章 5: Chapter 4: Domination 1/2
Domination
"Dude, do you ever sleep?" Cyborg eyed Robin as he came bounding up the stairs.
"Not if I can help it," came the response. "What's the matter? Why's the proximity alert going off?"
"Hard to say." Cyborg pressed a few buttons on the panel. "Something approaching over the water at high speed. Could just be a boat, but it's heading pretty much straight for…" He paused as the image came onscreen.
The two were silent for a moment.
"Well, it's not a boat." Robin reasoned.
"Yeah," muttered Cyborg. "Guess we better batten down the hatches. Anybody we know?"
"Don't recognize them." Robin shook his head. "Too slow to be part of the Flash family. Don't seem to be friendly." He turned to regard the other Titans as they came blinking up the stairs. "Titans, rea…"
The rest of his statement was broken off as something came smashing through the front of the building.
"Fell out of the sky?"
"I was about two miles away when it happened." Superman shrugged. "Just saw it out of the corner of my eye. I could be mistaken."
"Maybe they were skydiving and forgot their parachutes," suggested Flash.
Hawkgirl snorted. "The plane too?"
She, Flash, and Superman were standing in the observation room above the medical ward, watching their three new visitors (or as Green Arrow had caustically remarked, captives) being tended to in the room below. Several medics were hooking them up to life-support machines, and J'onn J'onnz, resident Martian and telepath, was supervising. As they watched, Mr. Terrific entered the room and tapped J'onn on the shoulder, who nodded and left.
"There might have been a plane, I can't be sure. All I saw were people falling. Didn't really stop to think how they'd gotten there, I just flew over as quickly as I could." Superman rubbed the back of his neck in farmboy-like fashion. "I got Bats' message shortly after I set them down. Seemed like the best fit."
The assembled heroes glanced up as J'onn entered the room. "Well?" Hawkgirl asked.
"They are… puzzling." The Martian admitted, glancing back at the three teenagers on their respective beds. "I cannot fully probe their minds."
"You mean like with Thanagarians?" Hawkgirl asked.
"No… not like that. Reading their memories is not impossible, indeed some are quite accessible. But certain parts of their mind are blocked off." Frowning in thought, J'onn continued, "The resistance is more similar to the technique Batman sometimes employs."
Flash snickered and Superman closed his eyes in frustration but Hawkgirl merely looked interested. "Are you saying they may have had training against this sort of thing?"
"It's possible." J'onn nodded. "Very good training, for them to have achieved it at such an early age and be able to maintain it while comatose… but yes, I would say they probably were trained."
"So they've dealt with telepaths before, then."
"That seems likely."
Superman nodded. "All right, well, what memories DID you manage to get?"
"Regroup Titans!" Robin shouted. "Cyborg, take the big kid, Raven, the skinny one. Beast Boy and Star, you're with me on the elemental!"
An elemental. A WATER elemental. That made things enormously complicated, given the location of the Titan's tower. It meant that not only had none of the sensors detected the creature's approach, but that the thing could grow to near tower size and smash into the front.
Cyborg's defense systems never even had a chance to fire, the elemental had smashed any and all weapons to bits, allowing the other two to reach the tower unopposed. How exactly THEY'D gotten up to the control level so quick was another question—Robin'd seen no zip lines and he'd heard no jetpacks.
However, that was immaterial. The simple fact was that all three were now right on top of the Titans and needed to be dealt with. At least they had advantage of numbers. If they could split up the assailants, Robin felt confident they could take them down.
So as Cyborg ran at the strange red-haired kid, and Raven and the dark-haired one engaged in a staring contest, Robin and his allies ran for the hole in the wall and the strange many-toothed monster beyond it. Starfire took off and shot into the sky as Beast Boy transformed into an eagle while Robin simply shot a grappling hook up and jumped to the roof.
The plan, roughly, called for Starfire and Beast Boy to keep the creature corralled near the tower where Robin could hit it. They would overwhelm the creature with superior force and then return to help finish off the others. Pretty good odds, considering the usual stakes.
Part of Robin worried, though. He knew nothing about any of the attackers, and he hated going into a fight blind. And whoever they were, the fact that they had confidently attacked the Titan headquarters meant that they also felt quite secure in their abilities, unless they simply meant to provide a diversion while a fourth member infiltrated the compound (Robin doubted that). So either they were arrogant or dangerous.
Still. The elemental had to be dealt with immediately.
