying to learn where she could possibly be.

It looks like a small restaurant. They’re sitting at a table outside of the restaurant, the décor red and yellow. It was kind of quiet, with mountains ranging around her. The air smelled nice and fresh, and the setting was… calm. As if she had all the time in the world. A few other people eating and chatting around her in… Spanish? As if that wasn’t strange enough, no one gave Santorno a second glance, despite his weird appearance.

“Hmm… what are you thinking, love? Pan con Bistec? Maybe some Carne Asada? Actually, I may be in the mood for some plain Hamburgesa de Rez… lots of options.” Santorno tells her, extremely nonchalant.

“Wait, what? Hold on a sec, who are you? Where are we? Why did you save me? Those guys, The Metas, what are they? I don’t- “

Santorno clears his throat. “Alright love, slow down. I’m going to get drowned in questions here if you don’t. Micheal Santorno, at your service. I also go by “Bastard”, “Son of a *****”, and my personal favorite, “Micheal Santorno, if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll end your miserable, pathetic life with my bare hands.” You, however, can call me Micheal.”

“Uhh…” Alicia replies. “Um…”

“Right, I almost forgot. Right now, we’re in Mexico. It’s quite nice here, isn’t it? Peaceful. For you bloody superheroes, I’d assume you don’t experience that much.”

“I’m not- “

“Save it, love.” Micheal interrupts. “We both know you are. I’ve seen you operate. And you’re not bad. Room for improvement, of course. Why did I save you… that’s an interesting question. See, someone I trust, told me to trust you, with a task I require. May I count on your assistance?”

“Why would I help you? I don’t know you! You JUST said you weren’t a superhero, and that people wanted to kill you!” Alicia replies

“Ah.” Micheal says. “Well, that may be true. But, you forget that I saved your life., You owe me.”

Alicia considers this for a second. “What do you want…” Alicia asks glumly.

“Perfect!” Micheal replies. “Now see, a friend of mine has been captured by those pesky Metas. You’ll recognize likely as soon as you see her. Short blue hair. Pale skin. Archer. Apparently, others are there too, but I’m really focused on her. Her name is Raven. If you go to Guatemala, rescue her, you’ll pay back your debt to me. Any questions?”

“W-Wait. Raven, blue hair…” Alicia takes a moment to try and remember this. “How am I supposed to get to Guatemala?”

“Can’t you teleport?” Micheal asks, a bit surprised.

“Only in my eyesight!”

“Ah. I’ll send you there then. Oh, and one last thing. Don’t tell her I sent you. Say you… tracked her or some bloody thing she’ll eat up. Understand?”

“Uh… yeah. Think so. Pretty sure.” Alicia replies.

“Excellent!” Micheal leans over, and taps her hand. And before she can even react, she’s in a jungle of sorts. In front of her, a large crevice, with water running through the bottom, and a waterfall nearby. Micheal points to a small, barely noticeable cave entrance.

“She should be in there somewhere. Don’t get caught love. Good luck!”

And with that, Micheal vanishes again. Leaving Alicia alone in Guatemala, saving someone she doesn’t know at all, and maybe lose her life.

Great plan.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ARCANE KUNOICHI

With Raiti, escape was so much easier than before. With his help, Emily was able to perform a more advanced spell, that she had no idea existed. They hadn’t taught her this one in school. Not yet anyway.

“Good. Now, say the incantation, and you’ll be able to get to Christopher. Don’t worry. I’ll be here to help if you… mess up.” Raiti tells her, watching her closely.

Emily nods, knowing that because Raiti is just a summoned spirit, if something happens, he won’t be able to help. She finishes the rune she drew on the ground (which she drew in her own blood. Ew.), takes a deep breath, and chants the incantation.

“Ikh rufn aoyf ir, got aoybn ale andere, aroyshelfn mir in dem arbet, lozn mir tsu forn durkh meyn baryerz andisterbd!” Arcane chants.

She repeats this multiple times, until finally, she feels the weight of her body… shed. It was as if she was air itself, but at the same time, air that had a form. It was a strangely indescribable feeling. She looks down at her hands, and realized, she’s transparent. It worked. Emily was intangible.

Emily lets out a sigh of relief, but it wasn’t over yet. She passes through the bars, going into Christopher’s cell. His eyes were still glazed over. He was trapped in an illusion. Emily could get him out. She looks at Raiti, who nods in her direction. Emily reverses her spell, causes her to once again be solid. She touches Christopher’s forehead, and in an instant, she’s elsewhere.

Christopher’s illusion was definitely strange. She’s on some kind of farm, in a field of crops. The sun was out, but it looked weirdly dimmed, and tinted red. Something felt off. Emily knew nothing was real, but the sun still burned her naked body.

Wait. Naked. Emily forgot. She closes her eyes, and in an instant, she’s wearing her usual “work” outfit. Red and Black hood and mask converting her face. Blood-red suit encasing her body, with glowing white runes from top to bottom. Perfect. Now she won’t be so embarrassed when she found him. Then she hears the scream.

It was ear-splitting and shrill. Definitely female in distress. But where did it come from…? Emily looks around, looking for the source, and notices a very large, red farmhouse was definitely not there before. Emily needs to hurry.

Emily runs to the farmhouse, but each step seems fruitless, almost like she was getting further away, or the house was moving away from her. After a minute or so, Emily stops, panting. This isn’t going to work. The illusion doesn’t want her to get to the house. But Emily is Rakashi. Illusions are HER sphere of control. She has the power here. Not the other way around.

Emily closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and takes a single step forward. When she opens her eyes, the house was in front of her, front door facing her. She turns around, the fields are far behind her. Worked out well enough.

Emily tries opening the front door, but it’s locked. Okay. Concentration again. “I am in control…” She mutters to herself. She feels something small and metallic appear in her hand. The key. Emily holds back a cheer, and unlocks the door, opening it. As soon as she does, she regrets it.

The inside was a disaster, plates on the floor, food thrown all over the place, everything looked disorganized. It was impossible to go up the stairs because of a ton of suitcases, desks, and other items that would take too long to move. Parts of the flowery wallpaper were peeled off. However messy, that isn’t what disgusted her.

There was a corpse, covered in blood, two steps in front of her. She was caked in blood, her long blonde hair looked dyed red. The way she was positioned, it looked like she was trying to run away before she was killed… Emily has to suppress the horror that overcomes her. The girl can’t be more than 6. Who could have done this…?

She decides to head into the house, when another ear-splitting shriek is heard. It sounds like it came from below her! Emily looks around the house, searching for a basement door, when she finds something. In the kitchen, a trapdoor, which leads directly below the house. She opens it, and a ladder clatters down.

As Emily climbs down, she can sense something is very wrong. The aura in the room was completely different from the rest of the house. The stairs seem to be getting longer and longer… but that wasn’t an illusion trick. That was how she felt it was, each step took a century. When she gets to the bottom, she sees why.

The only illumination was a single, sad lamp in the corner, but Emily was glad she couldn’t see all too well. There were more bodies, and Emily realizes something with a chill. It was a family. Back there must be the daughter. Right here was the mother, father, and… Christopher was in between them, a bloodied knife in the hand. The son. Christopher was visibly shaking, whispering to himself about how it wasn’t his fault. Emily doesn’t waste time. She runs up to Chris, putting her hands on his face. He looks straight through her, as if unable to see her.

“Chris?” Emily asks, sounding extremely worried. “Chris, look at me. Look. It’s Emily. Do you remember me?” Emily wills her illusion to fade partially. Only the hood, so he could see her face. Bad idea. Chris scurries backward, fear in his eyes, holding the knife up to his chest.

“G-Get ta hell away from me!” He yells, desperate fear in his eyes. “I swear ta god, I’ll send ya back ta Hell!”

Emily can’t believe what she’s hearing, her eyes widen. He thinks she’s some kind of demon He wouldn’t be wrong. Emily is half-demon, but Chris doesn’t know that. “Chris, I’m not bad. I don’t want to hurt you. My name is Emily Green. I need to free you from the illusion, but I need your help. You have to help focus, so we can both get out.”

“Leave!” Chris exclaims. He tries to rush Emily, swinging his knife, but Emily was ready for that. She knows she’s in an illusion. The knife passes through her harmlessly, and Chris chokes back a sob. “A-Are you here… am I going ta hell? Fer what I did?”

“What you did? Chris, what are you talking about-“ Then it hits her. Bloodied knife. Dead parents and sister. Chris killed his family.

Whimpering, Chris doesn’t seem to be afraid of her anymore, but what comes next. The afterlife he thinks that he’s damned to. Emily steps forward to him, putting her hand on his forehead. He closes his eyes, thinking it’s the end, but with a gasp, both of them appear back in the cell, breathing heavily.

Chris groans, looking around, then notices Emily kneeling in front of him.

“Ta **** is goin’ on…” Chris says to himself, shaking his head. “Where… Wait. Did you see…?” He asks her, nervousness in his voice.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah I did.” Emily answers, her voice cracking. “Was that real, or was it just something that was…”

“I don’t want to talk ‘bout it.” Chris tells her, brushing off the subject. “Where are we? Ta hell is going on? Hold on- Raiti slow down.”

Emily realizes she can no longer see Raiti. The spell must’ve worn off.

Chris continues talking to Raiti for a bit, while he’s briefed. Then he sighs.

“Suppose I should thank ya.” Chris tells her, not meeting her eyes. “For freeing me from there. Don’t think I could’ve done it alone.”

“I-It’s no problem.” Emily says nervously. “Can you…”

“Use my power, break free of these chains here? Naw. I gotta wait for my, er, energy to come back.”

“How long?” Emily asks.

“Bout 40 minutes or so.” Chris replies.

“So we have to sit here for 40 minutes until you can channel the power of a dead person and break free?”

“ ‘Fraid so.”

“Alright.” Emily sits, crosslegged, looking at the wall behind Chris, taking in what she just saw. She can’t pressure him right now. Not in this situation. Besides, she barely knows him. But… if what happened is what she thinks happened… Chris must be carrying a huge burden. No wonder he tried to be a hero.

“So. Er… you a hero too? Or are you one of them types that don’t use their powers till they gotta?” Chris asks.

“Uh, kinda. I used to protect Metropolis, or tried to, against some magical threats. Called myself the Arcane Kunoichi. Magic ninja, kinda.” Emily explains. “But, I had to go to school, and I had no time to be the Kunoichi anymore. I don’t mind though. I like learning new things.”

Chris nods. “Regular school, ya go to? Or some kinda superhero school?”

“Superhero, sort of. It’s called Academia Magica. They teach people how to hone magic powers there, it’s pretty useful. The headmistress, Levana, she’s real nice. Though sometimes she’s kinda erratic...” Emily says.

“Academia Magica, eh? Maybe I’ll head on down, see if I can apply there. I could use some help learning my powers.” Chris tells Emily.

Emily smiles. “Yeah. That’d be pretty cool.”

For the next 38 minutes, they laugh and chat with each other. Emily thinks she may have just found a nice friend out of this whole situation. However, when the times up, Chris pauses in a story he was telling about a time he tipped a cow over, and sighs.

“Well. Guess we ain’t got no more time to be playing around. Time to save these others.” Chris says, standing and stretching a little. Emily tries not to focus on his lower body when he does, looking away. Chris closes his eyes, and concentrates. After about a minute, he opens his eyes, which are now green instead of their usual blue. Now, he says absolutely nothing, just waiting, and opens the doors to the cell with his bare hands. He does it again and again, then with a huge breath, Chris closes his eyes and shakes his head.

“Phew… Yer not gonna believe this, that spirit was a mute. Least he helped.” Chris says.

“Better than nothing, I’d say.” Emily replies, smiling.

“Yuppers. Yer turn now, miss Magic Ninja. Let’s free some of these other guys.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THETA LANTERN

Crepitus was surprisingly helpful. After being beaten, he blabbed and blabbed. Though she didn’t approve of brute force, times were changing. And Jessica needed to change too. Though, that probably won’t get her on the fast track to being a Theta again. But that wasn’t as important as what she learned.

According to Crepitus, she was attacked because she was the member of some prophecy. Originally, they had thought that she didn’t need to be captured, because she was… dead. Ugh. It’s still weird for Jessica to think about that. She was actually dead… Whatever. That’s not important. The prophecy said her, and a couple of other heroes, including Aquagirl, the only hero of the group Jessica has heard of, would be able to stop him and his crew from taking over the world. Typical criminal organization stuff. What came next, though, wasn’t typical.

His crew had managed to capture everyone in the prophecy but her. Including Aquagirl. Jessica checked the news, and Aquaman was not very happy about this, getting the actual Justice League to help with the search. Crepitus also told her where they were located. A cliff, somewhere in the Guatemalan part of the Lacandon Jungle. That’s where Jessica was going now. Though now that she realizes it, she should have asked for coordinates or something… but she already send Crepitus to Oa to be put in the Sciencells. Too late for that now.

Jessica easily breaks the sound barrier, flying as fast as she can. But she doesn’t have so much time to spare. They could be torturing Aquagirl, or worse. So Jessica presses on, pushing her limits. At around Mach 10, she realizes decides that she’s probably going fast enough. Her mask construct was pushing away debris from getting into her eyes, thankfully, or she’d probably by blinded by tiny rocks and bugs by now. In less than 30 minutes, she makes it to the Lacandon Jungle.

