章 24: Chapter 24
Kara looked at all the members of her little team. Her armor made it so she towered over everyone present. She had to look down to do it, but it also made her feel safe so she wasn't complaining.
The Green Arrow group still wore their basic costumes, with Red Arrow and Speedy wearing almost the same outfit and, by their way they were avoiding even looking at each other, not feeling very comfortable about it.
The Shade wore a black trench coat over antiquated formal clothes, with a large top hat on his head. He carried around a dark cane, with a raven head for a handle, and had smoked glass spectacles in his face. His back was perfectly straight and he seemed to be enjoying the heroes' unease at his very presence.
Bobo was wearing his old Sherlock Holmes costume, complete with his plaid coat and detective cap. He sat on top of an empty crate and smoked from a pipe, but still made sure he wasn't puffing up smoke towards Speedy.
"Very well, let's start then." She said, the armor's speaker masking her voice and making it impossible to know her gender. Detaching a large backpack from her armor, she threw it towards the archers. "If you guys are gonna tag along, we can't have anyone recognizing you, its best if our enemies remain ignorant of the League's involvement. Also, we're probably gonna be infringing on the League's UN charter. Someday."
Kara had prepared all three costumes. They were all a variation of dark tactical gear with metal plates for protection and sleek black helmets. Green Arrow and Red Arrow costumes had small compound bows and a simple sword, while Speedy's had a rifle and two laser pistols.
Green Arrow pulled out his costume and lowered his head in shame. "Great, we're playing disposable minion now."
"You're not disposable minions, you're super soldiers." Kara said in an annoyed voice. "Green Arrow, I designed the outfits myself, they probably provide more protection than anything you ever wore, and have better mobility."
"Nope, that's not how it works." Green Arrow shook his head sadly. "One guy wearing this armor is a badass super soldier. Three guys wearing the same armor are just faceless minions. That's just how it works. I can already feel my accuracy dropping just by looking at them."
Kara decided to ignore the man from now on. Turning to Bobo, she asked. "Have you truly located Prof. Morrow?" The chimp had informed her he had a major breakthrough in his case, but gave no details on the phone.
"Possibly, what I do have is the location of his newest workshop." The chimpanzee said while puffing out another cloud of smoke. "Usually, finding a new super scientist is just a question of following the money, or the materials. They use money to gather equipment, materials, minions and all that. Tomas Oscar Morrow was an old hand at this, and a good enough polymath to overcome some of those needs but, even he couldn't produce some of his higher end devices completely by himself."
"He revealed himself then?"
"Maybe, if you don't interrupt me, you'll find out." Bobo grumbled, causing Green Arrow to snort in amusement. Kara just shook her head and motioned for him to continue. "As I said, Prof. Morrow can produce most of his tech alone, but some of his equipment requires rare materials, Equipments like the devices he uses to give his robots their elemental control."
"Now, when our boys in the capes defeated him for the last time, back when they were still the JSA, they cracked down on his operations like mad. Raided half a dozen of his bases and apprehended all of his gear." Bobo continued his lesson, but got up from his position and stretched his back. "I managed to get my hands on the list of apprehended materials, particularly the more exotic ones and, only a few weeks ago, there was a break in at one of STAR labs subsidiaries, one that stored quite a bit of an element that matched those on the list."
Finished stretching, Bobo pushed the crate he had been sitting on to the front of the group and opened a blueprint on top of it.
"After that, it was a simple case of solving the theft, easy." Lifting his cap, he scratched at his fur. "Everything points to this building. It's been empty for the last two decades but, somehow, it's maintained in stellar condition. I also found some complains of strange noises and tremors made by its neighbors back then, I'd bet anything there's some kind of underground facility there too. There's always one of those."
Both Kara and Green Arrow studied the blueprint with attention. It was a large, four storey building with many smaller rooms.
"Say, how exactly is this Prof. Morrow? I mean, the League never had to deal with him, and Red Tornado is an okay guy."
