Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2015 5:34:09 GMT -5
Titans of Justice Unlimited #13 – “Guest List”
Written by: Power Guy
Edited by Green Lantern
The Wonder-condo, Gateway City…
“You have obviously LOST YOUR MIND!” shouted Wonder Girl, pointing her index finger in Wonder Man’s face. She was floating so that she was eye-level with the tall Themysciran prince.
“But if you allowed the Amazons of this world to use the Purple Healing Ray on you, you could take off your belt and live life as a civilian, maybe even finish high school,” pointed out Wonder Man, trying to talk some sense in to the young girl.
“How stupid do you think I am???” spat the escapee from the Universe of Evil. “I know what you’re trying to do. You want me to meet your mother. Well, it ain’t happening. I don’t care how sweet and nice you say she is, she’s another version of the twisted witch that left me to burn in that building fire, leaving me crippled and hideous.”
“But she wants to help you,” insisted Wonder Man, compassionately. “We all do.”
“Look, I appreciate everything that you and Wonder Warrior have done for me but I am not meeting your mother,” Wonder Girl stated firmly. “If she’s even the slightest bit like my older sister, she’s a MONSTER.”
“But she’s nothing like your sister,” Wonder Man replied, hoping to help his young protégé’ understand.
“Says you!” snapped Wonder Girl, “I’m outta here….” she said, flying out the window.
“What a little brat,” Wonder Man said, shaking his head. “I know she’s hurting but she’s so stubborn…
…and I’m a miserable parent,” he added with a sigh
Just then, Wonder Man’s cell-phone rang. “Scott here…Jerrica!” he said with a grin.
“Hey babe,” greeted Jemstone. “Miss me?”
“How could I not?” questioned Scott Trevor. “How’s the shoot going?”
“Great!” answered Jerrica Benton. “They finally picked a shot for the album cover. Now we just have to take a few more pics to fill out the booklet. How did things go with Wonder Girl?”
“Horrible…she just took off,” replied the male Amazon glumly.
“Tell me what happened,” requested Jemstone.
A few minutes later…
“…and then she flew out the window to Zeus knows where,” explained Wonder Man. Just then, Wonder Man heard a noise coming from the other room where Wonder Girl had exited. “Jerrica, I think she’s back. Let me call you back in a few.”
“Donna, I’m glad you came,” began the fashion celebrity spoke as he entered the room, but his heart was filled with anger when he saw who had invaded his home.
“Deathstroke! I don’t know what you’re doing here but you’re soon going to regret it!” he said as he swung his fist at the highly paid mercenary.
Slade Wilson jumped into the air and grabbed Wonder Man’s shoulders, using them to hurl himself further into the air to put some distance in between himself and his target.
“Still pretty fast, huh?” observed Wonder Man. “How’s that possible at your age? You should be pushing seventy by now,” he said, spinning around to face his adversary.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but let’s just say I’ve had a few more experiments done on me,” revealed the Terminator as he pulled out a machine gun and started firing it at Wonder Man.
Using the speed of Hermes, the blonde prince quickly obliged Deathstroke in a deadly game of bullets and bracelets. The sound of shattering glass filled the room as deflected bullets showered about the room. After a few moments one of them struck the Terminator’s leg, causing him to momentarily lose balance and drop his weapon.
“SON OF A...” shouted the Terminator.
“Show’s over, old man,” Wonder Man said, lifting a plush leather couch over his head.
Before Deathstroke could react the couch hit him with the force of a small car, knocking him over and pinning him to the ground.
Wonder Man noticed that Deathstroke wasn’t moving at all. “Hmm…must have hit him in the head,” he said as he walked over to where the Terminator lay. “Looks like you’re not the big, bad, unbeatable force you used to be,” he said, lifting the couch off of the assassin and throwing it to the side.
As he looked down, he noticed Deathstroke was already sitting up with a small gun pointed at him, “It’s called ‘playing possum,’ meathead!” he said as he fired his gun.
“You think that thing will stop me when the machine gun couldn’t?” Wonder Man said cockily as he crossed his wrists, bracelets shimmering.