Green energy shot from Starfire's fingertips, blasting bits of the creature's side away. Immediately fresh water flowed into the wound, restoring the damaged portion in seconds. Robin nodded, that was fairly standard for elemental creatures. A green eagle shot at the creature's back, rapidly shifting into a swordfish as it hit the surface and shifting just as quickly into a shark, moments before being spat back out.
Eyes narrowing, Robin caught sight of what Beast Boy had been aiming for. Deep in the center of the clear water mass, he could see a glimmer of something solid. That must be the elemental's brain, or controller. If they could hit it, the rest would fall apart.
The only problem was getting to it. Robin threw a few explosive pellets, leaping aside as one of the creature's tentacles smashed into the roof beside him. As he rolled to a stop, he saw the splatter damage from his grenades heal up just as quickly as it had been broken down. So much for that.
The tentacle was still after him. He rolled backwards, flipped off to the side, and began running the length of the building. Carefully he measured the distance with his eyes. It would be close, but if he, Starfire, and Beast Boy coordinated their attacks, they might just…
A shrill scream suddenly distracted him.
"Raven!" He heard Beast Boy cry. The green eagle wheeled suddenly and shot for the interior of the building.
Cursing, Robin touched his communicator. "Cyborg?"
"Raven's down." Came the response. "She's alive though. That red-eyed kid is crazy fast, and he's got some kind of electricity ability. Beast Boy, do me a favor and take the red-head. He's a shape-shifter of some kind."
"After I get Raven!"
"She's fine, man! Just get the big kid!"
"Do as he says, Beast Boy." Robin spoke into the communicator, leaping away as another tentacle crashed into the roof, just inches away from him. "Cyborg, you sure you can take red-eyes?"
"You kiddin'? If he uses electricity, I'll just eat it up. And as fast as he is, mah laser's faster." Robin could almost hear the grin in his voice.
"Take him then. Star and I will have to make do by ourselves." Suddenly finding himself at the end of the roof, Robin skidded to a stop and nearly fell over the railing. Real graceful, Boy Wonder. He looked up as a watery shadow fell over him.
Before the appendage could smash down, a green blur shot past, and he found himself flying through the air in Starfire's arms. "Robin!" The girl's face was filled with concern. "Is friend Raven alright? Will she be needing the evac? Should we perhaps…"
"She'll be alright. Beast boy and Cyborg are down there, they'll keep an eye on her." He pointed down. "We need to hit that little black dot inside him, Star. But it's just you and me, and it's gonna take a lot of coordination."
"Is that problem?" Starfire's face clouded over momentarily. "I thought you said you and I had skill at the coordination."
"We do." Robin grinned. "That's why this should be fun."
Well… this can't be good.
Naruto really couldn't think of any other way to appraise the fact that he seemed to be lying in a hard white bed in a hard white room with hard steel bands holding him down. The experience wasn't entirely novel—Granny Tsunade had sometimes ordered similar measures to keep him in hospitals—but it was disturbing, particularly as he doubted this was the Konoha.
First of all, the room itself didn't look familiar. Naruto had had frequent opportunity in his interesting career as a shinobi to observe hospital rooms, and he was on intimate terms with nearly every room in the Konoha medical facility. This one he did not recognize. It was nearly two stories high, stark white, padded all over, and had little in it besides Naruto and the bed.
Second of all, that bed didn't look familiar. More than that, it didn't look like any bed he'd ever seen before. There was no mattress, no pillow, and the blanket was a thin, almost paper-like sheet. Steel bands were passed over his arms, legs, torso, and even neck, keeping him nearly entirely immobilized. The little wiggling he could do convinced him of another interesting fact—the bed had joints. It felt as if the part of the bed each arm was attached to was hinged, so that the doctor could move Naruto's arms about without undoing the cuffs. The same applied for his legs.
Third of all, though, a portion of the white wall had just turned completely clear to reveal a man gazing down on him. Naruto would have shrugged even that off if the man hadn't been completely bald, dressed in the strangest clothes Naruto had ever seen, and flanked by two utterly bizarre samurai-like men.
This was definitely not Konoha. And being imprisoned in any place that was not Konoha was not good.
"Good morning." The man's voice echoed through a loudspeaker somewhere in the room; powerful, imperious, and just a touch smug. This man was used to getting what he wanted. "I'm sorry for the… accommodations, but I'm afraid you gave my men rather a start last night."
Last night. Naruto tried to recall what had happened. He'd been running to catch up with the others, because they'd gone off to hunt Sasuke. He'd gotten there…
Naruto's eyes went wide. "Where are my friends?" He demanded, throwing himself against the bands.