"My old companion was an arrogant man." The Shade opened his mouth for the first time. "Arrogant, narcissistic, perfectionist and obsessed, he took particular pride in his programming skills. His androids tended to be a little too human, but he refused to lower their intelligence or make them any less sophisticated, no matter how many times they grew a conscience and betrayed him. I doubt he has changed too much."
"Shade, can you take us there?" Kara asked.
"But of course, do you prefer to land inside the building or close by?" He asked as he pushed away from the wall.
Kara looked around, everyone seemed ready to move. "The later, I'd like to have a chance of gathering more information before attacking."
"Wait." Green Arrow shouted. "What do I call myself? Also, what do you call yourself?"
"You can call me Forge while in this armor." Kara said, she really hadn't thought a lot about her superhero name in this costume. Hopefully, nobody would ever need to use it. "As for you, I think you're right, you're minion C from now on."
"Hey!"
"I guess that make me 'B' then?" Red arrow asked. "I can live with that."
"I was gonna use Arsenal, but I guess I can save that for when I'm acting openly." Speedy nodded.
"Do prepare yourselves." The Shade said with a smile. "This will only take a moment."
In a second, every shadow in the room converged on them, stretching unnaturally, their tips curving as if becoming thin arms that grasped towards their bodies. Kara had to stop herself from moving as the darkness enveloped her, a weight settled over her shoulders and she completely lost her vision.
It felt suffocating, as if the weight of the world was pressing down on her, the darkness stretched endlessly and, for a second, she lost any sense of direction, then the shadows were gone and they were all left standing on top of a building.
Red Arrow stumbled, almost falling to his knees, Bobo shook himself and even Kara would have swayed in place had she not locked her armor before the trip. The Shade stood in front of them looking amused. His own shadow far larger than it should be.
"Was that entirely necessary?" Bobo asked when he finally recovered.
"It seems not everyone can face the weight of the shadowlands with the same ubiquitous aplomb as me. My apologies." The Shade lifted his cane and laid it against his shoulder. With his free hand he pointed towards a building two blocks from where they had appeared. "I'll attempt to tone down its presence next time. There's our target."
"Thanks." Kara told him when she fully recovered. With a motion of her arm, a compartment at her back opened up and released thousands of little devices. Two millimeters in size, they spread in the air and soon disappeared from view.
Every single one of the devices could transmit sound and sight towards her receptor, but they could also connect to each other, creating different equipment on the field.
Kara laid down a holographic projector and all six of them watched, in real time, as her devices mapped the entire building, managed to infiltrate the underground facility and continued to map everything inside it.
The little things mapped four underground floors before something on the fifth finally managed to block their signal.
Finding a connecting port, Kara ordered a dozen of her drones to reconfigure themselves. They fused together into a hacking tool and attempted to enter Prof. Morrow's systems.
Eventually, Kara shook her head. "Such bullshit."
"What, having trouble?" Green Arrow, now minion C, asked.
"Earth tech should NOT be able to do shit like this." She complained. In front of them stood the nearly complete map of Morrow's hideout, as well as recorded images of Morrow and his associates. "Something in the fifth floor is completely blocking my signal. The entire floor is also fully isolated from the rest of Morrow's systems. I just can't fully subvert his programming. I can disable it, and even take over some of his equipment, but not only is he gonna know we're coming as soon as I do it, the fifth floor's defenses will also stay active."
"Can't the Shade just teleport us down?" Arsenal asked.
"Certainly, it would be simple. However, without an image of the fifth floor, I fear the trip would be much longer, and far less pleasant to you."
"Yeah, I think I speak for all of us, I'll pass." Green Arrow said and shuddered.
