章 129: Companion
After laughing and calming down a bit, I focused on the reproachful looking Bats, who up to this point had been summarizing the battle and trying to explain the importance of teamwork.
"So, the idea of tracking devices didn't work out," the man opened a world map on the huge touchscreen with the red dots of beacons scattered evenly around it, which suddenly went out. - Either the Steppenwolf's lair is securely shielded, or the Mother Cube is somehow able to disarm the trackers as they move. Does anyone have any ideas on how else to locate his base?
"I can try to hack into the satellites and view the areas of anomalous activity on the planet's surface," Cyborg suggested, briefly distracting himself from digging into his own mechanical innards, which had recently been thoroughly fried by magical lightning.
"Go ahead. Any other options?"
"Uh, Joker," the Amazon said to me. - I thought you said you could track your beacon on Themyscira?
"You lost my artifact compass?! - I looked at the girl in shock.
I certainly said I could do it, but it's not so easy when you're up against divine enchantments, even if weakened over a dozen centuries.
"Of course not," she shook her head vigorously, as if she didn't want to imagine losing something so valuable. - You said you could track the beacon on the island because it had so much of your mana in it.
"Theoretically," I nod, not sure where the dark-haired beauty is going with this.
"It is unlikely that a copy of the Mother Cube capable of performing the functions of the original contains less mana than a magic beacon."
"That's right! So, as soon as we land, I'll try to calculate the direction and approximate distance, and then it will be easier for Cyborg to orient himself where to look. Or I'll use the triangulation method, but I have a suspicion that the Wolf is somewhere on another continent. In this case, the accuracy of the method will be absolutely inaccurate."
"Okay, that's taken care of," Bats tapped the touchpad a couple times, bringing up several images with dead parademons and some graphs.
At first I thought that Bats was going to talk about the vulnerabilities of the Cyberjukes based on the new data, I had seen the superhero digging through the disfigured carcasses after the battle and talking about something with the arriving people in inconspicuous dark uniforms, but it turned out to be much worse.
While we were assembling the team and working on the resurrection of the boy scout, about three thousand people were suddenly missing all over the world, according to the most conservative estimates. A figure, to put it bluntly, not the largest, but the point is that the missing were suddenly found. Bats noticed that some of the Parademons had slight design differences from their counterparts we had encountered earlier. Some lacked additional bone reinforcement, some had smaller wingspans and were no longer able to lift a heavy body into the air, and some had no armor on their upper limbs at all, and the cyborgization of their bodies, with the exception of their brains, was less profound.
DNA analysis of such creatures yielded not the most encouraging results. If earlier parademons could not be attributed to the human race, because of a completely alien chain of genes and the presence of a bunch of extra chromosomes, now, despite some mutations, Mouse was ninety-nine percent sure that our new opponents were human. This leads to the fact that Wolf can build up his army every day, at the expense of kidnapped Earthlings, if we sit on our asses and wait for him to try to launch Unity, hoping that the fake box will annihilate the bastard.
"Wait, are you saying we just attack the Wolf in his lair and come out victorious? Won't my belly button get untied? - I interrupted Bats' explanation when he switched to assault tactics, utilizing all of our strengths. - Heck, near S.T.A.R. Labs we were supported by special forces and police, not badly weeding out the masses, but, attacking a fortified base, we'll find ourselves face to face with a crowd of enemies. And I'm not mentioning the fact that only Aquaman and Diana can fight with Wolf.
"We don't have a choice."
"Ha ha ha, there is a choice. We just need support!"
"Even if we bring in other superheroes, we'll need to establish teamwork first..."
"Yeah, yeah," I nodded smartly. - We're so good at teamwork, aren't we? I could see that when Flash had fallen at the most crucial moment, and it was just Harley and me between Wolf and Cube.
"I couldn't do enough damage to the Steppenwolf anyway," Barry grumbled from his seat. - Besides, someone had to deal with the parademons and the rescue of the humans.
"You didn't do so well with the parademons either. Next time, bring Velcro grenades and an awl. You fly up, poke the brain through the ear, where the armor is weaker, or stick a grenade on it, and move back to the starting point."
"That's not a bad idea," Bats suddenly supported me.