The solitary bullet struck Wonder Man’s gauntlet but instead of bouncing off it, the bullet stuck to it. A small line of string with what appeared to be a suction-cup shot out and stuck to his other bracelet.
“Wha….” Wonder Man wondered in confusion. All of a sudden, a current shot through the string and into Wonder Man’s body, violently electrocuting him. “ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!” he screamed right before he dropped to the floor unconsciousness.
“One down, fifteen to go,” the man known as Slade Wilson said, congratulating himself.
***
St. Roch, LA…
A shadowy figure viewed the silhouettes of two birdlike figures flying against the starry evening sky.
“Don’t you miss home, Shayera?” asked Strato Hawk, his eyes darting around the city, scaning for trouble.
“I do, but it’s one of the necessary sacrifices in exchange for being trained to be a hero,” answered Shayera Hol.
“I admire your dedication,” complimented Strato Hawk. “The Titans and I are committed to training you to be the best warrior and heroine you can possibly be.”
“And that’s why I sought you guys out,” explained Hawkgirl. “Back on Thanagar, I heard many tales of grandeur about your team. Then when Starman and the Arachnid came and liberated our planet from the High Chancellor, it was like a calling to me. I couldn’t help but pick up where my Aunt Shayera had left off.” Before the winged alien could continue, reality started to warp. Colors both bright and dark started to flash all around them. Vertigo and nausea took over the new-age Hawks, causing them to drop out of the sky. Luckily for the duo, the Nth Metal protected them and not a single bone was broken.
“That was almost too easy,” smiled a well-dressed middle age man, holding a familiar device.
Hawkgirl was out cold from the fall. A blurry-visioned Strato Hawk struggled to pick himself up. He squinted to make out the form of the man standing before him.
“The Angle Man! What are you doing here?” demanded the winged avenger.
“Gift-wrapping you for my employer,” smiled the archenemy of Wonder Woman. “Now I suggest you lay down and shut your eyes because the ride’s about to get real bumpy,” he said firing his Angler at full power toward Strato Hawk.
***
An old abandoned apartment building in Dallas, TX…
“Thank you for coming, Atmosphere!” greeted a police officer as the master of the wind lowered himself to the ground.
“Don’t mention it,” replied Atmosphere, “So what’s the situation?”
“Well, we got a call that there’s a man up on the fourth floor of the building threatening to kill himself,” started the officer. “He says if anyone enters the building, he’ll shoot himself immediately. He asked to see you, so we contacted you.”
“Me? Why would he want to see me?” Atmosphere asked curiously.
“Well you are the city’s…make that the entire region’s premier hero,” answered the officer in pride. “Perhaps he idolizes you the same way so many people around these parts do?”
“…oh,” said Atmosphere, blushing faintly under his mask. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll see what I can do,” he said as he headed into the building.
After making his way up to the fourth floor, he called out, “Sir? It’s Atmosphere.”
“I know who you are,” called a male voice with a thick Hispanic accent from within the darkness.
“I’m here at your request,” said the leader of the Rangers. “How can I help you keep on living?”
“I just need one thing,” started the man whose silhouette became slightly visible in the darkness. “I need you to DIE!!!” growled the stranger as he leaped onto Atmosphere and sank his teeth into the air-powered hero.
“ARRRGGHHH!!” Atmosphere screamed in pain. “Copperhead! But we just put you away a few weeks ago.”
“You mean you put US away,” came a second voice in arrogance. The twin Copperhead whipped his thick tail towards Atmosphere’s legs and knocked him over. “Let’s get him!”
The Copperhead twins dog-piled on Atmosphere and proceeded to beat him relentlessly.
A fist hit Atmosphere’s jaw then another was plunged into his stomach.
“How do you like being ganged up on, you filthy hero???” asked one of the twins angrily.
“It’s not going to be that easy boys,” said Atmosphere defiantly as he released a windblast knocking the snake-themed villains away. As he stood up, he noticed he was starting to become a bit dizzy. “Whoa…what’s going on?” he said, trying to balance himself.
“It’s called venom, you idiot,” one of the twins informed as he whacked Atmosphere in the head with his tail.
Atmosphere dropped to the ground without any further resistance. “Can barely see…” he mumbled, trying to focus.
