Here for your consideration is Part 1 of 3 of

By Marcus Mebes

Edited by Green Lantern

Chapter One: Trial by Fire… and Ice, and Starbolt, and Plasma Force.


“They’re up there, on the fourth floor,” spoke the young man’s voice in a hushed whisper. A finger pointed upward, and all five of the people gathered in the dark shadow cast by the dilapidated building gazed upward. No light from the dingy streetlights illuminated their faces. They preferred it that way, and were grateful for the cover.

“There are three of them,” added an older, female voice. Her fingertips touched her temples, brushing away a stray lock of long, straight hair that had fallen into her face. “Two children, and… and HIM.”

“They’re scared,” said the first voice, “but it’s like… they’re numb, too. Like they’re used to it.” He choked as he spoke, his emotion betraying him.

“This is what we’ve been training for, friends,” said another voice; an older, exotic-tinted male voice. His accent was subtle, yet distinguished. “I am ready, but I will follow your lead.” He addressed the first speaker as he made the comment.

“As will I,” added another accented voice. She had always been the leader of whatever team she was on, though she recognized the leadership abilities of the younger man with them. It was he that came to her husband and her, to inform them of their son’s disappearance. And though they spent months searching for him, and training with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, they were unable to find any trace of her missing son. Her respect was deep for the small team’s leader, and she followed him without a second thought.

A pale hand squeezed his arm, and the young man knew that his aunt was fully with him as well. “Thanks, Aunt Toni,” he said as he steeled himself for what they were about to encounter.

“I am ready,” spoke Omen’s voice from beneath her dark hood. Lilith Clay Jupiter clasped her hands together and began quietly chanting, forcing herself to summon the ability to create a portal. It was not as easy for her as it was for Lukas—with his soul-self—but it was also more efficient. Rather than going into his soul self and stepping out of it, with the big shadowy shape alerting the predator that they were hunting; her teleportation would place them immediately in front of their prey. They needed that advantage. Besides, even without her teleportation skills, Lukas needed to conserve as much strength as he could. His healing abilities would come into to play heavily.







No, this would not be easy… not that it ever was. When the Crisis—the first one—came and wiped out histories and changed events, Lilith had been trapped in a Mount Olympus that ceased to exist. The Olympian gods were too powerful to fade from existence altogether; but their reality was no longer… real. The gods and demi-gods eventually merged with their counterparts, but Lilith did not have a counterpart. Incorporeal, she did the best she could to reach out to her teammates. She sent an astral projection of herself to contact them, but it became confused, thinking it was her… calling itself “Omen” and absorbing the personalities of her teammates. After getting killed by one of the Superman robots, the astral projection faded from existence, and the energy that Lilith spent was returned to her. After the many years of nonexistence, the extra energy was enough to give her the power to pull herself into reality. Lilith was herself again, but she had to re-learn the skills she had as Omen. Thus, though she could teleport herself and others, it was no small task.

“What the hell?” screamed a low, foul voice as the five members of the Titans of Justice Task Force materialized in the dingy, dirty apartment. “Aw shi—” the speaker was cut off as a giant silvery-blue battering ram slammed into his chest, knocking him against a wall. The sheetrock crumbled, showering him with dusty debris.

Coughing, the man extracted himself from the broken wall and raised himself to his feet. “Oh, big mistake little lady,” he said, coughing and wiping his eyes with the back of his wrist. “BIG mistake!” With one fell swoop, he tore off the remaining wall and sent it flying at the five intruders. With not a second to spare, Argent raised a shield that stopped the flying chunk of wall and sent it crashing to the floor.

“Celsius! Palomé!” cried out Wildfire as he rose into the air, glowing with fire. He moved next to Lilith and Argent, ready to attack their assailant. “Protect the children. We’ll handle this filth!”

Baran Flinders, the Fearsome Five member known as Mammoth, growled in feral viciousness, angry that these so-called “heroes” had the audacity to interfere. “You have no right!” he growled, convinced of his self-righteousness.

