Santa Prisca
June 20, 22:49
Ahead of me, Rob, who was formerly stuck removing something from his utility belt, completed the motion and threw a birdarang toward the panicking cultist.
Demonstrating the insane level of belief fanatics possessed, he fought through the fear and spun around, retrieving a purple syringe gun from his coat while reaching for a red button on the dashboard.
The birdarang hit the computer and sprayed him in the face with a fast acting gas. Instead of raising his arm to shield his nostrils like a normal person, he grew even more determined, jamming the syringe into his neck with his left hand while reaching forward with his right.
Calling upon the newly discovered sense of control, I opened my right hand and the Soulsword shot forward like a beam, lodging itself firmly in the man's chest. He screamed, even more loudly than Faust before going slack and slumping on the dashboard.
That only signaled the start of the tearing and the blare of alarms. Since his hand was right above the button when the sword hit him, knocking him out did nothing to stop it from mashing the button.
Noise rebounded off the walls and lights, both red and yellow, flashed all over the facility. However, none of that occupied our attention because right before Rob and I, the unconscious cultist underwent a brutal transformation.
Ripping sounds that were definitely more than his clothes tapping out haunted the small room. His limbs grew like demented shoots, jutting out to twice their length in mere seconds, his whole frame expanding and growing like a meaty, chunky balloon.
Rob and I stood there and watched the stomach churning scene unfold, up to the last second where the cultist regained consciousness. He pressed his enlarged hand on the dashboard, denting that portion, a section of opened skin running up his tanned forearm, powerful red muscles exposed to the air.
Similar, nasty cracks were scattered over his torso and limbs as he shook his enlarged head and stood to his new, towering height, subtle tremors going through our feet when he affirmed his.
As if this wasn't enough, loud bestial roars, too many to count emerged from all corners of the facility and even beyond it, painting a picture my rational mind struggled to accommodate.
What the fuck was The Light thinking?!
"SP," Rob called out, bringing me back to reality.
"Right," I muttered and summoned the sword again, brightening up the room. "Regroup with the others," I said and locked eyes with the huffing cultist, clenching his mitt sized hands as steam escaped his fanged maw.
"I'll handle things here."
"You're sure?"
"Go," I said, this time with more firmness before holding up the sword, the tip pointed straight at the hulking brute.
Rob vanished and the brute roared, grabbing the chair he formerly sat on before hurling it my way. Dodging it with a small sidestep, I advanced and the brute who met my charge unflinchingly.
The sword came up from my side in a sweeping slash, the blade growing brighter before slicing through the hulked up cultist. Instead of knocking him out, it only staggered him, his heavy thumping steps leading him past me on the path I provided by moving out of his way.
In a show of his improved resilience, he shook his head a few times and pumped his massive, hanging arms a few times, huffing and growling before spinning around.
He found me and the glowing Soulsword lodged firmly in his forehead, white light reflected off his drooping features. The heightened application of magical energy finally rendered him unconscious and he fell forward, shaking the room with his increased mass.
"Sir, we have a problem," said Mike.
"What is it now?" I said and went to the dashboard. A small device left one of the pouches on my belt and went into a port. A quick update in my HUD confirmed Mike's access to the systems and I turned around.
A tremor shook the floor beneath me and a roar soon followed. Calm did not return after that. The shaking didn't stop, in fact it continued to climb and so did the volume of the roars.
"The League will not be able to lend aid. A few minutes ago, various villains launched sudden attacks at separate locations all over the world. Every League member currently on the planet is engaging them as we speak."
"Fuck," I cursed and withdrew the pistol from my holster. "Get in touch with the others and inform them. Tell them to stay together and converge on the factory."
With the ease of someone who'd created it and practiced with the firearm hundreds of times, I gave it a quick once over, switched all the ammunition to the specially made, sustained electricity rounds and cranked them to the max setting.
Frankly, a part of me was glad the League wouldn't be coming. It was a bit immature, but the thought of facing dozens of hulking brutes only made me more eager. Eager to tackle this unforeseen development and resolve it on my own.
The sudden stop of the shaking brought me back to my senses and I raised the gun, pointing the muzzle at the thick metal door to this room.
BANG!
The door flew from its hinges and air rushed into the room, another roaring hulk blurring past the doorway toward me. Four metal legs popped up out of my back and stopped him in his tracks and I pulled the trigger.
Little sound accompanied the bullet entering his open mouth, but its effects were evident the moment it hit home. Arcs of sudden, bright blue electricity arced over the cultist's massive body, coiling over his frame and making hair standing on end.
He lost control of himself, his body shaking and spasming for a few seconds before I dialed down the effects. I checked the readouts on my HUD when he also fell and shook the place, the results of the scan showing me there was no lasting harm and that he'd really gone under.
With a thought, one of the metal legs jutting out of my back inched forward and tipped him over.
Maintaining my hold on the gun, I set the timer for the electricity in each round to five seconds and removed the magazine, switching it with one filled with sedative bullets. Three of them went into Faust and I switched them back again.
"Mike, what's the status?"
"Every Kobra cultist present has taken a dose of the Kobra-Venom. Scans show there are eight of them at your location. The rest are currently in the wild, likely looking for the rest of the team. Kaldur has received your message and changed course. He should be joining the others soon. Kid Flash has disabled all the hidden planes. Bane's men are down, and I have shut down production of the substance. However, I fear we may be too late."
"Elaborate. And send over some cuffs. We'll need a way to keep the guys from going crazy when they wake up."
"On it."
Activating the tractor beam in my gauntlet, I used it to grab the cultist I just downed and tossed him through the doorway he busted open. There was a meaty thud from beyond it that I knew meant jackpot and I followed through.