“Let me remedy that for you,” the other Copperhead twin said as ripped off part of the stairway railing and beat Atmosphere over the head with it, rendering him unconscious. “Well that was the easiest fifty grand we've ever made. Let’s bring him to the boss-man.”
***
The Laboratory of Jason Hardwick, Ivy Town
Jason Hardwick the man known as Nucleus grew back to normal size after analyzing a new strand of the cold virus. “This one’s going to be nasty if it hits the public,” Nucleus said to himself. “Good thing Latavia’s on vacation with her parents in Maui for the next two weeks.”
“And it’s too bad that you’ll never see her again,” came an unfamiliar voice from seemingly nowhere.
“Who’s there?” demanded Nucleus, looking around frantically.
“I hope you called this Latavia this morning because you’re never going to see her again,” advised the voice. “You know it was really dumb of you to practically reveal your secret identity when you faced Chronos several months back. He knew why you freaked out so badly at that man’s house you two were fighting in front of. He had no problem spilling the beans to the rest of the super-villain community.”
“Who are you and where are you hiding?” Nucleus asked searching through the closets and storage spaces.
“Why, I’m right under your nose,” said the voice as something hard struck Jason Hardwick from below his nostrils.
“Ugh!!!” yelled Nucleus as he was knocked backwards and knocked over several test tubes.
As he steadied himself, he saw his attacker grow from microscopic size into the size of a full grown human. His attacker wore a silver armor with what looked liked a bulls-eye on his chest. “Who are you and what do you want???”
“The name’s the Sizematic and I’m just here to collect a paycheck,” the villain said as he punched Nucleus in the face. His armored fist hit the protégé of the Atom hard, causing him to spit out blood.
“So you can shrink like me, huh?” Nucleus said as he grew to thirty feet tall. “Bet your employer didn’t know that I recently upgraded my belt to allow me to grow without Chronos’ technology!” he said as he socked the former Teen Titans villain in the jaw.
“Oh, he’s aware,” the Sizematic said as he shot up to fifty feet tall, “Which is why he thought I was perfect for the job.” Raising his left leg, he dropped it down on the size-altering hero with brute force. The blow from the Sizematic’s armored boot was too much for Nucleus to bare, especially with the villain’s increased mass. Jason Hardwick was down for the count almost instantly.
***
Gotham City
Power Guy streaked through the crisp, evening air. As a Kryptonian, the frigid air didn’t bother him in the slightest. Nearing his destination, he saw the person he was there to meet: Green Lantern. He quickly landed on the roof and greeted his teammate, “Hey GL, what’s the emergency and why are you in Gotham?”
“Hi, PG! Thanks for coming,” replied the green Guardian. “We have a most critical emergency on our hands. Several of our teammates have been kidnapped by various super-villains. I asked you to come here so we could meet with the Bat-family and figure out a plan to save our friends. They should be here any minute.”
“We’re already here,” Nightvision said as he, the Huntress, and Blackbird stepped out of the shadows.
“As I was telling Power Guy, several of our friends have been kidnapped,” began Green Lantern. “Climb in, I’ll fill you in along the way,” he said, forming a green bubble with his ring.
As the new-age Bat-family climbed in the power-bubble, the Huntress asked, “How did you find out about this, Lantern, and do you know who’s behind it?”
Once the three heroes were securely inside the sphere, Green Lantern revealed, “How did I find out about this? I helped organize it!” he exclaimed gleefully as he morphed into False Face.
His left arm, which formed the “power-bubble” around the three heroes started shaking back and forth wildly.
“The air’s getting thin,” noticed Blackbird. “He’s trying to suffocate us.”
“Let them out False Face or I swear I’ll melt you into a pool of mud!” ordered Power Guy, his eyes blazing from his heat-vision. “You can’t possibly take all four of us alone.” Without warning, a projectile struck Power Guy in the back. “Aaaaackkk!!” he groaned.
“But he’s not alone, In fact he’s got some help…MY kind of help,” Deathstroke said revealing himself. “And that Kryptonite bullet I just put in your back is just what the doctor ordered.”
