Blazion

Heroes Reborn - A DCAU Roleplay (Always open!)

I thought this was a gay relationship simulator?

Heroes Reborn - A DCAU Roleplay (Always open!)

July 12th 3:00 PM
Hub City Sewers

Today was the day!

It... had taken a bit to work up his courage, to get the information he needed, but Demon finally had a plan! Ever since he had first seen the news reports on the New York Riots he had been planning, scraping together what information he could through dirty newspapers and the little TV he had taken from the hobo habitat - sorry, man; to be fair he at least protected that hobo when that weird trenchcoat guy was stalking around the sewers once. What was up with him?

That wasn't Demon's business though. He just tried to keep to himself, keep alive. Maybe he could finally stop eating rats and the occasional can of beans he managed to pilfer. It's not like Demon was a thief, but he just... didn't do well with people anymore. But it was time for change! Which is why he was finally, finally, months after he first went down into the sewers, emerging into sunlight.

The heat on his skin was... odd. He had almost forgotten what it felt like. Warm, comforting. Demon brushed off some of the pavement from his shoulders as pulled himself out of the now ruined manhole cover. There was really no other way for him to get out, after all. What he hadn't forgotten however, was the screams.

They started as soon as he emerged, making the large blue man flinch. Instinctively he ducked his head, raising a hand to rub at the side of his face. He knew no scar lingered, his eye was completely intact, but still remembered the pain of the bullet tearing through him. After a moment he glanced around nervously. People were staring, or running, but no one was a danger to him. No guns. No weapons.

"Okay... I just have to get her attention." Raising up to his full height Demon glanced around, feeling a bit awkward. He was never one to really get into trouble - at least not on his own, peer pressure was a bitch. Just his presence inspired fear though, sending people running, but it wasn't enough! So the horned man moved to a nearby car, put his hand underneath it, and carefully pushed it onto its side.

There, that should do it, right? ... Right?

... Oh. There was a baby on board sign in the back.

Demon awkwardly put the car back down, wincing as he noticed the dent now in the window frame. Oops.

He scratched at his head, trying to figure out what to do. He didn't really want to ... you know, hurt anyone, or damage anything. Maybe he could just be threatening and wander around the streets? Yeah, yeah that could work! Demon turned on his heel to start down the street, and promptly headbutted a pole. He grunted, rubbing at his forehead and moving around the dented metal to start down further into the Hub City's slums. Even these people had to report a demon wandering around, right?

---

July 12th 3:21 PM
The Wedge

Karen smiled down at the simple brown basket she had prepared. It was packed with sushi, takoyaki and little wieners cut into octopus-shapes, among other treats from the land of the rising sun. She had been studying hard to learn how to prepare all of Zoey's favorite foods, and now felt confident that she hadn't assembled an altogether terrible picnic basket. Humming lightly to herself, she cheerfully stepped behind the couch as Sam lazed about on it watching television.

"I'm off to see Zoey! I'll be back sometime tonight!" Karen called out to her feline guardian.

Samantha rolled her head to one side, chuckling. "No, I don't think you will be."

"Eh?" Karen tilted her head to the side, only for the cat to jab a paw at the television screen, where a massive...blue...devilmanthing appeared to be fighting with the police. Or being shot at by them, at least.

Listening for a moment to the news report, she pursed her lips.

"This is Sarah Fortune with KBEL News, issuing a warning to all citizens within the Old Town district to remain in their homes. Police are currently engaged with what appears to be a large blue-skinned creature rampaging down 7th street. If you live on 7th Street, please avoid-"

Raising a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose, Karen released a long groan of frustration. Why - of all days - did this thing pick today to attack her city? She had been looking forward to this day all week, and now...

"Ugh," Karen stepped back into the kitchen, setting the basket down on the counter. She then turned to point to Sam. "I better not find any of this eaten when I get back!"

Turning to head into her room, she threw open the window and leaped out into the alleyway. She probably skinned her knee as she landed on her ass. "Gekh....oww...that looked way cooler in my mind."

Inhaling sharply as she climbed to her feet, she shouted The Word: "SHAZAM!"

With a flash of light and a crack of thunder in the otherwise clear sky, the alley was empty, for she wasted no time in heading to Old Town.

---

July 12th 3:23 PM
Old Town

The sound of gunshots echoed through the normally quaint - for Hub City - 7th Street, as police fired from behind their cars at the great beast of a creature before them. Several officers were screaming for backup into the receivers within their squad car, requesting the immediate presence of every S.W.A.T. unit in the city.

Demon, for his part, had panicked as soon as he saw the guns. With all the ferocity of a real demon, one conjured from terrible nightmares, he braced himself ... and promptly dived behind a nearby car, huddling underneath the windows. It wasn't the best cover, to be honest. A little yelp even escaped as a bullet grazed one of his shoulders, feeling the heat and a mild sting as the projectile skimmed over his skin - ricocheting off his thick skin and into a nearby building. The giant navy blue man pressed himself down further, feeling the pavement beneath him and pressing into his bare chest.

When Lady Arcana arrived on the scene, she at first didn't see anything but a bunch of cops shooting up a car. It was only when she moved a little closer that she realized what, exactly, they were shooting at: the reported creature!

But his rampage seemed...rather unimpressive to say the least. In fact, he seemed to be cowering from them, rather than attempting to fight back. Why? He looked big and strong enough to pitch that vehicle into the nearest subdivision. And yet...he seemed kind of scared, given his mannerisms.

Touching down on top of the roof of the vehicle he was using for cover, Lady Arcana knelt down to look at him. "Hey, are you alright there big guy?"

The gunfire stopped. Relief flooded the teenage boy, up until he heard a voice. Demon's head jerked up, staring at the one and only, Lady Arcana!

She was a lot shorter than he expected. Maybe he was just too big to be able to tell now.

"H-Hey! You came!" In his eagerness Demon pushed himself up to his knees, the only clothes he was wearing - his grey pants, which were really more like shorts on his new form - even dirtier from his cowering. He grabbed onto the roof of the car as he looked up at her. "I - I need help! You help people, right? So you gotta help me - oh, oh shit, I didn't mean to do that!" Jerking his navy blue hands away from the car Demon cringed, seeing how the metal had bent under his over enthusiastic grip. He looked at his hands with those glowing white eyes before back up at her, almost cringing.

"I'm sorry, I didn't - I'm not trying to hurt anyone I swear." He whimpered, an odd sound with how deep and echoing his voice was.

Reaching a hand up to scratch at her face in surprise at his desperate and relatively soft spoken demeanor, Lady Arcana turned to glance at the cops. They stopped firing on her arrival, probably assuming she was about to lay the smackdown on this guy for them. While she was still a wanted vigilante, the police here tended to be all too willing to let her handle situations that were clearly out of their league.

"Alright," she smiled to the blue-skinned man, "But let's go somewhere less crowded, okay?"

Extending a hand down to him, she waited for him to either accept or throw her into that drug store behind him for being a patsy.

Demon hesitated only a moment, peeking over the car back to the police. Their weapons were still raised, making a chill of cold fear go down his spine. Finally he reached up and took her hand, his large one dwarfing hers. He tried to be gentle, immediately feeling stupid for thinking that - she was Lady Arcana, he was probably fish food to her.

"Alright... Thank you. Thank you, really."

Feeling her hand be practically swallowed by his, she swiftly lifted them both into the air. Once she was high enough, she vanished from the scene with a sonic boom. It was odd, really, having this person who looked like a literal demon from hell ask - or beg, even - for help after being attacked by the police. She'd never encountered any situation quite like it before.

Landing on top of a building in the Old Industrial Sector, she released her hold of the much larger individual.

"Alright, this should do it. Now," she folded her arms, looking a bit more stern. "How about you explain why you were scaring everyone shitless back there?"

"... That was really cool," Demon muttered, staring over his shoulder where they had come from. Hearing the extra firmness to the woman's voice however he quickly looked down, realizing she didn't look all that pleased with him. Nervously he raised a hand, rubbing at the short black hair against his horns.

"Well, uh, this is gonna sound really stupid, but I was desperate y'know? And - and not many ways for me to do this! It's not like I was hurting anyone - I mean, I dented a few things but it was accidental... oh and the manhole cover..." The teenager paused, realizing he was rambling. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and tried to start over.

"I was trying to get you to come out, because I'm looking for someone. The guy that's like me - you know, the big tree man? I don't ... I don't know where he is but I gotta find him! And the news reports showed you've been around him - you know where he is, yeah? You gotta! He can help me - because the news reports didn't call him a monster, so he's gotta know what he's doing!"

Lady Arcana frowned for a long moment after hearing the man's explanation, exhaling sharply. She wasn't sure what newscast he was watching, but there were plenty who still called Vine Stalker a monster. Mostly the same people that still called her a menace to society, mind you. "You mean Harris, don't you?

"I don't know his exact location," she confessed, an apologetic expression on her face. "But I have read enough rumors on Metawatch to at least know where he usually hangs out: Hope Springs in West Virginia."

For a moment, Demon's pointed ears drooped down. However as Lady Arcana continued the metahuman quickly brightened, nodding along.

"He's called Harris? ... That's a lot nicer than Demon... okay, I gotta get to West Virginia then! Uh..." He scratched at the rough black stubble on his jaw. "I gotta walk, so... I'll try to keep out of trouble but people are still probably gonna be afraid. So, uh, don't mind any news reports you see of me - I promise to behave!"

Yeah, there was no way she was going to let this walking, eight foot sign of the end times go walking across the country. He would get himself in all kinds of trouble even if he didn't mean to. No, much as it irritated her, she would need to fly him out there. Well, at least it wouldn't take long for her to go from Hub City to Hope Springs.

"No, I'll fly you to Hope Springs," she exhaled. "It won't take long."

Reaching out to offer her hand to him again, she lifted off the ground to hover in front of him.

"...Seriously? Aw, sweet!" Demon eagerly reached out and grabbed onto her hand again. "Th-thanks! I totally owe you one - not that, you know, there's probably much I can offer you unless you need like, acid spit or someone to stand around looking scary. You're kind of scary on your own though..."

A heartbeat passed.

"... I'm gonna be quiet until we get there now."

Lifting off the ground with another word, she briefly glanced about the city in an effort to figure out what direction she was facing at the moment. Once she'd gotten her bearing's straight, she shot up higher into the sky with the big blue pussycat in hand. His personality really didn't much live up to his appearance.

Rocketing towards West Virginia at several times the speed of sound, she had little to say during the trip. He hadn't really introduced himself even though he clearly knew who she was, but that honestly didn't bother her too much. His goal was never really getting to know her, he just needed her to bring him to the person he actually wanted to meet.

She had briefly considered that it might be some sort of trap for Harris, but...from what she'd seen of this guy, he could handle him. Besides, he didn't seem like he had it in him to hurt somebody innocent.

He wouldn't even fight back against the cops, after all.

It didn't take them long to reach West Virginia, not with her speed...but finding Hope Springs took a little longer, due to her unfamiliarity with the area. Still, they did manage to make it there after a few minutes of searching.

"...Alright, this should be it. Man, what a podunk," Arcana noted, landing with him and glancing back at him over her shoulder. "There, he should be around somewhere here, Mr. Blue."

She then considered something, feeling the need to warn the gentle-hearted giant. "Don't damage any trees, alright? It'll really piss him off. Make him go crazy, even."

"... Mr. Blue? Oh! Oh, uh, I'm sorry, Miss Arcana, ma'am. I'm called Demon - that's, you know, not my name. My name's Josh, but everyone calls me Demon." The tall man hunched over a bit to grin down at the small heroine. "Thanks for the warning. And the lift. And not just punching me for scaring everyone. I really appreciate it, I'll make sure not to hurt any trees - that'd be kind of stupid when I want the guy to like me, right? He's sort of like a tree." Scratching at his cheek in thought Demon quickly shook his head.

"But uh, yeah, what I'm getting at is thanks again!"

Lady Arcana chuckled at his awkwardness. It...it kind of reminded her of herself, particularly around Zoey, as embarrassed as she was to admit it. She'd really need to learn how to be less of a dork at some point.

Sitll, at least she was done now and could get the Mcfuck back over to Gotham after swinging by to pick up their lunch. "No problem, Josh. Best of luck finding Harris, I'm sure it won't be too difficult. Not here."

And not looking the way he did, anyhow.

Lifting off the ground, Lady Arcana offered the big blue man named Josh a parting wave, before lancing off through the clouds again.

Meanwhile, down below, Harris sat, entwined in the fibers of the largest tree's interior, his mind connected via root to the Green itself, finally able to communicate with it for an extended period of time, but not a long-long time, just long enough for it to be a human-length conversation between acquaintances.

"When was the last time you gave a thought to the fact that your continued existence is due to the efforts of those humans who do care about you, those animals who your very existence relies upon. The bees, the worms, all of those whose existence you rely upon!"

This conversation had become less than civil.

What do you know of our struggle? Of our torment? Of our anguish!? Those animals, feasting upon our stale like a hound, savaged by beastly vultures! They care not about our existence!

Harris was just about to make his response, when, from the real world, he heard a cracking boom, a "crackoom" as you will. A burst of wind struck his physical form, and Harris' eyes shot open.

"Oh god it's the Rapture," he said, a little bit of an overstatement, but the thought of it being a bomber of some sort, sent to annihilate him, that was too much to bear. Harris freed himself from the tree with a litany of slow cracks, then a massive snap as he broke through the bark and clamored to the ground. "This is a really bad time, US military... god... I don't know, Arcana even? But yeah, not a good time guys!" Harris yelled into the sky as he ran between trees, crunching leaves beneath his feet.

Finally he dove into a ditch and covered his head with his hands, and just to be safe, he constructed a large dome of thick wood around himself to protect from any explosions or whatever. Perhaps he had overreacted, but considering the fear the people had of him, he wouldn't put a bombing campaign beyond the US government. Or maybe it really was the Rapture, but whatever that noise was it wasn't a good noise.

"Stay out of my forest, I just managed to..."

Harris felt the presence of a two footed creature through the grass, almost certainly a human. That was good, that meant no fire raining from the heavens. But now he had a random person there, in his forest, he had a reputation to keep up.

Hoping that his outburst hadn't been heard, Harris sunk into the ground. His voice beginning to echo from the trees and carry on the wind like a soft whistle.

"Who dares enter this forest? Who dares enter the domain of..." Pause for effect... "The Vine Stalker!?"

Hell yeah.

"Uh..." It had been a weird day. Really weird. From awkwardly plodding about Hub City to clamoring through a forest a few states over after being shot at sort of weird. Demon didn't even really make it that far after Miss Lady Arcana dropped him off. At least she was right about where to find the tree man! ... He thinks? Was he just supposed to talk to the trees? He really should've prepared more.

"I'm, that is, I'm called Demon. I'm looking for a Harris, Mr... Stalker...?" He had faced a tree at this, too. Not really knowing what to do he reached out to grasp a branch and awkwardly shake it up and down. Gentle motions, don't hurt it, that's a good Demon.

Harris felt very puzzled by the... man? He wasn't exactly what Harris had expected to see, but he supposed he wasn't one to talk. He said he was called "Demon", Harris had no idea why one would call themselves that but okay, sure, and that he was looking for him.

Well, that cleared things up... barely. Harris still had many questions, including "Why are you shaking a tree-branch?" and "What are you doing here?" and "What is your real name?"

Maybe that last one was a good starting point.

Harris' arm shot from the ground, reaching towards the sun. It grasped the ground and pushed down, pulling the wooden form from within the ground slowly and methodically, picking up and tossing chunks of wood and dirt in a small radius around him. Finally he cleared the land and stood at full height...

And for the first time since his transformation, he met face-to-face with someone taller than him. At least a foot and then some too. Harris found himself slightly intimidated by the blue fellow, and his human half screamed in disgust despite the clear hypocrisy of such a thing.

"Er... Yes, I am Harris Herzog, 'The Vine Stalker', 'Plantfoot', any other names the media has called me," he said, still attempting to maintain a high volume and consistency in his voice. "Demon doesn't sound like a name, if you are to remain here, then I must trust you, trust goes both ways, if you don't trust me enough to give me your name, then I don't trust you enough to stay here." he said firmly, crossing his arms as he did so. He gritted his teeth as he realized he was looking up at the man...woman? Well he had a masculine voice so 'man' worked, who had to be at least eight feet tall.

That was worrisome to say the least.

Demon, for his part, could only stare down at the tree-bug man that had emerged from the very ground. His glowing white eyes wide, those pointed ears raised, and jaw slightly dropped. The media didn't really do 'Harris' justice...

... He was awesome!

Seriously, he was nearly as tall as him! And made of the very earth, which he emerged out of! How cool was that?! Plus he helped people! Oh, but Demon hadn't made a very good impression it seemed... Josh cringed, dropping his head and raising a large hand to rub at the back of his head.

"Er, it's not that I don't trust you! Everyone just... you know, calls me Demon. Ever since I changed." The navy skinned man raised his head, quickly lifting his other hand to wave in the air. "Sorry, sorry! I'm getting ahead of myself. But uh, everyone calls me Demon - I said that already - but my name is Josh. Joshua Christophe. Well, that was my name, I don't know if my parents want me using their last name anymore... oh, and uh, I'm a junior at Hub City high. Was. Haven't really been back there in months. I wouldn't fit in the desk." Demon tried to offer a smile, the effort a little weak and showing the sharp teeth in his mouth - not including the two that were always jutting up from the bottom of his mouth.

Harris had been shocked by the man's size, but when he spoke, Harris found it hard to be intimidated. He had always thought himself to be socially awkward, but this kid was... well, on a level close to, if not greater than, Harris' own social inadequacies.

In more ways than one, he reminded Harris of himself, especially that weak smile, it was like looking through a time machine at his old high-school days, though eight feet tall and with fangs. He did notice that his first appearance managed to bring an astonished pallor to the giant youth's face... or maybe that was just how his face looked, Harris honestly couldn't tell, blue wasn't an easy color to read when you were used to the many shades of brown.

Harris made a conscious effort to push back his shoulders, and clandestinely increased his own height by a few inches, slowly, just to seem maybe a bit more intimidating, he was the protector of this forest, he had to look the part.

Harris' antennae danced on his forehead as Harris gave the blue youth a look over, before flexing his hand and offering his response.

"Joshua Christophe? I like that name, has a nice sound to it," Harris complemented the best he could, placing a hand on his chin whilst he continued planning his response. "Well, Joshua Christophe, let me give you a lesson that I learned from my own transformation,"

Harris wandered to the right slightly, before noticing and sliding back.

"I used to be human like you, but the collective soul of all plants decided that I would make a good avatar or something and well, here I am," Harris shrugged, a soft gesture sneaking through his hardass persona. "It was hard, really hard, I'm still not over what I've lost, but one thing that I do know, is don't give up who you are. You're still Joshua Christophe, don't let the loss of your humanity take away... well, your humanity."

Perhaps that could have been worded better.

"Anyway, you clearly pose no threat, so I'd be willing to speak about any topic you propose, you did come here to ask me something, right?"

"Wow..." The word slipped out unbidden as Demon stared down at Harris, admiration coloring the single syllable. Really, why was he surprised? The Vine Stalker was a hero! Of course he was cool, and calm, and collected! He helped all those people in New York, and he was around when The Wedge started rebuilding - who knows what other deeds he had done in the meantime? He was probably as busy as Lady Arcana!

Yet he was letting Josh ask him whatever he wanted! It was better than he could've asked for! Demon's fingers curled into fists in front of him as he tried not to bounce in place in excitement. Okay, he could do this! Play it cool, play it cool!

"Can you teach me how to be a hero too?!"

... Not cool.

Demon's face dropped realizing what he had just blurted out, and unseen with how his eyes had no pupils his gaze darted from side to side nervously. His bouncing in place stopped, and he nervously rubbed at his bare arm, feeling the thick muscle rippling with every small motion.

"I... I mean uh..." Crap, how was he supposed to recover from that? "You're just... really cool, and you're like - you know, like me! I can help you to make up for it, I even-" Here the great demon fumbled, pulling out a wallet that was falling apart at the seams to look at it.

"... Okay, I only have fifteen dollars and 74 cents - oh, and a coupon for a free burrito, nice! - but I can pay for your help in other ways! Like protecting people! And helping with your avatar stuff! I love plants and stuff! Except mushrooms. I'm allergic to mushrooms." Ugh, he always overshared. He was probably super lame in Harris' eyes. And he couldn't stop talking.

Harris almost felt physically blown backwards by the big blue man's sudden assault of words, he lifted his hands, displaying both palms and turning his chin away as Joshua fumbled and spoke a hundred words a minute. He had asked to be taught to be a "hero". Harris hadn't taught a class in years, and those times he at least had a presentation to help him out, he hadn't a clue how to be a "hero", he hadn't even ever considered himself one.

At least he was spirited, Harris supposed, though perhaps a little overwhelmingly so.

"Uhh... Yeah, no thanks," Harris offered in response to the... burrito coupon. His posture shifted into a knock-kneed slouch as he found himself struggling to think of something to say. He scratched the back of his neck with his forearm claws, stretching his arm as to make such a movement possible. "Er... mushrooms aren't plants... so I really have nothing to say about them."

Why was a factual correction the first thing he thought of to say? He was so stupid, this kid was idolizing him clearly, and Harris couldn't think of anything to do but correct him, this is why he liked trees better than talking to people.

"You want to be a hero?... I just protect this very specific stretch of forest, I wouldn't call myself a hero..."

The Green offered Harris a mental image of New york destroyed by a massive, single tree. Was it a premonition or a compounding of the fact that Harris was no hero? Goddamn trees, never telling him anything that made any sense. Well, he couldn't just let the kid down, looking like he did he probably had no-one else to talk to, perhaps this could be healthy for the both of them

"Okay... well I suppose I could... I dunno," Harris said awkwardly, his slouch growing more pronounced. "...Well, first let's just... hmm... okay."

Harris turned and shoved his hand into a tree, his arm sinking into it like it wasn't there at all. From within he pulled a piece of paper and a pen, which he clicked once. A wooden chair appeared behind both him and Joshua, and Harris sat without even looking back.

"First just tell me about any new abilities you've noticed since transforming, testing them was all I did for the first few... months?" Harris wondered, tapping the pen against his chin.

... Harris had agreed to work with him. Demon couldn't help but brighten, having been close to tears thinking he had messed everything up. But now... it was gonna happen! He had someone to talk to again - and someone as cool as The Vine Stalker! Who was gonna show himself how to do things! Even if they were in this forest.

"Aw, yes!" Josh tried to keep the celebration quiet as he pumped his fist in the air, though admittedly the back of his eyes still stung as he was so happy. Finally seeing that his new mentor was sitting Demon glanced around for a seat, stopping to admire the wooden chair that had appeared. Another plus one to Harris' awesome meter! It even looked like it could handle his weight!

Josh eased down onto the seat, absolutely beaming even as he wiped away the tears that had gathered at the corner of his eyes with a giant forearm. Luckily Harris wasn't really watching him - how lame would that have been?

"Abilities? Uh... I'm real strong. Like, real strong!" Josh flexed his hands, looking down at the navy blue fingers, tipped with the onyx black claws. "And I heal real fast... like when I first transformed my-" He paused here, fingers twitching. Quickly he reached up and rubbed the palm of his hand against his eye, the one that was so damaged. He could feel tears wanting to well up again, and tried so hard to force them down.

"Uhm, I was saying - I was shot. Couldn't see out of this eye for weeks - but it just sort of ... grew back? I think the bullet is still in there too. Oh, and speaking of my eyes, my vision is real good! I actually don't know when night because everything is sort of just like, looking around in daylight. I guess I could look up at the moon but I couldn't see it before. I was living in a sewer."

Harris wrote down Demon's statement that he was "real strong", that made two of them, but then the young man paused, and Harris' eyes darted up, noticing that Joshua seemed rather upset by the recollection of his being shot. Harris looked down at the paper, at his own hands, thinking back to when he had first gone through that, the poor kid was probably going through so much. Harris had always struggled to understand social cues, but he knew that at this point it was probably a good idea to at least address that, help him somehow... Harris didn't know.

