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thejusticelounge2013-06-18 05:52 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2013-06-18 05:52 pm
stem the tide
[TXT] I’m here Ollie!
He came down to the front lobby of Queen Towers, nodding Mia over to follow him to the hidden high-speed elevator that required a retinal scan to operate. “I’ll code you in once we get up into the control room,” he assured her, “although mostly when you come here it’ll probably be using the zeta pads.”
“Come here to your work?” Mia asked with a frown, putting her hand out as the elevator stopped suddenly enough to make them bounce on the balls of their feet. Ollie looked over at her, one eyebrow slightly raised.
“Something like that,” he said. The elevator doors slid open into an expansive room that was bright with satellite photo feeds and news updates on holographic projection screens. “Welcome to the Watchtower Adjunct, Speedy.” His phone played the tone he’d set for Kate just then, shivering insistently in his pocket, and Ollie let Mia explore the headquarters more closely while he checked it. Palpable relief flooded him as he read Kate’s message. She wasn’t okay, not really, not yet, but she was safe and that was enough for now.
(and you don’t want to think about if she wasn’t, because without her you’d be no good to anybody, you’d go right off the fucking deep end)
[TXT] Speedy and me in QT where I showed you. Come here if ur not engaged, keep in touch if ur working with somebody. Love you. Will check in with u every hour if ur not coming.
Ollie sent off the text — it was woefully inadequate, he wanted to have Kate with him like Mia was, where he could see her and be sure she was safe — but they were, after all, superheroes. And LA was being shitcanned, from the looks of it. La Rojita would probably want to stay close to home and protect her city, just like Green Arrow wanted to do with Star.
His phone suddenly gave a violent shake, indicating that a call had been trying to come in, and Ollie frowned and stared at the notification — Mar’i? — as Mia raised her voice from over in the middle of the projection screens. “Ollie you’re gonna want to see this,” she said, and as he went over she pointed up at one of the feeds from the San Francisco area. Nightstar was clearly headed down the California coast, her energy contrail burning behind her in a flash of purple and orange.
“Get on the horn with her,” Ollie instructed Mia, “on the League frequency, and I hope she’s got her comm on her. Let her know where we are, where Queen Tower is, and tell her she can land on the helipad. From the looks of things…” he glanced around at some of the other screens, images of people swarming up from Coast City, fleeing the dense yellow wrapping around that area and up to Star. Moving north made sense, what with LA swirling into more unrest with each moment. Coast City people had bad history with Lantern business, with Parallax, with all of the fear. And people who were that scared inevitably started getting violent.
He looked over at the area where the costumes were hanging, his and Speedy’s, brand-new ones waiting for them. “We’re gonna need some help.”
Mar’i was over Star City when her wrist buzzed. Several times. She realized with sudden clarity that she had remembered, thankfully, to put the little bracelet with her League comm on this morning. She listened to John’s message with slight annoyance. She understood the tendency of the GLs to try and handle their own situations, but at this point with as much anger as she had built up she couldn’t really see the logic. ”That’s fucking stupid,” she hissed as she began to see far off in the distance the flickering yellow lights. ”Fucking Lantern business my ass, he’s up in my fucking head and you’re gonna tell me—” Her comm buzzed again and she listened as Mia’s voice instructed her what to do. She stopped mid-air staring between the Queen Tower in one direction and the flickering yellow lights in another. She sighed dejectedly and headed towards the Tower at double-speed, hoping Ollie had something more exciting in store for her than busting the alien ass she had just been tempted with. ”Okay, fine, but if they start going after civilians I’m going to carve me up some aliens,” she muttered into her comm. ”I’m in Star City, I’m going to Queen Tower if you need me.”
She landed on the helipad, looking around in annoyance for Ollie and Mia. ”PLEASE TELL ME YOU TWO KNOW WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS GOING ON?!” she yelled, unsure of where exactly she should even aim her anger.
Mia looked over at Mar’i when she started shouting about what was going on, or not knowing what was going on at least.
“No.” She said and glanced over towards Oliver. “I don’t.” She stressed the ‘I’ and left the ‘He probably does’ part unsaid. She never knew what was ever going on. It was probably the easiest thing about being a ‘sidekick’ she didn’t HAVE to know exactly what was going on. Just the basic idea, then do what she was told to do and that was it. Easy and simple enough. She was really too busy getting familiar with all the new equipment in Queen Tower to give some kind of half informed rundown of what was going on anyway.