"Minions." Kara called Green Arrow and his protégées. "Your arrows and bullets are all filled with small EMP's, they should be able to disable any of Prof. Morrow's creations in an area around themselves, but he could have shielded them, so try to pierce their armor anyway." She pointed at his subordinates one by one. "This is Brom Stikk, Prof. Morrow's human assistant, he's not really a fighter, but he could be wearing a second Mr. Twister suit. This is Red…"
Kara laid out all she knew about Morrow's resources and abilities, including the possibility of a new geokinetic android. It didn't take her more than half an hour. Then they attacked.
With a command, Kara disabled all surveillance on the first four floors and The Shade teleported them all down, dropping the entire team in front of the fifth floor entrance. This time he made an effort to keep the terrifying effects of the shadowlands back.
As a Kryptonian, and someone wearing literal tons of armor, Kara breached the new floor first. The laboratory was surprisingly spacious, with clean wide corridors and white floors. There were no exposed cables or robots in sight.
Kara tried commanding her drones forward, but they dropped to the floor as soon as it happened. Her armor immediately informed her there was some kind of signal blocker being used in the hallway and the devices were too small and vulnerable to overcome it.
Stepping back, she ordered a few of her devices to latch on to her back and physically connect to her while reconfiguring themselves into a transmitter. It wouldn't be enough to cover the entire base, but could still allow her to use the drones in a dozen meters around herself.
When she stepped back into the room there were two enormous turrets sprouting from the walls. They immediately pelted her with bullets. She let them bounce off her armor and lifted her own weapons. Shooting both turrets with lasers and causing them to explode.
"Who is this?" Came Prof. Morrows annoyed voice from speakers all around the base. "Ah, no matter, I was expecting dear Ivo to send someone after me as soon as he stole my Red Inferno. My morrowbots will make short work of you."
"Morrowbots? Really?" Kara couldn't help but ask, getting a pat on the back from Green Arrow.
"Ah, villains and their ridiculous minion names. Don't worry, you get used to it."
Detective Chimp peeked down to the fifth floor and looked at the turrets, "Alright. I have to confess chimps have a weakness, we're deadly averse to getting shot up, and I am a detective, not a fighter. I guess I'll stay up here and, you know, investigate or whatever…"
"Fine, the disabled systems won't be coming back on anytime soon. Try to see if you can find a connection to other villains." Kara said. "I'm pretty sure Prof. Morrow kept a watch on his fellow scientists."
The sound of metallic footsteps came from over a corner, making Kara lift her gun back again. The androids that came over were still humanoid, but they were faceless and completely white, they lifted their guns in unison and Kara was about to destroy them when an arrow flew and pierced the one in the middle before releasing a pulse of EMP.
With a discharge of electricity, the robots crumbled to the floor, the EMP having fired their circuitry. "Hmmm, they pack quite a punch don't they?"
"Yep." Kara nodded. The end of the hallway opened into three different directions.
Kara tried to activate her X-Ray vision to find the best path, but Prof. Morrow had managed to stop that, the walls were filled with at least a small layer of lead.
"Spread out?" Red Arrow asked.
"Spread out." Kara and Green Arrow said at the same time.
Choosing the left patch, Kara started walking. Waves of robots came towards her, some held traditional guns, other had laser weapons and a few had the weapons embedded into their limbs. Kara barely paid them any attention.
A hail of bulled pinged off her armor as she walked towards the center of the base. Kara had started to feel kind of silly holding her gun in front of her, so she put it back into place.
Instead, she had ordered her modular drones to form into a turret on her armor and start shooting laser at the robots automatically from its place at her shoulder.
Grabbing one of the androids, she lifted it up to her face and couldn't help but admire the craftsmanship that had gone into it. The thing was clearly mass produced, but Morrow still showed considerable skill and attention to detail on the things.
Suddenly, thick metal doors cut off her advance, falling to the floor with such weight the entire base trembled. A quick glance behind her back confirmed what Kara already knew. A second door had fallen and locked her in the hallway.
A green gas started filling the small space even as the ceiling started to lower in order to crush her. All that was missing was the floor opening up into spikes. Sealed safely inside her armor, Kara couldn't care less.
