[COLOR=SLATEGRAY][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3] P R E S E N T[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR] [CENTER][IMG]http://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/s480x480/e15/12353928_725869450847746_1871297134_n.jpg?ig_cache_key=MTE0NjkzNDU0ODY4NjU2MTIzMw%3D%3D.2[/IMG] [b][h3][color=Dodgerblue]B E E T L E' S B L U E S P A R T T H R E E- E N D [/color][/h3][/b] [/CENTER][COLOR=gold][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3] C H I C A G O[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR][INDENT][sup][color=silver]March 12[sup]th[/sup], 2017 - 08:28 PM | [i]Ted Kord's Chicago Penthouse-Bedroom[/i][/color][/sup][/INDENT] Ted's reaction, born of decades of surviving and thriving in dangerous situations, was to fight with the nearest weapons available. More specifically: to toss his blankets over the holographic Carapax's body to entangle it, throw a pillow as hard as he could into its face to knock it off-balance, then vault out of bed and slug the smarmy hardlight projection with everything he had when it stumbled. Carapax went down in one punch, but the projection was built to be durable. Oh sure, it still shattered in an iridescent burst, but even after using the goosefeathers like an improvised boxing glove, Ted was left rubbing sore knuckles. Still, Batman ought to get a load of [i]that[/i] move! Ted Kord: Master Pillow-fighter. He was smirking to himself and wondering if maybe he should just skip the nap and get up early when he heard the voice over his P.A. system "Did you really think it would be that easy? Cut off one head..." Three more projections of Carapax materialized between Ted and the door, while at the same time a metal panel slid over his balcony entrance. The three Cara-...Carapaxes? Carapaxii? Carapeople? In any case, all three spoke in unison. "It's not just your holographic assistants I control. I'm in your system now. It may have taken time to free me, but no longer am I confined to the scrap and circuits of my indestructible battle armor. Once I was able to go wireless it was child's play for my genius mind to bypass your antiviral measures. Now All of your little Kordtech inventions are mine, your security systems, your secrets, your-HEY!" Ted took advantage of his old enemy's monologuing to snatch a box from under his bed, then use it to vault off of, somersault past him to the door. He took off at a sprint into his hallway. A little turret popped out from a wall on his right and started firing compressed air blasts at Ted, but he'd designed the system himself, so it was easy enough to duck and roll through its' blind spots until he reached the elevator. He took the top off of the box he still had tucked under one arm, smiling to himself. Inside was a multitool and a very special set of gloves he'd been repairing for a few days. He slipped the gloves on and pried open the service panel for the elevator, then went to work manually rigging the door to open. Faced with the empty elevator shaft, Ted looked down into its’ depths and felt his stomach drop into his feet. There was only one way to tell if the repairs on the gloves worked, so before he could hesitate any more, Ted dropped the multi-tool and jumped into open space with hands outstretched. Thankfully, life rewarded Ted with a quiet buzz as his hands stuck to the wall of the elevator shaft. He let out a breath he didn’t notice he’d been holding as he carefully unstuck one hand and lowered it to stick again, slowly climbing down. As he did he decided to take stock of the situation: He was trapped in his own incredibly high-tech home-slash-personal laboratory by a disembodied ex-HYDRA scientist with a digital brain who had been trying to kill him since he was thirteen-years-old and playing boy genius sidekick to Dan Garrett. No big deal, just get past a small army of holographic clones and repurposed security measures, down to the subbasement underneath his underground lab, then shut off power to the whole building. All that, armed with nothing but these gloves, his wits, and his pajamas. It was no big deal, right? Before he could freak out any further, Carapax’s electronic voice echoed down to him. “It was so rude of you to leave before I could finish talking. Garret was a fool and a thug, but at least he had a little respect for tradition.” Ted didn’t respond, having reached the particular door he was looking for, instead he just leaped back over to the other side and clung there. Then, he balanced himself on the lip of the doorway and started forcing the doors apart, even though Carapax had locked them. Carapax had been quiet for a while by this point, and Ted was starting to wonder why when the air filled with humming, soft at first but growing louder… …The elevator, rushing up to squash him against the ceiling like a…well, like a bug. Ted heaved on the doors until he could feel every muscle straining, watching the light from the opening widen bit by bit as speeding metal doom hurtled towards him from below. Finally he got the opening [i]just[/i] wide enough to tumble through –it was time to lay off the junk food for sure-and sprawled gasping on the floor as the elevator blasted by behind him and slammed into the roof of the shaft with an explosively loud, sickeningly close crash. “Is…-is that…all ya got, chrome-dome? Get…get it…’cause you’re bald…and also made of metal now…[color=dodgerblue][b]bwah…ha..ha.”