Jessica lands with a soft thud on the wet ground of the jungle. It must’ve just rained. She can still smell it in the air. Now, to locate the cliff. Shouldn’t be too hard. There aren’t that many cliffs in the jungle. At least, she doesn’t think there are.

“Ring, can you-“ She cuts herself off, forgetting she doesn’t have a ring. Jessica needs to earn that right, all over again. Which won’t be easy. But, finding this cavern in a cliff, in the jungle, and freeing hostages, all without a ring, is probably a good start.

Jessica flies around the jungle, searching carefully for the cliff. Nothing but foliage, and a bunch of animals. She could swear that she saw a jaguar, but it left before she could get a closer look. Those have to be her favorite animals, besides pumas. Then she sees it.

It was large, and definitely what she was looking for. She flies over to the edge, taking a look at it. Now, she just needs to find a cavern entrance… it should be popping from the side. Unless, of course,

Almost 30 minutes later, she makes it to Guatemala, and slows down. Made it. Jessica lowers herself down, and lands in the grass between the trees of the Lacandon Jungle. Now to find the cliff, and cave she was looking for.

“Ring-“ For the millionth time, Jessica bites her tongue. She is not a Theta Lantern anymore, or Green Lantern. Her powers stem from the Emerald Mist, NOT a ring. But it’s impossible to get rid of that naked feeling that she experiences without a ring. And the old habit of talking to it. Sighing, Jessica flies around the jungle, and a few minutes later, she finds it.

The cliff itself overlooked a sort of river, and wasn’t very big compared to other cliffs. But this HAD to be the one. There aren’t too many cliffs in a jungle. Jessica flies around it, searching and scanning for an opening. After a few minutes, she finds it. A small opening, nearing the base of the cliff.

“Gotcha!” Jessica says aloud, zooming towards it, a smile on her face. Maybe figuring out what was going on with Crepitus, and finding the people he had captured won’t make her a Lantern again. But it’s a good first step. Jessica was so busy focusing on this, she didn’t even notice the teenager already on the opening, next to two unconscious bodies.

Jessica crashes into her, and the teenager stumbles, and falls off the edge. Uh oh. Jessica rushes over to the edge, prepared to make a construct to break her fall, but… the girl was gone. Like she had never fallen in the first place. Did Jessica just imagine her?

“Uh… are you trying to kill me?” The teenager says behind her. Her voice was a little high. Jessica yelps and turns around, ring ready.

“Are you with Crepitus? I just defeated him, and I’m not gonna be fooled to let my guard down cause you’re a kid!” Jessica tells the teenager, who seems a little weirded out.

“Who? Crepitus? Who is that? Is he a member of The Metas?” The teen asked, her voice edged with suspicion.

“The guy who can make explosions! And wait, who are the Metas?” Jessica asks.

“It’s… It’s the gang who’s behind the captured heroes.” The teen explains.

“Oh. Well, then yeah. He probably is.” Jessica replies.

“Yeah. So uh, anyway, are you an actual Green Lantern? Cause I don’t see a ring. I’m pretty sure Greens are good.”

“Both!” Jessica says. “I was a Green Lantern, but then I lost my ring and died, now I’m back, with similar powers.”

“Oh.” The teen looks a little confused. “So uh… you here for the prisoners? Raven? Wait, did Micheal send you too?”

“Raven? The Teen Titans girl? She got captured too? And who’s Micheal?”

“I think this one is different. She’s got blue hair or something apparently. And Micheal is just… a guy.” The Teenager tells Jessica. She then sighs, “Uh… okay, what if we work together? You’re a Green Lantern, or was. I’m like, fifty percent sure I can trust you. So, uh, what if we… uh…”

“If we what?” Jessica asks.

“Uh… hold on…” The teen mutters. “Oh. If we could, uh, team up. You know, go in there together. Find the um… prisoners together.”

“Work with you? But… you’re what, 13?”

“I’m 16.” The teen corrects.

“Really? You look… nevermind. Alright, fine, we’ll work together. I’m Theta. Do you have a name, or do I just call you… teleporty?”

“Alicia, actually. I prefer it just a little bit over teleporty. You know. Cause it doesn’t sound nearly as dumb.” Alicia tells Jessica.

“Jeez. Talk about teen rudeness, huh? Alright Alicia. You ready to go kick some ***, save some people, and get some rings?!” Jessica pumps her fists in the air, while Alicia looks confused.

“Rings?” Alicia asks.

“Nevermind. Let’s just go. We’re wasting time.” Jessica says.

“Totally agree.” Alicia says.

Both of them go through the entrance, with Jessica in the front, providing some light to the otherwise dark cave.

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Lightning Android

Lightning comes to a stop at the entrance to a cave in the side of the cliff. This must be it.

Lightning searched all of Guatemala, not finding much. Until she heard a local complaining about a large group of “extranjeros” moving into the Lacandon Jungle, who apparently were very rude to all the natives. From there, Lightning had gone into the jungle, searching for any tracks, any clues that would lead her to the hideout. Lightning then found that the tracks would stop near the side of the cliff, suddenly, as if they had just vanished from there. Lightning looked around, finding nothing, until it hit her that they could be IN the cliff. She took the chance, running up the side of the cliff, until she found the entrance to the cave.

It absolutely had to be here. There was no other spot, and this wasn’t a terrible place to hide. Lightning goes inside, her golden aura illuminating her way. At first, everything goes fine. The long dark hallway stretches out for a few hundred feet, then from there, some lights were set up. Lightning eventually finds a metal door, the only entrance so far. She put her hand on it, to open it, and it hit her again. Another memory flash.

This one was more intense than the other ones. And it mostly revolved around the woman with the long blue hair.

The first memory was hazy, it seemed to be her and the woman, side by side, facing a massive wave of what looked like decayed corpses. The woman had a determined look on her face, taking down 2 or more walking corpses with each arrow. Lightning herself was creating an electric field around her and the woman, shocking any corpse that got close. Then the scene changes.

This time, it was Lightning fighting the blue haired girl. Despite Lightning’s extreme speed, the woman was holding her own. The same grim determination in her face, the woman would parry Lightning’s strikes, predicting Lightning’s movements. The scene changes.

Now, Lightning was rushing at someone, as fast as she can. The person had dark skin, tattoos of skulls and other dark imagery all over his body, and seemed to be wearing mostly purple. Before Lightning can reach him, even though she was beginning to hit the speed of light, he raised his hand, and Lightning slowed. She tried her hardest to get to him. Behind Lightning, someone shouted “Lightning?!” but it was too late. The loudest crack in the air is heard, and what seems to be a deep purple portal appears in front of her. Lightning can’t stop herself in time from falling in. And as soon as she passes through the portal, Lightning is suddenly returned to reality.

Their getting stronger and more frequent. That much is obvious. But now, that blue haired woman is becoming the center of them. Why is Lightning remembering her interactions with her? Why is she so important? Many questions flash through Lightning’s mind, but she doesn’t have many answers. However, she gets the feeling that some of them may be answered today. Lightning puts her hand on the door again, and this time, it opens, no memory flash.

The inside was certainly interesting. Around her were tools of torture. Shock batons, small axes, dozens of knives, car batteries, cables, wrenches, and dozens of more items that were sure to cause a human great pain. Where was she?

The room itself looked orderly enough. Everything was somewhat clean, and arranged and organized neatly. That’s until Lightning notices something. On the table where dozens of knives lay, completely symmetrical, one had a mistake.

Lightning goes over to the table. This particular knife was bright gold, with strange markings on the side. It must be some kind of magical weapon. This wasn’t the out of ordinary mistake that Lightning had noticed. The knife was clearly tiled to the side. For whoever organized this room, everything is neat and organized, and a major, noticeable flaw like this wouldn’t go past whoever did it. Someone passed through here, and picked up the knife, and set it back down. Interesting. Then the door at the end of the room opens slightly, making a small creak.

Lightning moves quickly. As the door opens another inch, Lightning searches the entire room for any sort of hiding spot. There is nothing. The door opens another inch, and Lightning prepares a plan. She starts moving faster and faster, trying to keep herself unseen to the naked eye. It works.

The door eventually opens fully, and in walks a woman with dark brown hair falling to her shoulders. Her attire was strange. It looked like it was an old magician’s outfit, complete with the top hat, but it had moving plaid on it. As if there was a set image set in her clothes, and when she moved, the image did not. She had fair skin, and bright red lipstick on. The woman looked a bit tired, but didn’t seem to notice Lightning. The woman begins to go over her tools, leaving the door open. Lightning moves to leave, but the woman suddenly gasps.

“Who…” Her voice was compressed with anger and stress. She sounded somewhat European. Maybe Polish. Just as Lightning suspected, she goes over the golden knife that was out of place. The woman seems to be controlling her breathing, but her anger radiates throughout the room. Lightning won’t risk staying longer. She leaves the room quickly, through the door.

The outside of the room was quite strange. Lightning gets the feeling the cave can’t be the only entrance, because this place was huge. It had several stories above her, and was lit much better than the other rooms. Lights where implanted in the sleek, silver floor beneath her, and in the walls, making the whole area glow without a single lamp. Despite the vastness of the area, the place was very, very empty. It seemed as if no one was here, but why keep it running if it has no purpose? The only things Lightning could see were long, dark hallways and doors leading into other rooms. Before she can decide where to go, however, a scream echoes through the halls.

Lightning instantly runs in the direction of the screams, which seemed to be coming from the hallway to her left. In less than a second, she reaches where she assumes the scream to originate from. She turns the doorknob to get in. Locked. Lightning punches the doorknob, but it doesn’t budge. It must be made of some material stronger than her. That won’t exactly keep her out, however.

She begins to vibrate again, but this time, moving forward, one step at a time, until she vibrates through the door. It’s something she hasn’t quite tried out yet, but it comes fairly easily to her. When she makes it through the door, it seems like she’s in a completely different area.

This place was not highly advanced, but in fact, looked like something you’d find in an old castle. The walls were now brown and dirty, with bugs crawling through the holes in the walls. With the modern looking silver walls and door behind her, the two themes contrasted heavily. The only lighting here was coming from small, pathetic lamps in the walls. She can see a wooden door in front of her, though. Lightning opens it, and walks into what must be the torture room. There was a naked, fair skinned person in a brown wooden chair, covered in blood, but turned away from Lightning, so she cannot see their face. Around the person, there was but a single man, in a dark red two-piece suit. He was wearing dark red gloves, and in his hands were pliers, covered in blood. In between them was a fingernail.

Lightning doesn’t hesitate. She runs at the man, and before he can even react to her, he’s out on the floor, knocked out. His face seemed strange, with carvings all over them. That doesn’t matter. Lightning rushes over to the person.

The person was seriously injured and disoriented. Short black hair fell over her green eyes, contrasting the pale skin. She was breathing heavily, not really focusing on anything.

“P-Please…” She pleads. Her voice had a thick French accent. “I… have done nothing…”

“I am not here to harm you.” Lightning replies. “I will help you. My name is Lightning Android.”

“A-Aimeé. Aimeé Alarie. That is my name. Please help me.” Aimeé says groggily. She seems close to tears.

“I will help you.” Lightning tells her. Lightning then, moving quickly, grabs a knife and cuts her free of her constraints, and catches Aimeé as she falls from her chair.

“T-Thank you. Please, l-la boîte d'argent. Silver box. Y-You must open it.” Aimeé asks Lightning.

“Why?” Lightning asks.

“There…. There is a ring. They have trapped it in there. It must be released.”

“A ring? Why is this ring of such importance, Aimeé Alarie?”

“Sapphire…” Aimeé says simply. She seems to begin to lose consciousness. Lightning decides to open it.

She quickly searches the room, and when finding no silver box, she searches the compound again, dashing through several rooms, until she manages to find it. The silver box was in a sort of laboratory room, but it was not under the observation table. A strange sword was lying there. Lightning ignores it and grabs the box. It was heavy, and the metal was powerful. It wasn’t silver. It must be a metal Lightning heard rumors about. Promethium. But how did these people get their hands on it? That question is best answered later.

Lightning cannot pry open the box. It had a keyhole on it, meaning a key was out there somewhere. But Lightning has an idea as to where it might be. She runs back to the interrogation room, where Aimeé was beginning to recover a bit. Lightning rushes over to the unconscious torturer, looking through his pockets. There. In the pocket, was a small promethium key. As Lightning moves to unlock the box, she can hear something rattling inside, saying “Error” in a soft voice. Strange. Lightning turns the key all the way, and the top shoots off, a glowing violet ring in front of Lightning.

“Error. You do not have Great Love.” The ring tells Lightning. It flies around the room once, then stops.

“Aimeé Alarie. You have Great Love in your heart.” The ring flies down, onto Aimeé’s middle finger, which was somewhat outstretched. As soon as it does, a huge violet light ensues, blinding Lightning.

“Welcome to the Star Sapphires.”