Lifting an arm, she stopped the ceiling from falling. Pushing the ceiling back, she walked right towards the door, her turret already reconfiguring itself, it quickly shot a stream of plasma like a blowtorch and, in less than a minute, melted a hole through the meter thick door.
Picking up her pace, Kara massacred the robots as soon as they appeared. She knew her companions must have been doing the same thing because, soon, Morrow spoke again.
"You're destroying all my robots, you pest! Granted, they're not masterworks and it pained me to make them in such a hurry but, please, have some respect for my genius!"
Finally, Kara broke through one last door and into a wide open room. A white copy of Mr. Twister stood at the other end of the room. "So, you've arrived. I confess I'll…"
Instead of waiting for the villain to monologue, Kara shot him with her shoulder gun. The laser hit its armor harmlessly. In one fluid motion, she grabbed for her larger weapon and lifted it up towards the robot. The thing seemed to recognize the treat of the gun and dodged aside while directing a wave of wind towards her.
She tanked the blast and continued to shot, but the robot was enveloped in a cyclone and controlling the wind to move its body around at unexpected angles. Finally, she managed to clip his arm and send it flying aside, but it only dented the armor. "What the hell?"
"Well, I doubt a brute like you can appreciate this, but what do you think of the new body I was building for my dear Red Tornado?" Morrow said, his voice coming from the robot. "While Red Tornado's wind and programming are far superior, his casing is a little obsolete by today's standards, I though he deserved an upgrade."
Kara felt her feet sliding a few centimeters through the ground towards the robot as it drained all the air from the room, she didn't know it could do that, and it could be dangerous if one of the archers had been here, but she wasn't affected.
Another four shots hit the robot on the head, deforming its armor even further, but not causing much damage. Morrow protested. "How rude!"
"Fine, I guess we're doing it the hard way." Kara had wanted to keep as much of her capabilities as she could a secret, she didn't know if Morrow was under the Light's employ, or if there was anyone monitoring him, but this was starting to be annoying.
Dropping the gun, Kara grabbed at the turret on her shoulder and reconfigured it into the plasma blowtorch, it detached from her armor while she rushed the robot. The thing tried to shot her with more wind blades, but it wasn't strong enough to push her back, and its cyclones couldn't build up speed in such small room.
It tried to retreat, but she grabbed it and, while the metal managed to resist the amount of strength she was willing to reveal, it couldn't get free. Kara pinned it to the ground and applied her blowtorch to its chest, after about two minutes, she had managed to expose its insides.
Her drones flooded inside the android, attaching to its cables and circuits until Kara could disable it. She did carry around stronger weapons, ones capable of overcoming even this android's armor but, again, she didn't want to reveal it if she didn't have to.
And she could make use of anything she didn't damage too badly. She was looking forward to having an army of robot minions.
"Well, that was unexpected." Morrow's voice came from some speakers in the room. "Still, it's a good thing I took precautions. I'll see you pests next time, if you survive, ta-ta!"
"Self destruct sequence starting in, 10…9…8…7…"
Rao be damned, he was gonna collapse the entire secret base. "No! My spare materials and androids!"
For the first time, Kara ran, driving her shoulder through the door and blowing right through it, she completely ignored the few surviving robots.
Bursting through the command center, she found Brom Stikk with his arms on the air, The Shade held T. O. Morrow's android replica's head in a hand, while his other was pointed at the human assistant, a drop of ink black darkness at his fingertip.
Ignoring the scene, Kara rushed towards the computers and started tipping. With direct access to the central computer, her hacking programs started working at an astonishing pace.
"4…3...2…" Her programs broke through the computer security and gave her access to the device. Kara tapped as fast as she could. "Self destruct sequence interrupted!"
"Was it really that dangerous?" The Shade dropped the head of Morrow's replica on top of a table and asked in a conversational tone.