Finally looking up from the paper, the pen sank into his hand and disappeared into his arm while Harris looked over the young man's head thoughtfully.

"Are you okay Joshua? Would you rather we talk about something else? I... I don't want to upset you, you're only the first person I've talked to in weeks and..." Harris' chest tightened up. "...I just don't want to upset you like I do to everyone else," Harris said solemnly.

"Huh?" Josh looked up, cringing slightly realizing that he really was showing how weak he was. The other kids at school had made fun of him for being a crybaby all the time, and now Harris thought he had messed up. "N-No! It's not that - you didn't upset me! I mean, you made me super happy! No one would even talk to me for months, and now I'm sitting down and having a real conversation! On a chair that doesn't just break under my weight! Honestly, you're super cool Mr. Stalker." Taking a moment to rub at his eyes once more Josh finally looked down to the floor of the forest, taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling.

"It's just... my Dad was the one who shot me. He - he didn't know it was me though! He just got to the house, and I was holding my sister, so he tried to protect her! But... I know they wouldn't really want me to come back anyway. Not looking like this. They'd probably try to have my exorcised or something." Stupid tears. Josh sniffed, and felt one of the tears manage to escape. It sizzled on the ground of the forest floor, making him wince as he remembered Lady Arcana's words.

"Sorry," He offered weakly, and trying to brush passed his moment of vulnerability he pointed down at the mark as he wiped his glowing eyes with his other hand. "Uhm, I didn't mean to - but that's another thing, though! Things like my blood, and my spit, are like... acid-y now."

Harris stood quickly as Joshua began to vent, cry even, it wasn't even something he'd thought about, it was just an instinctual motion. He walked over to Joshua and waved away his concerns over the ground being burned a bit. The Green got a little pissy but this was more important right now.

Harris put a hand on Joshua's shoulder, taking a seat next to him.

"I couldn't imagine going through that, I wouldn't ever want to go through that!... listen Josh, I... really don't know that much about being a hero, but what I do know, is that you're a good person just for wanting to do that... and..." Harris desperately tried to come up with something more to say as his breaths started to quicken slightly himself. "I know what it's like to have no-one left who cares about you... I er, I know what it's like to... to have to repress all of your feelings because there's no-one to listen to you anymore. Josh... I may not be able to teach you much, but I know that you're hurting, and I would give anything to have had someone around for my first few months... so... I suppose I'll be that person for you."

Harris offered a weak smile, barely keeping his composure himself. He snapped off a tree branch which seemed to appear out of nowhere and offered it to the blue guy.

"I don't have any tissues, but these leaves are the really soft kind, I promise."

For a moment Josh could only stare at the offered branch, but finally he reached out with his large hand to take it. The leaves really were soft, and he was quick to wipe his eyes with them, but... He could feel more gathering. This was like, the first time someone was nice to him in months! He had been eating rats, for god's sake! And now this man-bug was comforting him, calling him a good person even when he looked like this, when everyone called him a monster, a Demon.

Josh sniffed again, and finally not able to take it he grabbed onto Harris to hug him, trying to keep his grip from being crushing. He was sort of a wuss for doing it, but he couldn't help himself!

"Th-thanks, Mr. Stalker... I promise I won't let you down. I'll make you proud for believing in me! And, and when people aren't afraid of me anymore, I'll get you a burrito too!"

Harris' arms went in every which way when Josh embraced him, and he found himself not knowing what to do other than lightly pat the big guy on the back. He felt a warmth, something he'd felt before, but stronger, the same feeling he got when he offered help with some minor inconvenience, when he had rescued that child in New York.

Maybe he knew more about being a hero than he thought he did.

"As long as I'm around, I won't stop believing in you, same with anyone, that's just who I am... maybe that's what makes me..."

'A hero' he wanted to say so badly, but he found himself unable to.

"And please, Joshua, call me Harris. We are more than the names that we are given, we're still people... er, well, not really for me but you get my point," Harris said with a shrug. "About that burrito... eh, I mean... not bad persay, but not my favorite, use the money for yourself. Besides, I don't need to eat anyways."

Looks like Joshua was here to stay... he'd have to make room in the tree... or maybe make a hammock or something. Harris wasn't usually hosting guests, hopefully it'd be easier than he thought it was gonna be. Harris sighed softly. What had his life turned into?

Heroes Reborn - A DCAU Roleplay (Always open!)

Aquaman looked around the murky waters he had claimed as his own, fighting against a rising feeling of anger and despair. There was much here to deal with, and the battle on the surface still waged on. He needed to be faster. Stronger. Better. Pulling a comm shell from his belt, Aquaman flipped it open and began to speak, confident that the transmission would connect him to his palace. ”This is King Orin. I am in the Persian Gulf. Send our fastest envoy with Neptune. I have need of its power.” He said, scarcely waiting for confirmation before shutting off the communication device. Though his envoys were still not as fast as himself, Aquaman was confident they would arrive soon enough, and he would be able to help more...

Orin cut through the undersea current like a hot knife through butter. Using the his innate control of the seas, amplified by the trident he carried, it was a simple matter to manipulate the chunks of wreckage as they sank to the bottom of the gulf, minimizing their impact and twisting their orientation so they would not crush the precious sailors they imprisoned. Looking around the briny depths, Aquaman could see the shapes of incoming sea creatures, animals who had elected to answer his call. The undersea king breathed a sigh of relief as he sent out a mental push to rescue any drowning sailors and begin bringing them to shore.

Aquaman closed in on the nearest of the broken pieces of what were once ships, swinging a powerful fist at the thick metal hull. Like punching through a piece of wet tissue paper, Orin breached the hull and dove inside, pulling a shell-like device from his belt. Atlantis was the oldest civilization on earth, and even though their fall into the sea had set them back a bit, they had recovered and even found ways to thrive in their new environment. Orin activated the handheld tracking device and watched as a holographic screen lit up, sending out a pulse of energy before settling into a barebones map of the ship. As the map settled into place, a few red dots lit up; warm bodies. People that needed saving. Holding the map in front of him, Orin took off, speeding through the water faster than any living thing had a right to. This wasn’t the only wreck in the gulf. These weren’t the only trapped sailors. He had to be fast...

---

The normally sandswept streets of Tabuk had been blasted clean by the rapidly advancing armored vehicles of the Arab Federation. Cleared not by treads, but by whatever unseen force suspended them above the ground and gifted them with their incredible mobility. Able to strafe and change direction on a dime, they had quickly proven their dominance over the comparatively slow and unmaneuverable NATO tanks and IFVs.

Strafing in a steady zig-zagging pattern as it weaved around the oncoming armor-piercing sabots fired from the nearby Challenger 2s of NATO, the Federation tank trained its own main gun upon the western armor. Burning with an almost blinding light, a beam erupted from the barrel and instantly reduced the target into a ball of flame. Immediately focusing on another target, this action was swiftly repeated.

Federation IFVs had likewise swarmed into the city, unleashing their devastating, plasma-based weaponry against the forces of NATO. Their APCs had deployed infantry likewise armed with “rifles” that far exceeded what was available to their opponents.

It was, in truth, difficult to even call it a fight as they carved a swathe of destruction through the city, brushing aside the opposing army as if they weren’t even there.

”You know what’s unfair?” Celerity said, his Bluetooth device hooked up to his ear, as usual. He zipped through the battlefield, in a circle, observing the Federation’s new toys for a brief moment. While he’s mostly dealt with their infantry earlier, he’s never gotten around to dealing with their armored vehicles, mainly because phasing through things makes him a bit sick. Seeing their futuristic toys in play, however, changes the game completely.

”We’ve got people who can shoot lasers out of their hands and jump out of planes. And what can I do? Run really fast.” Celerity complained, before springing to action. Instead of dealing with their new tech, Celerity decided to start playing damage control. He ran through the city, pushing soldiers out of the way from enemy fire as he made his rounds while at the same time observing just how the enemy’s weaponry worked. How fast they fired, what made them work the way they did, just how much of an edge these weapons had over the others. Normally, Celerity would just be fighting them head-on, whether they were armed with assault rifles or loaded with explosives, but to fight an enemy with alien-looking tech? Celerity needed to know exactly what he was dealing with, and if it was even fast enough to catch him.

The tanks and other vehicles were much more nimble than their NATO counterparts indeed, but still nothing compared to the speeds at which Celerity could move. In fact, as he darted about removing soldiers from the danger zone, they hadn’t even noticed him due to his speed yet. They seemed mainly focused on destroying the military forces that desperately continued to oppose them, as well as attacking the hero known as “Tank”, a far more obvious and glaring target than the nimble speedster who had yet to engage them.

The soldiers on the ground, however, had taken notice of Celerity and had taken their fair share of potshots at him with their beam rifles. Although the beams themselves were plenty fast - far quicker than any bullet - the men behind them were not, and didn’t seem truly capable of lining up a clear shot on the Brown Blur or the people he was evacuating.

For the most part, Celerity was being ignored for the moment. The Federation forces had neither the time nor luxury to focus on targets that were not actively engaging them.

Girard gritted his teeth as another beam from one of the hovering vehicles parted around his arm as he advanced attempting to close the gap between himself and the armor ahead. He was finding the weapons were hurting some and that they were moving fast enough to keep him on his toes, not something he was used to so far which was worrisome. With a quick leap he managed to land close enough to get a hold on one of his quick moving adversaries delivering a solid punch to where he guessed a thruster might be attempting to disable its movement. The big guy also managed to get a hold of the gun as the turret tried to face towards him snapping it like a twig in his grip. He picked up the solid remaining piece like a club dashing forward at the next closest enemy placing a downward strike onto the gun mantle of it crushing the metal down enough to where he hoped firing would be impossible, would probably backfire if they tried with any other gun he knew of so it was guesswork.

Tank threw away the now severely bent barrel looking for another target among the absolute mess of soldiers and armor moving about. He was doing his damndest to make a big target of himself wanting to draw in as many enemies as possible so the others could capitalize on the rest of the more lightly armored forces. Taking hits was what he did best so putting that skill to use seemed appropriate with all of the firepower being slung around which was a big problem. The big man caught a volley of laser fire from a nearby group of infantry to which he retaliated by jumping closer and slamming the ground to disrupt them making them easier targets for a few low power hits as they were getting back up. His attempts to cause less collateral damage were probably limiting his overall effectiveness but if he made too big a mess of the surrounding area there wouldn’t be anything left for civilians to return to, it was already bad enough without his input. He knew the speedster was zipping around evacuating anyone who could be so it was another reason to hold back for the moment because the last thing he needed to do was get in the way of anyone but the Federation forces which he had done well at so far.

”How are the rest of you holding up? Got the main tank column here somewhat tied up at the moment but think I saw some light troops get by.” Girard said through the earpiece curious as to how the others were faring and giving them an update from his position on the front. “Not of fan of the guns on these guys, they are kind of unpleasant.”

---

“Yeah yeah! Just some, uh, minor technical difficulties! The job will get done, just a little slower.” The more Emerald Knight chased down those fighters, the more he began to realize that he was indeed needing to put more effort into flying just to be able to keep up with them. Future tech or not, he was able to cross the universe at unbelievable speeds. This shouldn’t be happening.

He could still fly and shoot. He could still use the ring as intended, but he was moving a little slower, and his constructs weren’t as strong as they normally were. This made it rather difficult to corral the jets together and force them down.

“But, I would appreciate help from just about anyone right now.” He didn’t want to make it sound like he wasn’t capable of taking them out on his own, only that it would be easier to do it with more people. Surely he wasn’t the only one dealing with these advanced vehicles and weapons. He’d need to talk to someone about them once this was all over.

A screeching whistle screamed through the air, seemingly echoed by counterparts. It took only a second after the sound started for explosions to rock against the hulls of the jets, eight taking direct hits, one jerking enough to only graze, and the tenth unscathed.

”That should slow them down,” Grim muttered, her mask deepening the words as they broadcast to the others. The missile launcher was already reloading, sadly only able to hold nine at a time. Rather than do a concentrated volley and remove one threat, the Gotham hero had opted to lock on to nine of the ten aircraft, currently focused on Cabbage Patch Kid. A single missile to each jet wouldn’t be enough to remove them from the fight, but damage them? Definitely.

The autocannons spun beneath the Grim Jet as the speeding black aircraft joined Emerald Knight, blazing to life with a flurry of armor-piercing bullets. They tore through the closest jet’s left wing, nearly cleaving it in two. When the magitech jet dipped the Grim Jet shot down, keeping speed with the spinning wreck. It was only when the pilot ejected did the black jet once more jerk up, just in time to twist out of the way of a barrage of lasers. Looks like her presence was adequately announced to the skies.

An alarm blared to life in the cabin of the jet, Grim’s eyes flicking down to it. She cursed.

”Ground them, Moss Patch. Two more will be on us soon.”

With an affirmative nod that Grim couldn’t see, Emerald Knight closed in on many of the damaged jets and forced them down by creating large clamp structures that dug into the hull so they couldn’t escape. They should have known by now that trying to get out of his grasp was impossible, but that didn’t stop them from fighting him on the way down. He had to make it fast, though. Apparently two more were en route.

He added a little more damage to each of the crafts as he brought them down to the surface, making sure they wouldn’t be able to fly again before he joined Grim up in the air to bring the rest down.

Like Grim had predicted, two more entered the fray. It was rather fortunate that their appearances were predicted, because it made things leagues easier for Emerald Knight to get started on wearing them down with laser fire.

Suddenly, an idea came to mind that would put an end to this little dogfight much sooner. He beat himself over the head for not thinking of it sooner.

Emerald Knight matched the speeds of the jets with a little more push, and used his ring to create constructs to break a hole in the windshield of the cockpit. A tiny hole, but one just large enough for him to worm a construct through so he could break the console they were piloting with, and activate their parachutes. He didn’t even need to break the planes down if he could just force the pilots to leave!

Slowly but surely the magitech jets were dwindling in number between the two flying heroes, the ones already damaged being picked off. Their speed and lasers were dangerous, but what was quickly becoming obvious was that these weren’t trained pilots. At the very least, not trained for the power of magitech.

Really, that fact was currently saving Grim’s ass. For all the advanced tech packed into the Grim Jet, the magitech seemed to have the edge in terms of specifications. Grim, however, had a far finer control over her machine than the Arab Federation pilots had over theirs. As two more untouched magitech jets joined the fray it’s what was currently keeping her ahead of the lasers on her tail.

A quick aileron roll avoided another barrage of the deadly lasers, the black jet turning sharply to double back to the injured craft. Of course even the precise turning capabilities of Grim’s jet wasn’t enough to shake her pursuer, as it too turned on a dime. A barrel roll this time, jerking the nose of the Grim Jet up - and on the descent another swath of those armor piercing bullets taking out one of the already injured craft, immediately after another volley of missiles bringing down another.

With that the damaged aircraft were out of the way, leaving only the three ones still in perfect condition. One was still doggedly pursuing Grim, another focused on Emerald Knight. Seeing an opportunity Grim shot off towards the one focused on Emerald Knight. Coming up behind it Grim’s gaze flicked between directly in front of her and the monitor showing a rear view. As soon as the magitech weapons on the aircraft behind her lit up Grim once more performed a sharp aileron roll, the lasers passing by and slamming into the jet in front of her as she passed by, cleaving it in two.

”Idiot,” The Gotham hero muttered in contempt, dipping to watch and make sure the pilot ejected safely. Yep, there he went. It was a really good thing these were inexperienced pilots, a single strike of those lasers would do some serious damage to her hull.

Where was the jet that was after her?

Grim spun around, quickly spotting the jet that had previously been on her like a dog on a bone. It was currently focused on the pilot descending to the sands below. Zoey’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, only for those steel-blue eyes to widen in alarm as the lasers on it lit up once more.

”Fucker!” Jerking her controls forward the Grim Jet took off at full speed just as the lasers of the enemy jet ripped through the parachute on the back of the pilot with a precise strike, sending him plummeting to the ground. Grim had no idea if it was anger or desperation that fueled the move; anger at his fellow pilot for getting in the way, or desperation with only two of them left. Either way, with the magitech jet still focused on the pilot Grim knew his gambit was going to work.

Now knowing where the Grim Jet was doing to be the lasers once more lit up, blasting at high speeds towards the pilot. The black jet was over him with less than a second to spare, the laser tearing into the reinforced metal of the hull. Inside the cockpit Grim was bathed in red as alarms started going off, the nose of the aircraft turning to the ground as she, too, plummeted. Smoke billowed from the pierced icon of the grim along the side of her plane, but she wasn’t going down that easily. Twisting the craft her left wing caught the falling pilot, him not needing a second gesture as he quickly clung to the black metal. It was going to be painful for the both of them, but better than slamming unprotected into the sands.

Pulling back on the controls and activating the hover mode the Grim Jet’s descent slowed, preventing it from crashing into the ground beneath them. Becoming parallel to the ground the right wing bumped against the sand beneath it, causing the craft to shudder as the right side bounced up once more. A normal jet would’ve been torn apart.

With the Grim Jet now hovering a foot off the ground, tilted slightly so the right wing rested in the sand Grim cursed into her voice modulator once more, rushing to grab a large toolbox stored in the back. Flipping the cockpit hatch open she climbed out. The pilot on her left wing was shaking and disorientated, when he glanced up to her Grim just looked down at him with that emotionless mask. Her glove sparked. He didn’t need telling twice and slid off the wing, quickly scrambling back. With him gone Grim turned to try and repair what she could of the burning metal and wire.

”I’m banged up but alive. Hope you can get the last two, Magenta Mage.”

“Alright… you.” He didn’t have any quippy nicknames for Grim at the current moment, so his response was already nowhere as cool as it could be.

Two left. Emerald Knight didn’t need any cool one liners to beat up some untrained pilots. If Grim was anything to go by, the vigilante was superior when it came to flying and even dogfighting, even if these planes did have the better tech. No matter.

Emerald Knight was barely scratched by the jets. He was rather angry with himself for not having been able to finish off these planes faster, but that was more because of his own skill rather than them. He wasn’t afraid. He had blown himself up for christ’s sake!

He flew around in a green blur, now creating a construct around him to cut through the final two planes with his own body. It was rather fun darting around and cutting them up, but like the others, his focus on forcing them down safely took priority.

He forced himself through the wings of one of the planes, but before it could start spiraling out of control, Emerald Knight locked the plane in a construct and led it down to the ground. As soon as he knew the plane wouldn’t explode, or the pilot wouldn’t die, he set off to do the same thing to the other plane.

The second plane led him through a small chase, but it was only a matter of time before he sped up to the plane and took it out in the same way. He was almost worried that his construct wouldn’t hold all the way down, but he was lucky to see that he was able to keep the plane from becoming a big fiery ball.

With the planes gone, Emerald Knight smiled to himself in satisfaction. They had done a good job today. Maybe the next time something like this happens, they’ll all be better, and they can keep even more lives from passing away.

---

Despite their advanced technology, the various armored vehicles of the Arab Federation were finding that they simply stood no chance in a direct confrontation with the giant - practically naked - man who had chosen to make his stand against them. Thus, their commander had ordered for them to try and keep their distance as he quickly formulated a strategy.

Thus far, this towering individual had proven to be their only real opposition on the ground. The NATO forces had fallen like a house of cards before their new weapons. If they took him out, then surely the city would follow!

“Liquify the ground beneath his feet!” Lt. General Yasin barked into his command console, displaying the battlefield in a complex 3D hologram that looked straight out of a science fiction film. “It would appear he cannot fly, so let us make him an easier target!”

Following his instructions, several of the tanks and IFVs turned their beams onto the streets below. With concentrated fire at the man’s feet, the ground more or less instantly began to liquify. Like quicksand, it made getting a solid footing to jump difficult, so long as it wasn’t allowed to harden.

“Now, every other vehicle open fire on him before he can get loose! I repeat, all remaining weapons focus fire!” Yasin commanded, watching every vehicle that wasn’t focused on keeping the street melted turn their beams on the giant man directly.

Scorching the ozone before them, the beams began to hit the superhuman from every side as tanks, IFVs and infantry quickly moved to surround him, his entire form quickly becoming obscured in the mass glow of the concentrated plasma.

Tank had expected the forces to keep away from him but it was just to attempt an effective self-defense against him though it had proven less than useful as he could close a gap fairly quickly. This time it seemed almost like they were lining up for a big barrage which he expected would hurt a fair bit as well as slow him down a lot by sheer volume alone. What he hadn’t been expecting was the ground caving out from underneath him which left him hard pressed to find any good footing while him trying to trudge through the now liquid asphalt was difficult. That was before the main volley aimed directly at him hit home stopping him dead in his tracks as shots from all directions started connecting faster than he could now react. If the big guy could speak it would be hard to accurately describe the pain he was in as the beams poured on not to mention the fact he couldn’t see or hear anything from under the assault so it heavily disoriented him on the shifting ground.

Girard fell down to a knee whole body tensing up severely as the onslaught kept on coming almost forcing him further onto the ground. His whole mind and body were screaming at him to fight back harder against his attackers. It wasn’t as much a matter of disabling them as making it stop, he needed it to stop and was growing more determined to end it. The big man started struggling back up feeling an intense anger boiling up pushing him on enough to fight getting him just about to standing as he drew his arms back through the lightshow. There was no way he was giving up, that meant a lot more people than just him were going to pay for it and forbid he was seriously injured or worse people he knew would be hit by it. He had to end this right the hell now and prevent all of that suffering so he let the strength flow into his arms before bringing them together below him in a massive thunder clap intent to send them flying away from him. There was no proper gauge on how much he was actually putting into it that he could have thought of but one thing he knew is that they were not going to enjoy it anymore than he was being focus fired.

The immense thunderclap brought a sudden end to the concentration of plasma that had been brought against Tank, a powerful blast of heated wind hammering the battle-scared out structures on either side of the street, toppling many of them as tanks and IFVs alike struggled to remain stable, the crews still somewhat unfamiliar with the strange technology that kept them suspended off the ground.

Most of NATO had been routed within moments of meeting Asad's magitech, flaming wrecks littering the roadways just to the north of the city and on the path of retreat back into Tabuk. Few remained intact, their crews fighting from street to street against Federation soldiers. At least with the assistance of Celerity pulling most out of the way of kill-shots, and Tank keeping the attentions of the main force, the wounded could safely retreat. It was there in the base camps south of the city that the remaining commanders came together and assessed the situation at hand.

"Asad has almost undone all of our efforts, with just the introduction of these damned tanks and space weapons." The French commander cursed, though it was notable that he had lost most of his force on the first attack.

"Lasers and magic, what a time to be alive. At least we've got these 'heroes' out there keeping the body count down."

Their eastern fleet sat at the bottom of the Persian Gulf, much of their air superiority had evaporated with the loss of air bases to operate from, and the western fleet had retreated back to the Mediterranean. Reinforcements would be lacking, and very hesitant until this threat had been contained and countered, something which seemed quite unlikely from the standpoint of the very mortal elements of this intervention. Even Raymond was having a difficult time marshalling his forces and holding his ground against the magitech pit against them. Several black Challenger 2s sat propped against buildings where they had made a stand, smoking holes revealing the interiors and the cooked ammunition inside. Charred uniforms were stark reminders of the crews that once operated them, and precious few wounded managed their way back to the medical tents.

Raymond himself ripped his way from the crushed interior of his command tank, arcane energy rolling off his form in waves as he drank deep from the leylines. He let it fuel his rage, striking back with lances of searing magic fire against Federation troops, immolating them and their damned magitech. Cries of anguish mixed the air, and he was not too focused on his enemy's suffering to notice that some of those were his own. Shifting directly from a war-stance, he spoke the command words to a spell of shielding, barriers forming around his wounded and deflecting just barely the plasma that was meant to end their lives. Yet as soon as he had gone on the defensive, it was clear that was where he was going to remain. Some of the other Federation soldiers not pinning down Tank had directed their attention to the new threat, as displays of magic tend to do.