"That's right, but we're getting distracted. When I said support, I meant..." a brief dramatic pause before Cyborg's eye started to twitch a little. - The Amazons. Their arrows managed to pierce Wolf's armor, and they're all skilled warriors.
"It's-" Bats looked at me in surprise.
"Maybe...," Aquaman uttered.
"Work," Diana finished the strange phrase.
After my suggestion, the plan to storm the fortified lair began to take shape. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the warriors would join the campaign. They were literally created for the defense of the Earth, and also here play a role of personal accounts. After all, the queen of Themyscira could die without my help, and the slain Amazons should not be forgotten.
Soon the rough discussion of tactics was over and we scattered around the airplane preparing for the coming confrontation.
Finally, it's time to scrutinize my own battle in peace and summarize the interim results. Unfortunately, I was still too weak to put up a decent resistance to the players from the big leagues. Even just escaping without Harley's help would hardly work. My life is not a movie where the monster, instead of just breaking the neck of the captured hero or ripping his stomach from groin to throat with its claws, will throw him away for some reason. Fortunately, the girl lying next to me, who was lounging in my arms, demonstrated how to avoid such a grab. And no, I'm not talking about a humiliating spell, although it wouldn't hurt to learn it. Still, this thing is clearly positioned as healing charms, due to which it can easily bypass the natural defenses of the body. In this case, it's about creatively reworked footsteps. During the battle, I noticed how the blond cutie calmly takes some of the blows of angry parademons on her open palm. The solution was simple, my lovely companion had simply placed a stance spell on her hand and activated it as needed.
Normally, a shield is some sort of stationary structure that gradually depletes and requires constant recharging when in active use. Shield enchantments are also at the heart of the act, but the thing is that they are activated at will only for a brief moment, without spending extra energy on their support, and during inactivity, you can say, recharge to then take full damage again. In addition, the "trampoline" effect can be easily changed to a "glue" effect, causing blows to literally stick to the malleable structure. Back to the situation with Wolf, all he had to do was put up a shield in time to avoid being grabbed, and hit with a more energy-intensive disorientation rather than a weak flash.
However, one shouldn't dwell too much on small things. So what if he couldn't put up a decent resistance to a creature that may well have taken over entire planets and recently managed to kill Superman in a direct confrontation, albeit using a kryptonite trick to do it.
After all, if you think about it, my progress has been incredibly rapid. There is no certainty that a couple months ago I would have been able to experience such a close encounter with such a person. Although due to some abnormal luck, which was always inherent in the original, and a relatively strong carcass some chances to survive were still present, but to leave after the battle on their own and in one piece is unlikely. And destroying the parademons with such efficiency would not work either... And this despite the fact that the cyberbugs resembled some dummies in a shooting gallery and attacked our couple without enthusiasm. Because of this strange attitude to the battle, I had a misleading feeling for a moment that they would follow orders if given in a commanding voice, but a check showed that Steppenwolf's minions weren't completely stupid after all, and their alien recognition system was working.
My loud shout with a demand to go to the fog monster chosen for the test met with a perplexed squawking, and then tried to slash at one too insolent character with sharp claws, but logically got a bullet in his stupidity, going on a date with the Eternal.
Returning to the topic of progress. All this time, every three or four days, depending on how I felt, I continued to increase the fourth beginning by one unit, so now literally all active shells could be happy with beautiful figures, including the fifth beginning, which had always been in the outsiders. Naturally, the incessant study and adventures also contributed, helping the acquired abilities and strength to be better assimilated.
By the way, for saving people and destroying bugs, the system suddenly gave out two hundred and seventy-two free points, which allowed to partially compensate for the recent expenses on creating a copy of the magic box. Huh, a couple more encounters like this, and eventually even Wolf wouldn't have to be killed to get his points back. Although such generosity seems a bit strange, since I haven't killed that many enemies, and the ones I've saved are barely thirty.
After a bit of rest, Harley and I moved smoothly to the armory located in the center section of the plane, where we began replenishing the thinned ammunition.