All she knew at the moment was… some shit was happening with the Green Lanterns. Again. Not like she could talk, it wasn’t like the Arrows never caused problems for the hero community. With that she checked, maybe a bit selfishly but that didn’t matter, if Lian was in a safe place. Then Gar who had said he was going to be in San Francisco with Cassie so she was glad he at least wasn’t in LA. But she held back the question on the tip of her tongue which was ‘is Kate ok?’ She didn’t want to cause Ollie more of a distraction then what was already surely running through his mind.
So, instead she asked, “What should we do?”
Sinestro said they should have a bit of fun, while Parallax had his. And frankly, after witnessing just how precisely and beautifully the torture of Kyle Rayner had been executed on Qward, some of the Sinestro Corps were chomping at the bit to get their own fear-on. Not that they felt they had anything to prove to Sinestro, but…
…but it really was quite the sight, they way their master battered that young headstrong Green Lantern, beating him in both body and spirit until he was ready for Parallax to consume him whole. Snap Trap laughed at Kyle Rayner’s torment. For him, it was practically inspirational.
Snap Trap and Flayt took a side trip along the coast, heading towards Star City. They knew Hal Jordan was busy with Parallax, and they’d heard wind of someone else on this planet who was possibly close to Jordan, someone he cared about. What better prize, what better way to impress Sinestro than to…
“A Tamaranean!!” Snap Trap bark-growled, as they got closer to the tower. The alligator-type being was sniffing the air around Queen Tower . “I want to claim her!”
+Very well,+ his companion Flayt replied, its belly already swollen and squirming with a vicious surprise. + I shall capture the Green Arrow and his whelp. +
Flayt opened its maw, spewing out hundreds of small disc-shaped flying attackers.
Speedy and Green Arrow had rushed out into the helipad just in time to meet up with the clearly chomping-at-the-bit Mar’i, who had ostensibly landed but was still coming up off the ground out of sheer frustration and agitation. Parallax has been sending us all these fucking head-trip messages, Ollie realized, glancing from Mar’i’s face to Mia’s as she quickly tapped out messages on her comm. “Everybody’s safe so far,” Ollie told them both, “but if we wanna keep it that way we’ll have to deal with the people surging up here from Coast, trying to get away from the fucking Parallax pea soup going on over there.”
All three of them looked over at Coast City and the sick yellow cloud wrapped around it, glowing now with the energy signatures of the Yellow Lanterns. Ollie thought for a moment he could see a flash of bright electric green from under there, but he didn’t dwell on that hope. Not just yet.
Crowd control wasn’t too bad a work detail, especially with a Tamaranean warrior on their side, and Ollie started pointing out a strafing route she could take to quell the rioters and keep order with the refugees, making plans in the back of his head for him and Mia to sweep the downtown core and take care of the bands of looters.
— and it was just about then that two of the Sinestro Corps flung down at them, one enormous virulent magenta fucking *alligator* and a goddamn fucking stingray from hell that instantly erupted with razor-sharp discs sparking acid yellow.
“Shit!” Ollie barked, one of the razor discs slicing a shallow cut into his upper arm as he threw himself out of the way. Speedy was rolling, her cape cut into long flapping pennants by the two discs she had avoided, and the alligator — that thing apparently had it in for Nightstar and her alone, from the way it was slavering to get at her.
“Speedy and me are on Sea World duty, you take the creep from the bayou!” Green Arrow hollered over at Mar’i, signalling Mia with hand signs for the two archers to keep moving and maintain a distance from each other. Last thing they wanted was to present a single target for these bloody discs or their flying momma. At the very least, the two Yellows seemed intent on the three heroes on the Queen Tower helipad; that was good, they weren’t down there in the streets of Star City attacking civilians. Crowd control would have to wait.
“Thank X’Hal for idiot aliens who use long-range attacks to let you know they’re there before they actually reach you,” Mar’i hissed, landing firmly on the helipad and looking up at the giant alligator-like corpsmen coming straight at her. ”I’ve watched enough Swamp People to know what this guy probably does,” she muttered to herself more than the two archers currently avoiding razor sharp discs.
The Lantern was coming in fast, but still far enough off that she had time to take off at him at max speed before he reached the Tower roof. He opened his massive purple jaws as she came closer, and she fired a starbolt straight into his throat, sending him flying back towards the sky. ”Oh, I’m sorry, did you think we were fighting on Earth?” she yelled, racing after him, as they both rose higher and higher into the atmosphere, him avoiding her starbolts and she avoiding his mouth.