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Alicia Grey

Alicia was already regretting her decision. But she couldn’t just ignore the mission. After all, Micheal saved her life, it was only fair if she helped save someone else’s life. Though, Alicia feels like she’s just being used. Micheal could teleport also. So what purpose did she serve? He could do everything she could do, better. And now, Alicia is stuck with the Not-Lantern, in a weird, high tech compound.

“Hey! Come look at this, Alicia!” Jessica calls from across the room.

The pair of them had found a sort of computer room, with dozens of advanced computers all around the room. They had agreed to look through them, searching for something that can help them find the prisoners. Alicia sighs, and goes over to Jessica, looking at the computer monitor.

On it was what seems to be a sort of live feed, of… the prisoners! It had to be them. They were chained up to the wall, naked, in cells. Weirdly, one of them was kneeling over another prisoner, her hand touching the other prisoner’s forehead. Behind the kneeling person, another naked guy was standing in front of the cell door, as if keeping watch.

“Where is this, Jess? We have to get there!” Alicia tells her. They could be in and out of here before anyone can see.

“Relax, Alicia! I don’t know where it is, it just says “Holding cells”!” Jessica says. “Not like it gives a definite location. Can’t you just teleport there?”

“I can only teleport where I can see, Jess, I told you that.”

“Well… aren’t you seeing the screen here?”

“I mean…” Alicia replies. Can she? After all, she’s never really tried. And if she can really teleport only where she can see, she should be able to teleport there. Or maybe she has to be seeing it in person? Before Alicia can even try it, something horrible happens. The door behind them opens.

Someone walks in, and looks directly at them for a second. The person was covered completely in a black suit, that looked somewhat reinforced. There was a bright white “9” on his chest. The mask covered the person’s face completely, so Alicia couldn’t see anything to recognize him later. Then the person jumps to strike.

Jessica acts quickly, and Alicia suddenly thinks that maybe Jessica wasn’t lying about being a Lantern in the past. A wall construct expands in front of the person, but somehow, the person flies through it. Like if he was a ghost. Before Alicia can even react, Jessica had a rope construct on her, pulling her back from the attacker.

“Some kind of Ghost Ninja, huh? Nice!” Jessica says. She pushes Alicia behind her, and aims her ring at the Ghost Ninja. “So, if you surrender now, we’ll make sure you don’t end up in the hospital with most of your bones broken. Good deal?”

Ghost Ninja just laughs. His voice was deep, it resonated through Alicia.

“You cannot escape, and you will not defeat me.” Ghost Ninja tells Jessica.

“I don’t know…” She tells him, a smile on her face. Does she ever NOT smile? “I’ve defeated lots of people. I beat your friend Crepitus earlier today, actually!”

“Crepitus is an ignorant fool, who went in over his head in capturing you, Jessica Rodriguez.” Ghost Ninja hisses. “I am more difficult than him. You cannot defeat what you cannot touch.”

With that, Ghost Ninja tries to strike again, but this time, Alicia was ready. She teleports behind him, and Jessica nods at her, flying backward and dodging Ghost Ninja’s strikes.

“Alicia, go! I’ll handle Ghost Ninja!” Jessica shouts to her. She just barely manages to dodge another strike. “Go!”

Alicia nods back at Jessica, and teleports out of the door, back into the hall, leaving Jessica to try and find a way to beat someone who can’t even be touched.

“I have to hurry.” That’s what Alicia keeps telling herself as she goes back down to the first floor. The plan is to free the other heroes, and then they’ll help Jessica. They have to. They’re heroes, after all. Right?

Alicia starts teleporting more and more, searching every room she can. No luck finding anyone. She’s found another weapons room, a library, a training room, and a dozen other small, not important things. Just as she’s about to yell in frustration, she notices something. An open door. Alicia instantly teleports over to the door, and goes inside the room, finding a laboratory. Someone was here recently. Unless someone opened the door two weeks ago and no one ever closed it. Alicia was thinking the first one. But there were no tracks or anything like that, just this weird, strong metallic scent in the air. She looks around the room, which resembles a laboratory, but after a minute or so, she groans in frustration and leaves. Maybe someone had actually left the door open a few weeks ago, and never bothered to close it. She’s about to teleport again, to search for more rooms, when she sees a giant flash of violet light. It was so strong, it made the whole hallway glow violet, even though it just came from one room. As the light fades out, Alicia starts looking in the opposite direction for the room with the source of violet light.

She finds it. The light was still a little from under the door. This had to be it. Alicia opens it slowly, and looks at what has to be the weirdest thing she’s ever seen.

A robot who was glowing gold, who turned pretty quickly to look at her. A knocked out guy in the corner, who apparently was having a great dream, due to the smile on his face, and the light snoring. And someone who looked kinda like a Green Lantern, but glowing violet instead of… green.

“There’s Pink Lanterns?” Alicia blurts out. She didn’t mean to do that. But whenever she’s nervous, she always says the first thing that pops into her mind.

“I am a Star Sapphire. Not a “Pink Lantern”. And the color is violet.” The Pink Lantern says. She has a thick French accent, and was admiring her ring.

“The color is irrelevant.” The robot says. “The ring has healed you. You no longer require help. But there are others in this building who do.”

The robot had the weirdest voice Alicia has ever heard. It was like having Siri talk, but then someone else talk over Siri. And the voice talking over was kind and warm. What’s up with that?

“Wait, yeah! There’s a bunch of prisoners here! In like, cages or something.” Alicia tells them. “I was looking for them when I ran into you two. So. Yeah. We should probably, uh find them. Before they die or something.”

“We?” The Sapphire asks skeptically. She turns to face Alicia, and Alicia can’t help but notice those glowing pink eyes. Do they come with the ring or something? It’s like she doesn’t even have pupils, it’s all just pink. “I have not seen you before, but I would not put it past the people here to use children. I know which prisoners you are talking about, but I do not think you will be going anywhere with me. Unless…”

“Unless? Unless what?” Alicia asks. She may need these guys. Maybe not the robot. But the Pink Lantern, or Star Sapphire, whatever she calls herself, Alicia could definitely use her. Lanterns are pretty strong. And who cares about the color anyway?

“Unless you can prove that you are not lying to us.” The Sapphire tells her.

“How do you expect me to do that? I’m not with The Metas, I swear!”

“You have not even told us your name.”

“Alicia Grey! And we’re wasting time, we need to save those prisoners, who knows what could happen!”

“I agree.” The robot says suddenly. It was quiet until now. “If Alicia betrays us, I am capable of handling her. I must save the prisoners. If you are not willing to assist, Aimeé Alarie, I will go alone, with the Alicia Grey. But we are wasting time.”

Aimeé, which is what Alicia assumes is the Sapphire’s name, considers this.

“I will help you save the prisoners. I cannot let them continue to suffer.” Aimeé finally says. “However, Alicia, if you do betray us… I will be sure to trap you in one of the cells yourself.”

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Arcane Kunoichi

Raven’s was the worst. Out of all the illusions, the one she was in shocked Emily the most. It was pretty horrifying. Luckily, she was the last one she freed, or Emily might not have wanted to try freeing the others.

Lorena, or Aquagirl as she called herself, was stuck in an illusion where she, and the rest of the city, was falling into the ocean. Emily almost “drowned”. Then Chilled Fury (He said he name after he was freed) was caught in an illusion where he had just gotten his powers, but couldn’t use them to save some family from dying in a collapsing building. He didn’t say much but his name after Emily freed him.

But then Emily got to Raven, and what Emily saw was horrible.

As soon as Emily got into the illusion, she was overcome with the stench of death. It was so powerful it made her knees buckle and eyes water. It took her a minute to remove the smell from the illusion, and when her eyes cleared, she wasn’t particularly glad the tears were off.

The area resembled a long, dark hallway, dimly lit by something Emily can’t see. Maybe magic. Around her was a trail of bodies, and there were lots of them. The first one Emily saw was a gorgeous woman with long white hair. Then Emily looked at her face, and realized, none of the bodies were at peace. All of their faces were contorted with extreme agony, as if they died in extreme pain, and their expressions were frozen. This particular woman’s throat seemed to be ripped apart, but Emily didn’t focus on the gore for too long.

Emily walked forward, following the trail. Dozens of diverse bodies, some of them even alien, showed her where to go. She follows the Death Trail until it reaches a strange door. It had words in a language Emily didn’t recognize all over it, and the door was pulsating almost, with black sores and corruption seeping through it. Raven must be in there. Emily steps through the door, and gasps.

Raven was kneeling the center of the room. Her short blue hair was now long, falling to the middle of her back. She was wearing a sort of black combat suit, with blue decorative designs in the same language as the one on the door. Her skin looked… different. It was darker. Much darker. Almost as dark as Lorena’s. She seemed to be sobbing, but forced to look at someone. Emily looks up.

Above her was something awful. There was a giant stage, and on a podium in the middle was a really, really weird person. They were in one of the most advanced armors Emily has ever seen. It was made totally of a metal she couldn’t identify at first glance, which was extremely dark. On the person’s chest glowed a purple “P”, and her helmet was odd. It had no design but two eyeholes, one which glowed red, the other which glowed yellow. On the helmet, fell what seemed to be some kind of artificial hair, like dreadlocks, but each one was designed different. One looked like a spear, the other, a chain scythe, and an assortment of different weapons. The person was laughing, but due to a voice synthesizer, which made the person’s voice sound deep and distorted, Emily couldn’t tell what gender the person even was.

The person was holding two levers, which attacked to two different glass cages. This was the part that made Emily sick to her stomach. In the one on the left, there was a woman. She looked Egyptian, with long red hair, and hieroglyphs tattooed all over her body. She also had dark skin, and looked extremely nervous. Her tattoos would begin to glow, then die down rather quickly. The woman was totally naked, with blood down her otherwise fantastic body. It wasn’t difficult to see why there was so much blood.

The woman was nailed to a chair, literally. Her hands and feet were nailed down, so she couldn’t move them at all. Barbed wire was strapped around her legs and her breasts, so every time she moved, the barbs would tear into her skin. Her eyes weird being forced open by those weird machines that Emily has seen before in horror movies. Two long needles were moving slowly towards her eyes, and was uncomfortably close to them.

On the right, was a man. He had bright green hair in a buzz cut, and equally bright green eyes. He also had fair skin, and seemed fairly tall. He was totally naked as well, but his holdings were different. He had been put in some sort of device that was totally and utterly disgusting. A tube was wrapped around his *****, and seemed to be slowly contracting. He was already bleeding. The man also had these weird wires that Emily recognized from movies, that people in mental hospitals use for electro-shock therapy. Every time he screamed in pain, they would go off, shocking him. His arms were chained to the roof, and his legs were also nailed to the ground. What kind of sick person could possibly think up these things?

“Poor little Raven…” The person above says. This forces Emily out of her horrified reaction. “Anyone who gets close to you seems to be punished, don’t they? You must be cursed.”

“I’LL KILL YOU!” Raven screams out, tears streaming down her face. “I’LL SHOVE AN ARROW THROUGH YOUR THROAT, YOU DEMENTED *****!”

“Hm… tempting offer, my bird, but no. I don’t think you’ll be doing much of anything right now, but choosing. Want to play a game, Special Agent Raven?” The person asks.

“**** YOU!” Raven screeches.

“Glad you accepted, with such kind words. I believe the game is obvious to you. You spare one glass. It’s either your precious little Ruman, or the trusty best friend, Vivian. 20 seconds.”

“I…” Raven stammers. Her rage melts away, her voice edged with desperation. “The le- “

“Ah ah! Sorry to interrupt, Raven, but it seems we have a visitor. That makes our time short. Let me say this, before your lovely friend here, the demon, saves you.”

Emily was already trying to erase the illusion, but it was a bit difficult. This one was way too complex to do in an instant.

“You sense it, don’t you?” The person says. “I’m almost here, Raven. So are they. Your demons are coming back. And you can’t run any more, can you? You’ll need to fight. And rest assured, I will save you, the best, for last. Those around you die first. Then the Universe will fall to me. Then you.”

Emily breaks the illusion, causing both Raven and Emily to wake up in the real world. Emily gasps and backs up, breathing heavily, a look of shock in her eyes. Raven just opens her eyes slowly, at first, her expression shows fear and shock. But Raven changes that quickly, to a look of serious.

“What was that?!” Emily asks, her voice edged with horror.

“Woah woah woah!” Chris goes over to Emily, kneeling down and touching her shoulder. “What ta hell is wrong, Emily?”

“Nothing.” Raven stands, rubbing her wrists. It was clear she was trying to swallow her fear. “We were caught in an illusion, right? That… that wasn’t real. It was an illusion. A good one. Capitalized on our worst memories and fears, I’m guessing. She’s just surprised at what she saw.” Raven looks at Emily, a look in her eyes that says “Do not tell them”. Emily gets the message.

“I… yeah. Yeah. Just something bad. It’s fine. It wasn’t real.” Emily stammers out. “It just… it exaggerates what actually happened.”

“Dios… look, let’s move past that.” Lorena interrupts. “Where exactly are we?”

“Prison.” Chilled answers.

“Oh, wow, really? I thought we were at the park! Thanks, Chilled, for that amazing explanation of where we are!” Lorena tells him sarcastically.