Expansive ammo is good against an alien army, but consecrated expansive ammo is even better. True, it's one thing to apply a kind of buff right before the battle, but if you prepare in advance, the charms by the time of the clash can simply weathered, at least in my case. There is an opinion that professional mages or real priests do not have such misfires. So, to prevent this from happening, I decided to add focusing runes, as well as to create a miniature energy storage from a drop of magic gel. The latter took some work to replace the natural mana with a neutral one, turning the gel from green to transparent. Naturally, light mana would be ideal, but converting to it was a terrible hassle, and even with a heavy energy loss of up to ninety-five percent. And then my favorite diamonds decided to pull an unexpected trick. As it turned out, they lose their integrity and become incredibly fragile when emptied, as well as when charged. Naturally, I couldn't turn the diamonds into dust, as Abby had done, but they crumbled in my fingers, which surprised me unpleasantly when I used the emptied gem, intending to fill it with neutral mana.
Just carving runes with an engraver or a lathe was boring enough, so I got creative with a sculptor's spell. It was fun to use my fingernails to carve mysterious symbols into the metal under the amazed gaze of Flash, who was standing nearby. He and Bats were making something like a hidden assassin's blade, but the blade was on the outside of the weapon, so Barry didn't have to cut off his ring finger, though I advised him to do it anyway, just in case.
An hour passed meditatively creating magical symbols and filling them with magic gel until we landed near our destination.
I don't know what exactly I expected from a visit to the Wayne Industries branch spaceport, but I didn't think it would be so mundane. We simply placed Superman's corpse in a special box with tinted glass that could become transparent if the power was cut off, and, after passing through empty technical corridors, placed him in the shuttle's airlock.
"Hmm... Wouldn't the astronauts be embarrassed by a high-tech coffin appearing out of thin air? - I asked, thoughtfully examining the large glass cigar that occupied two thirds of the room.
"There's the technical documentation," the man in the bat cosplay nodded at an inconspicuous sheet taped to the hull.
"Experimental satellite TC-1? Ha ha, Superman' corpse alone? Pretty original.
Bats muttered something in response, clearly unhappy with the transcript.
This ease of getting the boy scout into space was very helpful, and we were quickly able to return to our transport, where I immediately began to determine the coordinates of the copy of the Mother Box. I drew a simple runic circle on a suitable stone with the blade of my cane, took a cushion from Harley, sat down in the center of the composition, and began to meditate.
For me, the difficulty of these searches was that they were conditionally related to the school of the Astral, with which I practically did not work. Of course, on the one hand, I could meditate quite well, as evidenced by my progress in the use of prana, and the first experiments in ignoring pain should not be forgotten, but the fact was that I had always meditated "inside myself," and here I had to open up to the world and merge with it. The circle, of course, helped a little, cutting off my own aura and serving as a point of focus, but the rest of the difficulties had to be dealt with on my own, which took quite a lot of time and moral strength.
Time after time, the harmony I had achieved was constantly shattered by the sounds around me, and the cheerful memories only briefly helped me maintain the right level of concentration. In short, despite its apparent simplicity, it took me two long hours to come to my senses.
Fortunately, Bats, seeing the fruitless attempts, already at the tenth minute loaded all the friendly company, except for Harley, on board and flew towards the island of feminists, where we will reach by portal to prepare the Amazons for the meeting and the upcoming battle.
As for the results of searching for my own high-energy astral traces, I got two directions at once. One of them felt incredibly dim, not allowing me to determine even the approximate distance to the target and making me think that it was the one we needed. But, by some simple calculations, it turned out that it crossed the Bermuda Triangle, where the lighthouse was located, while the second direction pointed to Europe. I didn't do anything weird there, except for the case with Melholm fanatics, so after the call Cyborg started combing the designated zone, having connected to local satellites.
Harley and I were no sooner on our feet in Shadow Peak, leaving the rainbow pancake of the spatial transition behind us, when my phone started ringing, announcing an incoming call. I tensed up, because this number was for emergencies only and was only held by a few people I trusted completely and who were aware of my double life. Harley, Babs, Ivy, Zee, and Alfred, just five names, but they were really important people to me.
It was all the more surprising to see that the challenge came from Ivy, who sort of sits on a peaceful island, surrounded by her own plants that can make life fun for most opponents.
"Aren't you all crazy? - It was with these words that the most fascinating monologue of the beautiful protector of nature, filled with emotional epithets, began.
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