“Man, if Steve Irwin could get a look at you!” She laughed cruelly as they entered the thermosphere, where they came to a stop. ”I sure hope you put in a transfer request to the Black Lanterns, because Sinestro isn’t gonna have any use for a headless gator.”
“You are cocky, just like those who spawned you, half-breed,” Snap Trap hissed, dodging Mar’i’s starbolts and flinging back his own. ”I like cocky. It will be more fun, when destroy you completely—”
The gator-alien turned tail and zipped away, giving chase into a small, floating collection of space trash, courtesy of LuthorCorp. It was a swirling mass of metal-type debris and orange pulp that gathered and split in zero-grav. Snap Trap hid easily, powering down his light, forcing Mari into a game of hide and seek. Even if she used her starbolts to obliterate the debris, Snap Trap had managed to find his in.
Peeking out from behind a large containment unit (it seemed like it once held one of the human species; or at least a conglomerate of their genetics made flesh), Snap Trap caught her eye. As she was powering up another star bolt, he used his evil powers of hypnotism on her, to draw her close. Snap Trap knew he couldn’t hold back - this one’s will was hardy, strong, like any Tamaranean. Snap Trap hissed, amping up his ability to focus it all on luring her closer.
“That’s it, half-breed. You don’t belong in this world anyway. Come to Sgeyy*”us*” (his real name) “Let me taste you. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Mar’i’s eyes narrowed as the alligator corpsman began playing what was essentially a high-stakes, highly dangerous game of hide and seek. What was he doing? ”Seems kind of ironic you’re supposed to be a big scary fear monger and you’re really just a scaly little coward!” she yelled, eyes searching among the debris for him.
Suddenly his sharp little eyes appeared over a containment unit nearby.
“There you are,” she began, pulling her arms back, and preparing to blast the reptile and the containment unit both. She wasn’t honestly sure why he was even hiding in the first place—that little putrid ring on his finger should’ve been strong enough that he was at least fighting back mano-a-mano. That was when her body started moving on its own. ”Shit!” she hissed, trying to regain control of her flight.
‘He’s some sort of hypnotist!,’ she thought with equal parts anger and understanding, ‘no wonder he was lurking back there, that little reptilian asshole!’
Thankfully, it seemed to be taking most of his control just to make her fly to him, and there was seemingly no real control over her arms. She threw a few starbolts at him, hoping they would break his concentration, but the scaly lantern just put up a yellow light shield and continued drawing her closer.
“Fine,” she growled, pulling a huge amount of energy into her arms, causing her whole upper torso to burn brightly as she drew closer and closer. ”Let’s see if you like the taste of this!” If she was going to get eaten by an alligator today, at least she’d blow him up from the inside out.
Snap Trap unhinged his jaw, skin bellowing out as he tilted back, planning to swallow her whole. In the back of his throat, she tasted warm, very warm. Hot, really. Uncomfortably hot, in fact.
The Yellow Lantern choked, trying to thicken his shield to defend himself, but it wasn’t working. It was either keep swallowing her and face the consequences, or spit her back out in a show of weakness…and face those consequences.
Scream, Snap Trap drew her in more, only to muster enough energy to project her back outwards, sending the woman careening into a corrugated piece of debris.
With a roar of rage, his jaw still hanging slack from being badly burned, he lurched towards Mar’i, whipping her in the face with his tail.
There was one thing Mar’i Grayson had learned on this day, and that single thing was that she was never going into another living creature’s stomach if she could help it. Her hair and clothes were coated in Snap Trap’s slimy spit, and she barely managed to wipe it off her face when his tail caught her square in the jaw. She felt her lip bust and droplets of blood suddenly filled the air as she crashed into a large piece of garbage.
Snap Trap came at her, clawing and snapping, his tail lashing wildly in all directions. Luckily her starbolt had caused enough damage that he wasn’t able to completely close his jaws or even snap them at full-strength, and she had gotten him just as close as she needed him. His bright yellow tail came again and this time she caught it, spinning in mid-air from the debris so the momentum would shift into her favor. Just as he dissolved the tail construct to take away her advantage, she slammed him front-first into the same containment unit he had been hiding behind earlier.