Thankfully, the thunderclap intended to end their barrage against Tank had also staggered the Federation soldiers engaged with Raymond, blasting infantry several meters through the air and sending tanks and IFVs sliding into nearby structures. It was a critical pause in the battle, but one that was ripe for exploitation by a savvy commander.

The savvy commander stood ready, arcane lightning rippling from his fingertips as he partially revelled in the first chance in millennia to truly utilize his powers, and felt immense anger at those who followed him into battle being so casually slaughtered by Federation troopers. All it took was that one pause, and well-drilled discipline took over in the black-clad men and women of LIS, guns up and firing as they moved forward to engage. It didn't matter that their guns were but toys compared to the lasers and plasma that spat back at them. Nor did it matter that they couldn't hurt the tanks and IFVs that seemed proof against such mundane arms. They had resolve and courage to endure despite everything, and that began to eat away at the confidence Asad's troops held in what was thought to be an easy victory. A concentrated volley of gunfire ripped through a squad of the Federation soldiers, putting them down with no less than six shots on center-mass to each of them, the mercenaries reloading behind cover even as the line behind them moved up.

Raymond advanced along the center, partly counting on the chaos of battle to conceal his true powers from all but the very distracted Lady Arcana, and the rest not caring one bit as long as he saw his people through to victory. He strode through plasma fire, deflecting some with well timed barriers, and others thrown off through the sheer determination of his advance. The look in his eyes was that of war-given-form, a terrible avatar of destruction brought to the mortal realms to do his work. It was enough to break the lesser-willed, those pitiful conscripts swept along in Asad's desire to conquer. Others took more convincing. Each step brought his team closer to the main armored column, and the greatest threat to their defence of the city. Each one reunited pinned down squadmates with their teams, their guns joining the steadily advancing line that stretched from street to street, taking full advantage of even the slightest lull in momentum from the Federation troopers.

Ahead he saw another group of his people pinned by a fusillade of plasma, searing beams piercing holes through their rapidly dwindling cover. They were in pretty rough shape, a few laying still on the pavement, and others clearly wounded but giving back the best they could. One in particular caught his eye in a flash of plasmic fire. Her helmet was glanced by the blow, ripping it off her head and vaporizing her arm below the shoulder, but still she raised her pistol and held it steady against the Federation trooper who advanced to deliver the finishing blow. He recognized her stern features at once, and a fury was stoked within like none his enemy had yet seen.

In the space between himself and the pair across the street everything went silent, the air deadly still as his lips parted to draw in a light breathe and speak the first syllable of a language he had reserved for only his most hated foes. Immediately those around him recognized the shift in air pressure, the way it felt like the breath was drawn from their lungs and their ears popped. The dozen men behind him turned and ducked, firmly placing their hands against their ears in every measure possible to block out the sound they knew was coming next. Across the way time seemed to slow, the woman glancing to the side and recognizing Raymond, but moreso what was about to befall the Federation soldiers. She placed her hand against an ear and braced the other firmly against the remains of her shoulder, and watched the glow building from within the plasma rifle, a searing inferno preparing to discharge directly into her.

It never happened. Raymond leaned slightly forward, a word leaving his mouth soundlessly in a language that defied all mortal tongues. At first nothing changed, there was just a whisper in the wind, a strangeness that shouldn't be possible in the middle of a warzone. Explosions detonated just meters away, but not even the heat could be felt within that space occupied only by Raymond and the object of his hate. Then the word was spoken. It ripped from his throat in a violent cacophony of a thousand melded voices all speaking at once, yet in different languages and not one at all. Blood flecked his lips as it left his mouth, screaming across the short distance to the man who didn't even realize his fate was written.

"Die."

At once the man's body shuddered, the sound of every bone in his body breaking at once clear over the grunt of confusion and agony. It was just the raw impact of the True Word that knocked him to the ground, the bow-wave hitting the other six Federation soldiers who were part way through opening fire on the LIS mercenaries. Though they were not the target, they heard the word spoken and immediately felt the effects. Two collapsed as they became violently ill, limbs paralyzed as their central-nervous system shut itself down. Another simply fell over, eyes wide in shock as he tried to breathe but his lungs refused to listen. One of the men caught fire, his clothing igniting in arcane fires that only fed on his attempts to put them out.

His target fared far worse, his own body becoming his enemy as he spasmed on the ground as best his struggling muscles could. It was only momentary, but the word was obeyed to the letter. One by one his organs shut down, the man confused as he couldn't understand what had happened until finally his struggle was over. All in the span of just a few seconds, the damage wrought was terrible and the few Federation soldiers who were out of earshot and witnessed what he had done broke and ran.

Raymond closed the couple meters, unconcerned with the retreating enemy for once, and offered his hand to the fallen woman. She accepted gratefully and glanced down at the man who had just a moment ago had her dead to rights. "Surprised you still know the words, father." The rank pin marked her out as one of the captains of the unit, and while the others were clearing the street the two could speak privately. Despite seeming to be of parity in age, she spoke with soft reverence towards the man, bowing her head slightly to him.

"I practice every now and then, just to make sure I still can." He was not left unharmed after the True Word, his lips split and bleeding from the force of the command, and his throat quite sore. Though the words could not kill him, and wouldn't hold the same effect, they still left their marks. "Reverie, I'll need you to pull together the wounded on the street just south of this position. Try and get yourself to the medics as well."

"Understood." That was all the reply she gave, a few other soldiers coming closer to lend fire-support to a group up the road. A moment later and she was gone, disappearing into the haze of battle.

---

8:20 PM
Riyadh

“Gekh!” Lady Arcana grunted as she was sent slamming into the lower floor of the Faisaliah Tower, hotel patrons who hadn’t been able to evacuate the capital screaming at the sight of the woman who had just smashed her way through the eastern wall and then face-dived into the marble flooring.

Pushing herself up again, she watched Asad hurl himself through the freshly made hole on a direct collision course with her. Reaching out to catch his oncoming fist, she dug her heels into the floor, which buckled beneath their mutual strength.
“You see, woman?” Asad’s voice hummed from within the warsuit. “My Lord has given me the power to personally dispose of you! Me, the Lion of Babylon!”

Intercepting his second fist, she held him firmly in place with their impromptu grapple. She had figured out exactly how strong his warsuit of his was by this point. Twisting his far larger arms down to the side as whatever metal this thing was made out of screeched in protest, she now felt confident she could overpower this thing!

And then his eyes began to glow.

“Oh right,” She muttered, the azure light engulfing her. Blasting her back away from him, she would’ve surely smashed through the opposite wall if he hadn’t quickly seized her by the ankle and instead hurled her up through several of the floors above them.

Grasping her by the throat as he followed, they continued to smash their way up through the great tower. Blows were exchanged, with a flash of sparks from the warsuit indicating that she was coming out the better between them. In one of the dining areas of the upper floor, an elderly couple continued to happily eat their dinner, apparently so hard of hearing that they didn’t see them smash through the floor, nor did they see Asad slam her head through the stove in the kitchen.

Forcefully grasping the hand around her throat, she threw him up through yet another series of floors until they were once again in the open air. Issuing a moderately forceful kick to his chest, she turned and seized the golden ball that sat near the top of the building. Her fingers biting into the sphere, she wrenched it free and hurled it after the dictator, smirking slightly as it slammed into him and carried him the rest of the way out of the city.

Chasing after him without another thought, she slammed into Asad just as he was ripping his way through the gleaming orb. Forcing him further out to the desert, she began to rain a storm of blows down upon the warsuit, her fists becoming a blur. Sparks began to fly, an uppercut diverting a blast of his eye beams away from her and into the night sky above.

Slamming her knuckles into the “face” of his armor with enough force to crack the lense its left eye, it was sent meteoring down to the sands below; a great pillar of desert erupting on impact. Showing no hesitation this time and bursting through the storm of sand, she landed firmly on the waist of the towering armor as it lay prone on its back.

Pounding away at the head of the warsuit until the eyes began to flicker out, she knifed her hand and jabbed it into the chest. It indented, but it took several more tries before she was finally through. Pursing her lips, she forcefully ripped the torso open to reveal Asad.

“Heeeeere’s Johnny!” She smiled down at him, though her mask obscured it.

Asad coughed as the systems of his warsuit sparked and began to catch fire, smoke belching forth. Alarms weakly blared, but they too were on the verge of death. “D-damn you, you filthy imperialist whore!”

“That’s like the seventh time you’ve called me that,” she noted. “You’re like a bad Family Guy caricature.”

Reaching down to lift him from the warsuit which he had strapped himself into, the dictator gritted his teeth. “This...this wasn’t supposed to be how it ended. He said it could beat you, that...that…”

Hesitating for a moment, Lady Arcana drew her hand back. “‘He?’ Wait, you mean the guy who gave you all this magic stuff, right?”

“He...he never cared which side won,” Asad muttered in apparent realization, eyes drifting to the side. “He used me...used all of us to simply create further conflict! He was our God and...he betrayed us...”

Frowning, Arcana wasn’t sure what she could say in that moment. Maybe saying nothing was the best solution, since he seemed to be providing her with an interesting bit of information. Hopefully, he would keep providing it when she brought him to...where the hell international criminals went. She’d need to google that.

When she once more grasped for the front of his uniform, Asad’s hand tried to desperately fight her grip as he practically snarled at her. “NO! Even...even if I was thrown away like trash by my Lord, I shall not allow you to parade me around like some trophy! I am Arabia’s greatest son, Basil Al-Asad!!”

A sharp whine filled her ears, her eyes immediately noting that his opposite hand had hit a switch inside the warsuit.

Asad narrowed his gaze upon the Wizardess, a manic grin slowly spreading across his face. ”Come with me to hell, Lady Arcana!”

---

King Orin scanned the bottom of the sea one final time before his grip tightened on his new trident and he felt a surge of power. There were still bodies down there. Broken and mangled. Some had died in the initial blast, others ripped apart or crushed by the wreckage of their own ships. But everyone who had survived was being rescued. His friends in the sea were making sure of that. Now, it was time to find those responsible…

Rocketing back to the surface, Aquaman channeled his power through the Trident of Neptune as he neared the surface of the waters. A huge column of ocean water extended out of the gulf and pointed itself in the direction of the city where all the fighting was taking place. Aquaman swam through his water-tunnel with near-incomprehensible speed, shooting out of the end and sailing through the air. The Trident allowed him to control the currents of the wind as well, speeding his forward momentum and slowing his descent. Though not flight in any sense, this ‘glide’ would allow him to cover a lot of ground before needing to sprint into the city itself.

A few scant moments later, Orin had arrived among the burning husks of military operations and shells of buildings. The destruction was immense, though it looked as though his new allies had been doing their jobs. Advanced magitech vehicles and weapons lay broken and unused, and the destruction of the city was nothing compared to what it could have been. The sounds of battle still roared in the distance though, and Orin set off through the streets looking for their source.

King Orin turned a corner, having heard sounds of fighting dull and come to a stop as he arrived. With luck, it was allies. If not… He would deal with it. What he saw when he turned the corner though, surprised him. Mercenaries, from the look of them; some kind of fighting force. A one-armed woman leading her troops away and a man with the bearing of a commander left behind. Bodies on the ground, some immolated, some bleeding from the eyes and ears, one who appeared to have been crushed completely from the inside out. A faint aura hung in the air, only perceptible to Orin because of his familiarity with the twin tridents he used to channel his magic. Orin turned his attention back to the man, noting that he did indeed have his own fighting force with him. Orin stepped forward, trident slung over one shoulder as he approached what he hoped was a new ally.

”Hail, commander!” Aquaman called out, holding his free hand up in greeting. The soldiers with him turned and trained their weapons on him, and so Aquaman halted, flashing the group a disarming smile. ”I come to offer aid. I am King Orin of Atlantis, and I fight with Lady Arcana and the other heroes. Much of the work seems to have been done, and in no small part thanks to yourselves. I wish to help. Where do we go from here?”

Turning even as his men trained their guns on the approaching Atlantean, he very nearly loosed a spell on him. What restrained him was both the presence of mind to recognize a friendly, and that it seemed he had arrived to continue liberating the city. Raymond discharged the building magic within his fingertips, the barely visible sparks dissipating as he nodded slowly to the man and motioned for his troops to continue sweep and clear efforts.

"Raymond von Lüneburg, NATO Ground Forces and head of Lundgrau Intelligence Services." The trident looked quite familiar, bearing hints of arcane force around it. It took little more than Orin's title for him to determine what it was, the precious few manuscripts that survived the fall of Atlantis depicting the artifact often prominently.

"I've got people pinned down across the northern end of the city, and I am fairly certain the main armored column up ahead is responsible for tying up another powered individual. Anything that can remove that armor would be appreciated, though assisting the wounded in getting out of the combat zone also helps." Raymond turns as a shift in the battle catches his attention, the slight silence preceding a devastating change.

---

The battle - already winding down - was finally put to rest as the night was cast aside by a blinding flash of light, soon to be followed by an almost deafening roar in the distance as a powerful blast of concussive force slammed into Tabuk, almost strong enough to topple the already battered structures on the outskirts of the city. The very ground rumbled beneath their feet as man’s greatest weapon displayed its terrifying power.

As the light slowly faded, the unmistakable appearance of a massive mushroom cloud rising over the far horizon could be seen, its might still being felt in spite of the great distance between them and the monstrous explosion.

When the ground at last settled and the winds calmed, soldiers and civilians alike ceased to focus on the battlefield and instead stared at the great pillar of destruction - an oddly misshapen one, compared to the recordings many had seen of nuclear detonations. From within the Grim Jet, one of the lights on the console had gone dim, signalling that communications had been lost with one of the earpieces it was connected with.

The alarm echoed on the computer against Grim’s arm, the hero tearing her gaze away from the plume of destruction in the distance to check the screen. Immediately a feeling of dread built in her chest, and she grabbed the box of tools to climb back into the cockpit of the Grim Jet. Dropping them carelessly by the pilot’s side, the red light of various alerts still washing over the interior, Grim immediately focused on the console. Earpiece one was down - the first she had given out today.

”Arcana? Arcana are you there?” It was futile, she knew, to try and get a response, but part of Grim couldn’t help but hope it was just her damaged jet making a mistake. Her voice broadcast to the others with their own earpieces, soon making it obvious that something was wrong. ”Arcana! Fuck, Arcana?!” The side of the Grim Jet was still scarred, the lasers of the magitech having torn through the black metal like paper. In the time she had Grim had repaired what she could, but knew the patch job wouldn’t last long.

Nonetheless she didn’t hesitate to put it through its paces. The engines roared and the aircraft wobbled as it rose up. The Grim Jet listed to the right even in hover mode. Grim merely grit her teeth and tried to correct it as best she could before the engines burned and the aircraft took off towards the fading mushroom cloud. The controls in her hand jerked and fought against going straight the faster the jet went, and Grim could hear the metal groaning in protest along the right side. Didn’t matter.

Girard had slowly crawled his way out of the still cooling ground back onto solid pavement again thankful for his disruption having worked enough to give him a breather. It occurred to him that the sheet had probably been disintegrated off of him during that last attack or whatever was left of it at least, Zoey was going to be upset with that for sure. He turned over onto his side noticing the shockwave he put out had sent quite a few vehicles and soldiers plenty far neither of which seemed to be intent on fighting nearly so hard as they had been before. He was relieved that the fighting had ended for the most part since if it got drawn out casualties could’ve skyrocketed and quite honestly he needed a rest after the beating the battery gave him. Maybe just a minute would do...or ten, ten sounded really nice right about now.

That was until the huge blast erupted from far outside the city where he remembered the dog fighting had been happening, might have been further still. Really huge didn’t do the explosion justice because he could easily feel it from where he laid while the odd mushroom cloud rose above the horizon in clear view giving a truly disturbing vision as to what happened to the area. The big man felt inclined to get up but it turned out he was hardly in a position to do so, the excruciating pain took a lot out of him and hadn’t entirely faded yet leaving him stuck for the moment as his body refused to respond to him. For the moment he would leave it up to the others to check it out having full faith in the rest of them that things would be alright. He hoped.

Ground zero of the explosion drew near. The middle of the desert, sand kicked up from the explosion and obscuring the glass of the cockpit. Even with that it soon became obvious that there was something in this stretch of barren land. A crater. No surprise, considering the force of the nuclear explosion that had rocked the area. There was something odd about it, however. Flying over the area as she was it was obvious there was a darkened area splashed across the scarred land, almost … humanoid in shape. A shadow scorched into the very earth itself. The Grim Jet immediately pitched to go to the center, a new alarm joining the fray battling for dominance from the spike of radiation.

There was something there, at least. The Grim Jet shuddered as it came to a stop mere feet from the black object in the center of the crater, and finally the engines used for hovering along the right side died and the wing once more fell back against the ground - along with half the aircraft. Grim’s curse rang along the communication lines but she merely threw the hatch open and climbed out, her wrist computer immediately going crazy as it tried to alert her to the danger.

Twisted metal was all that greeted Grim as she practically climbed into the husk of the war machine that she had left fighting Lady Arcana. Nothing but charred metal remains. Grim merely stared down at it for a moment before lifting her head and looking around, the lenses of her goggles swapping rapidly as she looked around. Nothing. Her heart plummeted.

”...Arcana?”

The area around the crater had been completely glassed over by the explosion, the former desert now glistening under the sun. It had been far enough into the open wastes that the destruction was mostly confined to the sands and any unfortunate creatures that left within them. Fallout could potentially be an issue for any settlements within both Arabia and the Federation, but that was neither here nor there.

The important fact was that nothing remained within a forty mile radius.

Grim’s wrist computer continued to warn the heroine against the danger, even as the Gotham hero ignored it. Her suit provided enough protection for these precious moments, searching across the shining landscape. Her boots slid against the glass before she scrambled up to the nose of her jet once more. She had to keep searching.

The controls groaned as she urged the machine to move, the Grim Jet vibrating as the damaged aircraft tried to rise up. The left side lifted, but the right side merely scraped against the glass as it slid against the ground. Finally the machine shuddered and banged against the hard surface beneath it as it collapsed.
Grim’s cursing was clear, angry as she climbed out once more. Her gloved hands ran against her hood, eyes darting around under her goggles.

Not again. Not another one. There had to be… Lady Arcana was practically invincible! Yet the twisted, fallout-scarred desert around her hit home just how much pure destructive power was dropped, probably directly on top of the woman. Why hadn’t Grim stayed?

”Hey, isn’t there like a ton of radiation here? Let’s go somewhere safe!” Lady Arcana gently reached her arm around Grim’s waist, lifting her up along with her Jet in the opposite hand. With her speed, it took only a brief moment to clear the point where any potential fallout could endanger Zoey.

It was only then that the superheroine sat her friend down alongside her battered plane. Her mask was gone, along with her leggings, both having been destroyed in the blast. That was fine, though...she’d frankly had enough of this place for the time being. ”Ugh, I was completely covered in a bunch of melted metal from the armor I think, so I had to spin around really hard to get it off.”

She was seriously glad that she hadn’t beaten Asad in a city, though. The very thought of just how many people would’ve died if that’d gone off just a little bit sooner sent chills up her spine.

Grim could only stare at the other heroine, vaguely noting that her elbow throbbed from where she had instinctively lashed out at an arm going around her. Lady Arcana was speaking, but to be honest Zoey wasn’t exactly listening. Instead she just drank in that her friend was there, alive, seemingly none the worse for wear…

A wave of relief washed over the Gotham hero. The tense pressure in her chest eased. Karen was safe. Grim suddenly lurched forward, arms almost of their own accord going around the shorter girl’s neck to hug her. She pressed her forehead to the blonde’s, her mask bumping against Lady Arcana’s mouth and nose. She was safe, she was safe - not another life lost to this horrible, fucked up world, she was safe.

And she had worried the fuck out of her. Grim abruptly pulled back and slapped her.

”If you ever - and I mean ever worry me like that again I swear I’ll kill you myself,” Grim practically snarled, her voice modulator rumbling. Her palm stung from what was essentially hitting a brick wall, but it was the point of the matter. Against her words however Grim began to look over the other heroine, brushing her hood back as she checked and double checked that she wasn’t hurt at all, finally turning off broadcasting to the other heroes.

Lady Arcana’s eyes widened when she felt the mask pressing in against her lips, her body going stalk still as a bridge of red worked its way across her face. When Grim pulled back again, her mouth tried to open in order to speak but any idea of the sort was quickly vanquished by her sudden and piercing slap. While she couldn’t see her face, there was no doubt to be had that she had been worried about her. Had she thought she was dead?

Well, that’s understandable. She’d never been hit with anything that powerful before, and honestly even she herself hadn’t know whether or not she would be able to survive it. She once read that the center of a nuclear explosion could reach temperatures comparable to the core of the Sun, and now she honestly believed it. She had felt the heat of the blast as it engulfed her at point blank range, instantly obliterating her earpiece along with the temporary additions she’d made to her uniform.

Worse, it had hurt, like being badly scalded...though it hadn’t lasted long. It was the first time she’d ever felt true pain in this form. She really didn’t care to repeat the experience, to say the least. At least thinking about it finally gave her something to say, though.

”Zoey, I really hate nukes.” She exhaled, lowering her head. ”And I’m sorry for worrying you. I was just a little overwhelmed by…y’know, impossibly hot atomic fire.”

”I’ll forgive you this time,” Grim muttered in return, finally releasing a harsh exhale. Her gloves fingers went up bringing the mask down to hang around her neck and the goggles up to rest against her forehead. She had been wearing the mask for hours now, and hadn’t slept for even longer. She was getting too old for this. ”I’m just glad you’re alright. I don’t know about you, but I’m about ready to go home after this bullshit. Let’s clean up the magitech and get going - think you can carry my jet? It’s kind of fucked.”

Lady Arcana eagerly nodded, wanting to put the thoughts of this place and that painful heat behind her. Of course, rounding up all the magitech would have to come first, just like Zoey said. That was the original reason for coming here after all. Making sure the Arab Federation no longer had it was important, but she didn’t really want NATO to get it either. At the end of the day, after all, nations and alliances just tended to look after their own selfish interests before anything else.

Thankfully, she had already worked out how she was going to retrieve it all. Having learned how to access the Rock of Eternity from Samantha back during the harpy incident, she could just quickly store all of it in there once she’d found it all. That was, after all, something the old Wizard was apparently fond of doing, judging by all the magical junk that was in there.

”Okay, let’s hurry. I’ve...honestly had enough sand and heat for one lifetime.”

Heroes Reborn - A DCAU Roleplay (Always open!)

July 8th, 4:50 PM
Sakakah, Republic of Arabia

"There...there wasn't much left," Lady Arcana stared down at the desert sands before Mr. Luneburg, her fist clenched with enough force to turn coal into diamond. Their bodies had been pretty much reduced to burned out skeletons when she got there. "It looks like they barely had time to react."

She was doing her best right now to keep from shaking. Growing up in The Wedge, she was no stranger to death. Before she became Lady Arcana she would hear it every night in the gunshots that served as ambience for their community, an unrelenting reminder of where they lived and who they were to society. Sometimes she would stumble upon a body callously stuffed into a ditch on her way to school, flies darting about a human being forgotten.

Even so, she hated it. She hated the loss of life more than anything. It was impossible for her not to dwell on if she could have possibly done something to save them. Something to keep their families from having to hear that their sons, brothers, husbands or fathers had just been killed.

It was the same for all of the people she had disabled within the Federation Army, too. After all they had undoubtedly suffered up to this point, did they really deserve to lose a member of their family too?

Emerald Knight didn't know what to say. He could practically feel the emotion radiating off of Lady Arcana, but he felt so helpless when it came to saying anything that could help.

Preston had not seen a lot of death growing up. Funny, considering that his idea of fun was picking fights in bars on the weekends, but it was true. His goal was to make sure as many people lived to see the next day, but even during his travels through space, he knew that not everyone would leave the battlefield on their own two feet. 