Power Guy’s entire body was burning. Every single one of his muscles ached as sweat poured profusely out of his body. Soon, he found it difficult to stand and braced himself against the side of a building.
“Feeling weak?” asked Deathstroke. “Don’t worry, this will all be over soon,” he gloated as he jabbed the Kryptonian hero in the stomach with his battle-staff, knocking him over. He then swung his staff into the young hero’s head repeatedly until he passed out.
Meanwhile in the bubble made of clay, the Huntress had passed out from lack of oxygen. Nightvision and Blackbird were close to suffering the same fate when Nightvision pulled his Bat-laser out of his utility-belt and cut a hole through the clumpy substance. “Looks like this isn’t going to be the walk in the park you thought it was, False Face,” Nightvision said as he and Blackbird stepped out of the bubble.
Blackbird, who was carrying the Huntress, noticed that False Face had a partner on this job, “Deathstroke. So you’re behind this!”
“Not quite, red,” countered the assassin. “I’m just hired help like False Face here.”
“Well you’re never going to cash your check, Slade,” Nightvision said throwing a Bat-arang at the one-eyed villain.
The Terminator leaped out of the way with ease, “Sloppy. Your old man would be quite disappointed.
Blackbird set the Huntress down and threw a bola around the Terminator, “That was a distraction, here’s the real trap!”
“False Face, we don’t have time for this,” an irritated Deathstroke pointed out.
“You got that right,” the morphing villain said as he turned his hands into two giant sledgehammers and struck both Nightvision and Blackbird with them, knocking the two heroes out cold. He then proceeded to gather up Power Guy and the Huntress.
“Sorry, Robin Jr., you and your girlfriend aren’t on the guest-list,” the Terminator said, looking down at the fallen heroes.
Hours later, the Huntress awoke. Feeling woozy, she instinctively discerned that she had been sedated. She noticed she was locked in a think glass tube with some type of mechanism attached to the top. With mounting horror, she scanned the room to find several other tubes filled with her teammates: Power Guy, Wonder Man, Strato Hawk, Hawkgirl, Atmosphere, Dark Arrow, Flash, Green Lantern, Nucleus, Powerstorm, Sargona, Sonic Boom, and Whirlpool, plus two other heroes she had never met before. One of them she recognized as Offspring, Plastic Man’s son and the other she was unfamiliar with but she looked like she could be the daughter of the Martian Manhunter. “What the heck is going on here?!?!?!” she exclaimed.
“I’ll be happy to answer that question,” answered a voice that was unfamiliar to the young vigilante.
The Huntress turned to see Professor Ivo standing in front of her tube with a huge smile on his face.
“So, False Face was working with you!” assumed the Dark Knight’s daughter.
“No, False Face and the others were working FOR me,” revealed Ivo.
“What do you want from us, Ivo?” asked Green Lantern. “We’ve never done anything to you.”
“Oh, but you have,” countered the professor. “You destroyed my greatest creation! You and your cursed teammates destroyed my beloved Amazo! But now, now you’re all going to pay. You see there’s a method to my madness. You see, most of you are the offspring of the original Justice League. There were a few Leaguers who never had children, like the second Flash, Elongated Man, and Red Tornado. Unfortunately, Aquaman’s only son was killed at an early age so I had to improvise in some cases, hence the reason why the female Flash, Offspring, Atmosphere, and Whirlpool are here. They were the closest matches.”
Sargona then asked, “What am I doing here, ugly? I’m not related to any of the Justice Leaguers. Oh wait…silly me. My grandfather was an honorary member of the team. Never mind,” she said cattily.
“On the contrary my dear,” started Professor Ivo. “You are the daughter of one of the most powerful Justice Leaguers ever. My d.n.a. identifier recognizes you as the daughter of Zatanna.”
“But that’s impossible,” Sargona said in disbelief, “My mother was killed when I was an infant and Zatanna is still alive and well.”
“My sensors do not lie, foolish girl,” argued Ivo. “Now all of you brace yourselves, it’s time to create Fantasto!” Ivo said, pulling a lever on a machine in front of him. The machine immediately hummed with energy as the tubes containing the captive Titans of Justice began to vibrate. Soon, a strange energy filled them and entered the Titans’ bodies….
