Gigabyte makes his way awkwardly to the central terminal for the Bat Computer.
Bat symbols flash onto the screens as the dark cave is bathed in their blue-white light. Nearby, the costumes of fallen heroes encased in glass loom in the strange light.
On the screen flashes a stream of text: Engaging biometric scan. From above, a line of white light scans slowly across the area on each side of the seat.
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**kssk*Imagine, do not move into that light.*kssk* Captain Aterro says as he moves off to facilitate the LexSec's ongoing search of the BatCave.
Kara nods politely, trying not to think about going into the light. The beautiful, shiny light. The sweet, CANDY-like light.
Can she resist?
Can she hold out?
"NO I CAN'T!" she yells for some reason as she slowly walks her taut, round buttocks underneath the scanning light.
Az's eyebrows arc in surprise as Kara does what he would consider unwise. Then again, it shouldn't surprise him at this point. He scans his mind, attempting to recall what Nabu has been teaching him about Illusion magic.
Fate attempts to twist the light against Kara's body to make her appear as Batgirl.
"Kara, what are you-" he blurts out, as the insane woman just willingly meanders towards the bright light. Taken by such surprise he's unable to reach her in time, but once he does the man roughly pulls her away from the light.
The beam of light passes across Imagine, but just as it reaches her her appearance wavers and matches that of Batgirl.
BATGIRL BIOMETRICS CONFIRMED. The Riddler is a Bonnie Boy...
The computer seems to want some sort of coded response, but Kyle's typing finally catches up with his mind. Man, not having mental access to the system really slow him down.
Just as he gains access to the file structure, you hear the sound of a JL teleporter from somewhere in the darkness.
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"See, no prob--WHAA!" Kara exclaims as William tackles her bodily from the light.
As Kara struggles in a surprised bout of flailing limbs, the two come away in a tangle of limbs and intertwined bodies. At last Imagine stops struggling as she sees she's not under attack, but is apparently being "rescued".
She leans in close, her nose almost touching Kent's as one long, sinuous leg trails a path up his calf. "Sorry, baby. We don't have time for much else. But I'll make reservations at L'Impassab for later...we'll see how much "rescuing" you can do to me then." She smiles and disentangles herself, just as the sound of the teleporter echos through the darkness.
The LexSec form up in a line and start fanning out toward the sound. Captain Attero turns on his flashlight, and Kara hovers her own torch over. Corporal Jack Powers grabs it out of midair and adds its light to their search.
Batman's voice echoes out of darkness again. "You come here for what?
To steal from The Bat, to defame the legacy of those who have fallen? You will find nothing here but justice..."It is impossible to tell from what direction as it echoes from the walls of the Cave. It isn't hard to see the direction from which the flash bang grenades come, though...
William, having the quick and heightened reflexes of a overfed sloth, effortlessly takes the full brunt of the flashbang detonation. With a cry of surprise, he clumsily flies in a random direction at full speed. He's not entirely sure what that would accomplish, but he's having a hard time figuring out which way is up and down and just how far away from everything he really is.
Logic tells him too late that he maybe should have done so slower.
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"Have any of you heard that teleporter soun-" starts asking Gigabyte, who was too oblivious due to all the hacking and lamenting his non-functioning augmetics. "Shit, it's Batman!"
Kara's mojo improving... well, mojo, did make Kyle more agile that he has ever felt since he played basketball in highschool. Not agile enough when facing the Bat, though, and Gigabyte -for the second time this day- regreted having entered the Batcave.
Even blind and deaf, Fate can take an action.
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"AhF!@!!" Imagine yells as she and half the squad bend over, clutching their eyes with ears ringing.
The other Half of the squad, bolstered by Imagine's lifeforce and their natural physique, resist the blast, and Captain Attero, his AS7-D battlesuit still functioning, roars a challenge as the blast passes ineffectually over him.
"PRETENDER!!" Attero yells into the darkness.
