[indent][sub][COLOR=FDE384][I]New York City, New York[/I][/COLOR][/sub][/indent][indent][sup][right][COLOR=FDE384][i]Present Day[/i][/color][/right][/sup][/indent][hr][indent][sup][COLOR=FDE384][b]Issue #5.04[/b][/color][/sup][/indent][center][color=FDE384]𝗪𝗢𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗥 𝗪𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗡[/color] & [color=1E90FF]𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗖[/color][/center]
[indent][indent]Diana was stuck with no means of escape or help while the bugs were biting her hands. Even know the bitings were intensifying, she was about to stand her ground until she saw lighting coming out of nowhere. Was it Zeus? Diana expected for the God to appear above her, but another teenager greeted her instead. He managed to take out all of the robotic bugs with ease. "So, uh, never thought I’d meet you like this. I’d imagine an autograph session, not an apocalypse. My name’s Static. You got a plan to take down that Stryfe chump, Wonder Woman?"

Static. Another metahuman with the ability to summon lightning. Diana took a quick look at his outfit and saw the little lighting symbol on his shirt. It wasn't like Supergirl's "S," but it was good enough. Then, she checked on her hands and saw the bite marks. She was amazed at the fact the bots had enough strength to leave marks. However, they didn't prevent her from using them. Diana looked back at Static and replied to his introduction. [color=#FCDA63]"I honestly don't know, Static. At the moment, nobody has any idea where Stryfe could be. But, let's deal with the infected below and then we can talk. There's something everyone should know about the tower."[/color]

Below them were still infected trying to grab their legs. Diana was going to deal with them by using her lasso, but she had an idea. [color=#FCDA63]"Static, can you use your powers to deal with the infected without killing them?"[/color]

The infected? Virgil's mind was still recovering from the utter surprise of meeting Wonder Woman, looking downwards to see what she meant. Oh, those infected. The horde within Central Park was moving slowly towards the both of them at the pace of slugs. Concentrating on them specifically. Odd. A floating woman and a teen with funky lightning powers wasn't exactly inconspicuous but why go towards difficult prey when there were plenty of civilians, still unrescued, on the ground? Did Stryfe program the drones to specifically go after metahumans? The sight of a limping infected man with his right eye missing broke him out of his reverie.  

No time for theorizing. They were both lucky that the horde weren't wielding any firearms. They were futilely attempting their best to attack him and Wonder Woman such as piggybacking each other, doing an impression of an Olympics high-jumper or crawling onto trees or the hood of cars. Their screams of anger created an ear-bursting cacophony, frustrated that they couldn't break the laws of gravity. He replied back to Wonder Woman's question.  

" Kill them? I'm not an electric chair, Wonder Woman." Virgil flashed a confident smile. " I've got a bunch of tricks to deal with these fools." He still had the juice. The problem was finding metal though. Central Park seemed almost entirely devoid of the substance that had birthed cities, seeing only buildings of wood and roads of grass instead. Virgil spotted several benches several yards away to his right, made out of old corrugated iron. He signed. It looked like he had to improvise. He reached his hand out towards it, ripping them out of the ground with a sharp shriek. He sent them flying out towards the horde, not at speeds that would break bones, but enough that it wouldn't tickle either. The horde relented but still pushed on, regardless of how many chairs he sent their way. A twist of his hand and the frames split into metal noodles. One by one, they looped around the feet and ankles of the horde, puncturing the dirt, and stapling them against the ground. His muscles burned with the effort as he continued to cuff and restrain each member of the horde individually. 

" Mind giving me a little hand here?"

"Of course." Diana answered and made her way towards one of the infected tied up by the bench. It was admittedly impressive that Static was able to do that. Again, she noted mentally that further studying on the new heroes was severely needed. Getting back on the problem, Diana carefully punched an older infected man in the face. It wasn't hard enough to kill but enough to leave a headache. The man fell to the ground while she watched to make sure that he wasn't getting up. After a few more seconds, she made her way to the other infected and took care of them. With them knocked out, Diana began focusing on the other infected in the area while making sure to give Static a small break. He was a person, after all. She, on the other hand, got the attention of a small group of infected and made them follow her to a trap. Diana pulled out her lasso and tied all of them at once. Then, she spun fast enough to make them dizzy and vulnerable to a surprise sweep. All of them fell to the ground, unconscious. Then, she levitated high enough from the ground and saw Static nearby.

[color=#FCDA63]"How are things on your end?"[/color] Diana asked.