As soon as he made impact, she was slamming him even further into the rubbage with her own body, one orange arm grabbing his head at the top while the other wrapped under his slack jaw and around his neck. His yellow energy constructs flailed around wildly, catching and pulling her hair and limbs, but she held fast. ”The harder you pull me,” she hissed between her bloody lips, “the harder I squeeze you.” She demonstrated this by increasing pressure on his head and throat, her arms and hands again growing unbearably hot with energy as she threatened to hold true to her promise of ripping his head right off.
Snap Trap was vicious, but clever. It knew when it was oh the verge of being beaten; and furthermore, it felt the wretched agony not just physically from this cutthroat half-breed, but also in spirit, as Parallax was vanquished, thousands of miles below.
It let out a wail that, via its ring, transferred through Mar’i, reverberating against her eardrums and sending waves of discomfort into her mind. Snap Trap didn’t want to fight anymore. The Yellow Lantern only wanted to flee.
“RELEASE MEEEEE” it howled, squirming in agony under her heat and the defeat of Parallax. “RELEASE ME AND I WILL —”
A…well really, Mar’i could only explain it as a giant space bull came charging towards them out of nowhere, getting Mar’i in the side. But it wasn’t attacking so much as just disconcerting her enough for Snap trap to squiggle out of her iron grip and the two Yellow Lanterns didn’t even pause as they flew past Mar’i, barely escaping with their lives.
Snap Trap, however, did take the time to shake his fist at Mar’i, with a distant echo of “I’ll get you, half-breed! You just waaaaaiiiiittttttttuh.”
And with that, blip. They were out of sigh.
Mar’i let out a loud ‘OOF’ as she was sent spiraling away from the two lanterns. She shot her head up just in time to watch the two lanterns scurry away, joining a large retreating cloud heading back into space, Snap Trap turning around to make his vow.
“Yeah, yeah,” she puffed, blowing a piece of slimy purple hair out of her face, “meddling half-breed, I got it.” She straightened out, watching the lanterns until she could no longer see them, and then checking her comm-link. Mia’s messaged informed her that she and Ollie had finished off the stingray Lantern, and she turned back to Earth, allowing herself to freefall a little before flying the rest of the way down. The sun was warm on her face and shoulders, already recharging her lost energy reserves.
A few minutes later, she landed on the Queen Tower helipad again and entered the Monitor Womb with the access code Mia had already sent her. ”In ~exciting~ alien news,” she began as soon as she saw her fellow Leaguers, “I was just swallowed by an alligator,” she turned around so they could see the toothmarks in the back of her shirt, “and I am also still not 100% sure of what is going on, just in case anyone is unaware.” She walked over to Mia and looked at the various screens bleeping information, before looking down at the petite archer herself, then to Ollie, Zauriel and Zatanna. ”Are you all okay? What do we do next?”
“First of all,” Ollie said, “Speedy will get you all coded for QT access. If any Leaguers apart from the Green Lanterns contact you, direct them here. Right now, this is a better place for us to work out of than the Watchtower.” He nodded at Mia, who switched the biggest projection screen over to the feed from Coast City.
The clotted yellow smog that had swaddled the city was dissipating, shot through in places with green light so bright and pale it was almost burning white. “It looks like the GLs might have broken through the hold that Parallax had on ‘em,” Ollie said tightly. Right now, this was all speculation on his part, and god knew he didn’t want to assume too much, be lulled into complacency, reach out to Hal like he desperately wanted to only to find out that Parallax was still there.
Forcing himself to look away from the screen, he surveyed the little group of assorted heroes. “Manhunter and Batgirl are keeping order in Los Angeles,” Ollie reported as Mia obligingly brought up that display — the tower’s dedicated satellite (dubbed “The Mongoose”) easily picked out the two League members among the crowds and chaos, just as it had been programmed to do. “They might join us up here when they’re done. Star City’s gotten a lot of the overflow from Coast City, and those people are in a panic and affected by the fear, uh …” Ollie paused, frowning as he tried to come up with an adequate descriptor. Toxin? Fog? “Well, you know, the yellow fear shit’s made them crazy.
“So if you wanna stay here and coordinate attacks and additional League members as they check in, that’s cool, we need at least one person doing that. If you wanna hit the streets with me and start bringing some goddamn order back into the place —” Ollie pinched his bowstring with two fingers, running them rapidly along the length with a zipping sound before slinging the bow onto his shoulder, “— then get patched up and let’s motor.”