'Uhhh, dudeman? What are you doing?' Kara mind-asks painfully, not able to concentrate enough to keep the convo private.
"COWARD AND MURDERER! Come and face me! Pay for your crimes! Come and face the JUSTICE that you mete out for others LESS worthy of it than yourself!" The captain the LexSex squad bellows.
'Uh, can we call get in the same page here?' Kara asks futilely as she's bereft of sight and sound, but Attero's thoughts carrying his message to her head as surely as his voice into the room.
"Graham was a FRIEND of MINE! A good man WORTHY of a BETTER death than the one you had that rabid DOG hand him! Dick would've taken the cowl, but YOU sent that MURDERER in your place! WHY? Because of your PRIDE? Because you wouldn't bend knee to ask him back? So you sent a half-trained ASSASSIN! He killed Abattior and GRAHAM SPENT THREE WEEKS STARVING TO DEATH!"
'Mental note; stop giving the dudes access to the secret files.'
"You escape punishment because you have money and power. I know how that plays out. Fear and Power have served you well.
But neither can save you today. On behalf of Graham Etchinson, I fear no man, and I shall not start with you."
Attero lobs a fragmentation grenade in the direction of where the flashbang came from, and follows it in, half the squad behind him.
Fate focuses on Nabu's inner power to center himself. Not knowing what is going on with Captain Attero seemingly losing his mind, Fate simply shouts as loudly as possible...
"The intrusion was necessary! We're seeking data only you have access to in order to help Martian Manhunter!"
Not that anyone can see it, but Attero's grenade explodes against a wall, shattering display cases, which you mostly can't hear raining to the ground.
"I'm sorry Fate, I can't let up long enough to talk to you. That's the problem with being a man among gods. One moment's lapse and Unhuman gets his hands around my neck, Gigabyte gets a bead on me, or you track me down, or Ms. Luthor there slips her fingers into my head. I've got to beat you before you get your heads on straight. If you wanted to talk, you should have knocked..."
New Round
Now not only foes he feel the pain of ramming into a hard rock wall and the isolation of the grenade, he feels shaken for reasons unclear. The hybrid hero hovers uncertainly in mid air, flinging random blows where he he felt there might be a foe.
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Still blind, Gigabyte starts to run for cover... or where he thought cover was. Deaf as he also was, he couldn't hear Batman's words, but a youth as a criminal of sorts in Gotham instilled the fear of the Bat in his heart...
... yet his logical mind prevailed and Gigabyte kept his cool. All the cool a man can keep when breaking and entering into Batman's home and getting gimped shortly afterwards.
"Oh shit! Where is he?"
Will Save vs. Fear:
Re-save vs Dazzle:
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Fort vs. bang +1
PFC Yamamoto "Shogun" Kurita shakes off the effects of the flash grenade and moves to join the wedge of LexSec moving deeper into the looming dark.
"COWARD!" Attero yells as he matter-of-factly hands his flashlight to the knife-wielding Shogun. Kurita sweeps his light in unison with CPL. Jack Powers and Attero keeps both hands on his warhammer even as his booming voice screams ahead full.
The fear effect rolls off the LexSec like machinegun fire at a main battle tank. The underworld is awash with rumors that the final step of training for the LexCorp Security squad is to sit alone with Kara Luthor herself. The hardened men are tied to a chair while she probes their heads, bringing their deepest fears up, while they cry, scream, beg and throw up for days on end. But no one ever quits. You either die of freight, or you sit quietly...returning her calm smile.
The rumors also say, when she was told why she had to do this, the bald man answered her, saying, without irony. "They are my space marines. And they shall know no fear."
Then he laughed.
"I knew Stephanie too," the Captain says, back in reality. "She was a good kid. She'd used to eat at the family table sometimes, when Arthur was either on the bottle or in the clink. She grew up to have bad taste in men, but I didn't think it would be fatal. Worse that should come of that is a house full of bairns without a husband.