TO BE CONTINUED
Written by: Power Guy
Edited by Green Lantern
The Wonder-condo, Gateway City…
“You have obviously LOST YOUR MIND!” shouted Wonder Girl, pointing her index finger in Wonder Man’s face. She was floating so that she was eye-level with the tall Themysciran prince.
“But if you allowed the Amazons of this world to use the Purple Healing Ray on you, you could take off your belt and live life as a civilian, maybe even finish high school,” pointed out Wonder Man, trying to talk some sense in to the young girl.
“How stupid do you think I am???” spat the escapee from the Universe of Evil. “I know what you’re trying to do. You want me to meet your mother. Well, it ain’t happening. I don’t care how sweet and nice you say she is, she’s another version of the twisted witch that left me to burn in that building fire, leaving me crippled and hideous.”
“But she wants to help you,” insisted Wonder Man, compassionately. “We all do.”
“Look, I appreciate everything that you and Wonder Warrior have done for me but I am not meeting your mother,” Wonder Girl stated firmly. “If she’s even the slightest bit like my older sister, she’s a MONSTER.”
“But she’s nothing like your sister,” Wonder Man replied, hoping to help his young protégé’ understand.
“Says you!” snapped Wonder Girl, “I’m outta here….” she said, flying out the window.
“What a little brat,” Wonder Man said, shaking his head. “I know she’s hurting but she’s so stubborn…
…and I’m a miserable parent,” he added with a sigh
Just then, Wonder Man’s cell-phone rang. “Scott here…Jerrica!” he said with a grin.
“Hey babe,” greeted Jemstone. “Miss me?”
“How could I not?” questioned Scott Trevor. “How’s the shoot going?”
“Great!” answered Jerrica Benton. “They finally picked a shot for the album cover. Now we just have to take a few more pics to fill out the booklet. How did things go with Wonder Girl?”
“Horrible…she just took off,” replied the male Amazon glumly.
“Tell me what happened,” requested Jemstone.
A few minutes later…
“…and then she flew out the window to Zeus knows where,” explained Wonder Man. Just then, Wonder Man heard a noise coming from the other room where Wonder Girl had exited. “Jerrica, I think she’s back. Let me call you back in a few.”
“Donna, I’m glad you came,” began the fashion celebrity spoke as he entered the room, but his heart was filled with anger when he saw who had invaded his home.
“Deathstroke! I don’t know what you’re doing here but you’re soon going to regret it!” he said as he swung his fist at the highly paid mercenary.
Slade Wilson jumped into the air and grabbed Wonder Man’s shoulders, using them to hurl himself further into the air to put some distance in between himself and his target.
“Still pretty fast, huh?” observed Wonder Man. “How’s that possible at your age? You should be pushing seventy by now,” he said, spinning around to face his adversary.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but let’s just say I’ve had a few more experiments done on me,” revealed the Terminator as he pulled out a machine gun and started firing it at Wonder Man.
Using the speed of Hermes, the blonde prince quickly obliged Deathstroke in a deadly game of bullets and bracelets. The sound of shattering glass filled the room as deflected bullets showered about the room. After a few moments one of them struck the Terminator’s leg, causing him to momentarily lose balance and drop his weapon.
“SON OF A...” shouted the Terminator.
“Show’s over, old man,” Wonder Man said, lifting a plush leather couch over his head.
Before Deathstroke could react the couch hit him with the force of a small car, knocking him over and pinning him to the ground.
Wonder Man noticed that Deathstroke wasn’t moving at all. “Hmm…must have hit him in the head,” he said as he walked over to where the Terminator lay. “Looks like you’re not the big, bad, unbeatable force you used to be,” he said, lifting the couch off of the assassin and throwing it to the side.
As he looked down, he noticed Deathstroke was already sitting up with a small gun pointed at him, “It’s called ‘playing possum,’ meathead!” he said as he fired his gun.
“You think that thing will stop me when the machine gun couldn’t?” Wonder Man said cockily as he crossed his wrists, bracelets shimmering.
The solitary bullet struck Wonder Man’s gauntlet but instead of bouncing off it, the bullet stuck to it. A small line of string with what appeared to be a suction-cup shot out and stuck to his other bracelet.