He doesn’t say anything.

“Er… so none of ya know where we are?” Chris asks.

“Obviously, we’re being held captive. Maybe our savior knows a little more about our jail than we do.” Raven says.

Everyone turns to look at Emily.

“Umm…” Emily says nervously. “I don’t know much… just that the person who captured us, she is the one who can create illusions. I don’t know exactly where, but there’s a torture room somewhere here.”

“They tortured you?” Raven asks, her eyebrow raised. “Mentally or physically?”

“Both, I’d say.” Emily answers. “For hours. They were trying to break me so they could put me back in an illusion. Uh, the first illusion, do you guys remember it?”

“Of course we do.” Lorena says. “I mean, how else would we know each other’s names? We’ve never met until now. But I never saw Captain South over there.”

“Har-har.” Chris tells her. Lorena sticks her tongue out at him.

“Well, um, in that one. The demons that rose, I think that was a distraction so we wouldn’t notice any sort of overlooked details in the illusion.” Emily continues. “But I managed to break the illusion, somehow. That must be when they changed it to the personal, horror-filled illusions.”

“How do we get out of here?” Raven asks.

“I don’t know. I just know there’s a torture room, but it’s not like they let me see the path.” Emily says.

“Well. Can we at least find our clothes?” Lorena says.

“Clothing isn’t really top priority.” Raven replies.

“Wouldn’t hurt.” Chilled tells the group.

Raven sighs. “Fine. Emily, do you know where they kept our clothes and equipment?”

“Uh, no.” Emily answers.

“Course not. Let’s focus on getting out of here, then from there, find our equipment. You lead, Emily.” Raven orders.

Emily complies, leaving. Raven follows immediately after her.

“Who made her boss?” Lorena asks them. They shrug, and head out, with Lorena following in the back.

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Theta Lantern

It was a standstill. Theta had been fighting for a good 5 minutes, and neither her nor Ghost Ninja have gotten anywhere. He tries to strike again, and Jessica flies to the side. Her powers were useless in this situation. Ghost Ninja lunges, going for a throat strike, but Theta manages to put up a construct barrier just in time, then realizing she messed up. He easily passes through the barrier, and as a last ditch effort, she puts a small, shield aura around herself. Ghost Ninja stops, for a brief second, as if analyzing her, then strikes again. This gives Jessica time to dodge again. Jessica suddenly realizes his weakness.

He can’t just phase through anything. Ghost Ninja must have to change the way he phases through each object. That gives Jessica an idea. As he goes for a kick to her chest, she thinks up the most complex construct she’s ever created. His leg is suddenly caught in some sort of box container construct, which then spreads over to his torso, and envelops his entire body. This next part is crucial. Theta concentrates hard.

Each wall and side, as well as corner of the box begins to move and shift. Never staying still in one place, it was as if he was trapped in a hyper-complex rubix cube. Then, she changes the density and molecular structure of each part of the box, and has it change almost 30 times a minute. Ghost Ninja is visibly struggling, but his intangibility can’t counter this. Jessica wins. At least for now.

Jessica has to keep the construct up indefinitely. Not only that, but she feels as if this place has more people than just this guy. Where they went, she doesn’t know. And she doesn’t know where Alicia went either… this is gonna be tough.

Jessica steps away slowly, leaving the room. The mist-construct holds. She then creates a similar construct, only this time, in the shape a door, to cover the room. Just in case. That should hold him, but she already used up a lot of her mist reservoir. That’s how Jessica thinks her limitations work. She only has a finite amount of mist she can even use… and she doesn’t want to know what happens when she runs out. She flies down the stairs, trying to focus some of her willpower on the constructs she can no longer see.

As Jessica makes it to the first floor, she feels her concentration waver, slightly. She panics, and stops temporarily to focus everything she has on maintaining the construct. Thankfully, no emerald mist returns to her, and she breathes a sigh of relief. Too close. Now to find Alicia.

Jessica soars through the base, looking for any trace of Alicia. Nothing so far. She tries to use her powers to locate Alicia in some way, no luck. Manual searching it is. Jessica goes through several rooms, but finds no trace of her. Just tons of weapons rooms, laboratories, and other rooms like that. Nothing that really stood out. That is until, at the end of a long hallway, she finds a door. She opens it, walking into a torture room. A person knocked out in the corner immediately catches her eye, but what gets to her is the sharp metallic smell. As if lightning had struck inside the room somehow. Jessica then gets an idea.

She remembers that when she had her ring, she could do something called a scenario playback. It helped a lot when she had to settle an intergalactic case. Maybe that could work here… she could use her powers to use a similar ability. Though she doesn’t have much mist left… it’s worth the risk. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and concentrates.

Out of her chest, where she had her Lantern symbol, mist begins to spew forth, a larger amount than she knew she had left. She already feels strangely weak, and her mind begins to get a little blanker. She forces herself to focus. The mist envelops the room, and a few seconds later, begins to take shapes. After the shapes are clear, the scenario plays.

A woman she didn’t know was being tortured, until someone who was apparently, really fast, came and saved her. A speedster, maybe. Theta wills the scenario to pause, and examines the mist-character. They had a large lightning bolt on their chest, kind of short stature, and short hair. Jessica doesn’t recognize the speedster. The lightning bolt made her think of Jay Garrick, a really famous speedster, but this person is too short, and is missing the tin cap. Weird. She wills the playback to continue.

After the person knocks out the torturer, they free the captive. The speedster then rushes out of the room, coming back with some sort of box, and gets a key from the pocket of the person. After unlocking it, something quickly flies out, and begins to circle the room. It’s small and circular… and Theta recognizes it. She wills the playback to pause, and looks at the ring. It’s hard to make out the symbol, but… she can tell what it is. A Star Sapphire ring.

A Sapphire was chosen… here, in all places? Jessica keeps the playback paused a little longer. The ring was obviously trapped in the box, but not many things can hold a ring searching for a host. The real question is, how in the hell did Crepitus and his little group manage to find a chosen Star Sapphire, and capture her, and then also capture the ring, before it got on her finger? Lots of things to think about. Jessica makes the playback continue.

Shortly after being chosen, a little girl walks into the room. Alicia! That solves one mystery, anyway. The three of them discuss something, and they walk out, through a door on the other side of the room. The massive amount of mist returns to her body. She doesn’t stop to think about anything. What’s to wonder? Star Sapphire, Speedster, and Alicia. Plus, this area kinda looks like the image on the screen, where the prisoners were held. She walks over to the door, and something horrible happens. A ton of mist returns to her. At first she’s confused. Then Jessica remembers, with a chill. She lost concentration. Ghost Ninja was free.

He didn’t know where Jessica was. That’s a positive. The mist moves too fast for him to track. Or at least, she hopes so. Jessica sighs, looking on the bright side. At least she’s at full power. She opens the wooden door, which leads into a dimly lit corridor. Jessica trudges on, hoping that they can escape without her going up against Ghost Ninja again.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LIGHTNING ANDROID

“It is a labyrinth.” Lightning tells Aimeé and Alicia. They’d been wandering around for quite some time, but didn’t manage to find anything but more and more tunnels and holes. Aimeé, who was in the lead, sighs in acceptance.

“Yes, I was beginning to realize this. It must be Mirage.” Aimeé says.

“Hold on.” Alicia interrupts. “Mirage? Like those things in the desert? It’s not that hot in here. If anything, it’s definitely chilly.”

“Not A mirage” Aimeé corrected. “Mirage. She is a high-ranking member in The Metas. It is how they keep their high-profile and high-risk prisoners contained. Mirage can cast powerful illusions. She puts them under her influence, making it nearly impossible to break out. I believe this must be one of her tricks.”

“Just because we’re lost doesn’t mean were in a maze or anything” Alicia says. “I mean, if anything, you’re purposefully leading us in circles!”

“Do not fight.” Lightning says. The other two look at her. “If we conflict with each other, we will become distracted and confused. If this really is a ploy by an enemy, we must find a way around it.”

“Yes.” Aimeé agrees. “We can resist her influence. We simply need to keep our heads together, and find our way to the truth. Whatever you do, do not separate. Hopefully, we are wrong, and we are just lost.”

Lightning is about to agree, but suddenly, the other two girls vanish. The corridor seems to stretch out, for miles and miles. Lightning instantly tries to run ahead, as fast as she can, but no matter how fast she runs, the door at the end simply gets further and further away. The illusion had its hold on her. Lightning turns around to leave, hopefully to find another door, but there’s only a blank wall behind her. She turns back around, and at the very end of the corridor, there was someone standing there. The person was around Lightning’s height, and dark tendrils of electricity circled around them. They turn around to face Lightning, and instantly, Lightning gets another memory flash. This one wasn’t crippling however. It was just an image. A long time ago, Lightning had fought this person, and… she lost. Lightning knows them. Slowly, memories form chains. Things were becoming clear.

“Dark Lightning.” Lightning says. Lightning’s voice has real emotion behind it this time. Hate.

The memories were still a bit foggy, but from what little Lightning knows, she can determine who it is. Lightning herself was created to kill certain members of the team that woman with blue hair was on. Lightning’s group of androids were the second ones to attempt this. The first one, Infinity Android, was an AI, and learned that she was working on the wrong side. When Lightning’s group of androids attacked, Infinity gave them their AIs… she had saved them. The third attempt were the anti-androids made… this one was specifically designed to kill Lightning.

Dark Lightning turns around, facing her. She was pure darkness, save the red mechanical glowing eyes.

“Lightning.” Dark says. Her voice resembled a synthesizer that makes someone’s voice deep, only cranked up to the max. “It has been a long time. How have you been?”

“I know you.” Lightning tells Dark.

“I… well yes. I know you as well. We know each other. Have you…” Dark pauses. “No. It cannot be.” She laughs. “It is, isn’t it! You don’t remember!” Dark starts laughing harder, and Lightning simply stands there, staring.

“Dark Lightning. I will not let you leave. You have caused enough death and destruction for many lifetimes.” Lightning tells Dark. Lightning doesn’t exactly remember what Dark has done. But she knows Dark is evil. Lighting has to stop her. Lightning runs directly at Dark, but runs right through her. As if Dark was simply a hologram.

“Lightning, you’re as gullible as ever.” Dark taunts. Dark vanishes, and the hallway begins to change.

It starts twisting and turning, creating mirror images. A kaleidoscope type view. Lightning can’t move without getting lost or confused. She tries firing an electric bolt to see what happens, but it simply bounces around the hallway. It eventually strikes her again, but it doesn’t affect her. Then Lightning remembers something.

“Mirage. She is a high-ranking member in The Metas. It is how they keep their high-profile and high-risk prisoners contained. Mirage can cast powerful illusions. She puts them under her influence, making it nearly impossible to break out.”

This wasn’t real. Neither was Dark Lightning. Once realizing this, the illusion changes, into a large, circular room. There were several rusted, metal doors, each with a portrait of someone Lightning was beginning to remember. In front of her, leading forward, were three. It was Infinity Android, Terra Droid, and Arctic Android. Each portrait hung above its respective door. Behind her, were four doors. Dark Lightning, Dark Terra, Dark Arctic, and… one who Lightning doesn’t know at all. This guy looked a little like Infinity. Could it be a Dark Infinity of sorts? This one wasn’t like the others, pure black in design. Strange…

Lightning looks to her left, and sees a single door, of the blue-haired woman. That one compelled her. Then on the right… an unmarked door. This one was vibrating and shaking, as if something was trapped on the other side. Lightning runs up to it, and tries opening the door. It’s locked. The door wouldn’t budge. Lightning backs up, goes for a running start, and smashes the door down. It falls open with a screech, and on the other side was something… strange. A middle-eastern woman, in a strange dress, looking very confused. She was alone, but staring at Lightning in disbelief.

“You… how?” The woman asks. “How were you able to break free? That’s impossible! No one can escape my mirages!”

It hits Lightning then. This woman, is the mastermind behind the illusion. The one Aimeé spoke of. The high ranking member of the Metas.

“Mirage.” Lightning says. She doesn’t waste a second.

Lightning runs at her as fast as she possibly can, prepared to take her down before she can cast another illusion. Something stops her. Though she’s moving just shy of the speed of sound, something tries to hit her from out of nowhere. She manages to dodge it, but stumbles, falling on the ground. Mirage just laughs, and Lightning realizes it’s just another illusion.

“You’ll never be able to hit me, Android.” Mirage says with a smirk. As she does, Lightning’s vision changes. She can only see various reflections of Mirage, as well as clones, moving strangely. They merge together, then break out, like a kaleidoscope. This is going to be tougher than Lightning thought.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alicia Grey

“Thank god for my instincts…” Alicia breathes out to herself. She’s hiding in a sort of storage closet room, that has papers and other office items. File cabinets were right next to her. The area itself had no lights, Alicia was too afraid to flip the switch when she got in there. She can hear that guy outside. Marcos, walking past, searching for her. But he passed her room, not coming inside. She allows herself a sigh of relief. Safe, for now.