“There is nothing to be gained in arguing with him,” came Palomé’s telepathic instruction to the rest of the team. “Talking is pointless with this guy. Just take him down!”

“Oh, dear God,” whispered Lilith as she and Palomé pulled back the covers of a large, king-sized bed and discovered the two children that Mammoth had chained to the bed. Both of them—a boy and a girl—were covered with lacerations and bruises and nothing else, and scars that indicated that they had been held captive here for months… perhaps even longer. Her mind, already opened from her skills as a precognitive, began to see the horrors that Mammoth had inflicted upon and inside of them.

“Fight it,” ordered Palomé through gritted teeth. Silently, he spoke telepathically to her. “I need you to keep it together, Aunt Lil. These kids have been through hell, and you falling apart won’t help them.” He smiled comfortingly at them, but noticed that they were too lethargic and weak to even register alarm at their presence, and at the riot that was occurring mere feet from them.

“Heal them,” urged Lilith, glancing over her shoulder to see Argent, Wildfire, and Celsius battling the enraged Mammoth.

“This isn’t like those kids in Detroit,” communicated the young man telepathically. He gently placed his hands on both children’s heads, beginning to draw their pains and injuries into himself. “Get them out of those chains,” he instructed as he began his work. Continuing his previous thought, he added, “They’re not just scared and hungry… they’ve been… they’ve… He’s…” Palomé fought the urge to vomit as his soul-self revealed to him the horrors that Baran Flinders had inflicted upon the two children.

“They can’t be more than twelve years old,” echoed Lilith as she used her telekinesis to burst open the locks and chains around the children.

“How DARE you!?” roared Mammoth’s voice as he took notice of the two cloaked figures and what they were doing. With a ferocious roar, he barreled past Argent, Wildfire and Celsius, scattering them to the floor as he prepared to throttle Lilith and Lukas.

The former prince of Tamaran saw the children that they had come to rescue, and saw the scars all over their bodies before Lilith covered them up with the bed sheets. “Foul MONSTER!” screamed Wildfire, throwing out his hands and sending forth a starbolt that burst Mammoth’s head into flames. “On my planet, children and the elderly are revered equally. I cannot understand how you could… how y-you…” Starfire’s younger brother could not finish as his voice was choked with sobs. Tears of rage streamed down his cheeks as he held nothing back in his attack.

Mammoth fell to his knees, clutching at the fireball that was his head, screaming in agony.

“Ryan,” muttered Argent, pulling herself up next to her teammate. “Stop… you’re k-killing him.” She could see the horror on Lilith’s face as she pulled Lukas and the two children into a portal and disappeared from the dilapidated hovel. “You’re a pastor, for goodness’ sake. STOP!”

“Oh, dear Lord Jesus,” whispered the orange-skinned alien. Shaking, he pulled his hands under his arms and doubled over in despair. “What have I d-done?”

Taking control of the situation, Arani Caulder sent a burst of ice from one hand, and placed her other hand behind it, turning the ice into a stream of warm water that doused the flames around Mammoth’s head.

Smoldering, Mammoth fell forward onto the floor, barely holding himself up with his massive hands. “I will destroy you!” he screamed in a broken voice, his lungs, tongue, and vocal cords burned from the flames.

***


Outside, in the dark alley where they had emerged, Palomé and Lilith crouched over the two children. “Please hurry,” urged Lilith as Lukas continued to draw the pain and misery from the boy and the girl.

“C-contact the Center,” muttered the healer as his body writhed, suffering the pains that Mammoth had inflicted on the children. Though wracked with excruciating pain and degradation, he trained his eyes on the boy and spoke. “Y-you’re going home, Jason.” He looked at the girl, whose eyes were open, and regaining focus as what felt like decades of torture were excised from her body. “Hannah,” he said to her, “you and your b-brother are g-going home. T-tonight.” Palomé clenched his eyes shut against the pain as he suffered through the countless rapes, beatings, and starvation that the siblings had endured. “G-God,” he blurted out in agony. “My God!” Lukas could not control the agonized tears that fell onto the children’s faces, and he nearly collapsed on top of them as he pushed his empathic abilities to the limit.

