[i]"Everyone is talking about the Second Cold War, about World War 3 being on the horizon. And they should. But everyone is missing the fact that the War on Drugs has been ongoing more more than 80 years, with no end in sight. Most of the west had legalized marijuana and decriminalized the use of hard drugs, which helped at first. But the game has changed. The Cartels have been almost wiped out, but that's not because of law enforcement or public policy. That's not even primarily because of the Justice League. It's because the Legion pushed them out. Miralco and Venom prohibition has helped create a massive black market for meta-drugs, and the Legion practically has a monopoly on it. Their dominance in Central and South American underworld activities has never been stronger. They might not be as loud as the old Cartels, but they're even more deadly. [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vusD2rsdvk4]The coyote was killed by the wolf."[/url] [/i] - [b]Eduardo Diaz, retired DEA agent and recovering Venom addict.[/b]

[center][b][color=darkviolet][sup][h1]PERSEUS[/h1][/sup][/color][/b][/center]
[COLOR=darkviolet][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]Chihuahuan Desert, Mexico[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR][INDENT][INDENT][sup][color=darkgray]January 1[sup]st[/sup], 2052  |  5:35pm  |  Miralco Lab[/color][/sup][/INDENT][/INDENT]

Soon all of the mines and mechs were deactivated and the downed guards were tied up for transport. A call had been put out to the Mexican Federales, who would provide cordon duty and would take custody of the mundane Legion soldiers if the ranking Legionnaires were captured. Perseus didn't much like relying on outside assistance, but JLU protocols called for cooperation of local authorities as much as possible, and Perseus wasn't going to give the press or the normie governments any excuse for haranguing the League if he could help it. The Peacekeepers led Bloodsport to the hidden elevator, where the team was already waiting. The security scrambler registered Bloodsport's visual profile on the camera but not the fact that he was handcuffed or was being escorted by anyone else. He was the only one detected on sensors. The digital operations division, headed up by Victory, had outdone themselves once again. It wouldn't have fooled electronic analysis but Perseus was well aware how complacent those on guard duty could be. There was little to no chance they were running analytics on their security footage or scanners to spot anomalies. 

With Bloodsport held at gunpoint, the team advanced to the elevator. A peacekeeper turned over a couch and pulled aside a carpet revealing a trap door. Perseus nodded to Bloodsport who went forward and tapped in the access code before placing his palm on a scanner that opened the door. An elevator platform opened that was just large enough for the strike team to board. Perseus said, [color=darkviolet] "We go in quick and quiet. Take down guards nonlethally if you can, but silence and the safety of the team is more important. If it gets loud, you're free to engage with any means necessary so long as there are no civilian casualties or  unnecessary collateral damage. The main objective is to rescue the test subjects and secure the Legion's research. The Legionnaires are ultimately expendable." [/color] 

Without a further word, he boarded the elevator, leaving behind a few Peacekeepers to cover their exit, before the team descended into the lab. It was a swift ride though the increased tension that naturally came about before one sprung into a deadly situation seemed to stretch the seconds into minutes. The doors opened onto a spacious hallway that ran past an archway guarded by a squad of foot soldiers. They had been expecting a lone Bloodsport, not a team of heavily armed heroes. That was why they were unprepared when Green Arrow strung back three tranq arrows and buried them in three different necks, neutralizing a quarter of them in the blink of an eye. A heartbeat later as the rest of them fumbled for weapons, Green Arrow loosed another volley of three, hitting his marks precisely. As the remainder finally began to raise the barrels of their rifles, three more fell. Perseus had by now closed the distance, and cracked the shaft of his spear on one man's head, making him drop like a stone. The next received a quick slam of the spear butt to his neck. Perseus moved to the last man and shield bashed his jaw. Both of them went down on the first blow. 

Two heartbeats and the entire squad was downed. Robert nocked two more arrows and flashed a smile at Perseus, who nodded back. Perseus gestured to the Peacekeepers, who quickly tied up the downed Legion men with cable disabled their weapons and radios. It all took less than a minute and they were again on their way. Bloodsport led the way, notifying them of cameras and sensors in advance so that Green Arrow could fire a scrambler arrow to disguise their advance. The team took out several patrols in similar quick fashion to the first. Sometimes a Peacekeeper had to fire a burst from their suppressed SMGs with subsonic ammunition. Some Leaguers might have found it distasteful, but Perseus erred on the side of preserving the lives of his team and the integrity of the mission. Any unarmed personnel they encountered were quickly downed by a blast from a stun pistol and detained. This continued for several minutes, the squad sweeping the hallways and rooms and clearing them with silent, detached professionalism. 

The hallways were dark, with very little lighting, as most of the power in the facility was drawn from geothermal tapping or solar panels and was devoted to the security systems and labs, as Bloodsport reported. The darkness helped shield the team, often an enemy patrol didn't even see them before they were neutralized. They disabled several inactive turrets and mechs as they passed, mechanical contraptions that were folded up in collapsible positions, waiting for an alarm. They cleared the mess hall, the common room, and the hydroponic garden before they found the labs, a large gymnasium-sized room. The team had emerged on a balcony overlooking the chamber, staircases leading down on both sides. And they saw a tableau right out of hell. 