He came down to the front lobby of Queen Towers, nodding Mia over to follow him to the hidden high-speed elevator that required a retinal scan to operate. “I’ll code you in once we get up into the control room,” he assured her, “although mostly when you come here it’ll probably be using the zeta pads.”
“Come here to your work?” Mia asked with a frown, putting her hand out as the elevator stopped suddenly enough to make them bounce on the balls of their feet. Ollie looked over at her, one eyebrow slightly raised.
“Something like that,” he said. The elevator doors slid open into an expansive room that was bright with satellite photo feeds and news updates on holographic projection screens. “Welcome to the Watchtower Adjunct, Speedy.” His phone played the tone he’d set for Kate just then, shivering insistently in his pocket, and Ollie let Mia explore the headquarters more closely while he checked it. Palpable relief flooded him as he read Kate’s message. She wasn’t okay, not really, not yet, but she was safe and that was enough for now.
(and you don’t want to think about if she wasn’t, because without her you’d be no good to anybody, you’d go right off the fucking deep end)
[TXT] Speedy and me in QT where I showed you. Come here if ur not engaged, keep in touch if ur working with somebody. Love you. Will check in with u every hour if ur not coming.
Ollie sent off the text — it was woefully inadequate, he wanted to have Kate with him like Mia was, where he could see her and be sure she was safe — but they were, after all, superheroes. And LA was being shitcanned, from the looks of it. La Rojita would probably want to stay close to home and protect her city, just like Green Arrow wanted to do with Star.
His phone suddenly gave a violent shake, indicating that a call had been trying to come in, and Ollie frowned and stared at the notification — Mar’i? — as Mia raised her voice from over in the middle of the projection screens. “Ollie you’re gonna want to see this,” she said, and as he went over she pointed up at one of the feeds from the San Francisco area. Nightstar was clearly headed down the California coast, her energy contrail burning behind her in a flash of purple and orange.
“Get on the horn with her,” Ollie instructed Mia, “on the League frequency, and I hope she’s got her comm on her. Let her know where we are, where Queen Tower is, and tell her she can land on the helipad. From the looks of things…” he glanced around at some of the other screens, images of people swarming up from Coast City, fleeing the dense yellow wrapping around that area and up to Star. Moving north made sense, what with LA swirling into more unrest with each moment. Coast City people had bad history with Lantern business, with Parallax, with all of the fear. And people who were that scared inevitably started getting violent.
He looked over at the area where the costumes were hanging, his and Speedy’s, brand-new ones waiting for them. “We’re gonna need some help.”
Mar’i was over Star City when her wrist buzzed. Several times. She realized with sudden clarity that she had remembered, thankfully, to put the little bracelet with her League comm on this morning. She listened to John’s message with slight annoyance. She understood the tendency of the GLs to try and handle their own situations, but at this point with as much anger as she had built up she couldn’t really see the logic. ”That’s fucking stupid,” she hissed as she began to see far off in the distance the flickering yellow lights. ”Fucking Lantern business my ass, he’s up in my fucking head and you’re gonna tell me—” Her comm buzzed again and she listened as Mia’s voice instructed her what to do. She stopped mid-air staring between the Queen Tower in one direction and the flickering yellow lights in another. She sighed dejectedly and headed towards the Tower at double-speed, hoping Ollie had something more exciting in store for her than busting the alien ass she had just been tempted with. ”Okay, fine, but if they start going after civilians I’m going to carve me up some aliens,” she muttered into her comm. ”I’m in Star City, I’m going to Queen Tower if you need me.”
She landed on the helipad, looking around in annoyance for Ollie and Mia. ”PLEASE TELL ME YOU TWO KNOW WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS GOING ON?!” she yelled, unsure of where exactly she should even aim her anger.
Mia looked over at Mar’i when she started shouting about what was going on, or not knowing what was going on at least.
“No.” She said and glanced over towards Oliver. “I don’t.” She stressed the ‘I’ and left the ‘He probably does’ part unsaid. She never knew what was ever going on. It was probably the easiest thing about being a ‘sidekick’ she didn’t HAVE to know exactly what was going on. Just the basic idea, then do what she was told to do and that was it. Easy and simple enough. She was really too busy getting familiar with all the new equipment in Queen Tower to give some kind of half informed rundown of what was going on anyway.