"Your friends?" The man arched an eyebrow. "We're taking care of them. They seemed badly wounded when they arrived, but they are quite safe—for the moment."
Naruto didn't quite like the tone of that last remark. "Where am I?" He asked, sinking back down onto the bed. "And what's with the handcuffs?"
"As I said, you gave my men quite a start last night. We had to make sure you didn't go rampaging around killing people again." Naruto froze at that comment. "Also, I don't think you quite understand the position that you're in. After all, you four were trespassing, a very serious offense when you're dealing with a man like myself. You're hardly in a position to be asking questions."
The man's smile made a shiver run down Naruto's spine. "Screw you!" he yelled. "Where am I?"
"I don't think you heard me the first time." The man's gaze turned cold. "You are in no position to ask questions. You and your friends are in serious trouble. Even without the breaking and entering, you killed nearly thirty of my men."
Thirty? Naruto paused. He didn't think... but then, he was rarely clear-headed in Kyuubi mode. He knew he'd tapped into the fox's power a little when he'd charged at Sasuke, but then... then he had a foggy memory of throwing men left and right in a strange white hallway, and a vague dread of those men getting to his friends. But he didn't think he'd killed thirty.
In any case, that still didn't explain how he'd gotten here, or even where "here" was. And the man had said "four" of you. That meant there were only three of his friends here. Where were the others? And sensei?
The man seemed to take his silence as submission, for his voice took on more pleased tone. "Fortunately, I am… interested in how you managed that. It's no small feat for you to break in here, or to kill so many people. You seem to have a great deal of power." He leaned a little closer to the glass. "And power interests me."
Naruto suppressed another shiver.
"I suppose I could simply cut into you and find out, but I'm not sure it'd do much good," mused the man. "Meta powers aren't always so… scientific. Certainly, if you simply told me instead, it would be much less troublesome—and painful—for all concerned.." He paused a moment. "Don't you agree?"
Now, Naruto wasn't smart, but he wasn't nearly as stupid as he used to be. Four years ago, he might have simply yelled "screw you" at the man again and ended up getting his comrades and him sliced open. Granted, that was better than the alternative—give up village secrets—but it still wasn't ideal.
The ideal was to deceive this man as cleverly as possible so he didn't cut them up. And given that the man apparently didn't know about the Kyuubi, chakra, or—presumably—Konoha, Naruto felt he had pretty good odds of doing just that.
So after a moment's hesitation, Naruto slowly nodded.
"Good." The man smirked. "Now, tell me everything you know about this strange red energy you have. Where it comes from, how it works, how I can replicate it… anything that might be useful."
Sasuke frowned in annoyance at the odd opponent facing him. He was tall, broad, and dark-skinned, possibly a missing Kumo-nin. Nearly half his body was sheathed in armor, and one eye—vaguely similar to the device Deidara had once worn—glowed an angry red. Whatever he was, the man was a formidable opponent. His armor seemed to have lightning coursing through it, and Sasuke's chidori blade was having no effect. Worse yet, he seemed to be able to send pure chakra out of one of his arms, much like Juugo. Sasuke had to keep moving about to avoid the lethal blasts that streamed at him.
I need more penetration than the blade, he decided, collecting chakra and focusing natural energy through his arm. His hand began to crackle with lightning.
The man glanced at him and his eyes widened. "Dude, that is freaky."
Ignoring the sentiment, Sasuke rushed forward, darting under the man's outstretched hands and stabbing toward the armored stomach. Unable to defuse all the energy, the armor gave, and Sasuke's hand smashed into the Kumo-nin's chest. The man howled in pain and his arm swiped down, Sasuke leaping back before the expected counterattack.
The thing spilling out of the man's chest, on the other hand, was completely unexpected. The man seemed to have no stomach at all. Metal wires and hoses poked out from where flesh and blood should be. The whole wound crackled with Raiton energy and some kind of black blood came spurting out.
Unbidden, the words came to him. That is freaky.
"Aw, man, my oil line!" The man scowled in fury, glancing at the wound. He looked back up at Sasuke. "That thing was practically brand new, dude! Do you have any idea how hard it is to replace those?"
Sasuke made no reply.
The man heaved himself back up. "Now I'm angry!"
Dodging as another blast of pure chakra destroyed the wall behind him, Sasuke considered his options. He felt reasonably confident in Juugo's ability to deal with the annoying green… creature that he was fighting. Suigetsu, though, was dealing the flying girl and the boy.
That boy bothered Sasuke. Something in the look of him told Sasuke he would not go down easily.