“You can do it,” encouraged Lilith as she pulled a cell-phone from the folds of her cloak and called their liaison at the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “Alanna. We have the Masons’ children,” she said in a controlled, steady voice. “Yes. Th-they’re alive. Yes.” After a pause, listening to their contact, she answered, “Baran Flinders. Mammoth, from the Fearsome Five. No,” she added, “I don’t know. Argent, Wildfire, and Celsius are still in there with him.” She listened again, and looked at Palomé, who fell backwards and lay back on the greasy asphalt of the dark alley. “I understand,” she said to Alanna, their contact at the Center. “We’ll be there momentarily.”

Hanging up, Lilith knelt next to her teammate and the roused children. “I only have enough strength for them,” she said to Palomé, indicating Jason and Hannah Mason.

Lukas Driscoll peered upward at the building beyond the alley and across the street from them. He could see bursts of flame, sheets of ice, barrages of silvery plasma, and the zap of starbolts as their teammates continued to try to subdue Mammoth. “Do it,” he said dismissively to Lilith. “Take them. I’ll be all right.” Turning his head to Lilith, who had her arms tightly around the children’s shoulders, he shouted. “DO IT!!”

* * *


The battle raged on. Once Ryand’r had recovered from his shock, he once again assaulted Mammoth with his powerful starbolts. Argent formed as many battering rams, cannons, shackles, and chains as she could to subdue the behemoth, but he continued to break free and endure her attacks. Celsius had long since dispatched with holding back, and blasted him with fire and ice at the same time. Despite giving him frostbite in his fingers and his nose, Mammoth was so frenzied that the damage no longer fazed him.

Few other people resided in the ramshackle apartment building in this rundown part of town, but those that were there had fled in terror as the ceilings above them and the walls around them began toppling.

“We should have cleared out the others before we came in here!” cried out Wildfire. He was upset, and disappointed in himself and his teammates that they neglected to do that. The safety of the other people in the building was just as important as rescuing the children that Mammoth had abducted. “Koriand’r would never have been this stupid,” he thought to himself.

“It cannot be helped,” hissed Celsius through her gritted teeth. “What’s done is done. We will know better next time! Ganesh!” she swore loudly as a chunk of wall flung at them cut deeply into the flesh of her arm.

“Next time?” echoed Mammoth, grasping at words and not understanding their context. He was beyond reasonable thought now, and lashed out any way he could. “Shouldn’t you be at the Quicky Mart selling slushies with Jinx?” He laughed maniacally. “You Indians don’t belong in this country!”

“Watch your words, Australian,” retorted the Desi heroine. She knew from their research that Baran Flinders was a native of Australia; and that he and his sister had spent time in Markovia, same country that former Titan Terra and Justice Leaguer Geo-Force were from. She sent a stream of ice that congealed over his face, freezing his mouth shut and closing up his nose.

Mammoth struggled, desperately trying to break the ice off his face so he could breathe. Argent took the opportunity to hit him with a silver plasma battering ram, while Wildfire sent a full-force starbolt into the villain’s chest. Mammoth went flying backward from the brunt of their onslaught, breaking through the wall and falling downward toward the street below.

From where he sat, collecting his wits and regaining his strength and composure, Palomé witnessed the blast that sent Mammoth hurtling out of the apartment. He saw that those who had fled the building were hiding in the shadowy doorframes of nearby buildings, or else had run away. “Good,” he whispered, sending his soul-self out to catch the falling behemoth. “Enough!” he added, still whispering, as Baran Flinders was absorbed into the inky blackness of his soul-self. Closing his eyes, Palomé concentrated on transporting Mammoth to Belle Reve prison, where a titanium-reinforced cell was waiting for him.