"We still have a job to do." Emerald Knight had to look just slightly up at Lady Arcana. "If this is any sign, there are more weapons just like that out there. We need to find them and disable them. Or throw them into deep space." His tone was strained and grim. He wasn't used to talking about things like this. If he were being honest, him being on his home planet and seeing such serious business was a tough pill to swallow. 

It was to be expected, but he had hoped at least one of the pilots had survived. Seemed that whatever had shot them down was ruthlessly efficient at its job. The heroes seemed unnecessarily stuck on that small detail, but having known war for longer than some countries had existed, Raymond had moved past it almost immediately.

"Unfortunate, but expected. We cannot save everyone. I'll radio back to NATO Command and alert them to the threat within the Federation's borders. For now it may be best to draw battlelines within the Arab Republic and defend what we can until we have more information. It's clear that Asad has powerful weapons at his disposal, and while the two of you have done much to turn the tide, I doubt you can hold the entire war-front on your own."

Emerald Knight's head tilted. Raymond was right. Even with all their power, not even the two of them could hold the war by themselves.

Lady Arcana cupped her chin in thought at this. Raymond had something of a point here. Neither she nor Emerald Knight were willing to kill, which limited the speed at which they could disable the enemy. Even if they could be a decisive presence in one area, they couldn't fight a war across several hundred miles of desert continuously without there being a breach.

And at this point, a breach was all Asad's forces needed. The military of the Republic of Arabia appeared to be almost completely broken at this point. She didn't want to think about how many had died in the hours before she had arrived here with Grim.

"Neither of us can be everywhere at once, that's a fact," Lady Arcana admitted. "But anywhere that we are is pretty much a guaranteed victory, I feel confident in saying that. So it just comes down to where you think we would be most useful right now."

Raymond thought on the statement for a moment, taking a glance over at his radio operator and gesturing for a tactical map to be set up. The soldier rolled out a thin digital screen over a hastily setup table, plugging it into a laptop linked with NATO satellites. It didn't show quite everything going on in the region, but enough for some tactical awareness.

"Here in the center and eastern fronts are areas of primary concern, though the defeat of the central army will set Asad back for a time." He gestured to confirmed enemy troop movements to either side of Sakakah. "NATO marine and air elements have been harassing the western army which has slowed their advance, but the group moving along the Persian Gulf is virtually unopposed. If one of you stalled the eastern army, and the other took on the western army, we would have a more even front. Once reinforcing elements arrive though, we can take care of the western front."

Lady Arcana quickly nodded. "I'll take on the Eastern Army. Let everyone else hit the Western, and together you should all be able to drive it back pretty easily."

"Guess I'll handle the west with the rest of the forces." It made sense to Emerald Knight. A powerhouse like Lady Arcana didn't really need assistance. Emerald Knight being with the rest of the army meant that he could easily bail people out in a pinch, as well as help drive back the attackers. 

He wanted to get a head start on attacking. It seemed like Raymond and lady Arcana had things handed here. With that, he took off to where he needed to be.

She felt confident that she could handle the army group on her own, as she tended to be pretty attention grabbing when she wanted to be. "Maybe carving a big groove in the sand in front of their advance will keep them from simply trying to slip past me?"

Trench warfare was a bit dated, but he had to admit it had its merits, and would slow the advance even if they chose to cross it directly. "You would have to cover a fairly large area. At least four or five miles in either direction if you want to funnel the army into one area. If you make a trench about seven feet across and equally deep, that would force vehicles to go around to avoid beaching themselves-"

Raymond paused in his explanation, looking up from the digital map of the region and staring directly at the wizardess. "Wait. How are you going to make a trench?"

Arcana blinked at his question, though she had already pretty much figured that part out. "Well, I'm going to like...fly fast and then plow my way through a long stretch of desert using my body."

To illustrate this she held her hand up in a knife-shape swooped it down through the sand at her feet to make a groove. "Like that."

"Are you like, twelve?" Was exactly the first thing that came to mind as he stared blankly at the supposed most powerful wizard on the planet. Yes, there might be a slight difference in tactical know how that was to be expected, but he was hoping for at least some kind of... Anything.

"I don't think that's going to be very effective." Raymond began, taking a moment to gather himself and not go at her full tilt. "Surely you know a spell or two that could make mass-terraforming like that significantly faster?"

Staring at him blankly, Lady Arcana slowly shook her head. "Um...no. I have, like, this spell that lets me change clothes, but that's about it. I haven't learned any others, eheheh...so I just mostly punch stuff?"

Raymond returned the blank stare, resisting the urge to place his palm firmly against his face. "Ishtar, grant me patience to deal with this insufferable pain." Gathering what willpower he could as he was reminded of why he sent his daughter to the League, he gave a passing glance at Cabbage Patch before returning focus to the sorceress.

"Very well, in the name of expedience and saving lives, I'll try to keep this as short as possible." Right, she already probably knew he was a mage of some kind, so no harm in giving her a hand in casting some actual spells. "The most basic utility spell at hand for such an occasion is the earth-mover. You have no need of command words I'm sure, so just focus your mind at what you want the earth to shape itself into, and channel your magic. You do know how to channel, right?" Raymond sincerely hoped she knew how to channel, otherwise this would be a very long day.

"...You mean like a youtube channel? Cause I don't have one of those." Lady Arcana stared at him blankly again. He seemed to be trying to teach her how to do magic, which she greatly appreciated, but she really had no idea what he was talking about.

Wait, she did play D&D one time with Clare...wasn't channeling the thing the Wizards did when started chanting? She preferred Harry Potter, though, where they could just say a word to do it.

Shaking her head for a moment, she did her best to focus. "Okay, channeling magic. How do I do that? Is it like when the lightning surges through me when I first change?"

"Did.... Did anyone teach you how to use these powers?" The wizard must have truly been at the end of his rope and with no other options. Raymond felt like he was teaching kindergarten for a moment, taking a deep breath and waving the comment away even as it left his mouth. "You know what, nevermind. That's a conversation for another time."

"Channeling, yes it's sort of like when you first change. You draw the magic inside of you, gathering it and preparing it. Normally, once you felt you had enough to cast, you would release it as the spell." He didn't even bother to ask if she knew how to do that, since no one had seen Lady Arcana flinging spells at enemies. "With channeling, you maintain that connection to the rock, while directing the magical energies at your target. Try making a line in the sand between us with only arcane energy."

Lady Arcana frowned slightly, but nodded. She did at least feel the power inside of her, that much was true. She had almost certainly used it before, but she had never known it was properly known as channeling. She used a little bit of it to open that window back at Commissioner Lessee's house, now that she thought about it. She just needed to draw on it a bit more here.

Pursing her lips, she pointed her finger down at the sand as instructed. Focusing hard on expelling her energy out the extended digit, a bright flash emerged an instant as Arcane energy poured forth into the ground.

...and through the ground, as the sand turned to glass and a small pool of magma began bubbling up at her feet as she panicked and tried to move her finger, cleaving clean through a building at her side along a diagonal trajectory as she aimed her finger skyward until it thankfully stopped expelling arcane power.

Her jaw agape as the thankfully evacuated building slid in half and promptly collapsed, she slowly turned back to Mr. Luneburg. "Uh...too much?"

"Arcana, there you are. There was..." The low, near silent hum of the Grim Jet signalled the Gotham vigilante's arrival, the black aircraft slowly climbing down to hover beside Lady Arcana mere feet off the ground. She hadn't originally planned on getting this close to the brigade of soldiers to check on their plans, but...

"... Don't worry, I'm sure that building had a nefarious purpose." Grim finally stated, her flat tone coming out even through the voice modulator and ear pieces. What was it with this girl and property damage?

Following the lance of arcane energy as it lasered across the ground and through a nearby building, Raymond held the same stoic expression that bordered on disappointment and exasperation. This was going to take a lot of work. "Well. That's one way to do it, I guess." He said at last, the thump of the building masking a curse under his breath.

"Just... Try not to hit anything you prefer to leave the battlefield alive. Might do with dialing down a bit on the power and maybe just imagining what you want the sand and rock to do for you? Like... Just envision the sands parting to form a steep trench."

Looking up when she heard the familiar engines of the Grim Jet as it descended, Lady Arcana released a small sigh of relief. Having her friend here with her made her feel a lot more at ease. "Grim, I'm learning magic! It's pretty cool, i-if I can learn to not use so much, eheh."

Glancing to Raymond, she listened closely to his instructions. Yeah, definitely needed to crank down the power, she agreed. This time she was to envision the sands parting to form a steep trench...and if her last attempt was any indication, she shouldn't do it within the city. "Excuse me for just a second..."

Lifting off the ground, she ascended several hundred feet into the air. Glancing towards a barren patch of desert, Lady Arcana pursed her lips and extended her hand, mumbling softly. "Trench...trench...trench...

Bursting from her hand in a less concentrated beam - more akin to lightly now - it impacted the desert, which began to shift in accordance with the image in her mind. In just a short time, she'd managed to create a steep trench several hundred feet across.

"...Oh!" She gasped, glancing down at the people below her. "Did you see that?! I did it! Holy sauceballs..."

She'd long since lost her facade of maturity, too caught up in her success as she drifted back to the ground with a beaming smile that even her mask couldn't entirely suppress.

Grim remained silent through Lady Arcana's explanation, watching the other woman as she listened to this... stranger? No, she recognized him. It was hard not to, after all, considering who he was. Underneath her mask her eyebrow perked but she didn't comment, just making a thoughtful hum that vibrated throughout her mask. When Arcana lifted up the Jet rose up a few dozen feet to watch, Grim making sure her goggles recorded the spectacle. For insurance purposes, if needed.

... Huh, less destructive than she anticipated.

Once again the jet lowered as Lady Arcana descended, and in a show of support and aerial manoeuvrability the nose of the black aircraft nudged against Lady Arcana's arm. It's not like it could hurt her.

"Good job."

Observing as he was, it was hard not to notice the presence of the jet and the familiarity of the iconography it bore. His mind looked towards the recent vigilantism across the nation and matched notable records before one in particular stood out. Yes, this one must be Gotham's hero... What was his name? Dogman? Yes, that was it. How peculiar the two heroes seemed to be travelling together, or at least appearing so.

"Yes, that's a fair bit closer. Still expending a fair bit more magic than you probably should be, but that's something incredibly minor that can be worked on when innocents are not in danger." Ideally he figured that the source of magic would not only have no need of command words, sign weaving, arcane rituals or any of the hassle that he had to go through, but would be able to manage such a simple spell without visible lines. Still, he assumed this was more magical teaching than she had received since acquiring the rock.

"Creating a trench in such a way as I specified should keep the eastern front tied up for a bit, at least until they get bridge-laying vehicles out."

Feeling more confident now that she had managed to perform at least one spell correctly, she offered Mr. Luneburg a confident nod. "Don't worry! I'll route them way before they can build anything!"

Now that she kinda-sorta got how this magic thing worked, she had a few ideas on how she could make things a bit easier. "These trenches can totally be used to trap soldiers if I open them up at their feet!"

"Ah, that's what this is about? Clever. Be careful the vehicles don't fall on any soldiers, and don't open so many that the trenches just fail and bury them alive ... and just to be careful don't aim directly at them." Grim's eyes cut over to the building, still smouldering along the edge it had been dissected.

Lady Arcana offers a cheerful salute to Grim's instructions, her eyes shining brightly for all to see. "Sir yes sir!"

---

July 8th, 5:02 PM
Twenty miles North-East of Hofuf

The cities of Jubail and Damman had fallen quickly to the advancing Eastern Army, according to Mr. Luneburg. The next in their path would be Hofuf, a city of over 1,500,000 people. If the army seized it, then they would only be a short distance away from Riyadh, the capital of the Republic of Arabia. If it fell, the government would absolutely follow immediately after.

The army approaching it was possibly even larger than Center had been, numbering somewhere close to two hundred thousand. Trying to fight them in such a massive city would be a huge mistake that almost certainly would lead to a lot of destroyed property and loss of life. It was therefore important to stop them well before it managed to reach that point. She had some space to work with still, though they were already took close for comfort.

Hovering a couple thousand feet above the desert, Lady Arcana stared at her open palms. She had to create a trench that would force the army to halt its advance, and then engage and break their morale.

Remembering Grim's advice, she extended her hands and allowed her eyes to focus a fair distance in front of the advancing army. Feeling the magic coursing through her as it always had ever since she gained these powers, she focused on trying to channel just enough to accomplish what she intended to do.

From her hands emerged a flash of what would appear to most as lightning, striking the desert beneath her in an instant. Initially combining into one current as they impacted their target, Arcana began to draw her hands apart as the desert opened. Her eyes darting to the coast, she drew a literal line in the sand until it met with the sea, the great trench being far too steep and wide for even the likes of a tank to cross.

The opposite hand continued to likewise part the desert for several more miles, until she felt confident that going around it would be virtually impossible without massively delaying their advance. Now, even if they did still try, it would just offer her a nice choke point to attack them at!

Army Group East, for their part, had halted their advance when a continuous bolt of lightning caused an entire section of the desert to seemingly collapsed in front of them. Now - while they were undoubtedly confused - would be the best time to attack! 

Spreading her arms apart, she grinned beneath her mask and dived down at the halted mass of armor and soldiers. Most of the infantry were still inside their APCs, making them an easy first target as she tackled one, sending it rolling across the desert, eventually landing on its back. The people inside would be shaken up, but shouldn't be hurt too badly. Before anyone could even react, she had done the same to a second and third.

This was going to be pretty fun!

After working over a few dozen APCs, she'd quickly switched to the IFVs and tanks. She'd already gained some experience in how to take these out, so disabling them was much more simple, even though every bit of fire was now focused on herself. The thunderous cacophony of bullets and screaming as infantry managed to stumble out of their upturned vehicles made it difficult to hear anything from her headpiece, unfortunately.

Still, she had her mission, and the others had theirs. She had to trust them. Besides, Grim was with them, she wouldn't let anybody do anything stupid.

Aiming her hand at the ground again, a bolt of lightning heralded the opening of the desert beneath a company of tanks, and to her great delight they went tumbling down into the pit she had just created. They wouldn't be a threat down there.

"This spell I learned is gonna be pretty useful in routing these guys!" Lady Arcana chirped, several hundred rounds of autocannon fire bouncing off her flashing visage.

---

July 8th, 4:58 PM
Western Front of Tabuk

Emerald Knight had given himself his own little role for this battle. Because of his size and manoeuvrability, he was going to make sure that nobody could sneak through and breach the front. 

Of course he would fight. He would fight and take out as much as he could. 

But by the time he had arrived at Tabuk, the fight had already been brought to the city he was supposed to be protected. He cursed to himself. He needed to be faster next time, maybe better. 

He flew into the city as fast as his ring would take him while he was planetside. He needed to protect the people, incapacitate the enemy, and make sure that collateral was down to a minimum. It looked like the fight would generally be on foot. A shame, he liked flying around.

He descended down unto the city and immediately began using his ring to clear the streets of rubble. He didn't need rocks and fallen walls for cover, he could just make it himself. On the other hand, that would provide much less natural cover for the civilians around. 

Even with human weaponry, he needed to be careful to not let the small barrier around him to break. If that was gone, then all that was needed was one well placed shot to put an end to the Emerald Knight. 

He couldn't spend his whole day clearing away rubble. He needed to prioritize things. Civilians first, enemies nearly as important, then the buildings. Yeah, that's how he was gonna do it.

Tabuk - being the first major city on the western border between the Arab Federation and the Republic of Arabia - had fallen quickly to the advance of Army Group West. By the time Emerald Knight had arrived, it was completely overran with Federation soldiers, with nothing but corpses remaining of any Republic soldiers who hadn't surrendered or fled.

Sporadic resistance continued from civilians who had taken up arms against the invaders, but nothing substantial. Until his slower allies were able to catch up to him, he would need to fight this battle more or less alone.

While it was unlikely that these conventional forces possessed anything that could pierce his autoshields, the 500,000 civilians that remained here were far less invulnerable and as the light that burned around him caught the eye of the enemy, gunfire soon erupted in his direction.

From the streets soldiers turned their AK-74s on him, as several IFVs arrived behind them to likewise turn their 25mm autocannons against the galactic peacekeeper. Bouncing off his autoshields, the bullets began to ricochet into the surrounding homes and other structures where countless men, women and children attempted to desperately hide from the carnage outside.

And more enemy forces were surely converging on his location with each passing second.

Oh these gun toting warriors, Emerald Knight sighed into a smile. Didn't they know that guns were the most boring way to injure someone? As soon as they came into view, Emerald Knight got to work, and quickly rushed the soldiers. 

"When Emerald Knight wields his mighty shield!" He sang to himself, summoning what he was singing about and throwing his whole body into a plethora of soldiers. He wasn't a large or burly man, but he used not only his shield, but his power of flight to fling himself much faster and harder than would be expected of a man who was shorter than most. 

As soon as he rammed into them, he flew up and away from them, threw the shield that he had created and forced it to fly around and at multiple targets. What a fun and amusing way to take out soldiers against freedom. With a shield.

He set himself on the ground again  and set up cover for himself. He created a brick wall just a tad larger than his body to absorb some of the gun shots, but the wall quickly faded away and melted into a set of armor, surrounding Emrald Knight as he blasted off again and punched the guns of several of the soldiers. He was having a little too much fun being a superhero in a war zone.

The guns easily shattered beneath his ring-augmented punches, the soldiers stumbling back in shock at this strange man. Despite his small stature, he seemed impossibly strong, smashing their metal guns as if they were made of crackers. Their faces clearly showed their fear as they turned to flee, the IFVs backing away from him as they continued to futilely blast at his armor of light.

The easily identifiable thump of helicopter blades heralded the approach of several military choppers, their systems quickly achieving a lock-on due to the stupendous amount of energy being emitted by his ring.

From four choppers came four K-13 missiles which, while they lacked the power to injure him, would create quite a substantial fireball that would undoubtedly light the surrounding structures ablaze when they struck.

Against this backdrop came dozens of additional soldiers and several IFVs, with the rumble of a pair of distant tanks now just audible.

Emerald Knight couldn't stop the missile headed his way. He could barely process two thoughts, much less a full plan to get him out of this. A single idea sprang to mind, and he acted upon it. He didn't have to register it as good or bad, or how it would even effect him, but he really hoped that his barrier would protect him. 

As soon as the missiles were close enough, Emerald Knight created a large dome around himself, locking the missiles and himself in a thick bubble. The explosion would be contained to the bubble, and if he somehow weren't strong enough to keep it all in, there should barely be any collateral if his bubble were to break. 

The missiles hit directly. He made no effort to move. Once they exploded, the green bubble surrounding him grew orange. Flames were all that could be seen when looking from the outside, and once the explosion itself was over with, the bubble shook slightly, and was quickly lowered.

In the center of the new crater was Emerald Knight, his barrier gone for the time being. He rested on one knee, and breathed hard. His perfect coiffed hair was just barely singed, his skin was dark and dusty, and a small stream of blood trickled from above his hairline.

He looked around the the soldiers watching him. He said nothing, but floated just above the air for a brief moment before falling down on a newly created pair of oversized ice skates. They looked more like skis that anything considering their length, but it wasn't hard to miss the large blades resting under his feet. 

He flew himself quickly out of the crater, aimed at the IFVs surrounding him. He wanted to take out the big vehicles first before he got back to the little guns.

The IFVs, for their part, as they grew in number stopped retreating. Trying to focus fire on him, the streets had quickly become congested. Unable to manoeuver even if they wanted to - a mark of poor training to end up in such a situation - all they could do was continue to empty everything they had into the quick and nimble target, despite the ineffectiveness of their weaponry.

Soon they were were being easily sliced to pieces by the "skates" on Emerald Knight's feet, the soldiers inside screaming and filing out of their ruined vehicles before they could potentially explode. Smoke rose from the wasted IFVs, offering a clear signal for all where the battle was taking place.

The tanks had started to arrive behind them, but due to the blockage created by the now ruined IFVs could not actively engage the target. In between the chaotic traffic jam of military vehicles, the soldiers continued to do what little they could while staying far away from the smoking wreckage.

Above Emerald Knight, however, the quartet of helicopters continued to try and bring an end to him by firing another round of K-13s. Given his close proximity to IFVs and G.I.'s, they would surely be caught in any blast...but friendly fire didn't seem to be much of a concern for the pilots inside those choppers.

At this point, every Federation soldier within the city was converging on Emerald Knight, but it had quickly become apparent that only so many could fit in one street at a time.

With him having just a little more time to deal with the K-13s this time around, Emerald Knight was able to bubble up the missiles in the air before the got to him, but holding the constructs together as they all exploded was rather tough.  With a majority of the IFVs sliced up and unusable, the helicopters became his new target.

His method for handling them was to take their K-13s first, chucked them into the air, and compressed them so they exploded. After he was done with that, he threw his fancy cutting shoes at the helicopter blades and forced them to land in a large cradle that he had crafted. 

The bad thing about his plan was that he needed much more focus to individually handle each helicopter. He needed to take apart the missiles, rip up the blades keeping it in the air, safely lower it so nobody was hurt, rinse and repeat four times. it was much more time consuming than he had anticipated, but he was glad that he could spare some lives. 

"I'm asking you only once to surrender yourself. I'm offering your mercy. NATO probably won't be as kind." He used his ring to translate his words aloud to the soldiers around him, hoping to persuade some of them to back down while he was the only one there at the moment. 

His hand reached up to touch his earpiece. "I could really use some help. Anyone out there that just wants to fly in to jail these guys?"

At his offer of amnesty, many of the soldiers indeed began to discard their weapons. It became quickly apparent that the vast majority were not enthusiastic about their job and were more than happy to abandon their "duties" when given sufficient motivation. Unfortunately, some appeared to not yet be completely demoralized yet.

Aiming their main guns at the congregation of vehicles, they sent the heavy shells into a pair of IFVs, the resulting explosions serving only to trigger more on the tightly packed street as infantry - most of whom had thrown down their arms by this point - fled in terror at the oncoming fireball.

Even with some of them choosing to continue the onslaught, Emerald Knight continued to fight to save as many as he could, including those who had opened fire once more. He created a long wall, and forcibly pushed all of the remaining soldiers down to the ground with the large construct. He hoped they wouldn't take advantage of his mercy. Those that left would be free to choose their fate, but those that stayed would be forced to carry out whatever punishment NATO had in store for them. That was all Emerald Knight could do without outright forcing his intergalactic authority over a planet. That wasn't what the green lanterns stood for. 

He could feel the heat of the explosion wash over him. It was fortunate that it was just a vehicle exploding, erupting into a fireball, and not anything larger or more concussive. 

He needed to find any remaining civilians. He handled all the soldiers that were focused on him. Surely there were more out there, and some people still left in the city.

Girard came down from a few smaller leaps on the outskirts on the city noticing the smoke clouds further in prompting him to start jumping rooftops to close the distance using low energy jumps to keep the structures intact. He arrived shortly after looking over the edge of a taller building noting the work Emerald Knight had already put in disabling the area's troops. he did fairly well all things considered but this was just a small section, they had a whole city to worry about in the end. He could see some vehicles exploding which was being handled for the moment but it looked managed for now. The big man continued to use his height advantage to try to find any other desperate looking areas where he could intervene.

Emerald Knight could hear the bounding Girard making his way over. At least someone was on his side right now while they took care of an entire city. 

Rather than flying off to the next location, Emerald Knight instead chose to take a moment to breathe. He wasn't hurt all that much, but being exploded and taking out what could be considered a small militia without killing anyone was tough work. He needed a breather. 

After a minute or two, Emerald Knight rose back to his feet and flew back up into the air. He wanted to take care of dense areas, the ones more heavily populated with enemy forces. Once those parts were taken care of, sweeping through to take care of the rest would be easy.