As soon as the Pink Lantern told them not to split up and stick together, Lightning got attacked. This weird, middle-eastern woman showed up as if from nowhere, and breathed a brown mist into her. Lightning immediately stopped working, as if she turned off. She still had her light emitting from her, but Lightning didn’t respond. The Pink Lantern fought back, telling Alicia to run and find the other prisoners. And she did. Alicia teleported away, several times, leaving the Pink Lantern alone with Mirage.

Then, just her luck, as she was searching for the captives, she had run right into Marcos. At first, he had taken her off guard, surprising her. His helmet really shocked a feeling of fear into her, right to the core. She managed to teleport quickly, almost getting a bullet to the face. Too close. That leads to now.

Hiding in the storage closet, hoping he doesn’t find her. Turns out the Sapphire was wrong. The place wasn’t a labyrinth of illusion. It was just a labyrinth. Alicia got lucky with this closet, because it came from nowhere to her. It was a great hiding spot, sure, but she had no idea where to go from here.

Alicia takes a deep breath, swallowing her fear and anxiety, and opens the door, slowly. Each time the door creaked, Alicia’s heart skipped a beat. The suspense was truly killing her. She takes a step outside, the hallway totally empty. It was deserted, at least for now. Time to track the captives.

At least 30 minutes later, and Alicia finally finds a clue. It was small, sure, but it was something. The cells. She stands in front of them, holding her nose. It smelled absolutely awful, and blood was splattered in some of the cells. But they had to have been here. After finding no clues, Alicia sighs in annoyance.

Where could they possibly be? This was growing very, VERY annoying. Alicia has looked all over the place, but found nothing. Alicia groans. They obviously left. She needs to go elsewhere to find them. Alicia steps out of the room, and walks down the hallway carefully, until she hears some voices.

“Look. We need to leave, before that woman comes back and captures us again.”

The voice was distant, but definitely nearby. Alicia starts walking towards where she thinks it came from.

“If there’s someone else, we should look for em. All I’m saying here.”

That southern voice was closer than the last one. She’s definitely close!

“Si. We need to find them! I don’t think a tactical retreat is an option here, anyway, Raven. I mean, we outnumber this chick, and we’re on guard now! No more surprises.”

Alicia finds the room. It’s nearby, a small light shining out of it. She rushes over to the room, slamming open the door. Not a good idea. As soon as she does, someone grabs her and pins her to the wall. This guy was huge, dark-skinned, and wearing blue.

“H-Hey!” Alicia struggles to say. Her face was pinned to the wall, so she couldn’t see anything but the huge mass of a human that was holding him.

“Identify yourself.” The person holding her says. His voice was really, really deep.

“Oh come on, again? This shouldn’t happen more than once a day! I’m Alicia Grey! I-I’m here to save the captives!”

Someone in the back sighs. “Let her go, Chilled.”

The man, Chilled, grunts and releases her. She stumbles for a minute, before turning to the people. Most of them were in suits and attire, with weapons strapped around them. Oh jeez. If it wasn’t for Aquagirl, who was obviously recognizable, she’d have thought these were just more baddies.

They were getting dressed or something for sure. One of them was strapping a bow to her back, and finishing strapping something to her wrists. This woman was in a tight, grey suit. She had short blue hair, like a pixie cut. Once she finishes with her wrist gauntlet things, she puts on a grey mask, that had bright red eyes over it.

Chilled was wearing a dark blue suit, and had tattoos running down his dark skinned body. He wore an eyepatch, which absolutely screamed “pirate” to Alicia, but she wasn’t dumb enough to say it. The dude was like a mountain, and was easily the biggest guy she’s ever seen. He could probably go a few rounds with Superman and hold his own. Maybe win. Maybe.

There was also a cowboy guy. Sandy blonde hair, and friendly blue eyes. He tipped his brown cowboy hat at Alicia, which removed all doubt that he was, in fact, a cowboy. He had two pistols strapped to his belt holsters, and was currently stretching, which made his white t-shirt lift up. Why would he wear a shirt that doesn’t even fit?

“Word of advice, chiquita.” Aquagirl says, a smile dancing on her lips. She was in the costume Alicia had seen on TV. Blue top that showed off her abs, and blue, tight pants. It seemed simple, but it worked for her. “If you’re infiltrating an enemy base, you DON’T tell people that you don’t know, that you’re going to do something against the enemies’ wishes. I mean, if it wasn’t for us, you’d have been captured for sure.”

“I… well…” Alicia replies nervously. “I knew it was you guys, obviously!”

“Right. And I’m Batman.” Someone says. Her voice was rugged, edged with suspicion.

“Well, with your attitude.” Aquagirl scoffs. “I wouldn’t be surprised, Raven.”

Something clicks in Alicia’s mind, and she gasps.

“R-Raven! I was, uh, sent here to rescue you!” Alicia tells her suddenly.

Chris snorts in the back. “Wow. If I knew her ‘fore this, I wouldn’t want no one ta come save her.”

Raven elbows Chris, and Chris rubs his arm. Raven seemed sort of the opposite of Micheal. He was the kind of cocky, condescending *******. She seemed like the type of person who punches cocky, condescending ********. Are they really friends?

“Who was it?” Raven asks.

“He said his name was, uh, Micheal Santorno.” Alicia explains.

Raven doesn’t say anything. Her mask covers her facial expressions, so Alicia can’t even see what Raven thinks of this.

“Hey, so, are like… supposed to be having a shocked silence here? I’ve never heard of Micheal Santorno.” Another girl says in the back. Her face was covered in a red hood. She looked like a bright red ninja. But her voice sounded like a totally normal 16 year old girl. Amazing. Someone at least slightly normal for a change.

“I knew a Micheal once.” Chris says. “Kinda a jerk. That’s just how some people are, ya just gotta live with it and move on.”

“What?” Aquagirl turns to him, obviously confused. “What are you saying? Are you trying to say something wise? We’re in the middle of a crisis, we don’t have time for this kind of stuff!”

Chris shrugs. “I was just sayin’.”

“Dios mio, if the villains here don’t kill me, I’m gonna die from the aneurysm that Chris is going to give me.” Aquagirl says, burying her face in her hands.

“Look. We can discuss this later.” Raven orders, looking at Alicia.

“We can?” Alicia asks.

“Yes, we can. I mean, we should.” Raven says. “Look, we’ve still got to get out of here. Alicia, since we basically have no choice, we’re gonna have to trust you.”

“What are you talking about?” Aquagirl interrupts. “We can totally just find out way out! Chris can like, I don’t know. Get a spirit who can phase through things, and phase us out of here!”

“Er, not how it works, Lor.” Chris explains. “I don’t get ta choose who possesses my body. And I don’t get ta choose what they do once they in it. Too risky.”

Lorena frowns. “Okay, but Emily can use some magic to get us out of here!”

“I don’t know how!” Emily says. “Besides, I’d probably mess it up or something. Not a good idea to trust me.”

“You’d do fine. Don’t underestimate yourself.” Chilled says. His cold and deep voice made Alicia jump. He hadn’t said anything for so long, it just scared her. Emily turns to him.

“Y-You think so?” Emily asks.

“Yes.” Chilled answers. “You were good enough to save us. You are good enough to help us escape. Never doubt yourself.”

Emily rubs her arm. “T-Thanks Chilled…”

“Alright, alright!” Raven interjects. “Emily do you know a spell that can get us out of here?”

“Uh…” Emily says. “I know a teleportation spell… but it can only take me to places I’ve seen before, and it only teleports me.”

“Alright.” Raven says. “Then we’ve got to trust Alicia.” Raven turns back to Alicia. “I’m assuming that you know a way out?”

Alicia sucks her teeth. “Ah… well… not really… I just kinda walked around until I, uh, found you, you know?”

Raven sighs. “Great. Alright guys. Finish getting your gear, and let’s move out.”

“Wait!” Alicia says. “Hold on. There were other people with me. We gotta save them!”

“Save them from what?” The girl in red, Emily, asks. “Oh jeez, don’t tell me… Middle-eastern woman? Kinda long brown hair?”

“Yeah!” Alicia confirms. “Mirage, I think her name is.”

“Neat name.” Aquagirl says. Everyone looks at her. “What? It is! Gotta give her props for that, at least.”

“Keep going.” Raven says, turning back to Alicia.

“Yeah, uh, so. I came here, with a weird android, robot girl. She had like, super speed, and a ton of lightning powers. It was super cool. Anyway, uh…. there was also this Green Lantern, and a Pink Lantern. The Green Lantern, she told me to go find you guys, while she stayed fighting this other guy a few floors up. Then, the Pink Lantern and the robot girl with lightning, they… uh…”

“Yes?” Raven pressures.

“Uh… they… distracted Mirage! There we go, yeah, distracted Mirage.” Alicia finally finishes.

“Hold on.” Raven says. “This robot girl. Lightning powers, speed… did you catch her name?”

“Yeah, and you’ll know what she looks like when you come with me to save her from Mirage!” Alicia replies, her face determined.

Lorena and Chris both start laughing, Emily rubs the back of her head nervously, Chilled shows a small smile, and Raven just glares.

“Let’s go.” Chilled says, the smile still on his face.

“Fine.” Raven adjusts her bow, putting a quiver under it, and walks out. Everyone else follows. Alicia was about to step out, when Chilled pulls her aside.

“Thanks for telling us this.” He says. “We would have probably gotten captured again if not for you.”

Alicia nods. “T-Thanks.”

Chilled puts his hand on her shoulder, and leads her back to the group, who were forging ahead through the tunnels, looking for the other heroes.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ARCANE KUNOICHI

Emily closes her eyes, preparing for Marcos to fire his gun at her head, killing her. This wasn’t going very well.

-------------------------------------------------

After they left, Alicia gave them more information, thank god. Mirage uses a brown mist to put her victims in an illusion. That helped to know. She also told them about Marcos, the terror-inducing assassin guy she had run into twice before. As she was leading them back the way she thought she had come, Marcos appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and attacked the group.

At first, it went well. Raven had managed to react fast enough, taking the gun out of his hand before he could shoot anyone. Then, Emily managed to cast a “slow” spell she had learned at school, causing him to slow his reaction and speed. Lorena went in close, with that trident of hers, for a stab to the chest. Chris began to channel a spirit, and Chilled fired several icicles at Marcos. Alicia even tried to help; teleporting to Marcos, punching him, and teleporting away before he could hit her.

But, they had never fought or worked as a team before. Apparently, Raven, Lorena, and Chilled teamed up for a bit in the illusion, but only a few hours. The group still fought in their own way, no coordination. Marcos quickly took advantage of that.

The slow spell wasn’t enough. He was slower, sure, but still fast enough to grab Raven and use her as a shield against the icicles. She somehow didn’t seem that affected by them. Weird. But Marcos noticed that too, and literally threw her at Lorena, who was charging. The trident’s left spike, and thankfully only that one, impaled through Raven’s stomach. Raven cried out, as they both fall on the ground. The trident moves more once they crash on the ground, cutting through Raven’s side like tissue paper. Blood was everywhere, and Lorena was trying to help as best she could. Then, Marcos pulled one of his pistols out, and predicted where Alicia will come. When she appeared, he hit her on the forehead with the gun, and she slid down, knocked out cold. Not wasting a second, Marcos fires a shot at Chris, but Chilled saved him. He stopped the icicle attacks, and created an ice wall around Chris, letting him continue channeling the spirit no problem, but he rushed to Raven, not to Emily’s help.

“Emily, you have to face him alone!” He shouted out. His deep voice was completely firm in this, no arguing allowed.

“I-I-I, I c-can’t- “ Emily began to stutter as Marcos looms over her.

“Yes, you can!” Chilled said. He was getting a bit more talkative now, apparently.

Emily took a deep breath. She was the Arcane Kunoichi. She had trained with various martial arts specialists, studied magic to hone her skills, and helped protect Metropolis. She was NOT about to let some villain murder her in a tunnel.

Marcos went for a strike to her chest, but Emily easily parries it. She lifts his arm up, and kicks him in the ribs. When she did, she felt her foot strike against something… hard. Some kind of metal thing. The armor probably helped protect against CQC. But she got a hit. That made her confidence go up, even if just slightly. Maybe she was better than him at hand to hand. Maybe she could beat him!

The hope died quickly.

As she was putting her leg down, Marcos recovered, and slammed his palm into her chest so hard, she actually flew off her feet. Her breasts were nearly screaming in pain, and her vision blurred a little. How he could strike that quickly with a slow spell, she has no damn idea. She just managed to get herself standing again when Marcos struck her in the stomach with his knee. She gasped, he knocked the wind right out of her. Then he drew his sword, leading to now.

Emily was on the floor, calf bleeding, palms bleeding from the blade, but she bought herself a few more seconds, if anything. The sword was away, but Marcos still had, surprisingly, one of his many guns. He drew it, cocked it, and aims at her head to deliver the killing shot, but some big burst of light suddenly hits Marcos, causing him to go flying backward. Emily turns to get a look at who her savior was. Chris!

He was standing a few feet away, but he had some kind of… yellow aura around him. His eyes were glowing yellow as well. He looked like a living lamp.

“Chris! T-Thank god!” Emily stutters out, going over to him.

Chris gives her a strange look. “Chris?” His voice was weird. It was mixed with the voice of what sounds like a young adult woman, maybe Scottish. “Oh, ya must mean the laddy whose body I’m in, aye? Naw, I’m justa spirit, here ta help. Name’s Starlight. Photokinesis, as ya can likely see.”