“Wha….” Wonder Man wondered in confusion. All of a sudden, a current shot through the string and into Wonder Man’s body, violently electrocuting him. “ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!” he screamed right before he dropped to the floor unconsciousness.
“One down, fifteen to go,” the man known as Slade Wilson said, congratulating himself.
***
St. Roch, LA…
A shadowy figure viewed the silhouettes of two birdlike figures flying against the starry evening sky.
“Don’t you miss home, Shayera?” asked Strato Hawk, his eyes darting around the city, scaning for trouble.
“I do, but it’s one of the necessary sacrifices in exchange for being trained to be a hero,” answered Shayera Hol.
“I admire your dedication,” complimented Strato Hawk. “The Titans and I are committed to training you to be the best warrior and heroine you can possibly be.”
“And that’s why I sought you guys out,” explained Hawkgirl. “Back on Thanagar, I heard many tales of grandeur about your team. Then when Starman and the Arachnid came and liberated our planet from the High Chancellor, it was like a calling to me. I couldn’t help but pick up where my Aunt Shayera had left off.” Before the winged alien could continue, reality started to warp. Colors both bright and dark started to flash all around them. Vertigo and nausea took over the new-age Hawks, causing them to drop out of the sky. Luckily for the duo, the Nth Metal protected them and not a single bone was broken.
“That was almost too easy,” smiled a well-dressed middle age man, holding a familiar device.
Hawkgirl was out cold from the fall. A blurry-visioned Strato Hawk struggled to pick himself up. He squinted to make out the form of the man standing before him.
“The Angle Man! What are you doing here?” demanded the winged avenger.
“Gift-wrapping you for my employer,” smiled the archenemy of Wonder Woman. “Now I suggest you lay down and shut your eyes because the ride’s about to get real bumpy,” he said firing his Angler at full power toward Strato Hawk.
***
An old abandoned apartment building in Dallas, TX…
“Thank you for coming, Atmosphere!” greeted a police officer as the master of the wind lowered himself to the ground.
“Don’t mention it,” replied Atmosphere, “So what’s the situation?”
“Well, we got a call that there’s a man up on the fourth floor of the building threatening to kill himself,” started the officer. “He says if anyone enters the building, he’ll shoot himself immediately. He asked to see you, so we contacted you.”
“Me? Why would he want to see me?” Atmosphere asked curiously.
“Well you are the city’s…make that the entire region’s premier hero,” answered the officer in pride. “Perhaps he idolizes you the same way so many people around these parts do?”
“…oh,” said Atmosphere, blushing faintly under his mask. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll see what I can do,” he said as he headed into the building.
After making his way up to the fourth floor, he called out, “Sir? It’s Atmosphere.”
“I know who you are,” called a male voice with a thick Hispanic accent from within the darkness.
“I’m here at your request,” said the leader of the Rangers. “How can I help you keep on living?”
“I just need one thing,” started the man whose silhouette became slightly visible in the darkness. “I need you to DIE!!!” growled the stranger as he leaped onto Atmosphere and sank his teeth into the air-powered hero.
“ARRRGGHHH!!” Atmosphere screamed in pain. “Copperhead! But we just put you away a few weeks ago.”
“You mean you put US away,” came a second voice in arrogance. The twin Copperhead whipped his thick tail towards Atmosphere’s legs and knocked him over. “Let’s get him!”
The Copperhead twins dog-piled on Atmosphere and proceeded to beat him relentlessly.
A fist hit Atmosphere’s jaw then another was plunged into his stomach.
“How do you like being ganged up on, you filthy hero???” asked one of the twins angrily.
“It’s not going to be that easy boys,” said Atmosphere defiantly as he released a windblast knocking the snake-themed villains away. As he stood up, he noticed he was starting to become a bit dizzy. “Whoa…what’s going on?” he said, trying to balance himself.
“It’s called venom, you idiot,” one of the twins informed as he whacked Atmosphere in the head with his tail.
Atmosphere dropped to the ground without any further resistance. “Can barely see…” he mumbled, trying to focus.