[/b][/color] Despite his exhaustion, Ted was feeling more optimistic. This floor contained his personal gym, entertainment center/hangout room and of course his kitchen. Most importantly, the kitchen had an entrance that ran up and down to his laboratory that was of vital importance. Not only because it was great for snacks in between long hours of science-work, but also because it was hidden and didn’t appear in any of the building’s schematics or security protocols. Ted caught his breath and got up off of the floor, creeping across the little entryway and straight for the kitchen. He came face to face with the same three Carapax simulations waiting for him. Or maybe three different ones, it was hard to tell. The important thing was that the first one lunged for him with a [i]very[/i] big knife. Ted pivoted to the clone’s outside and grabbed the hologram’s wrist as he spun, using his momentum to push it off balance and twisting the knife back on him with a trip to throw it down hard enough to break it. A second knife-wielding Carapax rushed him from the side, but Ted jumped up and stuck his hands to the ceiling, then dropped down onto its head to shatter it into rainbow light particles. The third one was circling, biding its’ time. Ted circled with him, moving across the kitchen, trying to find an opportunity. He paused and faced the last Carapax, Ted now behind the table while the hacked projection stared at him from in front of the fridge. Something seemed off to Ted, something other than the ice cream in the freezer on top. Why wasn’t Carapax just mobbing him with projections? Could his control over Ted’s systems not be as complete as he claimed? Inspiration struck! “Kitchen: Open Freezer!” “Wha-“ The small freezer door flung open and clocked the Carapax hard in the back of the head. As it stumbled, Ted grabbed a frying pan, vaulted over the kitchen table and brought it down hard into the projection’s face, satisfied as it dissipated. “Beetle’s off the menu, Carapax! Take some time to chill, see if anything else pans out!” Luckily, he was Ted Kord: Master Quip-Maker. Carapax’s disembodied voice groaned audibly. “If I have one solace in this world, Theodore, it will be that once you are dead I will never again have to deal with your INSUFFERABLE humor!” “Yeah yeah, so you’ve been saying for the past few decades, but guess who’s still funny and who’s stuck in a moving metal can?” Blue Beetle opened up what looked like a rotating cabinet for herbs and spices, turned it a bit, and then removed a little jar of thyme. The cabinet’s interior slid away to the side to reveal a staircase down to his lab, one he’d used many nights and early mornings. Well, this time he would use it for some real good. He opened the side-passage to his lab’s main area only to freeze in his tracks at the sight of the massive, twelve-foot-tall, gleaming red and gold killer robot standing right by the entry hatch to the power supply in his subbasement. “Oh, did I neglect to mention, my ‘walking metal can’ as you call it is out of lockdown and fully operational. Minus of course the missile payload you oh-so-cleverly turned against me the last time.” Ted let him talk, creeping over to the hatch just behind his robot body and staying in all the camera blind spots. Unfortunately, Ted had forgotten to oil the hatch and it made a wailing [color=slategray[i]shriiiiiiiiiiiek[/i][/color] as he opened it. Carapax whirled and Ted had to fling himself backward so that the incoming backhand didn’t crush him. Instead he was sent tumbling first through the air then painfully across the ground before crashing into an open storage room. “Disappointing! The old Blue Beetle was never this pathetic, even if he was stupid enough to believe that a washed up archaeology professor with a good right hook and some magic tricks was a match for my genius! But then again what are you really, Theodore? You’re just an insignificant mind with a few bright ideas, a powerless pretender in blue pajamas!” Ted’s head was spinning as Carapax stomped toward the darkened little room. He already felt like he was nothing but bruises and shredded muscles, but Ted couldn’t die here, couldn’t let Carapax win. If Dan were here, he’d just use the Scarab and beat him mano-a-mano. Dan had always been able to make things work for him. But that wouldn’t help, Ted didn’t have the Scarab and couldn’t bring himself to use it, with or without magic. Besides, his own gear was in a different part of the lab near the hangar for The Bug. The only thing he kept in this closet was experimental medical supplies: portable artificial life support systems, big cryogenic freezing pod, cybernetic limbs- -and a strength-enhancing exo-skeleton for patients with atrophied muscle tissue! There were no cameras or sensors inside the storage room, so Carapax had to bend down and visually confirm Ted’s presence inside. When he did, he got a double-punch to the faceplate with all the power Ted’s considerable strength and engineering prowess could put behind it. The huge robotic madman got knocked onto his back and skidded across the lab’s floor as Ted emerged grinning over him with a whirring, mechanized skeleton encasing his body and a grin on his face. “Like it? It’s one of my bright ideas!” Ted let Carapax get up, just smirking as the titanic terror charged him. As the ex-scientist took a swing at him Ted turned the attack into a shoulder throw that slammed his metal shell into the wall, cratering