Tank noticed among the cluttered and cramped street there were several still active tanks, he could see the rotating turrets trying to get a shot at either Emerald Knight or maybe some deserters to make a point. He dropped down from his building to the ground right next to the first bit of armor which he climbed up onto so he could slam a fist down onto the main gun of it to snap it like a twig retrieving the barrel afterwards. The big man made sure to put a nice dent where the tracks used to be so the vehicle would be utterly useless and intended to do the same down the line. The few gun barrels that were somewhat intact were used to plug up remaining ones after being crushed down to size so they could fully block any and all attempted shots from ever going off.

The crews he dealt with by waving them off to get them out of there or shouting loudly to scare them off from the area. One of the soldiers actually took a shot at him with his pistol where the bullet fell flat as a coin to the ground with no effect. "Really?" He said looking about as exasperated as he sounded for what parts of his face showed. "Get out of here now, You'll get tired of this shit long before I do." The message probably got across even if they didn't know a word of what he said as the soldier joined the rest running off in the face of a really bad time.

Girard called in using his earpiece having done some more thorough clearing of the area in short order when the rest of the forces realized guns were not working and he seemed to be in no rush to chase them down. "Should be good around here Knight, believe that was the last of them for the moment. No more tanks in working order either besides me to boot." He said with a bit of light hearted joking trying to keep the old morale up on their side too.

---

The plan was set and the forces moving. The forward attack was obvious, while Lady Arcana took care of the Eastern Army the other three remaining heroes dealt with the West - possibly four depending on if Jimmy Chong decided to join them. Seemed a bit overkill honestly, though Grim changed her opinion upon reaching Tabuk.

Even though Emerald Knight had arrived first, having taken off as soon as given a direction, it was obvious they were too late to stop the city from being invaded. Enemy forces crawled over the area like parasites, turning it into an urban battlefield. Blood stained the streets from civilians and soldiers alike, cut down defending their home against invaders. In the moment it was hard to remember that the enemy soldiers were likely conscripted against their will, given an impossible choice of their own. It would've been so much easier to just see them as monsters.

Right, first thing's first though. Conscripted or not, the soldiers had to be pushed back from the civilians. Hovering above the city the lenses in Grim's goggles swapped to zooming in, picking out the forward march of the aggressors. Emerald Knight had one section to himself, so finding a pocket of fighting down a city street the Grim Jet descended.

Some of the citizens of Tabuk had taken up arms against the invaders, no doubt knowing they were no match for them but providing distraction for others to continue evacuating. One of these groups was pinned down in the streets, using debris and abandoned wooden stalls as cover. The enemy's AK-74's were making quick work of that cover, ripping through the weak wood and chunks of buildings. Of course, what those bullets couldn't get through was the reinforced plating of the Grim Jet.

Hovering in the streets the bullets ricocheted off the low-flying jet, providing barrier to the civilians behind it. The autocannons underneath the Grim Jet had been pulled up during the flight to Tabuk, but now they once more opened up. As soon as they started spinning at least one soldier turned and fled, but those that didn't, or were too slow, were soon lit up.

Rubber bullets impacted against flesh, the high speeds adding some extra force to them. Even non-lethal those soldiers were put down, some of their weapons scattering. With the Grim Jet's advanced mobility it wasn't hard to chase down those who fled either.

It was a game of keep up to dart across the forward front, ducking down into streets to forcefully push back the invaders with a hail of rubber bullets and intimidation. Grim stayed away from where she could see Emerald Knight, pausing only when his words came over the comm. Of course, before she could even turn to him Tank was on scene to help so she resumed her corralling of the forward line. 

---

July 8th, 5:12 PM
Twenty miles North-East of Hofuf

"Yeah!" Lady Arcana cheered, watching several IFVs tumble down a newly made trench. Their soldiers scrambling out of their vehicles to futilely try to scale the steep and sandy walls was pretty damn funny. She was making some good progress dismantling the army this way, and it had only been about ten minutes!

Wasn't "trench warfare" awesome?

Flying down into a pile of soldiers and intentionally crashing with enough force to throw up a small plume of sand, she deliberately caused her eyes to glow with raw arcane power as she glared at them. "WHO DARETH DEFY THE WIZARD...ETH? WIZARDETH!"

Another crackle of the earpiece, still connected to the others who had just heard the... outburst, as Grim responded in typical Grim fashion. "Wizardeth?"

"...What? I failed classical literature for a reason!" Lady Arcana replied, her cheeks puffing slightly.

"As long as you're having fun."

And she admittedly was. The soldiers - despite her admittedly screwing up her "intimidation roll" - seemed to be pretty shaken by her reverberating voice and the lightning that streamed from her eyes. Most simply threw down their rifles at this point and surrendered, having learned that their weapons were useless against her.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning arced over Lady Arcana's head, streaking across the trench and impacting a tank several hundred feet away which had its canon pointed at the superhero and the surrendering infantry. Aquaman lowered his trident and stepped closer, noting that the tank seemed to be inoperable, for now. "That one had taken notice... Wizardeth." He said with a slight smile. "I am King Orin, ruler of Atlantis and holder of several other titles that we don't have time for right now. Where do you need me?"

Lady Arcana blinked when a thunderbolt flashed through the air, impacting a tank that was about ready to try and blast her despite the presence of more than a hundred surrendering soldiers around her. Upon impact, the electricity surged through the armored vehicle as the main gun drooped slightly. Apparently, it had been disabled!

Staring down at her hands for a brief moment, she wondered if she'd somehow done that subconsciously since lightning had always basically been her thing, but a powerful and masculine voice quickly drew her attention.

"Eh? Wha?" Lady Arcana blinked in utter confusion at the impressively built man before her, cheeks going a bit red from his refined and handsome features. "Um, I'm....Lady Arcana and...um...hi. I...need you..."

"What?! Lady Arcana!"

Immediately blushing harder when she realized how her trailing off made her sound, she quickly shook her head. Grim had quite clearly heard her, and there were still soldiers shooting at her, for God's - Gods'? - sake! "N-need you to uh, keep on disabling those tanks like that! Yeah, that was really cool!"

Phew. Okay, nice save. Don't be a total dork in front of the hunkahunka Fishman.

Wait, did he say Atlantis?

Orin nodded and twirled the trident over his head for a moment before swinging it behind his back and crouching down. Leaping off with his powerful legs he cleared the trench with ease and landed among the enemy combatants. The all-too familiar thrill of battle returned to him as adrenaline surged through his body. 'Lady Arcana' eh? She didn't seem like the best conversationalist, but to be fair he had essentially ambushed her and called down lightning, as well as dropping the lost-continent bomb. He would help here, taking out these war machines, and then hopefully they could clear the air.

Aquaman raised his trident in the air and channeled magical energy through it, calling down several bolts of lightning to distract the army and deafen any nearby solders. He then turned and began redirecting the bolts, shorting out three nearby tanks with a few well-aimed strikes. There were many more to go though, and the battlefield was large. He didn't have the mobility he was used to underwater, so this particular battle would be an interesting challenge for him. "Lady Arcana!" He called out, his powerful voice booming through the battlefield. "I hope you have a plan to deal with the rest of this army, there's kind of a lot of them!"

"Oh! Um...I was just making them fall down into those trenches I keep making!" She explained, scratching the side of her face. It had been working pretty well so far, at least. It just required a bit of caution so that she didn't send infantry and vehicles down together, lest the former be crushed by the latter. "And, y'know, beating up the mixed groups the slower way."

Honestly, even though she was confident she could've routed them on her own in time, it was really nice to have a helping hand. It didn't hurt that he was some kind of Adonis-like turbohunk, either. Shaking her head of those goofy thoughts, she narrowed her eye on the next group, deciding to demonstrate her one and only offensive spell for him by firing a bolt of what appeared to be lightning down at the feet of the infantry. Near-instantaneously the sands once more parted, sending them all rolling down below.

The truth was, of course, that some had likely died in this battle. With all the bullets ricocheting off her in every direction, it seemed impossible that nobody had been hit. Hell, even when she created trenches beneath the infantry their guns would sometimes go off when they accidentally squeezed the triggers as they fell. She...felt a sharp, thick knot of guilt in her chest whenever she saw a corpse among the many unconscious or surrendering soldiers, but...she couldn't let that stop her now.

Despite sometimes letting the excitement of trying out her magic go to her head, she was still doing her level best to take this seriously. There wasn't really any better way she could think of to do it. There were so many of them and only one of her, after all.

"Trenches are an interesting idea, though if I recall, the last time you surface dwellers used them was near a hundred years ago." Aquaman said, twirling his trident around and smacking a trio of advancing solders onto their asses. "However, I have a feeling they'll only work so long as the army stays together as opposed to splitting up, or the officers decide their footsoldiers lives are so unimportant that they'd be put to better use filling the trenches so the tanks can go through them!" He called out, leaping high into the air and raining a few more lightning bolts down on the tanks closest to the front lines.

It would be slow going to stem the tide of battle here, but it was doable. Even if the trench idea was their only battle plan, Orin felt confident that he and Arcana could deal with this army given enough time. But the more time it took, the more people would die. Already he was seeing the same corpses Lady Arcana saw, and it didn't take an eagle eye to see that she was holding back from killing as many as she could save, a tactic Orin felt obligated to follow as well, at least for now.

"Lady Arcana." He called again, his voice a bit more somber. "I gather you're trying to save as many lives here as you can, which is a goal I admire and have the deepest respect for. But the longer this battle goes on, the more people will die on both sides. I'm sure you know the fighting is not just here, there are other places we can help as well. We'll need to end this soon, we need a plan."

Lady Arcana scratched the side of her face at his mention of humanity's previous use of Trench Warfare. Truthfully, she didn't know much about history, but she was aware that it was a big thing in one of the World Wars. The first, if it was a hundred or so years ago, she'd assume. Still, she doubted it was anything like what she was doing now, given that even she knew there were no wizards in either of the global conflicts.

If there had been, she might've bothered reading about them! 

"Wait, what?" She stared at the armored blond with a blank expression adorning her features. "I...I don't think they would follow an order to do that..."

Orin raised an eyebrow at the response he got from Lady Arcana, he didn't then he'd been that cryptic... "Very few solders would." He confirmed, scanning the battlefield for well defended points which might suggest high-priority targets. "However, piles of corpses are not known for their ability to argue orders. As I said, we need something to end this before it reaches a point such as that."

Arcana nodded in response to this. Hopefully her efforts thus far had demoralized them to the point where orders to execute their fellow soldiers would be disobeyed, but that really wasn't something she wanted to leave to chance. But how could she possibly end this battle more quickly without killing? Was there someone in particular she could-

"Ah!" Lady Arcana lightly smacked her head, feeling like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner. "Right, soldiers follow orders! But there has to be someone giving those orders, right? So why don't we go after them instead?"

Yeah, if they took the guys in charge of this force down then the whole rest of the army would collapse, given how demoralized they probably already were!

Aquaman nodded, allowing himself a small smile as the thought came to his new magical friend. This was her world after all, and she only needed a more complete look at the battlefield to let tactics take hold. Orin leaped into the air again and pointed out a few heavily fortified spots among the horde of solders. "Good plan, Arcana! I suspect our targets are hiding among those spots, surrounding themselves with tanks and heavier arms. If not the commanders themselves, then those they are communicating orders through, which serves our purposes just as well! There's only a handful of them, if we can cut them off then perhaps the entire regiment will fall!"

Touching back down to earth, Aquaman sprinted forward, hurling waves and jets of water from his magically empowered staff to knock solders out of the way. Tearing through this foul army, King Orin soon found himself at his first target, a trio of tanks with one carrying a large antenna. Likely being used for communication and coordination. The tanks all trained their cannons on him and opened fire at once, having seen the damage someone like him could cause left unattended. Fortunately, they hadn't seen the extend of his abilities. Twisting around and using a jet of water from his staff to propel himself faster, Aquaman arced around the first shot before swinging his trident around at superhuman speeds, deflecting the second shot off of the arcane staff. The third shot cut wide, its operator apparently relying too heavily on his companions to shoot for him. There was something to be said for dumb luck. Sprinting forwards again, Aquaman let out a battle cry as he ducked between the pair of tanks flanking the target and drove his trident into the armored hull of the communications tank. A moment later a lightning bolt was called from the brewing storm overheads, sending thousands of volts into the sensitive equipment of the tank and frying the operations inside. As well as... Possibly the operators, now that he considered it.

Lady Arcana quickly nodded in agreement, focusing her eagle-like gaze down at the various fortified positions. There was really no good reason to fortify these unless it was to protect something - or someone - important, so King Orin was likely correct. Pursing her lips, the sound barrier soon released a sharp crack as she shot off towards the nearest cluster of vehicles.

Upon drawing closer, she almost immediately recognized one as being rather similar to the IFV that was being driven by Mr. Luneburg. Namely the little antenna sticking out. It didn't appear to have much in the way of weaponry compared to the others, but she knew that this was just an illusion: they held the deadliest weapons in this battle in the form of the army's "mind", it's ability to coordinate and strategize. This was what allowed them to continue fighting.

Landing on top of the vehicle, she couldn't help but smile beneath her mask when the vehicles surrounding it proved hesitant to shoot carelessly at her for once. Knifing her hand, she stabbed it through the armor and wrenched it open before slipping inside. Unlike the other tanks and IFVs she'd disabled, she wanted to keep this one intact, if she could...she had an idea.

"S-she's inside! Shoot her! Distract her!" A man whose chest was adorned with several glimmering medals screamed in Arabic, turning in an attempt to flee while the other men inside turned their weapons on her.

There were five men, aside from the commanding officer himself. Since she wanted the vehicle to remain as intact as possible, it seemed prudent to not let them start shooting up the place. Swiftly moving to nail one in the chin with a swift palm strike, Lady Arcana next issued the man beside him a measured jab to the sternum. Similarly disabling the remaining three in a mere blink of an eye, she seized the officer by the collar as he was about to reach the hatch.

"Tell me how to talk to everyone, or I'll start breaking bones!" She threatened him in Arabic, her eyes sparking with electricity and her voice reverberating through the command vehicle.

Of course, she was bluffing. As if she'd be able to torture someone! Still, it appeared to work as the man quickly nodded, sweat wetting his brow.

Soon, units across the field of battle would start receiving a transmission from one of their commanding officers, Lt. General Masoud Al-Almasi. But instead of his voice, it was that of the seemingly invincible foe they had been fighting.

"Um, hello all of you soldiers! This is Lady Arcana, the super amazing and invincible flying Wizardess! I have just beaten up your leader, or...like one of them? So...y'know, you'd better surrender too or I'll come there and kick all your butts!"

Yeah, that sounded professional.

Orin would be proud, if a little amused, if he had heard the message come through. Unfortunately, he had just fried the tank relaying commands to this particular unit. As he wrenched free his trident he turned and stared down the other two tanks which were slowly turning their turrets to face him. A quick chanelling of magic  and a fair amount of magical energy sent a pair of high powered jets of water erupting from the sand underneath the tanks, flipping them over and dousing the area. The solders had mostly frozen at this point, obviously demoralized, though some still pointed their weapons at him. Aquaman stared them down with a hard look on his face and turned, pulling himself on top of the electrically-fried hunk of metal behind him. He called out in a booming voice, aiming to catch the attention of any combatants who might still be fighting. 

"My name is King Orin." He bellowed, switching to the Arabic he'd prepared before leaving. "Ruler of Atlantis, rightful regent of Poseidonis, and emperor of the oceans of the earth. I fight along The Wizard, Lady Arcana, the fount of all magic on this planet. Together we have routed your army and will continue to do so. Stand down. Toss aside your weapons and you will be unharmed. Continue to fight... And I will defend myself." He finished, raising his trident threateningly. The few solders still holding weapons looked to each other, fear obvious in their body language. His words had taken effect. One by one, weapons dropped to the ground, and King Orin looked to the skies for Lady Arcana's return.

For her part, Lady Arcana had lifted herself out of the command vehicle, the commanding officer now being held under on arm. Ascending high into the sky, she began to scan the battlefield for King Orin. All around the battle scarred desert she could see men surrendering. Casting their rifles aside, abandoned their vehicles with hands raised, grounding their helicopters...

It seemed like the battle was more or less over.

As for Orin himself, the trident made it pretty easy to locate him. She could feel magic absolutely pouring off that thing. Quickly descending beside the apparent "King of Atlantis", she offered him a congratulatory smile...though her mask rendered it invisible.

Seriously, though...Atlantis?

"Nice job out there," she praised him, eyes briefly flicking over to the soldiers in the area. She could still hear gunshots ringing out in the distance, but they didn't seem to be shooting at either of them. Weird. What else could they be firing at in the open desert?

Eying the towering and powerfully built man again, she took a rather deep breath to steady herself so she wouldn't sound like an idiot when she spoke this time. "...So, Atlantis, huh? I...thought it sank or something?"

Orin smiled a bit as Lady Arcana descended towards him. It looked as though the fighting was dying down, and he could see solders in the distance already simply walking away from the battlefield. Her questions didn't surprise him in the slightest, this was part of the reason he was here. "Yes, my Lady, Atlantis. And you're correct, it did sink, many thousands of years ago. Well technically, it was hit by a meteor and its foundations were sundered and it fell into the sea. Some suggest that it was because of the dome we had built over our capital, Poseidonis; that it angered the gods. I don't subscribe to that personally. Regardless, we have evolved through our circumstances and with some magical help to survive in both the air and in water. There are many of us, and Atlantis is still mostly intact."

"I came here because of you, actually. When the Wizard chose you, the leylines were filled with energy, as I'm sure you know. Atlantis happens to be one of the most concentrated points on the planet in terns of leyline crossings. So the seas were flooded with magical energies in a way they hadn't been for centuries. I've been meaning to come introduce myself and reveal Atlantis to you, but the explosion of magic... Well let me just say giant mutant jellyfish are not as easy to deal with as you might think. But when we received word of this... I knew I had to come help. It is an honor to meet you, by the way."

Lady Arcana, at first attentive, began slowly zoning as he continued to talk for a very, very long time. In her ear she could hear Grim bitching about something, and so that drew some of her attention as well. It was only when he reached the part about "giant mutant jellyfish" that her head snapped back to reality, her jaw going slack as she briefly wondered if she hadn't misheard him.

Oh right, Intellect of Mnemosyne.

"What."

So, to summarize the events of the past hour or so...she arrived in the Middle East with a dog-themed jet on her back, helped a Little Green Man defeat the largest army in the Middle East, learned how to make trenches with lightning and then teamed up with an Atlantean King who took a break from fishing jellyfish to meet her.

This was her life now.

"...It's an honor to meet you too, err, Your Majesty," she bowed her head lightly.

Orin chuckled and returned her small bow before slinging his trident over his shoulders. "Orin is fine,though I appreciate the formality. You're no subject of mine, and I hope to be considered an equal to you. However, I believe we may still have work to do today." He said, straightening his posture and looking around.

" My reports said there were others like us, with incredible abilities. I assume they're fighting elsewhere? This appears mainly taken care of, the fight has gone out of these solders and I doubt they'll be willing to pick up arms again. Shall we regroup?"

Nodding eagerly at this, she offers the King her hand, thankful that her mask was hiding the blush that once again worked its way across her cheeks. "Definitely! I'll take you to them."

Heroes Reborn - A DCAU Roleplay (Always open!)

Short people hater.

Heroes Reborn - A DCAU Roleplay (Always open!)

Demon

Alias: Demon
Civilian Name: Joshua Christophe
Origin City: Hub City
Hometown: Hub City
Sex: Male
Race: Metahuman.
Height: 8’1 without the horns, 8’8 with them
Weight: 374lbs
Age: 17
Birth Date: February 15, 2002

---

Appearance: Joshua, for all intents and purposes, looks like a demon. His skin is a dark navy color with a few bright red markings – a line over each eyebrows that then turns up to just slightly over his horns, just under his eyes, two stripes along his jaw, and a few along his shoulders, back, and thighs. His horns point up from his forehead with the slightest of curves, the same dark blue as his skin, with long pointed ears and eyes a pure glowing white with no pupils or iris. All of Demon’s teeth are pointed and slightly elongated, but his bottom canines are so long that they can’t fit in his mouth, having a slight curve to them so they can rest easily outside. His hair is black, and a little wild, having a thick layer of scruff along his jaw and his haircut is short but messy – he cuts it himself after all. His nails are black and sharp, not to mention hard as rock, and his feet are warped to being almost gargoyle-esque in nature – he stands on the balls of his feet and his toes have grown to basically be talons with a rather impressive grip. Lastly, Demon is very impressively built, with arms like tree trunks and thick muscle all over his body.

Icon

Civilian Personality: Josh tries really, really hard. In the end, it just makes him come out kind of awkward. For a teenage boy he’s really sincere naturally, trying to cover it up with a tough front and posturing. To be honest it doesn’t work out well, considering he’s also prone to crying a lot. Josh is also really more of a follower than any sort of leader, naturally following orders and trusting the judgment of others over his own due to a lack of self confidence.

Abilities

Skills: Virtually none when it comes to fighting.

Powers
Demon Form: Josh changed to Demon months ago, and if there’s a way to change back he hasn’t found it.
Enhanced Strength: As Demon, Josh has an amazing amount of strength. Metal crushes easily under his hands, and he can shoulder his way through brick walls. He’s capable of lifting near a hundred tons at peak performance.

Thick Skin: While not invulnerable Demon’s skin is slightly more durable than most, especially against elements such as cold or fire. He has slightly more stopping power when it comes to physical attacks as well, but isn’t nearly as invincible – a human’s teeth couldn’t pierce his skin but an animal could, and a bullet would lodge in him but more than likely never be able to exit in the same shot.

Accelerated Healing: Demon can heal from an injury that would normally comatose or kill a normal person within a few weeks, smaller injuries healing much faster. A typical cut would be completely gone within a day, and infections or sickness typically burn themselves out before it even starts.

Acid Fluids: Both his saliva and his blood are acidic, capable of burning through metal in minutes.

Enhanced Reflexes: Demon’s reflexes are much higher than an average human’s, able to grab a rat with just a glance out of the corner of his eye.

Nightvision: Even in pitch darkness Demon can see perfectly, as though it were broad daylight. His vision is slightly better than an average human’s as well.

Gadgets: None

Weapons: None

Civilian Occupation: [Former] High Schooler

---

Character History/Origin

Honestly, Josh was pretty much a normal guy before he transformed. His family was lower middle class, christian, had an alright house for Hub City, two kids and a dog. Josh was the younger of the two, in his junior year of high school and on the football team – sure, he wasn’t the best on the team, but he was part of it! And, okay, so some of the other guys made fun of him for being a bit of a cry baby, but as one of the bigger guys on the team it was mostly light teasing. He was even pretty sure one of the girls in his homeroom class was into him!

Then things started changing.

At first it was actually kind of cool. It seemed like he was hitting a second growth spurt, he bulked up easier, he even felt stronger! Sure, it came with some sickness, and for some reason his body was reacting in other weird ways like the strange bumps on his forehead but that was fine. The next football game he was practically the star player, no one able to stand up to him. It was exhilarating. It was amazing!

That night his tooth brush melted in his mouth. Literally.

Everything began falling apart. Josh tried to hide it as long as he could, to figure out what was wrong with him. Those little bumps on his forehead kept getting bigger, he outgrew all his classmates, outgrew everyone in the school and could barely fit in his desk! He was getting sicker, his teeth were growing weird points, even his skin was taking on an odd, sickly hue. Though he didn’t know it, the return of magic – and more importantly, the influx of its presence around Hub City – was activating his own metagene in a slow, steady fashion. The more it seeped into his very body, the more he changed. It would’ve continued along that route too, if it hadn’t been for Iron Eagle.

On December 1st when the terrorist attack had struck the fires in the Wedge had burned fierce and long, spreading to nearby homes and neighbourhoods. The Christophe home was one of those caught in the wild blazes. As sick as he was from his body’s constant change Josh was passed out when the fire started. With their parents out for the night his older sister, Hannah, attempted desperately to wake him, their dog wildly barking at her side. By the time Josh was finally roused from his sleep, disorientated and feeling like he was on fire, the room literally was on fire. Flames licked at the ceiling, burning away at the wood as Josh staggered to his feet. His sister urged him to the hallway but he had taken too long to rouse. The ceiling collapsed on all three of them, and the floor gave out.