The team could clearly see a complex array of equipment for the distillation and manufacturing of Miralco and Venom. There were pallets upon pallets of tightly packaged Miralco pills and dozens of vats of pure liquid Venom. Workers were bustling around to process the drugs as labcoated chemists worked at complicated equipment. Armed guards were on patrol. But those were details that would be processed in the succeeding moments. The first thing the Justice League team noticed were the cages. They were large steel-barred constructions, and were completely packed with men, women, and children. There must have been over a hundred people in captivity. 

There were more strapped to gurneys, surgeons wheeling them behind bloodied white screens where screams and shrieks of agony could be heard. More people were in isolation tanks as scientists scribbled notes and watched. One man banged against the glass of his tank as a robotic arm descended from the ceiling and injected him with a sickly green fluid. He became bug-eyed as he doubled over and vomited all over the floor, his veins ran green, his muscles bulging out grotesquely as he doubled in musculature and body mass within moments. But then he kept expanding, his skin bulging and rippling as his arms, legs, and torso practically ballooned. There was a sickening crunch and his screams echoed throughout the chamber, his meaty fists denting the glass before a scientist pressed a button and the room was consumed in fire. 

In another tank, a scientist kept lowering the internal temperature until they could see icicles forming on the person inside. The woman shrank to the floor, clutching her sides and violently shivering. Suddenly her black, ice-dusted hair turned white as snow, her skin a bloodless white. She cried out, frost coating the glass where her breath touched it, and in seconds she became encased in a layer of ice, becoming as still as a sculpture. The next tank had a man who was being constantly shocked by a collar locked to his neck. The scientist shocked the man again and again, until finally bolts of lightning flew out from his fingertips, but the discharge was wild and erratic and the man's skeleton seemed to light up every time the lightning left his body. He wailed until he was a charred skeleton. There were more tanks, each more gruesome than the last. Some of the subjects survived, many didn't. 

A Peacekeeper doubled over, vomiting in his helmet at the sight of the monstrous experiments, and Perseus whirled around to Bloodsport, a harsh whisper escaping him, [color=darkviolet] "What the hell is this. You said this was a drug lab. They're torturing those people." [/color] Bloodsport smiled, "That's your downfall hero. If you live long enough to see it." Perseus knew what he was going to do next. He raised his hand to stop him, but Bloodsport lashed out with a kick that Perseus blocked. The Legionary swung his head back and crashed it into his guard's helmet, knocking the trooper back. Bloodsport jumped, Perseus narrowly missing his leg, and he landed past the railing and ran towards the guards, "Justice League! Kill 'em!" 

Perseus shouted, [color=darkviolet] "Take cover and engage! Watch the civilians!" [/color] Perseus jumped on top of the railing and extended his shield, taking the volley of assault rifle fire. The team scattered, finding cover in the boxes of cargo and lab equipment of armed guards began pouring out, over thirty riflemen. One scientist hurried over to a holding pen and released several muscular men who had Legion tattoos on their bare arms. The scientist removed a syringe and dosed the ten men with Venom. They all grunted in pain as their veins ran green and their muscles bulged out. They ran at the Leaguers, ignoring the bullets that shredded through them to jump at the League team. One Peacekeeper was grabbed by the neck and he barely pulled his pistol before the Venom soldier's fist clenched and the man's neck crunched like a soda can. A half-dozen miniguns extended down from the ceiling and began pouring volleys of automatic weapons fire. Perseus jumped from the railing and stood in the open, taking as much fire as he could as he engaged the Venom soldier who killed the Peacekeeper, jabbing at him with the spear. The man ignored the thrusts to his arms, legs, and gut before Perseus finally buried the blade through his neck, cut through his spinal cord, and ripped off his head. 

As the workers frantically ran from the exits, a door opened on the far side of the lab and two men in hulking exo-suits walked out, steadily advancing with massive guns attached to them. They didn't let loose yet due to the Legion soldiers in the line of fire, but would soon be close enough to wither the Justice League's position with bullets. Bloodsport had his bonds broken by a guard with a laser saw and was handed a plasma rifle which he immediately turned on the Justice League team and began firing. 

Perseus yelled out as he engaged another Venom soldier [color=darkviolet], "GL, we need cover! Therma fry those turrets! And somebody take out those exo-suits! Peackeepers, suppresing fire!" [/color] Green Arrow popped out and began loosing as many arrows as he could, not bothering with the tranq shafts and hitting the enemy with live arrows, firing an EMP arrow to disable one of the turrets and an explosive arrow to knock back one of the exo-suits before returning to the foot soldiers and the Venom troops. He hit a Venom soldier with an electric arrow and the man screamed but kept advancing with murder in his eyes. Green Arrow hit him with an ice arrow to the foot, but the man kept shambling on with one unfrozen leg. He fired a net arrow that pinned him to a wall but the man ripped free within seconds. He hit him with a concussive arrow that knocked him on the ground but he was back up in a few heartbeats. Finally Green Arrow used a standard arrow and the man stumbled directionless for a moment before collapsing with a shaft through his eye. The rest of the Venom soldiers were now upon the team as their cohorts filled the air with bullets and the exo-suits moved ever closer into firing positions. 

If the team didn't respond quickly and effectively, they would be wiped out.