All she knew at the moment was… some shit was happening with the Green Lanterns. Again. Not like she could talk, it wasn’t like the Arrows never caused problems for the hero community. With that she checked, maybe a bit selfishly but that didn’t matter, if Lian was in a safe place. Then Gar who had said he was going to be in San Francisco with Cassie so she was glad he at least wasn’t in LA. But she held back the question on the tip of her tongue which was ‘is Kate ok?’ She didn’t want to cause Ollie more of a distraction then what was already surely running through his mind.
So, instead she asked, “What should we do?”
Sinestro said they should have a bit of fun, while Parallax had his. And frankly, after witnessing just how precisely and beautifully the torture of Kyle Rayner had been executed on Qward, some of the Sinestro Corps were chomping at the bit to get their own fear-on. Not that they felt they had anything to prove to Sinestro, but…
…but it really was quite the sight, they way their master battered that young headstrong Green Lantern, beating him in both body and spirit until he was ready for Parallax to consume him whole. Snap Trap laughed at Kyle Rayner’s torment. For him, it was practically inspirational.
Snap Trap and Flayt took a side trip along the coast, heading towards Star City. They knew Hal Jordan was busy with Parallax, and they’d heard wind of someone else on this planet who was possibly close to Jordan, someone he cared about. What better prize, what better way to impress Sinestro than to…
“A Tamaranean!!” Snap Trap bark-growled, as they got closer to the tower. The alligator-type being was sniffing the air around Queen Tower . “I want to claim her!”
+Very well,+ his companion Flayt replied, its belly already swollen and squirming with a vicious surprise. + I shall capture the Green Arrow and his whelp. +
Flayt opened its maw, spewing out hundreds of small disc-shaped flying attackers.
Speedy and Green Arrow had rushed out into the helipad just in time to meet up with the clearly chomping-at-the-bit Mar’i, who had ostensibly landed but was still coming up off the ground out of sheer frustration and agitation. Parallax has been sending us all these fucking head-trip messages, Ollie realized, glancing from Mar’i’s face to Mia’s as she quickly tapped out messages on her comm. “Everybody’s safe so far,” Ollie told them both, “but if we wanna keep it that way we’ll have to deal with the people surging up here from Coast, trying to get away from the fucking Parallax pea soup going on over there.”
All three of them looked over at Coast City and the sick yellow cloud wrapped around it, glowing now with the energy signatures of the Yellow Lanterns. Ollie thought for a moment he could see a flash of bright electric green from under there, but he didn’t dwell on that hope. Not just yet.
Crowd control wasn’t too bad a work detail, especially with a Tamaranean warrior on their side, and Ollie started pointing out a strafing route she could take to quell the rioters and keep order with the refugees, making plans in the back of his head for him and Mia to sweep the downtown core and take care of the bands of looters.
— and it was just about then that two of the Sinestro Corps flung down at them, one enormous virulent magenta fucking *alligator* and a goddamn fucking stingray from hell that instantly erupted with razor-sharp discs sparking acid yellow.
“Shit!” Ollie barked, one of the razor discs slicing a shallow cut into his upper arm as he threw himself out of the way. Speedy was rolling, her cape cut into long flapping pennants by the two discs she had avoided, and the alligator — that thing apparently had it in for Nightstar and her alone, from the way it was slavering to get at her.
“Speedy and me are on Sea World duty, you take the creep from the bayou!” Green Arrow hollered over at Mar’i, signalling Mia with hand signs for the two archers to keep moving and maintain a distance from each other. Last thing they wanted was to present a single target for these bloody discs or their flying momma. At the very least, the two Yellows seemed intent on the three heroes on the Queen Tower helipad; that was good, they weren’t down there in the streets of Star City attacking civilians. Crowd control would have to wait.
“Thank X’Hal for idiot aliens who use long-range attacks to let you know they’re there before they actually reach you,” Mar’i hissed, landing firmly on the helipad and looking up at the giant alligator-like corpsmen coming straight at her. ”I’ve watched enough Swamp People to know what this guy probably does,” she muttered to herself more than the two archers currently avoiding razor sharp discs.
The Lantern was coming in fast, but still far enough off that she had time to take off at him at max speed before he reached the Tower roof. He opened his massive purple jaws as she came closer, and she fired a starbolt straight into his throat, sending him flying back towards the sky. ”Oh, I’m sorry, did you think we were fighting on Earth?” she yelled, racing after him, as they both rose higher and higher into the atmosphere, him avoiding her starbolts and she avoiding his mouth.