Marcos begins to get up, shaking his head. He growls.

“Ay, ya better go check on your friend back there, they may need ya help. I will distract ta fooker here.” Chris/Starlight motions to Marcos.

Emily nods, and quickly runs over to Alicia, who was still out cold. Alicia was snoring softly. Doesn’t matter. Emily presses her finger against Alicia’s forehead. She slowly fades away. Invisibility. Easiest illusion. Even Emily can do that. Now, Marcos will have a harder time finding Alicia. Emily wishes she could cast it on everyone, but if you move too much, the spell fails.

Emily goes over now to Raven, who was growing even paler than she usually is. She’s losing a lot of blood, but Chilled was trying to ask her something. Raven shakes her head.

“I… don’t get… frostbite...” Raven manages to say. She seems to be gripping hard to Lorena’s hand. Frostbite? Why the hell are they talking about that?

Chilled, however, nods, and yanks the trident out. Raven screams loudly, and Emily can see the pained expression through her mask.

“What are you doing?!” Emily asks. She doesn’t intervene, though.

Chilled doesn’t reply, but presses his hand against the open wound. Raven hisses in pain, and Emily can notice something kind of gross. The blood begins to freeze on her body, over the wound. The wound was clotted… with her own frozen blood. Gross.

Raven tries to stand, but Lorena forces her down.

“No, Raven. Stay here. We’ll deal with that ****er, but you’re not gonna help if you’re all ****** up, and STILL trying to fight.” Lorena chides.

Raven sucks her teeth. “F-Fine. H-H-Hurry.”

Lorena nods, and stands, grabbing the bloodied trident. Emily looks at the fantastic light show behind them, as Chris/Starlight fights Marcos. Starlight was clearly out of practice, but she knew how to use her powers, and was warming up fast. Marcos could barely see with all the light, giving them an advantage.

“We need a plan, he’s really good.” Emily says. But she notices that Lorena had already left to go fight. Chilled gives her a smile, and goes in for the fight as well. Emily sighs, and charges behind them.

Lorena slashes with her trident, and Marcos stumbles backward. Before he can regain his balance, Chilled goes in close, his fists covered in ice, and begins smashing brutally on Marcos, beating him over and over. Emily takes this opportunity to try an illusion. She tries to get Marcos to think Chilled was always striking to the left when he was striking right, and vice versa. Thankfully, it works, and Marcos continues getting pummeled. Lorena goes for a strike too, and she must have some kind of super-strength. When she hit Marcos, he literally slams through a wall, crashing into another hallway. They have Marcos on edge. Maybe this’ll work.

But even after all that punishment, Marcos just gets up, putting his fists up. It’s like he can’t even tire or something. Starlight goes in, blasting light beams at him, and Marcos goes backward a bit, but growls, and manages to jump up, higher than could possibly be normal, grabbing Starlight, and slamming them into the wall. Starlight screams, her voice infused with Chris’, and struggles to stand up. Marcos then draws his gun again, and fires it at Lorena. The bullets don’t affect her much. They bounce off her suit, but one bullet manages to hit her in the cheek, and she winces, a small cut appearing, and bleeding slightly. She goes in for another attack, but Marcos just jumps over her, and while above her, elbowing her in the head. She crumples to the ground in pain, and Marcos lands on Lorena’s right arm. When he does, a loud crack echoes through the hallway, followed by her scream.

Marcos turns to Emily and Chilled, and Chilled puts an ice barrier between Marcos and Lorena, then between them and Marco, buying them some time. He turns to Emily.

“Get everyone and leave. I’ll hold him off.” He says.

“By yourself? Are you crazy?! He’s going to kill you!” Emily tells him, shocked.

“Maybe. I’ll try not to die.” Chilled replies. He then pauses. “You can beat Mirage. You can break her illusions, show everyone the truth. Do it again, and leave this place. Don’t let them find you.”

Emily is about to say something, but Marcos punches through the ice, and the wall crumples. Emily looks at Chilled’s face, who nods. He charges at Marcos, and Emily rolls under Marcos, going to Lorena. She helps Lorena up, and Lorena grabs her trident with her left hand, appearing angry. Emily quickly tells Lorena the plan, getting her up to speed. At first, Lorena looks like she’s going to object, but seems to change her mind. She nods, and the two go to another side of the hallway. Lorena easily punches through it with her left arm, and then they go and tend to Raven and Alicia. They can hear the punches Chilled and Marcos are giving each other, even from here.

Lorena manages to get Alicia to come to, who groans. Alicia recovers quickly though, and manages to grab Chris, who now had no Starlight, and teleport him back to the group. He looks a bit woozy, but helps Raven walk, making her sling her arm across his back.

“Wait, Chilled is gonna, uh, fight Marcos himself? He’ll die!” Alicia says, after they catch her up to speed on the plan.

“Have to let him take the chance.” Raven says. All eyes are on her. “Marcos is obviously more than a match for all of us, combined. Chilled can buy us some time to get out of here, collect ourselves, and come back. Then we can beat him.”

“Wait, what about the other Lanterns, and, uh, the robot chick? They can help!” Alicia asks desperately.

Lorena shakes her head. “If what you said is true, there are two other people here we need to watch out for. Mirage, and whoever the Green Lantern was fighting. We might not be able to beat them either…” Lorena sighs. “Dios mio… esto se fue a mierda.”

Alicia opens her mouth to reply, but Chris interrupts her. “Come on. We ain’t got no time to be talkin’ here. Let’s go find our Lanterns, and hope Chilled finds his way out too.”

They begin to move, the opposite direction from the fight, looking for another way out.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Theta Lantern

Jessica flies through the underground, frustration forming inside her. Where the hell did Alicia go? The possibility beings to creep into Jessica’s mind, the idea that maybe, Alicia had been killed… No. That can’t be true. Alicia was still alive, and Jessica was determined to find her. Though, that was seeming a bit difficult so far.

This place was like a maze. The hallways didn’t make any sense that she could find, though maybe if she had a map, she could find things. Then, Jessica begins to hear something. Someone laughing. That was something to go on, anyway. It didn’t sound like Alicia, but then again, Jessica hasn’t ever heard Alicia’s laugh. With nothing more to go on, Jessica begins to follow the sound of the laugh, letting it guide her.

Soon, she reaches a large, circular room. Right smack dab in the center, was something that made Jessica gasp.

A middle-eastern woman, with long, extremely dark hair and a bronze, revealing dress, was beating on… a Star Sapphire. The Star Sapphire was covered in blood, but didn’t even fight back. What the hell? The middle-eastern woman didn’t even go all out, she was just beating and beating on the Sapphire. Then, on the wall, was a small robot. It didn’t make any sort of expression, but it kept turning in circles, as if confused, then running forward, and back. Maybe it’s malfunctioning? Either way, Jessica can clearly see who the bad guy is here.

Jessica creates a long pole construct, and swings it like a bat at the woman’s back. The woman flies forward a little, and hits the ground, groaning at the surprise attack. Jessica then creates a chain link construct on the ground, then chain constructs, and chains the woman to the ground. That was easy. Why didn’t the Sapphire just put the woman in a crystal construct or something?

Jessica flies over to the Sapphire, holding her gently, trying to wipe the blood away from her face. The Sapphire looked a little weird, but she brushes that aside. The Sapphire groans, speaking in what sounds like French.

“Ring, translate- Oh god dammit…” Jessica mutters. No ring. “Hey, Sapphire, I speak only English, and like, some Spanish. Only a little. Can you understand me?”

The Sapphire groans. “Y-Yes. I speak English...”

“Perfect!” Jessica says. “I’m Jessica. Nice to meet you. Why didn’t you fight that woman back? You have a power ring, you know, those are pretty useful in fights.”

“Lightning Android… you must pull her out of the illusion.” The Sapphire says. “While I… recover.”

“Just use your ring.” Jessica tells her. She gets the Sapphire’s ring hand, holding it gently. “The ring, it can cure small wounds like that. Clean you up. It can’t do anything major like a Blue Lantern could, but it helps. Come on, try it.”

The Sapphire nods, and closes her eyes. At first, nothing happens. Jessica was about to give another tip, when suddenly, an aura of violet light passes over the Sapphire, for a brief moment. The wound seems to close, and the blood glows violet, then fades. The Sapphire stands, looking as if she was in disbelief.

“I… Wow. Thank you, Jessica. I… I just received this ring. I don’t quite yet know how to work it. I’m Aimeé. It’s nice to meet you.” Aimeé introduces.

“Likewise, nice to meet ya! Uh… so who’s the chick I chained down? How’d she beat you?” Jessica asks.

“Her name is Mirage. One second.” Aimeé says.

Aimeé walks over to the robot, who was still acting erratically. Aimeé’s ring glows pink, and she touches the robot, who then glows pink, and when the light dies down, the robot was sort of… standing still.

“Thank you.” It says, and turns to Jessica. “Who is that?”

“Her name is Jessica.” Aimeé tells the robot. “She is a Green Lantern, and is here to help. She has a ring like mine.”

“Jessica does not have a ring.” Lightning says impassively.

“Huh?” Aimeé wonders aloud. She turns to Jessica, looking at her hands, and Jessica clears her throat.

“It’s um... Complicated.” Jessica says. “I used to be a GL, but I uh… got a blue ring. Then I lost both. Then I died. Now I’m back, with kinda similar powers to a GL.”

“How?” Aimeé asks. Lightning stays quiet.

“Not sure. Some doctor found my body. He hates Lanterns or something. He reanimated my corpse, using the Emerald Mist of Ion to bring me back from the dead, somehow. So, now I’ve got all the cool powers back, with a few pros and cons here and there. Pretty neato, huh?” Jessica says, trying to lighten the mood.

For a moment, Aimeé says nothing. Then she turns to Mirage, who was still trapped and struggling.

“Can you put a construct mask over her face?” Aimeé asks. “She lets out a dark mist that puts people in illusions. We need to…”

Aimeé stops talking, and seems to be staring at something behind Jessica. Jessica turns around, and sees something very weird.

A girl. She had two different color eyes. One pink, one blue. They were extremely noticeable. She had bright pink, short hair, and wore a small pink skirt with a pink blouse. The girl was also short, maybe 4’11. As soon as Jessica looks at the girl’s eyes, she feels… odd. A swirling sensation in her stomach that causes her to double over a little, nauseous. When she opens her eyes… Mirage was gone. Jessica can’t remember the girl who she just saw. Lightning was sort of… standing around, confused, as was Aimeé.

“I… woah…” Jessica holds her head, which was spinning. “What’s going on…” Jessica wonders aloud.

“Gone…” Aimeé says. “Mirage is… gone…”

“W-What… What happened?” Jessica asks. “How’d she get away?” Jessica was starting to feel better… physically. Someone who was working with Crepitus, in this giant bunker, getting away… not a good sign.

“I do not know.” Lightning answers. “But we must find Mirage. If she gets loose, she may capture others.”

“Yes.” Aimeé agrees. “I do not want more people to experience what I did. It was…” She shudders. “Horrible.”

“Er…” Jessica says awkwardly. She doesn’t know what to say. “Uh… yeah. Let’s look for her.”

Lightning nods, and runs off, dashing through the hallways. Jessica and Aimeé both fly through the hallways together, searching for Mirage.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LIGHTNING ANDROID

Lightning moves through the hallways as fast as she possibly can. The underground begins to shift and turn. She must be still affected by the mist. This is growing out of hand. Lightning just wants to save the hostages, find Simmons, and get herself repaired. In that order. While lost in thought, she almost runs into a wall, twice. She needs to watch where she’s going. But no matter how hard she searches, or how fast she moves, she can’t find Mirage anywhere. She was about to give up, go back, and formulate another plan with Jessica and Sylvie, when she sees someone. To her, they were almost totally still, since Lightning was moving so fast. But it was a few people, in a group.

One of them was in a skintight grey suit, grey mask, red goggles, and a bow and arrow, with short blue hair. Could it be…? No. The woman she knew had long blue hair, and it was much lighter than this woman’s. Coincidence. There was: A dark skinned girl in another tight blue suit that showed off her abs, a tall woman dressed in black and red, some kind of cowboy person, a tall, black man with tattoos running down his arms, and an eyepatch, and… Alicia.

Lightning skids to a halt in front of the group, who immediately go on guard.

“Wait!” Both the Archer and Alicia say. They look at each other weirdly.

“I…” The Archer stammers, looking at Lightning. It was almost like fascination. “I… L-Lightning?”

“How do you know her?” Alicia asks, curious.

The archer seems to be going into some kind of shock. She stops stranding up straight, putting her hand on her forehead.

“I…” The archer says.

“Right!” The woman clad in blue interrupts. She pushes through the group, standing next to Raven. “Alicia, you uh, know this… robot?”

“Android, actually.” Alicia corrects. “She calls herself Lightning Android. I met her when I met the Pink Lantern. She’s on our side.”

“Not exactly convincin’…” The cowboy mutters. “We don’t even know if yer on our side yet...”