He needed to finish this fight quickly. "I tire of this." He commented, leaping away from another blast. He locked gazes with the armor-clad man. "Tsukuyomi!" he cried, activating the genjutsu.
As expected, the man froze in place before crumpling to the ground. Sasuke, smiling grimly, whipped out his sword and ran forward…
…only to be met by four pounds of metallic fist right in his face.
"Dude, I don't know what kind of weird mindo-mojo you just pulled there," said the man, struggling to his feet. "But it ain't gonna work on me. You may fool the one half of me, but you can't fool the other half."
Sasuke had only a few seconds to consider what that might mean before another blast of Chakra shot toward him.
"They're not any of ours, I can tell you that," observed the heavyset woman as she peered through the glass. "Meta experiments have been discontinued ever since Cadmus."
Superman frowned. "Boy Scout or not, I'm not stupid, Waller." Despite several years of working with the Justice League as the government liason, many league members, including Superman, still saw Amanda Waller as the former head of the Cadmus project. They trusted her exactly as far as they had to.
"Believe what you want, but they're not anyone I've seen before." Waller shrugged. "In any case, I don't suppose the Justice League would care to explain why they have three minors imprisoned without jurisdiction in the Metro Tower?"
Superman shifted uncomfortably. Green Arrow, who had arrived alongside Waller, snorted and threw a pointed look at Hawkgirl, who simply rolled her eyes. Finally, J'onn spoke up. "Batman believes them to be visitors from another dimension."
"Does he?" Waller grunted, her tone just a trace less hostile. Though she might never admit it, the woman had a grudging respect for the Dark Knight. "And he suggested that you welcome the extradimensional visitors by imprisoning them against their will?"
"We're not… imprisoning them." Superman insisted. "Not really. They were badly injured when I found them, the medics are mostly repairing the damage."
Flash nodded. "Bringing them here is just part of the protocol we have for these things. We call it procedure… what was that again?"
"Procedure Isolate and Mediate." J'onn supplied. "It is similar in design to the government's First Contact protocol. We remove the extra-dimensional visitors from civilian areas where we can observe and interact with them in a controlled environment."
Waller did not seem to put much stock in the assertion. "Hmph. I suppose that's what the manacles are for."
"My preliminary observations suggest caution is justified." J'onn warned. "I managed to ascertain that they are some kind of soldiers from a place called 'Konoha.' Their wounds are the result of a recent mission."
"These? But…" Superman fumbled for words. "These are just kids!"
"They're sixteen, Supes. We have league members about that age." Flash reminded him.
Waller was eying J'onn suspiciously. "I thought you said you couldn't read their minds."
"Not fully, no. The pale boy seems to have some sort of barrier around his mind, and the girl's mind…" J'onn hesitated. "But the second boy, the one with the bugs, is much easier to penetrate. He has some form of mental defense, but not as much as the other ones. I owe most of my knowledge about the three of them to him."
Waller nodded, apparently satisfied. "What have you learned, apart from what you told me about this 'Konoha?'" She noticed the members exchange looks. "Or is this some 'League Business' that I shouldn't ask about?" She added sarcastically.
"Not at all, Miss Waller, it's just that most of what we have isn't very helpful, and the rest of it doesn't make sense." J'onn gestured to the beds. "We know that the pale boy is called Sai, the girl is called Yamanaka Ino, and the boy whose mind I penetrated is known as Aburame Shino. Although the exact nature of their mission is unclear, I gather that they were in a pitched battle with a fugitive of some kind."
Green Arrow cast another look at the wounded teenagers. "Pretty powerful one, I'd guess."
"That does seem to be the thrust of the boy's memories." J'onn nodded.
"Do you think they were pursuing the fugitive here?" Superman frowned. "Is that why they're in our dimension?"
J'onn paused. "That's one of the difficulties. I cannot find any memory of their having come here, or even of having planned to come here. Given their state of arrival—" he once again gestured at the beds "—I doubt they are part of a pursuit team, or an invasion."
"But you still consider them dangerous."
"Oh yes." J'onn nodded. "From what I saw of their combat with the fugitive, it appears that the boy Shino can control bugs, while the girl Ino is capable of some kind of… possession, and the boy Sai…" here J'onn grimaced, "…can bring drawings to life."
The others stared at him.
"The images were somewhat unclear." He admitted.
"Fine." Waller grunted in annoyance. "You've convinced me. I'll inform the President we have an off-world situation and recommend he leave it in your hands. Before I go, though…" she gazed at the others. "…is there any chance that that fugitive, or any more of these dimensional visitors, are still running around out there?"