But then she met you. Didn't she?
DIDN'T SHE!?
YOU failed her! YOU led her on! _I_ wouldn't give a small child an empty gun and lead them to the battlefield but that's what YOU DID!
You either train them _right_ or you don't train them at all! You gave her a glimpse at power, filled her head with big dreams, then you LET HER GO!
All she wanted to do was impress you, so she rolled with the big boys. Does it bother you more that they killed her, or that they TORTURED HER FIRST!
Or no, those don't bother you.
You just worry if she talked.
COME TALK TO ME, LITTLE MAN! Seventy four men have worn the AS7-D, but only ONE has ever been called captain! He is Atero Dominatus, and he stands before you!
You are a TYRANT.
And I was made to overthrow tyranny."
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The Fear rolls like a tidal wave toward Imagine's impervious breakwater. Her confidence quickly cracks as it proves more than enough to crest the ridge, but she is a creature of the mind and emotion, and she stands against it in proud defiance.
Alas, her eyes do not heed the call and she remains without sight or hearing, but her link to the group at least keeps communication open.
Without other options, she turns invisible and flies up a bit, determined to not get caught in any more area effecting shenanigans.
'Wait what? Who's Stephanie? Who the hell is Arthur? Can we at least talk about--okay, you're just gonna go on and on, ain't ya?'
She ponders a moment, then sends out a broad-wave message, excluding the group. It's just says: 'You online? Daddy has a message.'
It was a longshot. Most thoughtwaves don't work without a prior link or direct perception, but you never knew with the Bats. Hell, half his sheet was just ranges, and the other half was blind guessing. It took them _weeks_ just to determine that it wasn't bee-dubs that killed Abattis.
For all the good it did her now.
"Captain Atero, anyone who works for Lex Luthor should look for the log in his own eye..."
Near where Unhuman was burrowing his way through the bat-wall, The Bat, an urban assault aircraft, roars into action. Its VTOL turbines lifting it off of its platform. Despite the fact that no one is driving it, the craft sprays the LexSec boys with a rocketfire.
New Round
He still paws at his eyes, and while things are slowly starting to clear up, there's nothing tabgible yet. But... What if he tried that trick J'ohn showed him a few sessions back? There was a way for him to expand his mental senses to locate the minds of others rather then merely understand them. He would need to focus...
Fate will attempt to redirect the attacking craft using his magnetic powers.
Grapple Check (Magnetic Control)
Neither Kara's mental query nor Unhuman's mental scan of the Cave find any evidence of a human mind (Other than those you know to be present, of course).
Also, the sweeping lights of the security force find nothing.
Fate grabs hold of the Huge craft, but can't quite move it.
Inhuman strains his mind, but unable to fi anything there's little that could be done besides hope his condition wears off soon.
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The rockets land with great sound and fury amongst the assembled military men. Instincts kick in and each wheels away from the blast, dropping down and giving the shockwave the smallest profile possible. When the tempest passes, Attero calls out roll, and nine hale voices answer him, though surviving is all they can seem to think of doing.
Imagine blinks her eyes and the after-image finally fades, and the chronic tinnitus tamps down a bit.
She floats over to where gigabyte is still struggling with the effects of the grenade and gives him a boost, rocketing his body into overdrive.
The Bat seems to take an interest in the metal manipulations of Doctor Fate, but rather than spraying weapons fire, it simply attempts to ram into him. Fate's magnetic hold on the aircraft allows him to change its course enough that it misses him.
New Round
William's gennetics finally adapt to the effects bestowed by the flashbang, restoring his ability to see and hear. As well, it seems his head has stopped pounding long enough to focus. There was still an inkling of fear within him, and his body was still recovering from his attempt to ping the minds of those nearby.
That made him wonder though... How could what he tried to see not have a mental ping? Was it a robot, or some type of shielding?
He focused his eyes, transforming them into classic Kryptonian perfection...