“Yeah, uh, look. I’m just trying to help you guys get out of here. I made a promise, remember? I, uh, owe the Micheal guy my life, technically.” Alicia replies.

“Alicia Grey.” Lightning says. All eyes turn to her.

“Uh… yeah?” Alicia answers.

“Mirage has escaped. I was attempting to track her when I ran into this group of people. Are these the hostages?” Lightning asks.

“Yeah, they are. I was trying to, uh, lead them out of here.” Alicia says. “But… I’m guessing Mirage is gonna try and stop us, huh?”

“We need to leave before Mirage gets here!” The woman in red suddenly blurts out. “I-I… yeah. We’ve-we’ve got to.”

“Relax.” The cowboy says. “We’re getting out of here, no doubt. Besides, no way that Mirage lady can get the drop on us twice.”

The woman in red doesn’t seem convinced; she begins to look around the room anxiously.

“We… we should move. Now.” The archer says, seemingly regaining her composure. “We find the Lanterns, we… we get the hell out of here.”

As soon as she says that, from around the corner, Jessica and Aimeé come from a hallway.

“Oh nice!” Jessica says, flying over to the group. “These are the hostages! We found them! Alright, let’s get out of here. No time for introductions. We lost Mirage, and I don’t want her to find us again. Let’s go people, come on!”

“Wait.” Lightning interrupts. “There is one more person here, that we must find.”

“One more? Who?” The woman in blue asks.

Before Lightning can answer, the room shifts. A laugh is heard above them, and all around, the walls twist and turn, turning into one large room. A man is standing in the center, with a sword through the chest of another man.

“Chilled!” The woman in red cries out, gasping. “I-I… H-How…”

“Stammering? Are you really so consumed with fear?” The voice says. It materializes next to the man. Mirage. “Poor pathetic Emily Green… Or really, poor all of you. You are not escaping. We made the mistake of keeping you alive, afraid the prophecy would be correct, that if we killed you, our empire, our dream, will never come into fruition. But you have caused too much trouble for us. You will all die here. This room will be decorated with your blood.” Mirage’s sick, evil laugh echoes through the chambers.

The man beside her simply grunts, dropping the corpse on the floor, removing the bloodied sword, which held some of the corpse’s intestines. He calmly wipes them off the sword.

“Which one of you shall we kill next I wonder? It all depends on you, after all.” Mirage states, laughing. With that, she waves her hand, and a cloud of dark brown mist begins to head for them, and immediately behind it, the man, sword ready, prepared to fight.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alicia Grey

How can they be losing? Alicia barely manages to teleport out of the way of Mirage’s mist, trying to get a focus on Mirage. She wrapped herself in the mist, not letting Alicia get close. No way Alicia can take on Marcos… so she’s stuck just warping around. She feels so useless.

Marcos was taking on all of her teammates but Emily, who was apparently unaffected by the mist. Every time Emily got close to Mirage, the cloud would simply move, showing Mirage in a different location. Emily lets out a growl of frustration, continuing to try.

The others are losing horribly with Marcos. Lightning was dashing around Marcos quickly, trying to pull focus, but Marcos was good. He predicts Lightning perfectly, and puts his arm out. She hits his arm with a sickening crunch, and falls down, apparently injured in some way. Aimeé was having a hard time creating constructs, so she did her best by shooting beams of violet light at him, which did almost nothing. Jessica was next to her, shouting tips, but Aimeé didn’t seem to notice. Jessica wasn’t trying to hit him with any direct constructs, but keep him on his toes. She would create a springboard construct under his feet to keep him off-balance, but it didn’t work. He just flew off it, and directed himself at Aquagirl, who barely parries his sword with her trident. Aquagirl fights him hand to hand for a while, before he rolls backward, just barely avoiding an arrow from Raven. Chris was in the back, in the process of channeling a spirit, but Marcos knew what Chris was doing. Marcos would go lunge over at Chris, causing Chris to lose his focus, and avoid being beheaded.

“How the hell is this guy doing this?!” Jessica asks, up in the air. She tries another tactic; creating a box construct around him, but Marcos slices his sword easily through it, causing the mist to return to her. Jessica then tries creating a rocket launcher construct, takes aim, and fires it. Raven, Lorena, and Chris dive out of the way to avoid being hit with it. Marcos does react to it, even though his back was to her. He backflips over the rocket, pulling out a pistol, and while in midair, firing two shots at Aimeé and Jessica. Jessica manages to protect them two, by creating a shield construct, which takes the bullets for them.

All this, and Alicia can’t do anything. She tries to teleport around the room, looking for some kind of way out, and maybe help the group retreat, but nothing seems to be here. Nothing. How can she be so useless? As she starts going down this depressive train of thought, something snaps her out of it.

Lorena is thrown on the ground, knocked back by Marcos. An opening. He takes it, striking his sword downward onto her chest. Alicia doesn’t even think about what she does next. She teleports quickly right next to Aquagirl, grabs her hand, and teleports back. Marcos is extremely confused, giving time for Raven to lodge an arrow in his shoulder.

As soon as they reappear behind Marcos, Alicia falls, instantly overwhelmed with fatigue. She collapses next to Lightning, who was in the process of getting back up, slowly. Alicia tries not to pass out from exhaustion right there.

“Gracias, Alicia.” Lorena pants out, the surprise fading from her face. “Why didn’t you tell us that you could teleport other people?” She asks, steading her trident.

“I…” Alicia pants out. She didn’t know she could do it either.

Lorena nods at Lightning. “You okay?” She asks.

“I am fine.” Lightning replies. “My central cortex was somehow damaged when Marcos hit me. I was temporarily unable to use my speed or my electricity. I seem to still be malfunctioning a little, but I will be fine. Thank you for asking.”

“Great.” Lorena says. “We could definitely use you.” Lorena readies her trident, and charges back in to fight Marcos, who was currently in a hand to hand with Raven, with Chris in the back, trying to channel another spirit. He may get it this time. Lightning nods to Alicia, and runs in, trying to slam Marcos to the ground. It doesn’t work. He can somehow sense her coming, and jumps backward, causing Lightning to crash into Raven, sending them stumbling. Then something awful happens.

Marcos pulls out his gun, determined not to let Chris finish channeling his spirit. Just as Chris was about to open his eyes, Marcos fires. It was like everything that happened next was in total slow motion. Lightning was on the ground, and when she got up to try and catch the bullet, Marcos was in front of her going for a strike to the head. She easily manages to dodge it, but the second that that interaction took place, was more than long enough for the bullet to enter Chris’ throat.

“Chris?! No!” Emily yells from across the room. Chris replies with a gurgle, trying to stop the blood from gushing out of his throat. He falls backward, and Lightning quickly catches him, putting her hands on his throat to try and stop the bleeding, but it doesn’t work. No one moves, not even Marcos, who seems to be staring at the death with pleasure. Chris tries to say something to Lightning, motioning towards Emily. He then puts his hand on Lightning’s face. The last thing he’d ever feel was Lightning’s warm metal face, and his eyes glaze over, staring at the android he could no longer see.

“So.” Marcos says suddenly. The enraged heroes turn to him, their eyes burning with the need for vengeance. “Who’s next?” He asks tauntingly.

“No…” Emily says from across the room. A cloud of Mirage’s mist was edging closer to her, but she didn’t care. “No! NO!” A red aura begins to glow around her, and Alicia actually is in awe of the raw power she can feel emitting from Emily.

“THE ONLY PERSON NEXT IS YOU!” Emily yells. The red aura glows brighter, and tendrils extend from it, flying around her back, pushing back the mist, and quickly envelops Marcos and Mirage, pushing them up in the air. “YOU WANT DEATH? HOW ABOUT YOURS?!”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Arcane Kunoichi

Emily doesn’t know how’s she’s doing this. The aura. The anger. But it doesn’t matter to her. The only thing she cares about right now, is killing the murderers of Chilled and Chris. With Marcos and Mirage in Emily’s tendrils, Emily pulls them into an illusion, the best one Emily has ever made.

Marcos appears in his childhood home in Brazil. Emily can’t explain how she knows this. She just does.

Emily was going to make him feel horrible. She was going to make him feel his worst pains, washed over and over and over. Emily feels odd, as if she has no empathy or emotion. All she wants to do is make him feel pain. Whatever form it takes.

Marcos shrinks from an adult to a child. Weirdly, as he shrinks, his hair gets… longer? It grows down to his waist, and his huge muscles turn into small, weak child arms. He begins to whimper, and his face changes as well. It hits Emily like a truck. Marcos was born a girl.

The realization fades quickly from her mind as suddenly, images flash in her mind. Chilled’s corpse. Chris bleeding out. The anger comes back in waves, crashing down on her. It boils inside her, and she forces the illusion to continue.

It must be an old memory or something. A father comes down the stairs, and Marcos tries to hide. The father begins to search for Marcos, until Marcos is found. The father lifts Marcos by the throat, then throws him on the dinner table, which breaks. Marcos doesn’t even cry, instead, his eyes pure hate. The father begins to yell in Portuguese, but somehow, Emily understands everything.

“You little ******* freak! Everywhere we go, we are made fun of! Mocked! Why can’t you just be a normal little girl?!” The father screams, his face literally turning red with anger. Marcos tries to get up, only to be kicked in the throat.

What comes next is indescribable torture. Emily relishes every second, watching Marcos get beat, over and over and over again, until Marcos is so bloodied and mangled it’s impossible to tell if Marcos is even alive. Once the father is finished, he takes the effort to spit on Marcos, then walk away, telling Marcos that the house better be cleaned up when he gets back. The door slams shut, but Emily doesn’t want this torture to end. She forces it to play again, over and over, for what seems like hours, though she knows in the real world, only a few seconds has passed.

Then, Emily decides to turn focus on Mirage.

--------------------------------------------------------

This was particularly fun for Emily. Mirage was aware she was in an illusion, and tried to fight back, but Emily was suddenly way more powerful than Mirage’s pathetic attempts to save herself. Emily gives Mirage the same treatment she gave Marcos; replaying a memory from her past that was sure to haunt her.

Suddenly, Mirage is in some kind of weird temple.

“No!” Mirage yells, looking desperate with fear. “No! Stop!”

Emily doesn’t stop.

The memory plays, and Mirage is forced to play her part, despite her struggles. Mirage is suddenly on a sort of stone slab bed, chained against her will. She struggles, but can’t break free of the leather bindings that held her tightly. Strange, robed men walk into the room, carrying carving knives. They begin to chant in a language that doesn’t translate for Emily. Mirage struggles and screams, but it’s no use. They begin to carve into Mirage. On her chest, stomach, eyes, legs, everywhere they possibly could, creating strange symbols and logos for her. They then back up, standing away from the gorey mess, and chant again. Now, from the top of the temple, a brown mist floats down, and flies into Mirage’s mouth, who then begins to have a sort of seizure. She writhes and screams in pain. This made Emily curious. This must have something to do with Mirage’s powers. She allows the memory to continue, as Mirage begins to go through more and more pain. Emily doesn’t care.

Then, someone puts a hand on her shoulder in real life, and screams “Emily!” into her ear.

The illusion world falls apart, and she’s jarred back into reality. The crimson aura fades from around her, and Mirage collapses, her eyes open in fear and shock. Her unconscious body lies next to Marcos’, who was already on the ground. She turns over to see Raven, who was gripping her shoulder rather tightly.

“Emily, stop. You did it. You beat them.” Raven says quietly.

“I…” Emily stammers. “I don’t know… W-What happened?”

“You… you got really mad. A red aura surrounded you, blinded us. It was extremely bright, we couldn’t see anything. I had to switch to thermals just to touch you and snap you out of it. I don’t know how they looked, but Marcos instantly collapsed, kinda convulsing for a bit, muttering something about revenge. Then, Mirage, she started screaming, as if you were torturing her.” Raven explains.

“It’s… I don’t…” Emily begins.

“It’s fine.” Raven interrupts. “We all lose ourselves.”

“Esta bien!” Lorena chimes in, going over to Emily. “Besides, you beat the bad guys, that’s a plus in my book!”

“Uh…” Alicia says. “I uh… what about Chris and Chilled?”

Lorena loses her smile, and Raven just sighs.

“We’ll give their bodies to their families if we can.” Jessica says suddenly. “I’ll take charge of that. I’ll find out where they can go, and I’ll tell them what happened.”

An awkward silence falls over the room.

“We need to leave.” Lightning says after a moment. Raven jumps, as if surprised, and makes a great effort to look at Lightning. “If we stay, more enemies could arrive. We must retreat while we can. And… Archer. May I speak to you in private, once we have completed the mission?”

Raven clears her throat, nervous. “N-No. I uh. I have something I need to do. Back in Seattle. Urgent. I’m sorry.”

Lorena makes a skeptical “hmph!” sound. “Seriously?” Lorena says. “Who knows how long we’ve been gone. Whatever you have that’s important, probably already passed.”

“Actually…” Jessica chimes in. “Well, Aquagirl was the only person reported missing. I don’t know about all of you, but she was gone for only a week and a half.”

“Look, uh. Can we maybe just… can we talk about this later?” Alicia asks. “It feels… disrespectful. To continue. While they’re here.” She motions towards the corpses.