“Let me remedy that for you,” the other Copperhead twin said as ripped off part of the stairway railing and beat Atmosphere over the head with it, rendering him unconscious. “Well that was the easiest fifty grand we've ever made. Let’s bring him to the boss-man.”
***
The Laboratory of Jason Hardwick, Ivy Town
Jason Hardwick the man known as Nucleus grew back to normal size after analyzing a new strand of the cold virus. “This one’s going to be nasty if it hits the public,” Nucleus said to himself. “Good thing Latavia’s on vacation with her parents in Maui for the next two weeks.”
“And it’s too bad that you’ll never see her again,” came an unfamiliar voice from seemingly nowhere.
“Who’s there?” demanded Nucleus, looking around frantically.
“I hope you called this Latavia this morning because you’re never going to see her again,” advised the voice. “You know it was really dumb of you to practically reveal your secret identity when you faced Chronos several months back. He knew why you freaked out so badly at that man’s house you two were fighting in front of. He had no problem spilling the beans to the rest of the super-villain community.”
“Who are you and where are you hiding?” Nucleus asked searching through the closets and storage spaces.
“Why, I’m right under your nose,” said the voice as something hard struck Jason Hardwick from below his nostrils.
“Ugh!!!” yelled Nucleus as he was knocked backwards and knocked over several test tubes.
As he steadied himself, he saw his attacker grow from microscopic size into the size of a full grown human. His attacker wore a silver armor with what looked liked a bulls-eye on his chest. “Who are you and what do you want???”
“The name’s the Sizematic and I’m just here to collect a paycheck,” the villain said as he punched Nucleus in the face. His armored fist hit the protégé of the Atom hard, causing him to spit out blood.
“So you can shrink like me, huh?” Nucleus said as he grew to thirty feet tall. “Bet your employer didn’t know that I recently upgraded my belt to allow me to grow without Chronos’ technology!” he said as he socked the former Teen Titans villain in the jaw.
“Oh, he’s aware,” the Sizematic said as he shot up to fifty feet tall, “Which is why he thought I was perfect for the job.” Raising his left leg, he dropped it down on the size-altering hero with brute force. The blow from the Sizematic’s armored boot was too much for Nucleus to bare, especially with the villain’s increased mass. Jason Hardwick was down for the count almost instantly.
***
Gotham City
Power Guy streaked through the crisp, evening air. As a Kryptonian, the frigid air didn’t bother him in the slightest. Nearing his destination, he saw the person he was there to meet: Green Lantern. He quickly landed on the roof and greeted his teammate, “Hey GL, what’s the emergency and why are you in Gotham?”
“Hi, PG! Thanks for coming,” replied the green Guardian. “We have a most critical emergency on our hands. Several of our teammates have been kidnapped by various super-villains. I asked you to come here so we could meet with the Bat-family and figure out a plan to save our friends. They should be here any minute.”
“We’re already here,” Nightvision said as he, the Huntress, and Blackbird stepped out of the shadows.
“As I was telling Power Guy, several of our friends have been kidnapped,” began Green Lantern. “Climb in, I’ll fill you in along the way,” he said, forming a green bubble with his ring.
As the new-age Bat-family climbed in the power-bubble, the Huntress asked, “How did you find out about this, Lantern, and do you know who’s behind it?”
Once the three heroes were securely inside the sphere, Green Lantern revealed, “How did I find out about this? I helped organize it!” he exclaimed gleefully as he morphed into False Face.
His left arm, which formed the “power-bubble” around the three heroes started shaking back and forth wildly.
“The air’s getting thin,” noticed Blackbird. “He’s trying to suffocate us.”
“Let them out False Face or I swear I’ll melt you into a pool of mud!” ordered Power Guy, his eyes blazing from his heat-vision. “You can’t possibly take all four of us alone.” Without warning, a projectile struck Power Guy in the back. “Aaaaackkk!!” he groaned.
“But he’s not alone, In fact he’s got some help…MY kind of help,” Deathstroke said revealing himself. “And that Kryptonite bullet I just put in your back is just what the doctor ordered.”
Power Guy’s entire body was burning. Every single one of his muscles ached as sweat poured profusely out of his body. Soon, he found it difficult to stand and braced himself against the side of a building.