Josh really couldn’t describe what happened then. Heat had filled his body, different from the flames, powerful. The fire that once burned him no longer seemed more than a bother, the weight of the debris above them trifling at best. He had instinctively grabbed onto Hannah and his dog during the fall, protecting them from being harmed. It was almost pathetically easy then to stand up, the weight above him nearly shrugged off before he merely shouldered his way out of the nearest wall and to fresh air. He could see his parents pulling up as the fire seemed to illuminate everything as bright as day. His dog was barking in his arms, his sister shifting – everything would be fine.

... Then his mother started screaming.

Josh had nearly dropped the two in his arms out of pure surprise at being startled by the noise. Yeah the house was on fire, but the scream was absolutely blood curdling, and she was pointing at them. At him? In the next moment he did drop Hannah, as his dog’s teeth dug into his arms deeply, tearing the blue skin before the dog yelped and let go.

Blue skin? Josh stared at his bleeding arm, red mixing along the deep navy blue, his nails long and black as onyx. When his mouth dropped open in shock he could feel something weird moving against his upper lip, and reaching up to feel there were teeth, jutting out from his bottom jaw longer than any normal human’s.

There was so much yelling. Josh could only look down at his sister, unconscious at his feet, then up at his parents, scrambling to the car. He took a step towards them but before he could get another, a shot rang out. The windshield of his parents car was broken, pain bloomed in the side of his head, and heat ran down his face as he staggered. Another shot, this one ruffling the hair on his head. A primal fear bloomed in him, and with strength he didn’t think he’d have Josh took off.

Screams followed him as he bolted through the neighborhood. People ran. When he stumbled into a car trying to brace himself as his head pounded the roof crushed under his grip. Then the sirens, police shouting and lights – another gunshot. Disorientated and panicked, Josh fled once more. Wanting to get away from the screams, the yelling, he ripped a manhole cover up. He was too big to climb in normally, but the pavement crumbled under his hands and shouldering the rest of the way in he managed to climb down and flee into Hub City’s expansive sewer system.

And… that’s where he stayed. For more than half a year.

Venturing back into the surface had people screaming, running from him. The hobos down in the sewers did the same. Even when he tried to talk to them, all Josh got was yelled at.

“Demon!”

“Demon!”

“Demon!”

Eventually Demon just sort of … accepted that was who he was. Trying to talk did nothing. He could only survive by stealing from the hobos, eating rats, doing what he could. It was a miserable existence. Yet he couldn’t leave. He didn’t know what to do. He was strange, different. A wound that should’ve killed him, that destroyed his eye, was healed within a month – even his eye grew back. Glowing white. The bullet was probably still lodged somewhere in his head.

Then Demon saw it, one day while looking for supplies in the local hobo camp down in the sewers. They ran from him, as always, and he took only what he needed. Yet one of the shitty little TVs was playing a news story, riots in New York. Lady Arcana – he had seen her on other news stories. And… someone else. A monster. Like him, but different. Helping.

And they were being celebrated.

Maybe, Demon could be too.

---

Optional information
Nemesis:
Allies:
Team:

Heroes Reborn - A DCAU Roleplay (Always open!)

July 8th, 4:32 PM
Sakakah, Republic of Arabia

When the NATO forces had arrived, Lady Arcana had initially been tempted to fly down and have a word with them, to try and reassure them that she was here to help. Something in her gut, though, cautioned her against that. She was probably a terrifying freak to them, a woman who flew out of nowhere wielding a power they could barely force themselves to believe in let alone comprehend. No matter how much she might wish to calm people's fears about her, she just had to accept that maybe time was the best solution.

It had been around half an hour since then, and the heroes and their ostensible "allies" stood at an uneasy impasse while they awaited the arrival of the enemy. Although the situation on the ground wasn't quite so hopeless anymore thanks to the reinforcements the city had received, Arcana still didn't like their chances against the force that was coming.

No, she was certain that if she and Emerald Knight left now, Sakakah would still be overran. Only with their help could they -

"There!" Lady Arcana broke her thoughts, staring down from roughly a thousand feet in the sky. She could see the clouds of sand rising in the distance. They were here, and here in force.

Flying higher still, she used her keen eyesight - sharp as the finest bird of prey - to try and determine just how many they were dealing with. While she was no mathematician, she could hazard a guess that the approaching army numbered in at at least a hundred...no, a hundred fifty thousand!

Yeah, if she didn't act now, the city was finished.

"Grim, I'm going in. They'll overrun their position if I don't act immediately!"

The Grim Jet's engines roared to life at the call, having been hovering in a quiet standby mode to consume less fuel. Inside the vigilante Grim glanced up from the control panel she had been studying intently during their downtime, looking to the other heroine. Her gloved hands took the controls, feeling the powerful machine hum beneath her palms.

"Go ahead, I've got your back." With that said the sleek black jet took off to the sky, racing toward the approaching forces.

From within his command vehicle on the front, Raymond also had an idea as to what was approaching the city. Satellite feeds displayed a large concentration on route, and though he could not determine their numbers or exact composition, it was large enough to stir up the desert sands and announce their approach. His strike group had set up position on the northern side of the city, anticipating a ground incursion not being far behind the bombing run. Black armored soldiers with LIS patches on their shoulders and chest moved between buildings, setting them up for urban combat and ensuring the last of the civilians had been evacuated.

In the span of half an hour he had seen at least most of them to the southern end of Sakakah where minor evacuation efforts were underway. A good number of people remained behind though, grimly clutching at whatever weapons they had within reach to defend their city from the tyrant's approach.

"NATO Air, this is LIS Ground. What's the status on incoming reinforcements?"

Static replied at first, and then the signal cleared up. Damned government channels, rarely ever funded as well as private security.

"LIS Ground, we've got your transport planes under escort to Riyadh and Al-Jouf air field on course and arriving in three hours. Hold position as best you can, we'll keep the skies clear for you."

Three hours. The enemy would be on them far sooner than that, and even then Al-Jouf was outside the city and would take some time to unload and mobilize. A glance upwards confirmed the heroes were still lingering, and he was hoping they would continue to remain and assist in the efforts to keep the city free.

Emerald Knight had been flying around the city of Shakaka for a few minutes now, watching the city at all sides to make sure the enemy didn't sneak up on them from a different direction.

From below he could hear the soldiers marching around, getting ready. He looked out into the distance, and saw just what they were up against. He didn't have the finest vision, but the line of troops and their weapons of war was something to fear. He had to get out there and stop them before they hit the city.

Grim and Lady Arcana were already on the move. Emerald Knight needed to fly in and join them. It was rather fortunate that he had some time between his arrival and now to pick up an earpiece to communicate to the others with. Without it, the battle would surely be even harder to coordinate.

It took him a little longer than he'd have wanted, but he finally caught up to the flying duo, and offered a silent thumb's up as he flew in next to them.

Seeing that Emerald Knight was with them was a big relief for Lady Arcana, as the more they had on their side in this fight, the better. She had honestly never seen so many people in all her life, not even in stadiums, and they were all armed to kill. While their weapons couldn't hurt her, Grim wasn't so invulnerable and she didn't really know all that much about Emerald Knight's abilities.

She supposed that this was where she would find out just what her teammates could do, though.

The challenge here would be disabling their fighting capability. It would be so simple to just blast through this entire mass of people and armor, wipe it all out in an instant...but that was the sort of way only a psychopath would think. She hoped Emerald Knight had similar convictions...but given that he apparently saved an enemy pilot, she wasn't too worried.

Upon seeing the trio's approach, the reaction was almost instantaneous - they had probably been warned by the bombers over radio. The first to open fire on them were the Armored Fighting Vehicles, unloading their heavy 25mm automatic cannons on the three incoming heroes.

Instinctively - though pointlessly - raising her arms to shield her face from the withering fire of the AFVs, she landed on top of the nearest one and seized the cannon. Ripping it free as the two pilots began screaming in terror, she quickly seized both of them - on in each hand - and knocked their helmeted heads together to incapacitate them.

She was just barely able to react in time to move them to safety as the other vehicles opened fire on the disabled armor, tearing it to pieces. "Geez, they don't care very much about friendly fire here, do they?"

Dropping the men on the desert floor, she quickly rushed another vehicle and slammed her fist through the engine, ripping it clean out despite the armored shell. Taking several dozen 25mm rounds to her face from the panicked gunner, she actually found herself knocked back by several meters, tumbling along the desert as her cloak flipped up over her head.

Grunting in irritation as she threw it back, Lady Arcana quickly floated off the ground. It was a bad idea to stand here, as these weapons were powerful enough to toss her around without the Speed of Hermes to keep her rooted in place.

Charging the vehicle again, she repeated her motion from before, disabling its turret and two operators. She then brought them to where she'd dropped the other two, deciding that she would destroy the army's fighting capabilities in a large circle with this growing pile of defeated men as its epicenter.

Lifting off the ground, she made a b-line for the nearest tank, smiling as she seized the entire turret section at the base, her nails biting into the armor as if it were butter. She was going to rip it clean off!

"Arcana! No!"

Lady Arcana paused at the sound of Grim's voice, looking up in confusion. "Huh?"

Grim's cursing came through loud and clear on the ear piece as she jerked the Grim Jet up further from the fighting to avoid any undercarriage damage, stopping her own assault. While she had no problem killing, Arcana being met with a spray of blood or the screaming of a man almost broken in half would probably not be well received by Miss Sunshine.

"You'll kill them doing that. Just break the cannon - and only the cannon part of the turret! Treads too to disable their movements - if you're in a hurry just flip the whole damn thing over but don't rip it in half!"

Feeling her blood run cold at the fact that she was just about to inadvertently murder the crew of the tank, it took her moment to regain her composure, the 25mm cannons bouncing off both her and the tank doing little to phase her in that period, thanks to her grip on the heavy armor.

Releasing it, she pursed her lips and followed Grim's instructions to the letter. Ripping the main gun free of the greater turret section, she quickly tossed it aside and rammed her fist into the treads of the tank, tearing enough free that it tilted down onto its side.

Exhaling after this, she shook her head. She needed to take this more seriously. She didn't know how these vehicles worked, so she'd need to use caution when disabling them.

To her side another of the tanks slowly began rotating its 120mm gun to bear on her, when an impact against the side of the turret detonated the ammo store, igniting the tank and the crew inside. In the city, the Stryker tank-destroyer that fired the shot slowly backed out of the shadows of the carport it had sat in and began moving to the next spot. Another two were already set up in similar areas, putting shots down range into the advancing army and sharing none of the reservations Lady Arcana had about putting them down permanently.

Emerald Knight was a little more hesitant to join in the fight. It wasn't because he was afraid of the fight, absolutely not. It was because he had to think of a way to deal the most damage to the enemy without killing them. He wasn't made of titanium, he couldn't just charge in fist first. However, he could protect himself with shields, redirect missiles, and even blow some stup up mid-air. Lantern's had to be creative, as well as willful. That was their power that the universe gave to them.

So on he went, flying in and hearing the noise of war and the commotion between Grim and Lady Arcana. His enemy was anything airborn. It was rather unfortunate that his plan fell flat almost as soon as it sprang into his mind. Oh well.

His second target was to help out Lady Arcana with the tanks. He planned on following her example by targeting the cannon barrels and the tank treads, leaving them gunless and immobile.

With his ring forward, his right hand holding his left as if to steady himself, he conjured a large, polygonal face. He puppeted the face to laugh, and then proceeded to send panels of light flying down at the tanks. Maybe someone would get his dumb reference. Maybe not. At least he knew that he would inspire the sons of the soldiers here to one day take vengeance against him for safely rendering their fathers useless. He wasn't a killer!

The Grim Jet hovered above the battlefield, quietly taking in the actions of the two superheroes below - and the more destructive ones of the NATO reinforcements. It was no surprise, of course. Vigilantes, superheroes as they were often referred to in whispers, wanted to help people. It was natural that they'd want to spare as many lives as possible, even when being faced down like they were. It helped that they could afford to be picky about it - Grim saw Lady Arcana be hit by more ammo than she could count just hovering there listening to her, things that would tear a normal man or even military vehicle to shreds.

The normal men and women of NATO had no such luxury. Their shots were deadly, designed to put an enemy down and keep them down. Understandable, considering if Lady Arcana and Green Giant weren't distracting them the enemy would be doing the exact same - and likely succeeding to a far larger scale.

Grim was as human as any man or woman currently marching under the banner of their respective country, yet she was also a vigilante dedicated to protecting life. The tech she had even put her ahead of a majority of the non-powered players on the field. Grim exhaled quietly, and tapped at her on-board computer.

From the bottom of the Grim Jet two compartments slid open at the front, to the left and right. A pair of auto cannons emerged. Inside the jet the targeting system light up, Grim's fingers working over them at a rapid pace. On the very glass of the cock pit targets lit up, mostly red. A thrust of the controls had the jet manoeuvering overhead and hovering.

The targets changed to blue, and the thunderous roar of the auto cannons joined in to the cacophony of noise below. The 20mm armor piercing bullets punched their way through the thin armor above the tanks, piercing through to the engines. As soon as one was disabled the advanced targeting system of the Grim Jet already had the auto cannons repositioning to the next one, taking out a line of the machines in a quick efficiency. Re-engaging the motion controls Grim began moving to a set of IFV's, the auto cannons ammo changing at the flick of a button. These things were expensive to shoot, but not more expensive than a human life.

A war as big as this is a good way to increase publicity, but dressed in this!? I really need to ask my costume designer to make a suit fit for the desert, next time...

A streak of yellow light zipped through the central group's infantry forces, pushing the soldiers into eachother and causing their guns to fly out of their grasps, either a couple of feet away from where they could grab it, or into another soldier's face. In just less than five minutes, about a quarter of their deployed infantry forces are left disarmed and disoriented, some even before they realized it.

The flash of yellow slowed down to a halt, just a few paces in front of a squad recovering from the onslaught of eye-pokes and nut shots. In front of them stood a man, wearing some sort of vintage, superhero getup, complete with a face mask, likely to protect against sand, a pair of orange goggles, and a prop M1 helmet. Embroidered on his shoulder is a hastily sewn silver lightning bolt.

"Sup, the costumed man said, holding a rifle that belonged to one of the soldiers and ejecting its rounds with double the speed. "I'm fast, but you could call me Celerity."

Tossing the now empty rifle over his shoulder, he got into the most Hollywood-looking crane stance imaginable, waving a hand towards the group, tauntingly.

"Ten bucks says you won't be able to land a hit on me."

Once she had a working pattern down, disabling the tanks and other vehicles had proven much simpler. Breaking the main guns and treads for the tanks, and the crews, autocannon and engine for the smaller ones. She'd removed several hundred from action over the course of about five minutes, working her way outwards in a cricle. A large pile of unconscious soldiers was growing at the epicenter, although she had made certain not to stack too many on top of one another. Wouldn't want them to suffocate, after all.

But it wasn't just her, and it wasn't just Emerald Knight and Grim, either. There was someone else taking on the infantry. Somebody really fast, who streaked across the battlefield in a blur. He had disabled many tens of thousands of soldiers in that time, massively demoralizing the army as surely as her and her companions were by taking out their armor. Overall, in just that short span of time the quartet of heroes had thrown the entire force into disarray.

Lady Arcana could tell already that they were losing their will to fight. The confusion, the helplessness in the face of these strange powers...she actually felt kind of bad for them, given that most of them surely didn't even wish to be here in the first place.

She had done her best to incapacitate as many as possible, to save them as well...but the "allied" forces weren't so generous. They had destroyed some of the tanks while she was looking elsewhere. There was nothing much she could do about it...she wasn't about to attack NATO, that would potentially just cause more to be hurt or killed in the long run.

No, the best thing she could do was to end this battle quickly.

While she had been disabling armor primarily, she had noticed that artillery had started trying to shell the city from the back of the advancing force. Some had even taken shots at her, but only managed to killed their own men in the process. They were getting desperate.

Lifting high into the air, she flew towards the rear of the now fractured force. It had lost much of its cohesion, with thousands of troops wandering in confusion and some vehicles even trying to retreat. They just needed one last push, and she had set her eyes upon the source of the artillery strikes with that goal in mind.

Although they did seem to be the armor behind the shelling, they honestly didn't look all that different from the tanks she had been breaking up till this point. Their main guns were a lot bigger, but that was really about it. Still, that did make things quite a bit simpler than she anticipated.

Landing on top of the first one, she quickly seized the base of the main gun and placed her foot on the top portion of the vehicle. Wrenching it free - a piercing screech of metal heralding the action - and tossing it aside, she proceeded on to the next one, opting to simply flip some of them at the base to save time.

Hopefully, taking out their long range support would be the final straw that broke the camel's -

"Eh...?"

Lady Arcana's eyes were suddenly drawn to the sky, a sharp whistle catching her ear. By the time she understood what she was hearing, it was too late to try and stop it.

Emerald Knight had been too busy with his large face and flying polygonal shapes to worry about the speeding blur, but that whistle was something that he couldn't avoid hearing.

He slammed the face down in front of him, using it was a shield to protect himself from whatever was headed their way.

---

Girard drove along in his truck heading back home from a good several miles outside of the city though he hadn't driven the whole way to the place. In the past couple months he had decided if he was going to use his powers in earnest he might as well try to actually learn his limits, so an old abandoned quarry seemed as good a place as any to practice. Turns out if he let off the reins for a little while he was stronger than he thought originally and he could get obscenely heavy if he allowed it which made him glad he caught himself early on before he really did some damage back home. Honestly it made him more worried than he had ever been because with all this power he had to walk on eggshells or he could do a lot of bad to anyone around him, it was bad enough before when his limit seemed much lower. He did find a use for his strength that solved a major problem he was having in mobility however which was now mitigated by jumping like a damn rocket over long distances saving him a lot on gas.

The big man figured he was going to end up revealing himself eventually so better to be prepared to make himself and his powers presentable for when it did happen. To be fair if Abigail hadn't talked him into it he might've never done it in the first place because of her and his daughters taking serious precedence over his little crimefighting sprees which he occasionally did to keep crime down in Amnesty Bay. She had been a big source of encouragement lately regarding his activities pushing him further so he felt less restricted in going out to do what he thought was right. It left him less time with her at home but it was almost impossible to tell her no so he kept it up with his amazing wife cheering him on. The girls didn't know yet nor did he care to let them in on it yet since they were still little things, no need to have them worrying about anything more than what they should like school or making friends

The big guy was prepared to take a turn sending him back towards the suburbs when his phone started ringing. He pulled over to find the thing and saw it was Abby calling, he figured she was just checking in with him to see where he was.

"Hi honey. I just hit the intersection-" He began to explain himself before his wife cut in.

"The Arab Federation just started a war...those poor people over in Republic." She said sounding rather upset, "Sweetie I know you don't want to show off or get us in trouble but you could save a lot of good people over there on both sides, I mean you could do that jumping to get over there now and everything."

Girard was silent for a moment considering his options for dealing with this issue. He only really saw two possibilities open, use his powers and try to get himself over to the fighting or just go home to endure a scolding he likely wouldn't forget. Neither was a winning bid though as much as he was worried about showing up in the Middle East his wife was in the right for calling him about it.

"I...what if I over or under shoot and end up somewhere else completely?" He asked giving confirmation to her that he was going to do it.

"You can make yourself heavier hun, over shoot and you can use it to help you land close to if not right on them." She said throwing in her two cents on the problem but seeming a bit happier that he was thinking it through beforehand.

"Suppose I could call up Gary to pick up the truck near the coast too, should be out and about right now." He said getting his helmet out from the dufflebag. "Suppose there isn't much better of a test than trying to jump continents huh?"

The two of them laughed for a bit over how stupid it all sounded before she made him promise to come back soon or she'd kill him and the Tank was on his way to the coastline of Maine. It took him some time to find a vacant area where he could make the jump from, harder than it first appeared but he managed it. He looked out at the water trying to think how much force he would need to send himself that far and it was a lot by any measure so it was just a crapshoot at best. The big guy stepped himself back a couple hundred feet to get a running start before breaking into a sprint trying to build up as much forward momentum as he could feeling the ground under him getting messed up in the process. Then before he had a chance to take it back he hopped once setting himself up for a much bigger push off as he poured his strength into one massive burst.

It was hard for him to imagine ever being in this position flying through the sky at the speed he was looking down over the water and the land he could see. This was really insane by his standards but here he was rocketing through the sky, higher than he expected initially which was making him really uncomfortable especially over the ocean below. Well that's what he thought before his jacket and pants set on fire as he went and that was just the first to go in an unpleasant line of events ending with his helmet melting onto his head. Had he really thought this through? Apparently not well enough since he hadn't been anticipating this to be such a shitty ride forcing him to pull away some of his headgear from his eyes just to keep track of himself.

Turns out Tank didn't have long to wait afterwards as the dry earth came up to meet him very very fast. "I never did come up with a landing plan did I? Well shit."

Heroes Reborn - A DCAU Roleplay (Always open!)

9:02 PM, July 7th

Kasimir Castle Hangar, Gotham City

A soft humming filled the air, the sound just barely surviving against the whip of wind coming from the open mouth of the hangar and accompanied by the clink of metal. Zoey's gloved fingers almost danced over the metal object as she looked it over for anything amiss, not for the first time that day or even that hour. Of course that was rather prudent to do, considering she was about to trust the wings contained in this little jetpack-like contraption with her life.

Well, not entirely.

"Thanks for coming, by the way. I'll make sure to finish up quickly so you can get home at a decent hour," Zoey's voice was unmodulated despite being in her Grim suit, the gas mask and voice modulator resting around her neck, the balaclava in her pocket and goggles pulled up to sweep her crimson bangs back at the moment. It seemed silly to do a stress test when not in the gear that would be worn with it, after all. "My previous tests all say it should be fine, but considering I'm about to jump off a cliff I do appreciate your presence." The redhead glanced up, her steel blue gaze pausing on the other woman in the hangar to give her a small, playful smirk. Further back the Grim Jet sat quietly, along with a mostly built satellite - just a bit more work on that. Of course those two items where further back the runway, while just to Zoey's right was the steep drop off of the hangar mouth, leading into the coastal waters of Gotham.

"So! Ready to help an old dog fly?"

Lady Arcana smiled up at her...friend, lightly nodding. "All ready here! Don't worry, the Speed of Hermes won't let you down!"

Grim had asked her to come over to help her test a device that she had designed, it's intended purpose to give her greater mobility in the changing world they lived in. Not so long ago there was no magic, at least not like there is now. But in this time of mysterious drug-mages and flying Supermen and plant monsters, her closest ally felt like she needed a little something extra of her own to stay competitive...and honestly, Karen couldn't argue the point. As awesome, beautiful, and incredible of a woman as Zoey was, she was still a normal human. It wasn't easy finding a way to compensate for that fact, though Lady Arcana would always be there to help her if possible.

"You'll like it, I guarantee it," she continued to encourage the other heroine. "Flying is just plain rad AF."

"Rad AF?" A perfectly shaped eyebrow quirked up as Zoey glanced to Karen, a chuckle escaping her lips. "It was interesting. I'm wounded you haven't offered again." The redhead finally stood up straight, hefting the dark metal pack up with her. Positioning it against her back snugly she quickly began to strap it in properly, double and triple checking that all the metallic straps were connected and there was absolutely no wear on the reinforced materials connecting them. Finally satisfied Zoey gave a slight nod, briefly removing her goggles to pull the black cloth mask over her head before replacing them and lifting the voice modulator. Tapping against the forearm computer located in her suit when Grim spoke it was back to the deep, slightly artificial male tone that rumbled against the gas mask.