"There's at least three more," answered a gravelly voice behind her, "and they're all dangerous." A somewhat weathered-looking Batman dumped the limp form of a pale-eyed teenager to the floor. "Ran into some in Gotham. Managed to get this one, but the others ran off. Take him in, J'onn, see what you can learn from him." The Martian nodded and wordlessly signaled two orderlies to take the unconscious boy. Batman turned his full attention to the crowd. "You mentioned a fugitive. Care to share?"
Robin flipped through the air, shooting another couple pellets at the watery monstrosity. Three. He noted. That left him exactly four left, plus the special one he was keeping in reserve. He'd need to conserve them if this plan was to work.
It was amazing, really. He hadn't even had to spend a lot of time telling Starfire what to do. The plan required precision timing and minute execution, yet Robin had no qualms about it whatsoever. Starfire and he would pull it off flawlessly. On one level, he supposed that was simply because they'd gotten so good at what they did. But on another level, he knew it was a lot more than that.
Robin had always been good at fighting, but battling alongside Star always felt so fluid, so easy. He could predict her every move, and she could anticipate his every attack. Almost instinctively, they knew when to cover, support, or assist one another. It was like some strange kind of second sense… it was just so right.
So despite all of the variables involved in this plan, he knew they could pull it off.
He just hoped Beast Boy and Cyborg were doing alright. That one side of the building was virtually erupting with laser fire. Cyborg was still on the line, though apparently the red-eyed kid was a bit more trouble than he'd planned. The usually chatty Beast Boy, however, was silent. Whether that was because he was unconscious, too busy to talk, or simply incredibly angry, Robin had no idea.
In any case, he and Star needed to wrap this up and get back to help them.
He picked up a charge in his hand and watched as Starfire flew in circles around the creature's head. Within the massive watery blob, he could see the dark speck moving about, tracking her movements and initiating counterattacks, apparently, unaware that the gambit slowly brought him closer and closer to Robin's position on the tower.
Robin waited until he judged them close enough, and then ran toward the edge, leaping into the air. Already Starfire was drawing back, her hands charging with energy. As he flew over the creature's head, Robin chucked down two of his remaining charges, one on either side. The dark speck did not even glance up as Robin fired his grappling hook back to the building, a smile on his lips.
The charges exploded against the creature's sides. The speck glanced around in surprise, drawing himself toward the center of his watery armor…
…right into the path of Starfire's enormous energy blast.
When he heard the scream, Robin's grapple had already carried him halfway back, but he spared a glimpse backwards anyway. Starfire's sustained burst was eating up the entire front of the creature, and the black speck was fleeing to the far side of the blob. But even without looking, Robin knew Starfire wouldn't reach him. She didn't have the energy to keep that up for long.
Good thing she didn't have to.
The roof rose up to meet Robin's feet, and he threw himself into a roll before bracing out his feet and sliding to a stop. Without even waiting for the pain in his legs to fade, he leapt back up, running again for the roof's edge, this time without his grapple. His hands flew for the two remaining charges.
Starfire's energy was gone. The glow had faded and she looked slightly pale as she drew back, watching all the water she had blown away seconds ago flow back into place. Robin could see the black speck practically sneering at her.
The black speck that was still on the far side of the blob, away from Starfire. The side closest to the tower. The side closest to Robin.
As he leapt from the tower, Robin threw his last two explosive charges at the creature's back, and just as quickly threw the last, special capsule right after them.
The capsule was special because Robin didn't carry many of them. He didn't carry many because he didn't have to use them very often. He didn't have to use them very often because there were limited uses for exploding liquid nitrogen containers. After all, how often do you need to freeze a large amount of water?
The first two charges burst the surface of the water. The capsule shot into the blob just as the surface closed over again.
One, two…
The inside of the blob exploded into crystalline whiteness. The black speck didn't even have a chance to move before it was encased in ice. The rest of the creature simply collapsed, and all that was left was an enormous piece of ice, floating in the bay.
Robin had just enough time to acknowledge the fact that he was in freefall before there was another green blur and he found himself being hugged by a very happy, very enthusiastic, very strong Tamaranian.
"We did it Robin!" She squealed. "We did it! Just like you said!"
"Star…" Robin managed to wheeze. "Rib… cage…"
"Oh! I offer the apologies, Robin!" Starfire loosened her grip slightly.
"Thank… you."
"What do we do now?"
An explosion from the tower answered that question.
"Still no sign of Neji?"
Standing at the door, Lee simply shook his head in answer.
週次パワーステータス
-- 推薦
ランキング 
-- 推薦
チケット