“Feeling weak?” asked Deathstroke. “Don’t worry, this will all be over soon,” he gloated as he jabbed the Kryptonian hero in the stomach with his battle-staff, knocking him over. He then swung his staff into the young hero’s head repeatedly until he passed out.
Meanwhile in the bubble made of clay, the Huntress had passed out from lack of oxygen. Nightvision and Blackbird were close to suffering the same fate when Nightvision pulled his Bat-laser out of his utility-belt and cut a hole through the clumpy substance. “Looks like this isn’t going to be the walk in the park you thought it was, False Face,” Nightvision said as he and Blackbird stepped out of the bubble.
Blackbird, who was carrying the Huntress, noticed that False Face had a partner on this job, “Deathstroke. So you’re behind this!”
“Not quite, red,” countered the assassin. “I’m just hired help like False Face here.”
“Well you’re never going to cash your check, Slade,” Nightvision said throwing a Bat-arang at the one-eyed villain.
The Terminator leaped out of the way with ease, “Sloppy. Your old man would be quite disappointed.
Blackbird set the Huntress down and threw a bola around the Terminator, “That was a distraction, here’s the real trap!”
“False Face, we don’t have time for this,” an irritated Deathstroke pointed out.
“You got that right,” the morphing villain said as he turned his hands into two giant sledgehammers and struck both Nightvision and Blackbird with them, knocking the two heroes out cold. He then proceeded to gather up Power Guy and the Huntress.
“Sorry, Robin Jr., you and your girlfriend aren’t on the guest-list,” the Terminator said, looking down at the fallen heroes.
Hours later, the Huntress awoke. Feeling woozy, she instinctively discerned that she had been sedated. She noticed she was locked in a think glass tube with some type of mechanism attached to the top. With mounting horror, she scanned the room to find several other tubes filled with her teammates: Power Guy, Wonder Man, Strato Hawk, Hawkgirl, Atmosphere, Dark Arrow, Flash, Green Lantern, Nucleus, Powerstorm, Sargona, Sonic Boom, and Whirlpool, plus two other heroes she had never met before. One of them she recognized as Offspring, Plastic Man’s son and the other she was unfamiliar with but she looked like she could be the daughter of the Martian Manhunter. “What the heck is going on here?!?!?!” she exclaimed.
“I’ll be happy to answer that question,” answered a voice that was unfamiliar to the young vigilante.
The Huntress turned to see Professor Ivo standing in front of her tube with a huge smile on his face.
“So, False Face was working with you!” assumed the Dark Knight’s daughter.
“No, False Face and the others were working FOR me,” revealed Ivo.
“What do you want from us, Ivo?” asked Green Lantern. “We’ve never done anything to you.”
“Oh, but you have,” countered the professor. “You destroyed my greatest creation! You and your cursed teammates destroyed my beloved Amazo! But now, now you’re all going to pay. You see there’s a method to my madness. You see, most of you are the offspring of the original Justice League. There were a few Leaguers who never had children, like the second Flash, Elongated Man, and Red Tornado. Unfortunately, Aquaman’s only son was killed at an early age so I had to improvise in some cases, hence the reason why the female Flash, Offspring, Atmosphere, and Whirlpool are here. They were the closest matches.”
Sargona then asked, “What am I doing here, ugly? I’m not related to any of the Justice Leaguers. Oh wait…silly me. My grandfather was an honorary member of the team. Never mind,” she said cattily.
“On the contrary my dear,” started Professor Ivo. “You are the daughter of one of the most powerful Justice Leaguers ever. My d.n.a. identifier recognizes you as the daughter of Zatanna.”
“But that’s impossible,” Sargona said in disbelief, “My mother was killed when I was an infant and Zatanna is still alive and well.”
“My sensors do not lie, foolish girl,” argued Ivo. “Now all of you brace yourselves, it’s time to create Fantasto!” Ivo said, pulling a lever on a machine in front of him. The machine immediately hummed with energy as the tubes containing the captive Titans of Justice began to vibrate. Soon, a strange energy filled them and entered the Titans’ bodies….
TO BE CONTINUED