"Live test one of the Grim Glider, July seventh. Drop of at least three hundred feet." Another couple of taps to start recording the specs of the glider in action Grim finally turned and stepped to the open hangar bay, feet resting against the edge as she peered down it. It was a steep drop off. Taking a deep, calming breath to center herself the vigilante glanced back to Lady Arcana, raised a hand to give a small two-fingered salute, and then dived off the edge.

Lady Arcana moved quickly when Grim leaped from the edge of the hangar, quickly outpacing the speed of her fall as she remained closely by her side. In case something went wrong, she would be right there to catch her. Not that she was predicting a failure, mind you: Zoey was an unparalleled inventor from what she had seen, and it was difficult to imagine anything she made just failing. Still, this was the reason she called her, and Karen was going to make sure and do a good job!

"Let's hope the smog doesn't congest the engines," Arcana joked, noting the perpetually brown clouds above.

Gotham and Hub City had that in common.

Falling was ... something, alright. Those survival instincts Grim often lamented that other vigilantes lacked were currently screaming in her ears in a universal voice of 'what the fuck did you just do?!' At the same time it was exhilirating, not having her feet on the ground and knowing that her own fate was in her hands at the moment. Well, she was also in Lady Arcana's hands if something went wrong, which was reassuring in itself. She'd have spent at least another couple of weeks testing this to be sure if she didn't have that fail safe. Really convenient, having her number.

Briefly, Grim noted she might need a wind-reduced speaker and mouthpiece - it was hard to hear while in a free fall.

"Please, as if I hadn't accounted for the smog!" It was hard to convey the teasing tone in Grim's usual voice, but it didn't matter much anyway. As the waters approached rapidly the engines hummed against Grim's back, and finally in a swift motion accompanied by what almost sounded like a blade unsheathing the wings extended from their folded position inside the glider. Each one reached just over seven feet, made up of multiple thin, dark metallic 'feathers' with cutting edges of various sizes - smaller near the base, longer the further out they went. Creating an actual human-sized set of wings for flight was a tall task, considering how much fuel would have to be blown through for any sustained use. As such the wings themselves were based of an actual avian's rather than a plane's, intended to be able to move and glide in smooth, sharp motions. Honestly, the engines on the back were mostly for emergencies - safety first, kids!

A shift in weight was the first sign of the wings responding, the bladed feathers moving with an unseen command. The air against them smoothly changed the near suicidal drop to less of a pitfall and more like the glide it was intended, path shifting from the water to go almost parallel with the water - though still dropping slowly due to having no actual 'flap' power.

"That works well enough, now let's see..." A movement of her arm had the left wing abruptly move up, catching the wind once more to begin pivoting, only for a bend of the metal to make it a rather sharp turn. The sudden change in direction caused another dip of turbulance but a shift in weight made it even out as Grim circled back around back to the rocks. All seemed to be going well so far.

As she neared the cliff the wings once more changed to put the vigilante almost standing in the air, and promptly lost their momentum in a few feet due to having no wind. Of course that was to be expected without the engine on, they weren't made to fly without them - but that was the next part of the test. Extending her left wrist the hookshot slammed out into the rocky cliffside high above her, the powerful mechanism immediately yanking her upward. When the hookshot withdrew it managed to give her another thirty feet with the wings, but not much before it wanted to once more dip. Deciding that was enough Grim quickly hit a button on the wings - she'd make sure to put another on her gloves if this went well - which started the engine humming with far more power, then a red light building as the engines activated fully. It was easy to steer with the wings even going up, and before long Grim shot over the edge of the cliff. An alert in her visor from the computer telling her of the quickly extinguishing fuel had her discarding the idea of going back to the hangar, and the burn of the engines cut off to let her drop the few feet to the grassy cliff side, the wings quickly withdrawing back into the pack.

Grim took a moment, hands on her hips and leaning forward to catch her breath before throwing her head back and laughing. The sound rumbled in her mask oddly but she didn't mind.

"That was pretty fun!"

Lady Arcana watched Grim plummet towards the water below with a light smile. Even through the mask she was now wearing, she could somehow tell that she was having fun. It reminded her of when she had first started flying regularly. How she would soar high into the stratosphere, and then let herself fall for miles. It was like having the greatest rollercoaster ride at your beck-and-call, and even now she would sometimes indulge in that little game when there wasn't anything better to do.

Watching Grim struggle slightly to get the hang of controlling her new wings only served to remind Karen of how challenging it had initially been for her to learn how to fly. While she'd never used any kind of device like Zoey had now, she imagined it was somewhat different. In her own case, precise control over her strength was essential when it came to steering herself in midair. Her first few attempts had ended with her smashing head first into either an alleyway or simply the ground due to her inability to turn in time. It made her appreciate Sam's restrictions, how she'd forced her to wear that red coat for a whole month in order to master her magic muscle-control.

In the eight months since she had shed that coat, she'd gone a long ways towards refining her aerial control. She was now confident in her ability to make precise, split-second turns and even elaborate maneuvers when she needed to. She could perform sudden stops, and land softly without any worry for causing property damage. It was for that reason she was honestly glad that Zoey had waited until now to try and test this, so that her own failings wouldn't endanger her friend.

After observing how her new flight pack worked, it was clear that it was mainly a glider, rather than something that would enable true flight. It relied on wind currents and lift to keep it going, with the rockets only kicking in when neither of those things were present. Zoey seemed to need to trigger them manually, however. Karen hoped she would in time figure out how to make some sort of automatic system that would keep track of aerial conditions for her and activate the jets when required.

When she landed on a grassy cliff side, the Wizardess quickly descended to meet her, offering her a slight round of appaluse. "Great first flight! Looks like it went off without a hitch, right?"

"Mostly," Grim's laughing calmed at Lady Arcana's question, though she didn't look to the heroine. Instead her gaze drifted skyward, to the smog-infected night air. "My hookshot didn't provide me as much lift as I hoped, I might need to look at getting a stronger mechanism for that. Plus the fuel was absolutely eaten through when the jets were on, I'm going to have to either try and find a way to make them more efficient or pack more fuel away. Of course since I'm still based in Gotham I don't think that second part is too high priority - I can leave the real flying to you." Grim reached up, pulling the voice modulator down once more to rest against her collarbone from where it hung off her neck, finally turning to face Karen. In the corner of her eye she could spot Kasimir Castle, a distant speck of light from the cliff to make sure the jet not only had a decent run way but that there wasn't a jet just shooting off from her backyard.

"Overall not bad work for a couple months of effort. I do appreciate you being here, even if you weren't needed." A slight grin moved across her lips, hidden beneath the cloth that still covered her head though her voice was once again natural. "After all, catching falling women must be rather mundane for you by now."

Lady Arcana snickered at her comment about catching falling women. She wasn't wrong, though. Catching all sorts of things - not necessarily just people - had become pretty common place as of late. She'd even caught a few falling planes here and there, which was challenging only in that if she didn't grab them in just the right way, they would want to rip apart on her.

Stepping towards Grim, Karen extended her hand towards Zoey, a warm smile now overtaking her face. "Want a lift back to the castle, then? Or maybe even a little trip through the countryside?"

Honestly, she just enjoyed spending time around her. There weren't many people she could really talk to who understood what it felt like to constantly hold people's lives in your hand. To come close to failure and feel your heart clench tight in terror at the thought that you might screw up, and cause someone to die. It was that feeling that had made her start taking this whole thing a lot more seriously. The last thing she wanted was blood on her hands, much less the blood of someone who was counting on her to save them.

"I'd like a trip through the countryside more if I could actually see the stars," Grim waved her hand skyward, huffing lightly. "The only time I get to see a clear sky is when I travel. I miss that about Blackrock." Still Zoey reached out to take Karen's hand in her own gloved one, giving a short nod of thanks. In truth her suit still felt a little odd lately, and she didn't mean the Grim Glider on her back. It had been a busy few months, churning out or tweaking more and more devices to keep her on the cutting edge in the vigilante business. Grim didn't think she was overconfident when she said she was a powerhouse of a fighter hand to hand, but the sudden surge of magic from eight months ago didn't seem to be waning at all. New threats, new bullshit magic, new vigilantes who had no concept of danger.

And most annoying of all was that she wasn't just an Urban Legend anymore. Grim was confirmed. It was in those riots, unable to keep her usual low profile, and her picture had ended up plastered all over those old Grim-spotting websites that were traditionally based in Gotham. As bothersome as it was, it at least gave her an excuse to be more flashy with her gear. Though she still wasn't going to start branding everything with the wolf head icon.

"Still, I wouldn't mind a lift. You can eat the entire stock of Henry's pastries again - I think he's finally stopped trying to figure out how you put it all down."

Karen couldn't help but blush at her mentioning her appetite for pastries. It was true, she could really pack them away when given half the chance. The fact that her Arcana form didn't really have a limit to what her stomach could hold and never became sick also helped tremendously with that. Still, she had never really got to enjoy sweet stuff in any great amount before she started visiting Zoey every week, so she felt like a little indulgence on her part wouldn't hurt anything.

Gently closing her hand around Grim's when it was offered, Lady Arcana lifted off the ground. Immediately, she knew that Zoey would feel a sense of weightlessness. That was what happened when people were in contact with her while she was flying, they would become a part of her little bubble of gravity defiance. Offering a momentary glance to the smog-layered sky, she quickly quickly began her ascent. "You might want to hold your breath, we're going to have to go right through it if we want to see what's on the other side!"

And so they did. Plowing right through the lower of pollution, it took less than a second for her to pop out the other side into the clearness of the undirtied night sky. In truth, it all happened so quickly that it was unlikely that Zoey even could have smelled anything in that short a time...but better safe than sorry, right?

Tilting her head back, Lady Arcana exhaled gently, watching the stars twinkle in the heavens above. She could understand why Zoey missed them now...they really were beautiful.

"Wait, Kar-" Zoey's hand shot up to grab her gas mask, only getting it halfway to her face before they ended up on the other side of the thick layer of smog and pollution. The redhead blinked, glancing down and under the balaclava her face twisting into disgust. It almost looked like you could walk on it from above. At least they were through so quick that nothing clung to her goggles.

"This doesn't look like home," The vigilante finally noted in a gentle ribbing as she turned her gaze away from the smog, only to give pause as her breath caught in her throat. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Karen was acting on Zoey's previous comment, but the sight still caught her off guard. Seeing the expanse of stars before them was mesmerizing, and after a moment Zoey dropped the gas mask to instead grab her goggles and remove them, lifting the balaclava off as well. With her face free and not fearing anyone being able to see up here - she doubted even supervision could get around all that filth - Zoey breathed in deeply of the cleaner air, a grin tugging at her lips before she turned her steel-blue gaze to Lady Arcana.

"You know, if you weren't impressed with my glider you could've just told me instead of showing off," The redhead commented, without the voice modulator the more playful tone obvious.

The night sky truly was beautiful when shielded from humanity. In fact, it was better here than it would ever be in most places. If the smog had one use, it was in drowning out the light pollution from below with...well, actual pollution. Now, they were free to see the stars as people centuries ago once did before massive skyscrapers and billboards, before cities of several million parted the night.

When Zoey smiled to her, Lady Arcana was quick to return it, gently bringing them closer together until their arms touched, a gentle show of affection. Looking away slightly, she tried to suppress her reddening cheeks, but it wasn't terribly effective. "Nothing you've ever done has failed to impress me, your glider included."

"It's honestly been a while since I saw a night this clear myself. Maybe if you make a space suit for yourself, we'll go to moon next," she joked, scratching at the side of her face, before gesturing to the great white sphere in the sky. "Fun fact: Selene is the patron Goddess of the Moon."

The usual soft hum she often did escaped Zoey at the fact, her gaze roaming along the open expanse of sky, drinking it in like a dying man. Finally those eyes flicked to glance to Lady Arcana, and the redhead quickly hid the little smile that threatened to bloom seeing how red she was. Karen really was a sweet girl, even with the pure destructive power she could wield as Lady Arcana. It was a little reassuring actually, that someone such as ... say, The Question didn't have her powers. He'd probably tear every Government building apart looking for clues to his conspiracies.

Zoey also didn't need to have years of experience in investigating to realize that this woman, a virtual God, had grown a crush on her. It was both rather cute, and a little humbling. Aside from the fact that Lady Arcana could more than likely level cities, she was also at least fifteen years younger than her. No doubt Karen would grow out of it soon enough, but for now it was quite flattering.

"Thank you, Karen. That sounds like it'd be a fun adventure one night, but I'd hate to see how confused any prospective stargazers would be." A slight smirk formed. "Though I suppose it wouldn't be too bad - no one would even notice me there when they can gaze upon you after all."

It was still a little fun to make her red, though.

And Karen was red, having to keep herself from pulling her hood up reflexively. No matter how many times it happened, she just couldn't help embarrassing herself by glowing like a traffic light. Pursing her lips, she returned to looking up at the stars for a moment, briefly lost in her own thoughts.

While she didn't live there, Gotham was a city that she really felt like she knew. A city she understood. The crime, the corruption, the cruelty and neglect. It was all so terribly familiar to her that it actually sent a brief chill up her spine when she thought about it. Like with Hub City, something about it made the back of her neck tingle when she was in her Lady Arcana form. There was something evil here, an unnatural malice that seeped into everything and tried to snuff the light out from within.

And it was in this place that Grim, that Zoey had been fighting all alone for so very long. She didn't have the power of six Gods at her disposal like she did with Hub City. No, she only had her wits, her intelligence and her human body to overcome whatever horrors were thrown at her. How she had managed it was beyond Karen's understanding. She knew she couldn't have. She wasn't nearly that brilliant.

"Thank you," she finally responded, glancing over to the other woman. "But I'm not that impressive. I had all this power handed to me on a silver platter, while others spend their whole lives trying to achieve far less. But you..."

Karen once again faced her. "I can tell you worked so hard for everything you've managed to achieve, and you did it without the Strength of Alcaeus or the Might of Atlas, or anything really but the Power of Zoey Kasimir. You've saved so many people even though you put your life at risk every night you go out there. That's why, if someone ever asks me to show them what it means to be a hero, I'll just tell them about you."

This time it was Zoey's turn to become red, feeling the flush of heat in her face and across her nose. Her lips had parted, wanting to say something but unable to find the words, eyes just focused on Karen with a surprised intensity. A warmth, a surge of affection flared in her chest at this little ray of sunshine in the night, finally her lips closing with a smile playing at the edges of them.

"Karen," The redhead trailed off, finally shaking her head before bringing her eyes to Lady Arcana's. "I... thank you. It's," Hah, was she, Zoey Kasimir actually tongue tied? An odd feeling to be sure. She's heard plenty of thanks through the years, usually from the trembling or awed voices of those that the urban legend had saved, even websites and the occasional news special dedicated to Grim. She didn't do any of this for fame, but it was disconcerting being completely overshadowed by all these new beings of magic that had been showing up. Stressing over if she'd be able to do anything if one of them turned their gaze on Gotham, planning and building and planning some more. To hear the words from Lady Arcana, someone Zoey had mentally classified as being near a God despite her inexperience, was humbling. Still, she ended up looking away, laughing softly as she raised the hand not in Karen's to run through her hair and brush her crimson bangs back.

"It's nice to be appreciated," She finally ended up saying, finding the words dull on her tongue and not expressing everything she wanted to say. "But you know, you're a hero in your own right. You'll only grow into your own legend the more time passes, not just for your strength but your compassion. People will look up to you." Zoey's gut twisted lightly, knowing what that admiration would bring. Those who would want to copy her, be heroes by themselves and make the world a better place. She hoped Karen never learned of anyone doing it in her name.

Karen slowly glanced down at the smog beneath them when Zoey reassured her that she was also a hero, that people would one day admire her. In some ways she knew that would be flattering, but in others it was absolutely terrifying. "I just hope that if that ever happens, I don't disappoint them. My..."

Lady Arcana closed her eyes, drawing a heavy breath. The warmth of the pure summer's air eased her lungs and allowed her to continue. "My biggest fear is that one day, I'll let someone down when they need me the most. That I'll fail, and someone will die because of me. Because I wasn't good enough...that despite all these powers, the girl behind them just wasn't worthy of them in the end and somebody paid the ultimate price for my inadequacy."

She still had nightmares about it at times. About holding the body of a small child in her arms, broken and bloody. She'd never seen anything that horrible in all her life, so she didn't understand why she would see something like that in her dreams. Sometimes, she was worried that - like Clarissa - she was seeing a vision. She desperately hoped that wasn't the case.

"Sorry," she finally apologized, quickly shaking her head. "I really do appreciate what you said, Zoey. I didn't mean to go all emo on you like that."

"It's alright," Zoey studied Karen closely, taking in the small signs of stress, the worry, the fear. She sighed softly before reaching forward, placing her hand on Karen's arm. "Karen... I won't lie to you, there may be a day that you can't save everyone. I've... had my own incidents in the past, where I was too late, or made a mistake, or just wasn't good enough. I remember every single one." The redhead went quiet for a moment, her eyes closing.

"There's so much wrong with the world, you won't be able to stem it all. All we can do is get up, to move forward, because the world won't stop because we've failed. People will look up to you even when you feel your lowest, and all we can do is hope we've inspired good in those who need it."

Karen knew she was right, of course. Common sense dictated that even she couldn't be everywhere at once, no matter how fast she was able to fly. In a way, she felt like that kind of made it crueler. A normal person at least knows precisely what their limits are, they know they couldn't possibly stop a disaster a country away. But when she hears about a flood in China that kills thousands, or an earthquake that destroys the livelihoods of countless people, she has to live with the knowledge that she could have been there, that she could have done something...if only she had been more alert.

But Zoey knew what she was talking about, and she knew she should listen. Offering her a warm smile of gratitude, Lady Arcana nodded. "I guess having to live with your failures is just a part of being human, right? That never changes, no matter what fancy powers you gain."

"It doesn't, but it's still hard. If you ever feel like the pressure of being Lady Arcana is suffocating you, Karen, my home will always be open to you." Zoey squeezed the hand in her own lightly, just a small comforting motion. Finally she offered her a small smile, gesturing to the ground. She didn't want Lady Arcana to end up flying off with these thoughts swirling in her head. "As it is now. Why don't we head inside for a bit before you fly home? I wasn't kidding about those pastries."

Lady Arcana nodded, returning the squeeze with one of her own as they descended back to the Earth. Kasimir castle wasn't a difficult thing to find, no matter where you were in Gotham, much less above it. When she first came here, she thought it was pretentious. Now she saw it as practically a home away from home, a sign of comfort. A reminder that she wasn't alone in this.

Floating down to the hanger, her feet touched the metallic floor as she came to a stop, allowing Zoey to gently descend as well. "There we are!"

"Thank you again, Karen," With her feet back on the ground and the weightless feeling gone when her hand left Lady Arcana's Zoey took a moment to roll her shoulders and shift her weight, letting everything settle. She began unbuckling the Grim Glider even as her feet started carrying her forward, once it was off letting the machine hang off her left arm. "Come on, I'll get changed out of my gear and we can drop by the kitchen." Just as she was passing the Grim Jet there was a buzz on her arm, buried under the glider. A frown tugged at Zoey's lips as she glanced over, only seeing a peek of red light from the computer screen on her gauntlet around the bulky machine. Her pace picked up to the door that led back to the labs at the back of the hangar, offering her handprint and code to it quickly.

As the door slid open it was obvious something was wrong, red light spilling across the ground from the large computer screen, lit up with one of the many alerts she had set up. The Tracker that had been powered by Lady Arcana practically hummed from its position, and splashed across the large computer screen against the wall was a map of the world displaying those results. Nestled in the middle east a certain section was lit up, practically illuminating the whole area. Zoey quickly moved to the computer, zooming in. All across the Arab Federation were pin pricks of light, each one a surge of the specific magic they had been tracking. Hundreds, maybe thousands that nearly made up the entire area.

"Arcana, I don't think you'll have time to fly home tonight."

Heroes Reborn - A DCAU Roleplay (Always open!)

11:32 PM, March 14
Gotham City Stadium, Gotham City

Whispers filled the streets of Gotham.

"Did you hear?"

"Anarkee struck again."

"Why haven't the police stopped her?"

"The cops are useless against this."

"Are the streets still safe?"

"The streets have never been safe."

"Grim should've caught her by now."

Another strike by the Angel of Anarchy, another deed added to a long list of numerous others. Another life lost. Multiple injured. And unknown to anyone but three people in the city, Grim wasn't even in Gotham when it happened.

After having spent the night wading through the sewers of Hub City Grim barely had the chance to send word to Jaina and David that everything went well before she was flooded with alerts that something had been found outside Gotham City Stadium. Freshly found there was little details, and it took a surprising amount of time for Jaina to get back to her on what happened. It took an hour to get word back, just as the Grim Jet had been turned off nestled in the hangar of the labs with Zoey already heading to the Grimobile.

"Anarkee. Toxin bomb. You're not getting near here today."

The message was clear in Jaina's short, blunt way. The damage was done and the scene was on lockdown for now. A curse had rolled off Grim's lips, and despite knowing there was little she could do she had stalked to the Grim Grotto, so dubbed by her son, to absolutely stalk any hint of news about the scene.

Scraps were leaked, bits and pieces. A body was found, then some kind of riot broke out between investigators, and now the area was cordoned off. Grim's skin almost itched knowing there was a crime scene out there, innocents being hurt, and she was useless at the moment. She rarely worked during the day, cameras and cellphones rampant in this modern age. While she knew some things were worth breaking that policy, an already dead crime scene wasn't one of them.

Besides, she was exhausted from Lady Arcana and the Question joining her on the hunt for the Electrocutioner, though their help was of course appreciated. Grim ended up joining her son for breakfast and informing him of the plan before retiring to get some much needed sleep.

Now the hour was late, and it was time to go. Suited up and in the Grimobile, a sleek and dark car that was surprisingly ordinary. The word was subjective of course, as the car was obviously expensive and didn't belong in the poorer parts of town, but the aspects that made it Grim's vehicle were hidden. Guns, a winch, an all-terrain mode...

David certainly wouldn't be using it to learn how to drive.

Grim's fingers tapped against the steering wheel, the vehicle parked quietly beside a building across from the Stadium. Large canvases had been hung up to prevent people from seeing passed the parking lot, though lights still obviously shone behind it, and police tape cordoned off the area with a patrol slowly going around the perimeter.

About a block away another car pulled up, and when the patrol went to pass it stopped beside them. Words were exchanged and after a moment the police car pulled a U-turn and disappeared into the distance. A pixie-haired blonde woman stepped from the other car, and with little hesitation other than a sweep of the area moved right toward the Grimobile.

"Lieutenant Jasper," Grim's voice modulator smoothly greeted the short blonde woman as she approached, leaning into the window that was rolled down. She nodded back, not even looking to Grim but rather back at the still concealed crime scene.

"How has Blackstar been?" Grim rolled her eyes beneath the mask as Jaina focused on David immediately, despite him not even being there. A greeting would've been nice, but as the unofficial 'Aunt' of her son she had a one track mind.

"Still wanting to fight crime more than focus on school."

"He becomes more your son every day, then." Grim merely snorted in response before finally opening the door as the Lieutenant stood back up, and in quick strides the two slipped out of the alley and headed to the parking lot.

"How long do we have?"

"Half an hour. Sent him on a coffee break to 'sharpen his mind' while I covered for him."

"And let me guess, he jumped at any reason to shirk his duties since you're the only competent and good cop on the force."

"There have been a surprising amount of good recruits lately. I think it's your doing, you know. Things are changing from when you were a tee-"

"So what happened here?" Grim abruptly cut Jaina off, who merely shook her head as though the exchange had happened many times before and looked forward. They had just passed into the area the large canvases had been covering, Jaina hanging back as Grim moved forward to the scene. Beneath the goggles the redheads eyes roamed the scene, taking in the pool of dried blood on the ground where no doubt a body once rested, smaller splatters of crimson surrounding the area, and of course the message written in a hauntingly red script that adorned the wall.