“Man, if Steve Irwin could get a look at you!” She laughed cruelly as they entered the thermosphere, where they came to a stop. ”I sure hope you put in a transfer request to the Black Lanterns, because Sinestro isn’t gonna have any use for a headless gator.”
“You are cocky, just like those who spawned you, half-breed,” Snap Trap hissed, dodging Mar’i’s starbolts and flinging back his own. ”I like cocky. It will be more fun, when destroy you completely—”
The gator-alien turned tail and zipped away, giving chase into a small, floating collection of space trash, courtesy of LuthorCorp. It was a swirling mass of metal-type debris and orange pulp that gathered and split in zero-grav. Snap Trap hid easily, powering down his light, forcing Mari into a game of hide and seek. Even if she used her starbolts to obliterate the debris, Snap Trap had managed to find his in.
Peeking out from behind a large containment unit (it seemed like it once held one of the human species; or at least a conglomerate of their genetics made flesh), Snap Trap caught her eye. As she was powering up another star bolt, he used his evil powers of hypnotism on her, to draw her close. Snap Trap knew he couldn’t hold back - this one’s will was hardy, strong, like any Tamaranean. Snap Trap hissed, amping up his ability to focus it all on luring her closer.
“That’s it, half-breed. You don’t belong in this world anyway. Come to Sgeyy*”us*” (his real name) “Let me taste you. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Mar’i’s eyes narrowed as the alligator corpsman began playing what was essentially a high-stakes, highly dangerous game of hide and seek. What was he doing? ”Seems kind of ironic you’re supposed to be a big scary fear monger and you’re really just a scaly little coward!” she yelled, eyes searching among the debris for him.
Suddenly his sharp little eyes appeared over a containment unit nearby.
“There you are,” she began, pulling her arms back, and preparing to blast the reptile and the containment unit both. She wasn’t honestly sure why he was even hiding in the first place—that little putrid ring on his finger should’ve been strong enough that he was at least fighting back mano-a-mano. That was when her body started moving on its own. ”Shit!” she hissed, trying to regain control of her flight.
‘He’s some sort of hypnotist!,’ she thought with equal parts anger and understanding, ‘no wonder he was lurking back there, that little reptilian asshole!’
Thankfully, it seemed to be taking most of his control just to make her fly to him, and there was seemingly no real control over her arms. She threw a few starbolts at him, hoping they would break his concentration, but the scaly lantern just put up a yellow light shield and continued drawing her closer.
“Fine,” she growled, pulling a huge amount of energy into her arms, causing her whole upper torso to burn brightly as she drew closer and closer. ”Let’s see if you like the taste of this!” If she was going to get eaten by an alligator today, at least she’d blow him up from the inside out.
Snap Trap unhinged his jaw, skin bellowing out as he tilted back, planning to swallow her whole. In the back of his throat, she tasted warm, very warm. Hot, really. Uncomfortably hot, in fact.
The Yellow Lantern choked, trying to thicken his shield to defend himself, but it wasn’t working. It was either keep swallowing her and face the consequences, or spit her back out in a show of weakness…and face those consequences.
Scream, Snap Trap drew her in more, only to muster enough energy to project her back outwards, sending the woman careening into a corrugated piece of debris.
With a roar of rage, his jaw still hanging slack from being badly burned, he lurched towards Mar’i, whipping her in the face with his tail.
There was one thing Mar’i Grayson had learned on this day, and that single thing was that she was never going into another living creature’s stomach if she could help it. Her hair and clothes were coated in Snap Trap’s slimy spit, and she barely managed to wipe it off her face when his tail caught her square in the jaw. She felt her lip bust and droplets of blood suddenly filled the air as she crashed into a large piece of garbage.
Snap Trap came at her, clawing and snapping, his tail lashing wildly in all directions. Luckily her starbolt had caused enough damage that he wasn’t able to completely close his jaws or even snap them at full-strength, and she had gotten him just as close as she needed him. His bright yellow tail came again and this time she caught it, spinning in mid-air from the debris so the momentum would shift into her favor. Just as he dissolved the tail construct to take away her advantage, she slammed him front-first into the same containment unit he had been hiding behind earlier.