All Wonder Woman got from Virgil was a tired huff. “ I could use some lunch now…” Pretzels weren’t a good source of fuel, especially when he’d been hovering non-stop for the last few hours or so. Virgil restrained another infected against the trunk of an oak tree, gagging his mouth with a metal bar. He began to slowly float downwards, the clearing full of angry infected that were pulling against their bindings. Now, where was that last on-

BANG

The bullet whistled past his shoulder, zipping just an inch away from his head, before he hid behind a tree trunk. One of the infected had picked up a pistol from a dead cop and was firing it sideways, sprays of dirt and chips of wood marking each impact. 

“ No, no, that’s cheating.” Virgil lifted out his arm and pulled on the pistol, ripping it from the grip. The infected person growled and reached down to grab it. If it wasn’t for a manhole slamming into her head at 40 miles per hour. Knocked out like a light, the infected dropped unconscious like a puddle. 

Static. 1. New York. 0. 

Then, the cramps hit him. He’d had to be careful wasting that much electricity next time. Virgil stumbled down and began riffing through the infected pockets for phones. Whilst charging himself back up, Virgil looked up towards Wonder Woman. She didn’t look worse for wear despite being munched on by death-bots for several minutes. Guess being bulletproof helped in that regard. 

“ So, you said something about towers? What’s that gotta do with Stryfe’s plan?” He shouted out. 

Diana didn't know where to begin with those towers. There were a lot more than expected and heavily guarded with Stryfe’s men, but the towers themselves were weak. After a moment of thinking it over, Diana made her way towards Static and watched while he was draining peoples' phones. She landed on the ground and started answering his question, [color=#FCDA63]"I have underestimated their defenses and Stryfe himself. Destroying the towers seemed to have been for nothing based on what I saw. A decent-sized group of those bots headed towards this area, but most of them didn't go after me. Instead, they went towards every single body and bury themselves into the back of their neck; yet, most of them left me alone and headed towards different parts of the city. Then out of nowhere, the remaining swarm attacked me and tried to bury themselves into my neck also. Thankfully, they failed. As for Stryfe..."[/color]

She looked away and stared at one of the infected. Then, an idea appeared. [color=#FCDA63]"We might be able to cause some sort of malfunction to those bots if all of the towers are destroyed at once. I don't know if it would help us find Stryfe, but the most important thing is saving both New York City and Star City. Even if it means we don't find him."[/color]

Virgil shuddered at the thought. The thought of a bloodthirsty Wonder Woman was something that the world wasn’t ready for. If the infection had spread to Dakota, he didn’t even want to know what would happen if Stryfe’s drones touched Bang Babies. His muscles relaxed further as he drained another phone, this time a WayneMobile Model S. 

“ Sounds like a plan.” Virgil tossed a flip-phone over his back. “ The problem is how are we going to find the towers? It’s not like Stryfe was kind enough to give us a map…….” 

His voice trailed off as he stared at one of the drones embedded on a woman’s neck. If the towers controlled the drones. He kneeled down and pressed his hand against its shell. Since they weren’t all connected to the towers through giant extension cords, the next best thing were radio waves. New York turned into a city of voidless black and glowing blue as he focused on the faint signals that the bots were sputtering out. Concentrating. Following. It was a trail of breadcrumbs all leading to several locations spread throughout New York. 

“ I think I can see where the towers are.” Virgil muttered in concentration, turning his head slowly towards the right. “ There’s one to the south. Over there. I think they call it...Wall Street?” 

[color=#FCDA63]"How did you..."[/color] Diana was about to ask but stopped herself. Maybe she could ask him later. For now, they needed to stop the towers. One was on Wall Street. She took a deep breath and said with determination, [color=#FCDA63]"I will go and deal with the tower while you do damage control. Now that I know what to expect, I can handle them on my own. Also, if you encounter any other heroes, bring up what I told you about the towers' defenses. Be careful out there, Static."[/color]

And with that, Diana took off and headed towards the second tower in Wall Street. 

“ Yeah. You too. Not that you really need it…” 

Virgil watched Wonder Woman disappear over the distance like a red and gold rocket until she became nothing more than a dot on the horizon. An anguished scream of rage caught his attention as a man with his neck glued to the ground by a bench leg squirmed. Oddly enough, it reminded him of a pre-schooler having an awful tantrum.  

“ KILL…” He reached out towards Static, eye twitching madly “ YOU!” 

Virgil rolled his eyes before walking over towards the man and picking his cell-phone out of his pocket “ Like I haven’t heard that before."[/indent][/indent]