"You said we were too late? What are you talking about?" I said and fired two shots, one into the gaping mouth of another cultist and the other into the flaring nostril of his partner.
I stepped over their smoking forms, ignoring the waft of ozone, boiled sweat and barely cooked flesh. The remaining four were in sight and I fired at them and the metal tanks and railings near them to get their attention.
While they charged me and while I lined my shots, Mike finally explained. "Factory logs show that a batch of the new formula was produced yesterday, but my repeated scans of the facility has revealed no evidence of their presence. Meaning—"
"They've been shipped out," I said, firing my sixth shot of the night.
"Not just that sir. They are being used as we speak. Batman is facing the cult in Gotham and all his adversaries have transformed."
I wanted to curse, but the slight satisfaction it might give me seemed pointless. I fired the last bullet before holstering the gun, the last cultist having learned from his sleeping friends to close his mouth and cover his face.
"You asked for this," I said and rushed him head on, crossing the distance between us faster than he could blink. A right hook slammed into his cheek like a meteor, the stored kinetic energy in my suit and my own strength launching the brute backward.
He bounced off the ground, leaving cracks and craters before slamming spreadeagled into the far wall. Two web lines attached themselves to the wall at the sides of his head and I came barreling in like a missile, both feet hammering him in the chest.
We tore through the wall and ended up outside. The cold night air hit us in full force and he tumbled uncontrollably before coming to a stop.
As for me, I cut off the lines and righted myself in midair, landing in a crouch before standing tall.
Huffing, I ignored how good it felt to let loose like that and checked on the team.
"SP, where are you? We're about to run into a squad of the KVed guys," said Kid Flash.
Aware that everyone was listening, I said, "Take them down, but be careful. I'll be there soon."
"Finally," said Superboy, and the sound of fist hitting palm carried over.
"Mike, are you tracking the cultists?"
"Yes sir. There are two additional squads. Sending you the locations now."
Quickly bringing up a map in my HUD, I noted the locations of the dots and set a waypoint to the nearest one. A quick thought brought the Zephyr into position and I opened the hatch, jumping straight up through it.
Back in the pilot's seat, I beelined for the squad and thought about the shitshow The Light had created.
'It's going to be a long fucking night.'
.
.
.
.
It took some doing but we managed to round up all the hulked out cultists on the island. Each of them (including Faust) were now bound with the special cuffs and sedated with the tranqs tailored to the altered and massive frames.
Right now the team was huddled nearby, close enough to deal with any of the captives in the unlikely case they woke up but not so close that we would be caught off guard.
We were—or more accurately, I was trying to determine the purpose The Light wanted to serve by handing out Kobra-Venom like it was candy.
"Mike, anything amiss? Anything at all?"
"Everything is coming up clean sir. No one on our watchlist has been reported missing or kidnapped and there have been no break-ins into any target facilities. The only thing of note are the well-timed attacks, which are being wrapped up as we speak."
"So The Light did this just to distract us?" asked Wally, the teen gesturing to the unconscious cultists.
"Not distract. Capture," said Robin. "Faust was here to do that. The real distraction was the cultists."
"Ohh, I see. But wait, what about the attacks the League is dealing with?"
Kaldur stepped in here.
"The Light may have wanted to cover all their bases. Just in case we managed to get word out and a League member came here after us, they-" he gestured to the hulks, "-would transform and distract them while Faust got away with one or more of us."
"But why do they want us?" Superboy asked.
"Hm," Roy scoffed and crossed his arms. "Knowing them, it's probably to use us for something that won't leave us intact."
"Nuh uh," I shook my head. "That's not it. At least… not completely. Think about it. What could The Light want right now more than anything," I paused and glanced to the side, "apart from an army of super soldiers."
"...Information. They want to know how a lot of their plans suddenly went up in the air. We freed Superboy, the Genomorphs, and Will. He stopped checking in with them, feeding them info about the League. They went blind all of a sudden. This is them trying to get new eyes."
"Well, if it's that… who or where can they get information from?" said Superboy.
"The cave?" I speculated out loud. "Naah. The wards will keep them out. If they somehow get past them, my systems are the most secure thing on the planet. Plus, Mike is there, with all the weapons I've made. As for who, the League is all accounted for so it's not them. That only leaves… us."
"But we're all here…" said KF.
Roy's eyes widened and understanding dawned on me.
"Not all of us." "Will!"
"Mike—"
"Already tracking his location… his phone registers at his apartment, but my systems show that he's on… Infinity Island."
A muted scream left my lips and I raised my clenched, trembling fist to my face.
FUCK!
A cascade of questions, scenarios and possibilities soared through my mind unending, and for the first time I felt genuine horror.
This wasn't plain fear. This was the enhanced kind you felt when the absolutely worst thing that could happen in an already fucked up situation… happen. Neither the League nor The Light scared me, but the latter group getting a hold of what Will knew about me chilled me to the core.
Every stray thought halted when the candle flame lit up and they all melted away, leaving cold calculation and determination. The dilemma on who to send got resolved in a split-second and I focused on the team.
"You guys will go," I said in a tone that brokered no argument. "You have only one job. Find Will. Get him, and get out."
They all nodded, expressions set in seriousness. With nothing but firm and swift steps, they rushed into the Zephyr and blasted off, leaving me alone with our captives.
Eyeing the platform we'd deployed so the League could come over instantly once they were done with their fights, I fought the tension and discomfort within and said to Mike, "Notify me when they arrive. And let me know when the first Leaguer is coming."
"Noted sir."
Nodding to no one in particular, I closed my eyes and began to exhale and inhale deeply. The team would reach the island in minutes. A Leaguer should have arrived by then.
Superman, or a Lantern most likely. They were the fastest fliers. Once Mike gave the word, I'd join the team and the gloves would come off.
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