As soon as he made impact, she was slamming him even further into the rubbage with her own body, one orange arm grabbing his head at the top while the other wrapped under his slack jaw and around his neck. His yellow energy constructs flailed around wildly, catching and pulling her hair and limbs, but she held fast. ”The harder you pull me,” she hissed between her bloody lips, “the harder I squeeze you.” She demonstrated this by increasing pressure on his head and throat, her arms and hands again growing unbearably hot with energy as she threatened to hold true to her promise of ripping his head right off.
Snap Trap was vicious, but clever. It knew when it was oh the verge of being beaten; and furthermore, it felt the wretched agony not just physically from this cutthroat half-breed, but also in spirit, as Parallax was vanquished, thousands of miles below.
It let out a wail that, via its ring, transferred through Mar’i, reverberating against her eardrums and sending waves of discomfort into her mind. Snap Trap didn’t want to fight anymore. The Yellow Lantern only wanted to flee.
“RELEASE MEEEEE” it howled, squirming in agony under her heat and the defeat of Parallax. “RELEASE ME AND I WILL —”
A…well really, Mar’i could only explain it as a giant space bull came charging towards them out of nowhere, getting Mar’i in the side. But it wasn’t attacking so much as just disconcerting her enough for Snap trap to squiggle out of her iron grip and the two Yellow Lanterns didn’t even pause as they flew past Mar’i, barely escaping with their lives.
Snap Trap, however, did take the time to shake his fist at Mar’i, with a distant echo of “I’ll get you, half-breed! You just waaaaaiiiiittttttttuh.”
And with that, blip. They were out of sigh.
Mar’i let out a loud ‘OOF’ as she was sent spiraling away from the two lanterns. She shot her head up just in time to watch the two lanterns scurry away, joining a large retreating cloud heading back into space, Snap Trap turning around to make his vow.
“Yeah, yeah,” she puffed, blowing a piece of slimy purple hair out of her face, “meddling half-breed, I got it.” She straightened out, watching the lanterns until she could no longer see them, and then checking her comm-link. Mia’s messaged informed her that she and Ollie had finished off the stingray Lantern, and she turned back to Earth, allowing herself to freefall a little before flying the rest of the way down. The sun was warm on her face and shoulders, already recharging her lost energy reserves.
A few minutes later, she landed on the Queen Tower helipad again and entered the Monitor Womb with the access code Mia had already sent her. ”In ~exciting~ alien news,” she began as soon as she saw her fellow Leaguers, “I was just swallowed by an alligator,” she turned around so they could see the toothmarks in the back of her shirt, “and I am also still not 100% sure of what is going on, just in case anyone is unaware.” She walked over to Mia and looked at the various screens bleeping information, before looking down at the petite archer herself, then to Ollie, Zauriel and Zatanna. ”Are you all okay? What do we do next?”
“First of all,” Ollie said, “Speedy will get you all coded for QT access. If any Leaguers apart from the Green Lanterns contact you, direct them here. Right now, this is a better place for us to work out of than the Watchtower.” He nodded at Mia, who switched the biggest projection screen over to the feed from Coast City.
The clotted yellow smog that had swaddled the city was dissipating, shot through in places with green light so bright and pale it was almost burning white. “It looks like the GLs might have broken through the hold that Parallax had on ‘em,” Ollie said tightly. Right now, this was all speculation on his part, and god knew he didn’t want to assume too much, be lulled into complacency, reach out to Hal like he desperately wanted to only to find out that Parallax was still there.
Forcing himself to look away from the screen, he surveyed the little group of assorted heroes. “Manhunter and Batgirl are keeping order in Los Angeles,” Ollie reported as Mia obligingly brought up that display — the tower’s dedicated satellite (dubbed “The Mongoose”) easily picked out the two League members among the crowds and chaos, just as it had been programmed to do. “They might join us up here when they’re done. Star City’s gotten a lot of the overflow from Coast City, and those people are in a panic and affected by the fear, uh …” Ollie paused, frowning as he tried to come up with an adequate descriptor. Toxin? Fog? “Well, you know, the yellow fear shit’s made them crazy.
“So if you wanna stay here and coordinate attacks and additional League members as they check in, that’s cool, we need at least one person doing that. If you wanna hit the streets with me and start bringing some goddamn order back into the place —” Ollie pinched his bowstring with two fingers, running them rapidly along the length with a zipping sound before slinging the bow onto his shoulder, “— then get patched up and let’s motor.”