* * *


In the days that followed, and after they had recovered from their conflict with Mammoth, the Titans of Justice Task Force continued their quest to locate missing and exploited children. Though few if any of the predators were super-villains, they all needed to be stopped.

“There is no worse crime than hurting a child,” murmured Toni Monetti as she and her teammates sat together in a locker room at the headquarters of the Center. Their special abilities gave them the advantage in tracking runaways and kidnap victims, and in dealing with the pedophiles and abductors that hurt them. The locker room was a dramatic change from the fine lounges and clubs that she frequented as a super-model, but the dreariness did not bother her.

“The rest of this world is focused on global warming, pollution, white collar crime, felonies, terrorism…” commented Ryand’r as he dressed himself in a tee shirt and sweatpants. “This is my world now, but I still remember my first home… Where we had problems like those, as well. But never, EVER, did anyone even fathom hurting a child. We all agree that it is the worst crime imaginable… and surely the rest of the world does, as well…”

“But it’s embarrassing and dirty,” concluded Arani Caulder as she stepped out from behind a stall, dressed in a traditional Indian sari, her hair tied tightly back.

“Got tired of the ‘Bollywood’ look?” asked Toni, ever fashion conscious.

The older Indian woman smiled and nodded politely to her teammate. She repeated herself. “It is a dirty, embarrassing problem and the world would rather ignore it than admit that it fails to deal with it. And as long as there are people on this world, there will be those that want to hurt others. Perhaps we could find a way to deal with the cause of the problem as well as the result.”

“What do you mean?” asked Lilith, who had changed into a green turtleneck sweater and matching miniskirt. She was too exhausted to put on the boots she had pulled from her locker, and just left them on the floor.

Arani placed the palms of her hands together in front of her chest and bowed her head. “It is a greater task, and a greater challenge, but if anyone should confront it, it is us. What I mean,” she said, replying to Lilith’s question, “is that… maybe we can find a way to stop people from hurting children, BEFORE they do it.”

“That IS a big challenge,” stated Toni softly. She gently caressed Lukas’ hair as he lay with his head on her lap. She felt a motherly protection for her orphaned nephew, despite his sudden leap in years and his leadership of their task force. She knew that Ryand’r shared the same parental love for their leader, having helped to raise him as his uncle.

“We’d have to change the way people think and act,” murmured Lukas as he stared up at the ceiling. The Center afforded them lockers, small rooms with cots if they needed them, meals and showers, and nothing much else. Yet they still felt more fulfilled and satisfied than when they were members of the Titans and the Doom Patrol. “Do we have the right to affect the way people think?” he asked, turning his gaze toward Mrs. Caulder. “I mean, I could do that if I wanted to…”

“As could I,” added Lilith.

“…but would it be right?”

“Or ethical?” echoed Ryand’r, ever the philosopher. “God gave us free will, and though we can educate people, and hope to help them make better choices, we cannot force our will upon them. No one has that right.”

Arani Caulder nodded thoughtfully, and headed to the exit of the locker room. “We are agreed then, that finding a solution to the cause of the problem is a great challenge. At least we can continue to work toward finding and helping the children.” She smiled encouragingly at her teammates, and looked forward to the day that they were all given to relax. “I am going for a walk by the lake, to feed the ducks.” She gestured toward the door. “You can stay in here and be sad, or you can join me.”

“I’ll join you,” spoke up Ryand’r after he closed the locker containing his Tamaranean armor. He glanced meaningfully at his teammates, noticing that Lilith had finally mustered the energy to push her feet into the green go-go boots.

“Me too,” added Lukas as he jumped up from the bench. Dressed in an old tee-shirt and baggy jeans, the healer dragged his two aunts by the hands as they all left the gloomy locker room to face the sunshine outside. “We’ll get back to work Thursday.”

Arani Caulder smiled as she led the team into the park adjoining the Center, but her smile faded somewhat as she realized that the predators who they hunted were not likely taking a day off.

End Chapter One.
If you like this story, I'll consider continuing it after the three issues.