it. Carapax was nearly invincible, ridiculously powerful and surprisingly fast for his size. Then again, he never did know how to fight and after over a decade in storage he was bound to be running low on power. Ted pummeled the cybernetic man with a rain of blows, one after the other until the wall Carapax was up against gave way and they crashed back into the storage room. Even then Ted didn’t let up, kicking him across the floor before advancing on Carapax, panting. The Indestructible Man got up, moving ponderously in the small space but as unharmed as his name indicated. “You cannot win Theodore! You can beat me back and throw me around all you like, but in the end I AM indestructible! After you tire or the batteries for that little gimmick run out I’m going to slaughter you, then everyone you’ve ever loved, then anyone you’ve ever known! Then I’ll find what’s left of HYDRA and-“ “Didn’t I tell you to chill?” Ted pressed a button and the cryogenic pod closed up around Carapax, perfectly positioned by Ted’s last kick. A synthesized howl of rage came from the robot, echoing all around Ted, but the process had already begun. Carapax tried to bull-rush the door, but even as he smashed it down his lower half froze in place. He flailed and raged, but couldn’t remove himself from the pod. Ted quickly unstrapped from the now-battered exoskeleton, its frame barely holding up considering it was unarmored. He finished opening the hatch, dropped down and reset the system in a matter of minutes, plunging things into darkness. Ted climbed out, satisfied at a job well done. Then he heard the sound of Carapax’s laughter echoing through the lab again. Ted rushed over to Carapax, a frown of confusion on his face. “What gives, Incoherent Man? I cut you out of my systems and soon enough I bet you’ll run out of power. I won!” Carapax kept laughing “No, you’ve lost. You were too late! It was never just about killing you. it was about destroying you utterly. You see before you cut me off, I had time to do one last thing: Hack into a satellite made by Kord Omniversal and have it alter trajectories to plow right into downtown Chicago. Think of all that death and destruction, and you’ll be to blame!” Carapax suddenly fired the rocket thrusters attached to his back, melting the ice encasing him with the heat. But Ted didn’t have time to fight him again, he was already running to the Bug. He leaped inside with Carapax storming after him, unable to get the hatched closed before the man in the machine got inside. It didn’t matter, Ted stayed at the controls of the airship as it took off, the force of going from zero to hypersonic down the exit tunnel as fast as possible tossing the Invincible Man to the back of the ship in a crash that destroyed most of Ted’s on-board lab equipment. Ted worked furiously, locating the satellite and plotting out maneuvers into the Bug’s A.I. to intercept it, roaring out of the tunnels and up into the atmosphere higher and higher in a desperate race to catch a man-made meteorite. The airship had its’ magnetic field, its’ shields and its grasper claws all extended at full power as it soared to near-space flight, meeting the burning, falling satellite head-on. ..and stopping it cold. Ted slumped forward in his chair as the G-forces stopped crushing him back into the seat and the bug started to gently descend. Satellite stopped. Day saved. But he still had Carapax to deal with. Now that there was nothing pressing him into the back compartment he stomped into the cockpit growling with rage. Ted felt done in, helpless. Carapax was just out of his weight class as a hero. Out of his weight class... Ted's mind started racing and he punched in commands as fast as he could. As Carapax wrapped a huge, cold hand around the top of his head and lifted him up to crush him, Ted lashed out with a kick that flipped a lever on the Bug's controls. The Bug responded by executing a neat little parabolic arc. Ted grinned as the inevitable happened: At just the right point during the maneuver, gravity ceased to have any effect. Himself, Carapax, all of his shattered equipment, everything floated up elegantly into mid-air inside the ship. In those few almost beautiful moments of freefall, free of the planet's pull, Ted Kord threw a twelve-foot-tall monster out of a window so hard that it saw the curvature of the Earth. Ted had to engage his sticky-gloves against the back of his chair to keep from being sucked out from decompression forces, but in the end, he won. Too bad the Justice League hadn't seen it. Ted Kord: Master Crime-Fighter. [hr] It didn't take Ted too long to find Carapax. He just had to look for the smoldering robot-sized crater in the countryside. He descended from the Bug on a rappelling line and gave Carapax his most annoying grin despite how destroyed he felt physically. "So! How was the trip?" [code]Error! Power failing! Emergency Shutdown Required![/code] "Aww, well that's too bad." Carapax's voice came out weak and tinny "You...you...this isn't over...I didn't escape by myself. [b]They[/b] released me and now they know...about where you hid it...about the Scarab. Haha...ha..ha." "Shut up, Conrad. You talk too much." The Invincible Man powered down with a low whine and Ted called in the Bug to pick him up. He'd have to devise a better security system for him. But even with his enemy beaten, the battle won and not a single life lost there was a problem. Someone was after the Scarab.