“Oui.” Aimeé says. “I agree, we should leave.”

No one argues.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Theta Lantern

Jessica didn’t have a great time leaving. She put the bodies of Chilled and Chris in coffin constructs. It took them almost 20 minutes to find the exits, and there, they discussed what they were going to do next. After a bit of conversation, Raven gave them all communicators, which was meant only for the little alliance they all had created. Contact immediately if they find anything to do with The Metas, that was the rule. Weirdly enough, she didn’t give one to Lightning Android. Instead, she gave two to Jessica, and Jessica gave Lightning one. Weird.

Raven and Aquagirl then both left together, deciding to travel through the water to get back to America. Alicia thanked them for everything, which was weird, considering she helped them mostly, not the other way around, but then she teleported away. Lightning said she had things to catch up on, and ran away. Emily told them that she had to go see her mother, and then get back to school. After a few failed spell attempts, she vanished too. That left Jessica and Aimeé, standing at the entrance with Chris and Chilled’s bodies, and the unconscious bodies of Marcos and Mirage.

“Uh… so. Aimeé. I’m thinking, maybe I should get going too… I gotta start looking around for their families. And I gotta put these two in Belle Reve or some super prison like that.” Jessica says. “It was nice meeting you, though. I don’t know much about Sapphires, but I can try and help you learn how to use it.”

“Wait.” Aimeé says, before Jessica leaves. “I can help you with the issue of the bodies, and you can help me with the ring.”

“How so?” Jessica asks. “Don’t tell me… you can time travel. Time travel plus ring powers. Nice!”

Aimeé smiles. “No. No time travel.” She tells Jessica. “I come from a… wealthy family. My grandfather started a Flavor company, and it has helped me do well. I can use my resources and funds to help locate their families.”

“Awesome, but wait, a Flavor company? What’s that, you guys own flavors or something?” Jessica asks.

“Oh, no no. We synthesize flavors, and we add them to foods and drinks and whatnot. We create the flavors for things like Burger King’s burgers, McDonalds fries, and others.” Aimeé informs.

“You telling me that everything I taste just comes from a lab?”

“Well, not everything. Just, some things, most likely.”

“Amazing. Learn a new thing every day.” Jessica says. “Well, I mean, if you want to help, I won’t stop you.”

Aimeé nods. “Fantastic. Then let’s be off. I will drop off the bodies of Chris and Chilled, you should deliver Marcos and Mirage to Belle Reve.”

Jessica grins. “You got it, boss. Though, one thing.”

“Hm?” Aimeé says. “What is it?”

“Well, since you’ve already been captured by the Metas once, and you’ve got a ring, they’re going to try and find you. I recommend you have a secret identity. All the cool heroes got em.” Jessica begins. “You know. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, all of those guys. I mean, I don’t know their secret identities, but I’m pretty sure they’ve got em.”

Aimeé laughs. “So you think I should be a superhero? I suppose I can try that.” Aimeé thinks for a moment, and suddenly, her black and violet suit turns into more of a pink and white suit. On her face, a mask, almost exactly like Jessica’s, forms. Her eyes now glow pink, and she poses.

“Say hello Sylvie Sapphire! Is that a good hero name?” Aimeé says, with a smile on her face.

Jessica laughs, clapping her hands. “Nice to meet you, Sylvie Sapphire! I’m Theta Lantern. Going to be a pleasure working with you!”

Sylvie giggles. “Likewise, Theta Lantern. Now, before I go… can you teach me how to make a construct like yours? So I can transport the bodies safely.”

Jessica nods. “You got it, Sylvie.”

Lightning Android

The memory flashes stopped. After she saw the archer, Lightning knew it was the woman from her corrupted memories. Raven. That was her name. Lightning needs to talk to her again… but not now. If Lightning felt this confused, she can’t imagine how Raven feels.

Before she left the compound, Lightning spend several minutes running around the whole compound. According to Jessica, there was a man, clad totally in black, running around, but Lightning did not find him anywhere. Lightning also couldn’t locate the brown haired girl from when she first arrived, but most importantly, did not find any trace of Simmons. She decided that she would look for him elsewhere, and start back at the bunker of his again. Then, she rejoined the others, and left.

Now, Lightning runs, eventually getting back to Bludhaven. The sun was beginning to peak over the horizon, and even in Bludhaven, a gorgeous pink and golden light was peeking over the horizon, flooding the city with what seems like… hope.

Lightning skids to a stop in front of the store, but it wasn’t open yet. She sighs, then catches herself. Sighing? Lightning has never sighed before… she didn’t even know she could do that expression. Strange. She sits on the ground, legs crossed, waiting. A few hours later, a person comes to open the store, and gives her a strange look.

“I…” The man says.

Lightning stands, brushing dirt off her legs. “Hello. I am Lightning Android. I wish to make a purchase at your store.”

“Oh. Er…” The man says. “Come on in, I guess.”

“Thank you.” Lightning replies, and goes inside, browsing through the games selection, until she comes across one titled “Doom”.

Before the man has even gotten behind the counter, she goes over to him, game in hand.

“I would like to purchase this game.” Lightning tells him.

“Yeah, no problem, I guess.” The man says. “You got the money?”

“Yes.” Lightning answers. Before she had left the base, she had managed to find a stash of money, and gives it all to him. It was well over 5 thousand dollars. “You may keep the change.”

“I… holy ****, thanks!”

“You are welcome.” Lightning replies, and runs out of the store, headed to an internet café. There, she quickly puts the game in the computer, copies it, and inserts it onto a flash drive she found lying around. Once that’s down, she runs out of the café, going back to the bridge, where she finds the head of BH13, lying down, still cranky.

“Look who’s back, hours later!” BH13 exclaims angrily.

“I am sorry. I was caught up in many things. Anthony Simmons was kidnapped by a group called the Metas. I found other prisoners held by the Metas, but I did not find Simmons himself. However, I am no longer in need of repairs.” Lightning informs him, and begins to recount the story in more detail.

After she finishes, BH13 lets out a humph. “Sounds like you had a lot of fun last night!” BH13 tells her. “You better get checked out, you never know if you still need repairs. Better safe than sorry! Did I tell you the story of that droid friend of mine, who died fighting those damn Chinese Metas?”

“Yes.” Lightning replies.

“Good! You need to learn from other people’s mistakes! Hey, what are you doing here anyway? Shouldn’t you be out, playing hero with your new friends? Leave me alone!”

“I have something for you. You said you would get bored. I have brought something to entertain you.”

Lightning picks up BH13, much to his complaint, and plugs the flash drive into a port in the back of his head.

“Hey, wait, is this a game? Killing demons? Murder weapons! Woah, I just ripped a demon in half, bare-handed!” BH13 says. “Thanks, baby droid! You’re not so annoying after all.”

“You are welcome.” Lightning tells him. “I will go play hero with my new friends now, as you wanted. I will be back later.”

“Fine! I’ll just be here, playing this game! It’s really fun!”

“Okay. Goodbye, BH13.” Lightning says. She runs off, prepared to go back to the base in Gotham, prepared to track Anthony Simmons more. As she runs, she thinks about the other heroes, and how they might want to help. It was good to have some kind of… alliance with others.

ALICIA GRAY

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alicia teleports into the jungle, over and over, annoyed at how limited her powers were. She was about to consider calling her dad, who was probably worried sick, and hopefully get a ride out of Guatemala, when a strange man suddenly appears in front of her. Alicia is startled, steps backward, and trips on a root, falling on her butt. She looks up, rubbing her head, at Micheal Santorno.

“Ow!” Alicia exclaims. “Warning, please?”

“Oh relax, not like you were held and tortured for weeks.” Micheal tells her.

“Actually, they were only held for, like, a week and a half.” Alicia informs.

“Of course. I’m assuming you rescued my friend? Seeing as your still alive, I’d wager a yes.” Micheal says.

“Yeah, and by the way, she didn’t seem very happy to know I was sent by you. As a matter of fact, uh, she seemed almost, uh… uh…”

“Yes?” Micheal asks.

“Uh… surprised!” Alicia finally tells him.

“Christ love, you’ve got an absolutely horrid stutter.”

“Shut up!” Alicia snaps, her face turning red.

“Of course, I’m sorry. Anything else somewhat notable happen?”

“Uh… not much. She acted really weird when she saw Lightning, but- “

“I’m sorry, who?” Micheal asks. “You said Lightning. You are of course referring to Lightning, daughter of Black Lightning? Or perhaps Lady Lightning, that hero that buzzes about.”

“Huh? No, she called herself, uh, Lightning Android.” Alicia says.

“You’re joking. Was she somewhat short, golden hair, golden eyes, weird gold circle in her chest?”

“Yeah, that’s her!”

“Oh jesus…” Micheal mutters. “That’s not good.” He puts a hand to his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Not bloody good at all.”

“Uh… why?” Alicia asks.

“Long story, love.” Micheal answers.

“I’ve got time! Well, not really, I, uh, wanna get home. So hurry.”

Micheal sighs. “Alright. Look, I used to work with Raven. Long time ago. We were partners in an organization, called the Universal Order Syndicate.”

“I’ve never heard of it.” Alicia interrupts.

“I’m sorry, do you want to hear the story? Perhaps I explain why you haven’t heard of them, but I cannot do that if you continue to interrupt me.”

“Jeez, alright!”

“Fantastic. So, the reason why you’ve never heard of it, is because it is from another Universe. Me, Raven, and Lightning, are all from another Universe.”

“Like the anti-monitor?” Alicia asks. “I read about him in history!”

“I’m sorry, what did we just discuss? Did we not just agree not to interrupt?” Micheal asks.

“Fine!”

“Excellent! As I was saying, we worked in the same place. But, after a bit of… complications, I left the place. The Universe too. After that, I went down a sort of dark path… started practicing magic, endangering others. The whole crazy supervillain thing.” Micheal pauses, as if waiting for Alicia to say something, but she just looks at him, curious to hear the rest. Micheal clears his throat. “So, Raven is sent to stop me, put me down. She finds that she can’t do it. We both leave THAT Universe, and I come here. She goes to a few others, before ended up being stranded here. Hence why I sent you to go save her, when I found out she was here, and in trouble. If I had gone… she might have wanted to kill me again. Who knows.”

“Wait, how does Lightning fit in here?” Alicia asks.

“Oh, almost forgot about her. So, Lightning. She was a good friend of Raven, like me. Apparently, after I quit, Lightning had gone missing in action. Suppose she ended up here. The bad thing, however. It seems to me, a strange coincidence, that we all ended up here. I think… this might not have been a coincidence. However, that’s a theory for another time. You’ve got to be headed home.”

“Wait, where are you gonna go?” Alicia asks.

“Bloody hell, you’re full of questions, aren’t you?” Micheal answers. “I dunno. Probably to investigate a bit more.”

“You don’t have anywhere to stay?”

“Nah. I just kind of… browse around.”

“You can, uh, stay with me for a while!” Alicia offers.

“I’m sorry, but I am a grown adult. You’ve got to be, what, 14?”

“I’m 16, actually. Sorry for uh, offering then.”

“Look… will your parents be there, at least?” Micheal asks.

“Yeah. I live with my Dad, he’s usually there.” Alicia answers.

“Fantastic. We can ask him. Come on then.”

Micheal offers his arm, and Alicia grabs it. As soon as she does, she appears on her doorstep. Home.

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Arcane Kunoichi

Emily appears a few feet away from her front door. She doesn’t waste a second, opening the door and rushing in.

“Mom? Mom I’m home, you here?” Emily calls out. At first, nothing, but then her Mother’s room door opens. Her mother rushes over, hugging Emily tightly, and Emily hugs back, just as tightly.

“I was so worried…” Her Mother tells Emily, not letting go. “I thought that you were on a school project or something at first, but when Miss Vanlock didn’t come to tell me something after a few days… I started to worry.”

“I-I’m fine Mom, I swear.” Emily breaks the hug, holding her Mother’s hands. “I… I got caught in a sort of adventure… so to speak.”

“As the Kunoichi? I thought you retired that, so you could focus on studies!” Her Mother says.

“No, no, not as the Kunoichi. It was… I better tell you.” Emily sits her Mom down, and tells her the whole story. Emily can’t help but tear up as she remembers Chilled and Chris dying. Her mother grips Emily’s hands tightly.

“I’m glad you got away… at least those other heroes are on it. You’re going to stay home until you and I feel that you’re ready to go back to school. You take your time. Do you want me to find a therapist?” Her Mother asks.

Emily laughs, wiping away a tear. “Mom, we don’t have the money for a therapist. I’ll be okay if I just stay with you for a few days.”

“Alright, whatever you need. I’ll make you some breakfast.” Her Mother says.

“I can help, just… let me shower real quick.” Emily offers.

“No, you rest. You need it.”

“But Mom- “

“Emily Green!” Her Mother tells her with that motherly attitude.

“Alright Mom…” Emily accepts, a smile forming on her face, and goes to her room, laying down, and for the first time in a long time, naps comfortably.

#Amatuer writing #Writing #Fanfiction #DC Fanfiction #DC #DC Comics #Aquagirl #Lorena Marquez #Green Lantern #Green Arrow

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