Unhuman doesn't see any hidden assailaint, but he can see the complex system of speakers and defenses built into the walls and ceiling of the cave, including several false rock formations. It seems a reasonable guess that all of this has been a deception.
"It's all a ruse, he's not even here! Gigabyte, try to disable the defenses!"
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"I wish I was the one watching through cameras right the hell now!" yells the cyboeg, still blind as a bat due to The Bat.
"Dammit, I haven't used a computer manually for years and when I need my wireless enhancer goes the goddamm Batman and decides to go all nanobot on me he keeps complaining, trying to crawl closer inch by inch to the mainframe as he ceaselessly rubs his eyes to make the stars and lights go away.
Fate splits his attention slightly to lift Gigabyte to his destination. As he does, he attempts to create a defensive magnetic field around Gigabyte to help with his recovery from the current condition (attempt at a narrative aid another).
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Imagine floats over to Gigabyte. She tries to focus in on his optic nerve and the centers of the brain that are seeing the highest levels of inflammation. Using her healing ability on its lowest setting, she tries to induce a minor amount of pleasure in those areas, to coax a greater endorphin response to try and take the inflammation down so he can at least see.
Meanwhile, Attero keeps talking.
Aterro directs second squad to keep watch while the remainder of first squads tries to find an neutralize threats _before_ they fly up and start shooting them with rockets.
The three other members of first squad, SGT Rick "Axman" Steiner, CPL Hanse "Wolfhound" Davion, and PVT Thomas "Orion" Marik join PFC Yamamoto "Shogun" Kurita as they wander off and start damaging things that look important.
"You know that's a dead givaway symptom of psychopaths--the inability to take responsibility for one's actions," Attero responds to the unseen voice. "Oh, I know about the plank in my eye. I've lost men, I'll cop to that. But you know what weighs more than a speck?
A crowbar."
"Oh no, here he goes again," quips Hanse as he puts his boot through a panel.
"At least he's not drunk this time," refrains Thomas.
"Less noise more smashing you two," retorts their Sergeant, Rick.
"The men under _my_ command that fell were all that--MEN. Hard, trained men, who knew the risks going in and had a mature enough heart to accept them. And they all died quick.
But how long did the Clown beat Jason? Was it hours? Days? Do you even know? Did the blast kill him quickly, or did he linger, wondering why you couldn't save him before the end?
The men under me are all given a suit of AS7-D to protect them. They're given a WHM-6R and trained on it. Balls, we all even go through the hell-week that makes us immune to fear."
"It took Hanse twice as long 'cause they had to keep stopping so he could change underwear," Thomas quipped.
"And it STILL smelled like rose hips and vanilla I'll have you know!" Hanse retorted.
"And they can get out at any time," Aterro continued. "They go into battle with nine brothers to watch their back and NOT ONCE have I LEFT a MAN to DIE AT THE HANDS OF THAT F@@*ING CLOWN!
Do you wonder why the Joker f+@#s with you and not with our employer? It's because of _us_ Batman. YOU still believe in a weak and corrupt system that REFUSES to give that THING the death penalty.
But even that nutso knows that if he crossed a line with Mr. Luthor, ten angry men would come a-knocking. And there would be no ambulance, no miracle, no pile of rubble that no one could possibly survive. There would be confirmation, and a trophy, and maybe Harley could be given the chance of a normal life."
"And then I'd have a chance with her!" pipes up Hanse.
"That is more pretty than you'd know what to do with, and more crazy than even you could handle," answers Thomas.
"So you killed Jason Todd," continues Attero into the darkness. "The first time you lacked the courage to put a slug between that clown's eyes, you condemned that child to death.
So you equate killing children to a small speck in your eye? That's sad, Batman," Aterro says, starting to wind down, lacking the energy to banter with a shadow. "You might call Kara a monster, but you're the monster here. So just stand back and get out of the way."
"Are we almost done here, Imagine?" Attero asks.