"Not really, most of the explosives were on the upper floors, I had already disabled them." She said while releasing a deep breath. "But, as much as I dislike the guy, Prof. Morrow was a genius. I didn't want to lose any of his work stored in the main server."
A second door opened and Green Arrow walked in, he was limping, his bow was broken and his armor was dripping water everywhere but, behind him, Red Arrow and Arsenal dragged Red Torpedo's disabled body, a dozen EMP arrows stuck in a single hole on his armor.
"Don't get the computers wet." Kara scolded.
"I'm fine too, thanks for asking." Green Arrow said. His eyes then saw Prof. Morrow's severed head. "Well, when I heard the self destruct sequence initiating, I just knew Morrow had lost his mind."
Behind him, there was a loud smack sound as both his sidekicks facepalmed in shame.
A minute later, Kara found the signal blocker and disabled it, their communications started working again and Kara checked on Bobo to see he was perfectly fine. Sitting on top of a disabled android, he was reading a document while puffing on his pipe.
"Well, what now?" Arsenal asked.
"Now I check if we got our objectives." Kara said and grabbed Morrow's head, beside his decapitation, the robot wasn't all that damaged, she connected his head to the central computer and used his own systems to bypass his protections. The information she recovered was… annoying. "Alright, there's some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?"
"I'd like to know the location of my former partner." The Shade asked, holding his cane with both hands. "I'd thought to trade a few words with him, and he wasn't one to use fetches."
"He's not he-here." It was Brom that answered The Shade, his voice trembling from fear.
"He's alive them, else you wouldn't fear for him." The Shade lowered his glasses slightly and stared at the man. "Don't fear. I'm not one to kill without provocation and, despite the situation; I merely wish to speak with him."
Brom Stikk seemed incapable of making a decision, so Kara decided to push. "I didn't find his location on record, but I know he's sick. You're not gonna be escaping here Brom, who's gonna take care of him?"
Finally, the thin man realized his predicament, head lowered, he answered.
"He's bedridden, I watch over him while he's on life support." He gulped and told them the address. Morrow was being taken care of in a small home in this same city.
"Alright, that's taken care of, what's the good news." Red Arrow asked, losing patience with the cowardly man.
"Good news, we got everything we came here for, and more." Kara told them, a smile on her face as she imagined the amount of things she could learn from Prof. Morrow's notes in the intact main server. She had even gotten Firebrand's activation code. "We got Prof. Morrow's information, hundreds of spare androids and even Red Torpedo. Or should I say, Doctor Jim Lockhart. I doubt he'll want anything to do with heroics when he wake up, but we still saved him."
"And the bad news?" Asked Green Arrow, his voice already tired.
"Prof. Morrow's android managed to make a copy of his memories and Red Torpedo's into his newest creation. Red Volcano was still incomplete but, with Morrows memories and knowledge uploaded, he'll probably be able to finish the job himself." Kara leaned back and wanted to massage her eyes in frustration. "The Android also thought we were hired by professor Ivo to steal his research. He's going after Prof. Morrow's old rival in order to get revenge and a new base of operations."
"That doesn't seem like bad news to me." Arsenal dismissed the news. "I'd say, let them fight."
"The problem is: what happens when one of them wins? Red Volcano has all of Prof. Morrow's knowledge and skill in his memory. Unless one of them gets completely destroyed, the winner will get access to the loser's tech. I really don't want to see what happens after that."
Prepared as she was, there was almost nothing Prof. Morrow or his creations could do against her but, together with Ivo, they could achieve so much more.
Kara could already see it in her mind. With her luck, Red Volcano would win and she'd have to face the damn genocidal robot in Amazo's body. Even if Prof. Ivo won, he'd have access to Morrow's knowledge and be able to give Amazo an actual human level intellect, or even improve his tech, allowing the android to use all his abilities at once like in JL and JLU. That'd be just great wouldn't it?
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