BEWARE the rise OF the GRAVES

"The calls came in pretty quick about this actually - the blood was still wet. When CSI went to move the security guard it set off a bomb that threw out airborne particles. Everyone within a certain distance to the scene lost control of themselves - or, I should say, they lost control of their emotions. Turned on each other in a rage, or out of fear, or a combination." Grim paused, throwing a glance over her shoulder to where Jaina was hanging back, arms crossed by one of the lights.

"Is that why you're staying back there?"

"Better safe than sorry, there's a reason the place hasn't been cleaned up aside from the body - not everyone runs around in the dead of night in a gasmask." Grim merely rolled her steel-blue eyes beneath the mask, but focused back on the letters. It was obviously the biggest thing about the crime scene, and more than that? A message. To her. The wolf head, though crude, couldn't be construed as anything but hers. Still, why? What did it mean?

"Could be a necromancer." Jaina looked fairly amused at the look that was shot her way, for although Grim's mask kept her friend expressionless she instantly knew that Zoey was glaring at her from under there.

"Don't even joke about that, I've seriously had enough of this magic bullshit." Jaina raised her hands in mock surrender, letting Grim go back to her examination. The UV light on her goggles was flicked on, but aside from the obvious there wasn't much.

Something about the message kept drawing her gaze though. Beware the rise of the graves, certain words capitalized. Beware of graves. Did it mean something? It was hard to say with someone as mentally unstable as Anarkee obviously was. Something about it kept niggling at the back of Zoey's mind too, like she should be able to connect it to something...

"Don't worry, it's not the first freak in a mask you've dealt with. You'll get her." The frown didn't leave Zoey's face as she continued peering up at the words, a combination of spray paint and blood from the life lost here tonight. Jaina was right, this wasn't even the first time some mentally unstable person has pulled a stunt in her city, but still something about this seemed wrong. Sent a chill up her spine.

Zoey could only hope the graves in the message didn't turn out to be hers.

Heroes Reborn - A DCAU Roleplay (Always open!)

1:35 AM, April 1st
Kasimir Castle, Gotham City

"I swear to god, I'm just going to buy out Verizon and take one of their satellites. This is such bullshit," Cursing filled the cavern deep underneath Kasimir Castle, not an usual sound in the area considering who worked there. Footsteps accompanied the noise, occasionally a little flicker of a torch, as the owner of the castle continued to pace around the chalk drawing she had on the floor of her hangar. Zoey was, for lack of a better word, frustrated. For one due to the size restrictions she was forced to use the hangar rather than her lab, though at least they were close by. A rather large door led from the back of the Grim Grotto to the hangar, where the Grim Jet was quietly parked awaiting usage - along with a pure black motorcycle and rather expensive looking car. The runway lights extended down many, many meters to a seemingly solid wall, a smaller road that would fit the car or motorcycle veering off into its own path to the side.

While the Grim Jet took up most of the room, Zoey's current project had filled the extra space to the side of the runway quite a bit. Diagrams were hung up on walls, a book thrown open on a rolling tool kit, plates of metal in a corner and another rolling table with an utter assortment of things. Along the metal of the floor were dimensions, chalk drawings with little notes written in hurried, elegant scrawl. Not her most professional work, but everything had been thrown together rather haphazardly.

"Okay, no Zoey, this is fine - this is not complete bullshit, you've built more complex and better. Everything is fine." Taking a deep breath Zoey ran her fingers through her hair, slowly exhaling. In truth it probably wouldn't be so frustrating if she wasn't exhausted, having been working with very little sleep for the past two days in order to get started right away, ever since Lady Arcana was in her home. The magic tracker still cheerfully hummed away in the labs, but they needed more - and these satellites were the key. Still, she'd probably need some more equipment, even more specialized parts - really, too bad David had school, getting him to learn how to build satellites with her would probably save some manpower at least. Oh well, he should be focusing on girls and homework anyway. Or boys. Zoey didn't judge her son.

Still, taking a moment to tap at the metallic gauntlet on her left arm Zoey hummed thoughtfully as the built in screen flashed numbers. She definitely wasn't checking how much the national cetllphone providers were worth. Definitely.

... Okay maybe a little, but it would be faster than her learning how to build a satellite from scratch. Every single second she wasted on calculations and building was a second they didn't have the coverage needed in case an incident happened! Maybe Zoey should get Karen to get one of the Arab Federation's satellites. Zoey could disable any lasers. Probably.

Finally the redhead just heaved a sigh. Oh well, no use fighting it - back to working this out once again.

---

April 1st, 1:35 A.M.
Roof of Kasimir Castle
Gotham City

Marvin could concede--this castle was leagues better than his dingy warehouse. Maybe he should invest in one; then again, considering how many entrances such a place left to an intruder--friendly or not--he might renig his sentiment. He had scaled its face with relative difficulty, unseen grooves and soft depressions made for uneven terrain. A lack of cars and moving bodies made it a little easier to listen to the sounds below since the further the sound traveled, the more diluted it got and the easier for his acute senses to decipher. From what he could deduce, the first few floors were silent; beyond that, he could hear nothing. Marvin lifted his wristwatch to his face; he had another five hours before sunrise--maybe after this he would see what Gotham's late night dining specials were like.

To find an entrance into the castle of Gotham's resident crimebuster was going to be a challenge which, to his knowledge, was not going to be done without causing some uproar; Marvin didn't, after all, travel with gadgets. With a bound, he parted from the roof and once more to the castle's side. Against a narrow groove he clasped a hand and swung himself to the nearest window; Marvin knew Grim had money, and money plus vigilantism plus a castle meant the windows were likely thicker than normal. What it didn't mean was a change in the weakspots of all windows; the edges. With closed fist, Marvin began, he localized the force of his blows against the sides of the thickened windows; he knew he would only have to create a single point of overbearing load for the window to cave. It was a mighty effort, and try as he might, he couldn't deafen the sound of his blows against the glass--even if he did finally get it to stress under pressure.

For all of his exertion, once Marvin did get the glass to crack, creating a point of entrance was less than ideal since trying to shatter the glass completely would not only be rude but it would also give away his presence if he had not already. With a firm push against the stress fracture, Marvin pushed the entire window backwards--where it promptly shattered against the floor below. Well, if Grim was here, Grim probably knew someone was breaking in--and she also probably had contraptions enough to deal with said intruders. Marvin swung his way into the castle's top floor where he soon looked for a place to hide. There was no point in trying to clean up the mess he made at his point of entrance; a swift glance at his surroundings and he could see no immediately shrouded spaces. Left with few options, he figured the best way to hide was to use what the castle's unlit sections provided--he would move in the natural shadows created by the castle's halls and the lack of natural sunlight.

"Note to self: build more gadgets."

--

An absolutely shrill alarm pierced the air of the hangar.

From where she was just beginning to move pieces into place Zoey abruptly stopped at the noise, combined with the heavy vibrating coming from both her wrist and back pocket. Without hesitation she dropped the metal plate with an almighty clang and sprinted to the lab, not only the source of the noise but lit up red with the alert on the computer. A touch to the keyboard had her phone and gauntlet computer stopping their vibration as numerous cameras came into view, too many to count, and even more not showing up. Only the ones that had motion were up, along with one pointed to an empty window. With glass beneath it.

A stab of fear quickly lanced through Zoey's chest, and she was already pulling on her gear even as her eyes moved over the other motion cameras. Many were pointed outside at various creatures - no alert was sounded for them due to not meeting the size requirement - which was actually both worrisome and impressive that the intruder avoided them, but by doing so he also avoided the glue turrets. The ones inside, however, were constantly swapping to highlight the movement in her home. Zoey paused.

"Seriously?!" It was hard to see at times considering he was sticking to the shadows, but Marvin rolled and he lost when he picked his entrance - the bedrooms were on the top floor. Bedrooms with her son. If he thought she wouldn't have every defense possible in place to protect him he was out of his mind.

Still, she deactivated the... messier defenses. Well, aside from those near David's room. She was willing to extend the olive branch to her intruder as long as he didn't get near her son. Fucking paranoid vigilante assholes.

Of course, Zoey was one to talk.

Still cursing under her breath Zoey left the Grim Grotto, nearly stomping up the steps. She was in most of her gear, but the hood on her coat was pulled down and her balaclava not on - though the gas mask and goggles were. Just in case.

By the time Grim had reached the top floor her steps had lost the stomp to them, back to the near glide that kept her steps so silent. The gauntlet on her wrist kept her updated on which motion cameras were being activated, not to mention the various ... defensive measures she ran into that were unsuccessful. Nets. Darts of tranquilizer. One of the hallways she passed sprayed anaesthetic! Tiger was talented, she had to admit, dodging everything - even if the deadlier options were deactivated it was still an impressive feat.

Of course, not having to dodge everything it was far easier for Grim to catch up, her voice modulator crackling with the strength of her voice as she began yelling within two hallways of him, not able to catch a glance of the Tiger quite yet but knowing he could hear her. Luckily David's room was sound proof, though they weren't quite near it yet.

"Marvin! Marvin! Did you seriously just fucking break my window because you can't use a god damned intercom system?!"

---

"Should probably try less invasive methods next time I'm uninvited.", Marvin thought to himself. For all Grim's money, these were some rather mundane 'traps'; if Marvin knew anything, she was being polite--as polite a person may be toward an unwelcome house guest. As he rolled, flipped, and contorted his frame around all sorts of ingenious inventory, he went over his options in his mind,

"Keep running and see where it takes me? Mmm, too risky. Tell her I'm actually here for a legitimate reason? Nah, not much of an option now." a tranquilizer dart flew inches away from his neck and stuck into the concrete wall beside. His eyes widened beneath the mask,

"SHIT!" amid trying to think his way out of his current perdicament and noting the irate grating of a machnized sounding voice only a few halls away, Marvin was beginning to re-think these attempts at befriending others in his line of work, regardless of whether his own methods of going about such befriending were ethically unsound. Marvin took a moment to regather himself while in the middle of dodging projectiles; he had become good at multi-tasking in his own right.

"Lots of corners," he tuned out the extraneous sounds of the traps and Grim's approaching voice,he listened to his feet pat against the stone floor, "natural bends, too. Entirely square? Maybe. If so, I'd be going in circles, metaphorically. Clearly this is the top floor; need to find the stairs--beware of traps there, too, Probably less childish defensive measures below." Environment was everything, and this was not Marvin's habitat; Grim had chased him through his turf, but his was natural--if a little urban--hers was manufactured; he would have to figure his way around this maze fast--but it was also large and rather spacious. He didn't know what kind of traps she might have installed for this floor alone, so being stagnant wasn't an option,

"Obviously cameras; not pressure sensitive from what I can tell. Would have activated the moment I landed in the bedroom. Some parts of the castle are dark, but even then they saw me. Autonomous motion sensitive cameras or manual?" Marvin knew that--at least for now--her traps were ineffectual against him, so he would test and see if they were set to a pattern or completely random. So, when another of the tranquilizers shot from its contraption, he ducked into a roll and when he stood up he ripped the tranquilizer from the wall. Now all that was left was to search for a camera.

--

Grim was beginning to get pissed off.

She had been up for close to thirty hours now, satellites were bullshit, she hadn't had a drink in hours, and worst of all, it was a school night! If Tiger woke up David she'd make sure he went back to New York neutered. Honestly he wasn't even turning around to talk to her, even after she had called out to him. What was the point to this? Waving his dick around to show that he was a serious vigilante after their little discussion? Was it some weird assassination attempt? Probably not the latter at least, though caution was always good when dealing with cocky little assholes with a chip on their shoulder.

Still, Grim had enough of this.

"Ready lockdown mode," Speaking into her glove's computer had a layout of her home show up on it, the floor she was currently on. Rather than initiate a complete lockdown Grim calmly followed the blinking dot's path that was moving in her home. Halfway down a hall the Sectional Lockdown was activated, her hearing the clang of dozens of metal plates.

Lockdown Mode was essentially a trap and flood. Foot thick metal plates covered the entrances to the halls, smaller half-foot thick ones covering windows and doors. With a section blocked off anaesthesia flooded the hallway - really, owning a medical company was so convenient - and to top it off and get some overkill going for Sectional Lockdown, any connecting hallways had a similar treatment in case they managed to escape the first section.

No need to flood her entire home with gas, after all. Well, not yet.

Approaching the first metal plate that would lead to the section Tiger was in Grim tapped away at her computer, raising that plate and stepping through. It closed behind her. Her gas mask kept the anaesthesia at bay as she hovered there, just outside the section that Tiger was in, to swap to her camera for that particular section.

Maybe while he was under she could get him neutered so he'd stop trying to mark everything.

---

He heard the clink of the metal plates in front and behind himself. Lockdown mode, nice; he had one himself. Then a gaseous substance--probably one of the sedative class. Good thing he had recently built in those filtration systems into his mask. Nonetheless, there was nowhere for him to go. It was a classic set up, traditional. Marvin admired such a layout but it was rather predictable, in how many movies was this system integrated into systematic defensive engineering? The answer was all of them. Especially for a castle. He came to a skidding stop. Being shut in while inside such a large space was strange, almost oxymoronic. There was no way to exit, but there was space a plenty to maneuver. Marvin stood from his crouched position; gone was his original, untinkered white cloth mask and bulletproof vest in favor of a darker gray streamline bodysuit fit. Marvin presumed her traps were still active, it would--at least to him--make sense for them to be; if she had learned nothing from him and if he had learned nothing from her, it was that they both always had failsafes for their failsafe's failsafe and a plan Z to boot.

Eager enough, Marvin wanted to know what her backup-backup plan might be. He didn't, of course, want to be on the recieving end of any theoretical failsafes she might have stored away--and this made him all the more alert, if not all the more frustrated (as if it wasn't his fault for this debacle in the first place)! Should he tell her to turn off the gas? No. It would give away his secret. His present disposition was ironic, all things considered: for once, he was the one being hunted.

--

Odd. Tiger wasn't down yet. Under the goggles Grim's eyebrows furrowed as she watched the screen on her gauntlet, waiting patiently. Not even a slight wavering to his step or movements. A groan escaped her lips, rattling in the mask as she raised a hand to rub a gloved finger against her temple. His mask must have filtration. Either that or could hold his breath really, really long. How frustrating. Actually the entire situation was frustrating.

Would it be murder to just leave him there to starve? Eh, probably shouldn't.

To be honest Grim didn't even want to fight him. Marvin had talent, he had proved that in New York and he had proved it now. With his intellect it was inevitable he ended up showing up in her home too after figuring out that Lady Arcana covered for her back in Elysium, Grim had even briefly contemplated asking him if he knew how to build satellites. Yet this action to trying to break in was a little... unstable. Still, she was reasonable.

Taking a deep calming breath, as well as a moment to tie her hair up just in case it did get violent, Grim finally lifted the metal plate barring her from Tiger - though the one behind him and the one behind herself remained firmly shut.

"Seriously Marvin, even Lady Arcana was polite enough to at least use the intercom system. You look like a lunatic right now."

---

"I am a grown man who dresses up like a cat and leaps across buildings in order to fight crime. Yes, I have been a lunatic for a long time. That is not why I am here, 'Grim'" beneath the mask, he grinned--he knew she knew that he knew who she was behind the mask, just as she knew who he was behind the mask, "but before I get to why I am here; you should probably erase public record of your existence. Do you know how easy it was to scour the web and find out who you were?"

--

"Kind of hard to erase public record of someone like me, Marvin. A bit like you, Mr. Championship Belt. Besides, twenty years and this is the first security breach I've had - and it was due to some magic asshole telling you my name. I think I'm pretty covered." A sigh escaped Grim's lips, and she once more tapped against her computer. The valves stopped spewing forth their payload, saving the anaesthetic tanks. "Now then, did you come just to test out my home defenses or was there a reason you're running around here at two in the morning? ... Huh, it's past midnight. This isn't some April Fool's thing is it? That's really poor taste."

--

"Honestly? A little of both. A man can't spend all his life stuck in some shabby lair designing things to fight crime and better the world, can he? Good for the soul to lighten up sometimes. Plus," Marvin gleaned the interior in full now that he wasn't dashing ferverently through the castle's halls, "you've got a clean set up around here. And I'm guessing if it were not for my unceremonious intrusion you'd probably be having yourself a nice glass of wine right now," he paused...

"you do have a place where you keep the wine, right? I don't pay friendly house visits for nothing." with just the two of them present--presumably--he had no reason to keep up the facade. Ultimately, for all hs psycho-analyzation and formal logical deduction skills, he knew when to relax--even if he had to do it while on a business trip.

"I figured after our foray into the World Unknown, you'd be looking for a countermeasure. Well, that and you did ask if there was any way to track magical energy... but we'll go with the first one since it makes me look smarter. I also figured I may as well be of service while I can. I have a feeling there's going to be some retaliation behind some lowdown shit that happened a few days ago so you may not get to see my wonderful mask around here for a while. That and well, you and I really can't be at each other's throats all the time; we could use our minds for good and shit." Marvin had let his more colloquial diction slip through his otherwise highbrow speech he normally used when the mask was on.

--

"Marvin I'm pretty sure like half the articles out there on me call me an alcoholic, of course I have a place to keep the wine." Grim tilted her head, watching The Tiger closely. He seemed to be letting his guard down now to a more relaxed posture, but considering his behaviour Zoey felt justified in still being a little wary. "We are cats and dogs, but you're right. I was working on something, before you... interrupted. Of course, now I have to decide if it's worth letting you into my labs considering you apparently like making my life difficult!" It wasn't a big stretch to assume that Marvin had figured out she had a lab of at least some sort, so she didn't feel too bad letting him know. Still, she threw her hands in the air in exasperation before bringing her hand back to the computer, letting the plates behind her raise up and beginning to walk to them - as well as lead Marvin to the lower floor.

"Come on, let's move out of the hallway so I can lower the plate and let the filtration deal with the anaesthetic. I still can't believe you broke my window."

--

"I can't believe you didn't invest in less archaic means of protection with all that money you have. Windows? Rather Victorian, don't you think?"

He could almost smell the remnants of tension pent up in her bones. Intuition told him she still didn't trust him. This was a logical reaction after all given the last fourty five minutes.

"The kid must be sleep. A wonder he didn't wake up during all that commotion. You know, you could send him my way some time and I can show him how to really defend himself for the next time those nice trinkets of yours fail." Marvin trailed behind her--he never strode next to anyone, it gave him enough time to react should a person get strange ideas.

--

"There's something to be said about the classics, besides - I have a kid, I'm not just going to lock him away in a giant castle. In anycase every single window in the castle is a solar window - does wonders for keeping the electric bill down." Once they were passed the metal plate Grim lowered it once more, and with that one once more began walking. A certain tension would never leave her back at being trailed, but she didn't protest Marvin's position. Instead she just took her goggles off, shaking out her hair seeing as she wasn't currently wearing the balaclava.

A couple of turns brought them to the stairs, on the next floor another hallway to the grand staircase. As they walked and talked however Grim's eyes narrowed, her perfectly shaped eyebrows furrowing a bit though she kept her gaze forward. Ah, but considering who it was saying it to her Tiger was probably just riling her up.

"You know I haven't had gadgets the entire time I've been fighting crime, right? They help, but I assure you I know the value of knowing how to defend yourself. Besides," Zoey finally glanced over her shoulder as she took down the mask covering her lower face, letting it rest around her neck. Her next words were of course her own, unmodulated. "I wouldn't want David learning to take uppercuts to his jaw for getting too cocky."

With her mouth uncovered Zoey gave a little grin, it small and tight but there to show less harm to her words. As they reached the ground floor she brought Marvin to the wine cellar door - he already knew her identity, he could be an ally. Worst comes to worst he steals some of her tech and runs off to New York. Like with Karen, Zoey once more used the eye scanner, but on stepping inside gestured to the numerous wine racks in the large cellar.

"Go ahead, pick us out one - I'm pretty sure you know by now money isn't really an object with me. Then I can show you the project myself and Arcana have started."

"I only drink Moscato." his deep hazel eyes scanned the racks lined with different wines. He, too, used to live the high life. These days, most of his money was re-invested in the stock exchange, mutual funds, and rennovating his base of operations. Once he found the Moscato wine he was looking for, Marvin removed it from the rack. He handed Grim the bottle with his right hand.

"I'm not that hard on my cubs. Although, I've never had a sidekick before so I suppose that's just wish fulfillment."

Hard as he was, he did share Zoey's parental mentality towards children; he fought crime in one of the worst neighborhoods in Brooklyn after all--and it was usually the kids he was protecting from the adults who manipulated them.

--

"Trust me, a sidekick would be easier to handle than a son. It was a subtle shift when I adopted him formally, but a shift none the less. Good choice, by the way," With the wine in hand Zoey reached out and picked another wine, but like the last time she had a guest in her home didn't pull it out all the way. Instead she pulled it right to the edge of the label and let it rest there, repeating the motion with four other seemingly random bottles in the room. On the last one being rested in the correct position there was a pause before the wall began to move, revealing the stair case beyond, and at the bottom the fingerprint scanner which opened up into the large cavern. The computer screen and hub to the left, the workshop across from them taking up most of the wall with an utter array of gadgets in half finished states on the wall and satellite diagrams on the surface, and to their red the labs - with two doors quietly situated in the back.

"Welcome to the Grim Grotto - David's name by the way, don't make fun of it around him. My hub, my workshop, my labs - and this little thing is what I'm asking for your help with." Zoey moved to the copier sized machine tucked right by the workshop for close viewing, the thing humming softly with power. In the stone depression on top the pill that Marvin himself had given her back in New York city floated quietly, spinning on its axis.

"A magical tracker, keyed to the signature in the pill. Don't get me wrong, the thing's working finally after Lady Arcana dropped by, but we're having... well, coverage issues."

--

"Not enough range? Hm."

He closed distance between himself and the bulky machine near the workshop.

"Well, my venture is that if this were a normal satellite it would function fine because satellite frequency band channels are designed to capture natural images and progressions. Far as I know, this is the first ever magic oriented satellite in existence, so the magic is a) disrupting the frequency or b) we need to create a unique channel for uh, detecting magic."

He paced about before he headed toward the large computer to their left, "Nice. I have one just like it. How powerful is she?"

--

"She?" A red eyebrow quirked once more before Zoey just shook her head, taking the mask and goggles off fully to put back in their places, followed by her coat and gloves. "Pretty powerful. The alert system is top notch, voice or touch activated, connects to all my wrist computers as well as my phone in case of emergency, not to mention the labs back there, and if there's a function it can't do it scours the web for anything that can - the tech guys for Blackrock showed me that one. Nice guys. Kind of nerds." Stepping toward the workshop instead Zoey gestured to the blue prints on it.

"Well right now it's interfacing with limited connectivity to the satellites already in orbit - I have a coverage of most of North America. Lady Arcana wants the world and I intend to give it. Since this is just the console I figured, well, let's just say that in my hangar in the back I'm all set up to start building a satellite. I just never have before. I could figure it out with time, but time isn't really something I'm comfortable giving if there's another attack soon." Zoey huffed, blowing some crimson strands of hair out of her face in irritation. "Plus if we're tracking magic we'll probably have to get Lady Arcana to power or channel something inside it to give it that honing sense to a more accurate degree."

--

'Well, I am the source of all magic' Marvin repeated aloud. Another simple deduction,

"Limited connectivity, it is a disrupting thing, then. Give and take, give and take, a satellite can only recieve what it is given. Give and take," he repeated aloud, a common occurrence when he began breaking apart the truth-trees in his head, "A if and only if B. If Arcana is the source of all magic, any magic present in the world comes from her, but it doesn't mean all magic present in the world has surfaced or is even strong enough to be recognized by satellite. Arcana is the source, everything magic is contingent on her--whatever is of X cannot function properly if X is removed or inconsistent in any single instance." he stared at the blueprint drawings on the screen as he thought to himself,

"Arcana powered the satellite once, that should be all that is necessary. Whatever magic which does exist in the world only needs a small portion of Arcana's energy--but a whole lot of frequency strength; we're talking something like two and a half gigahertz for one satellite to be able to cover the entire world. How we would generate such sound with only two people at the helm escapes me. Not to mention we would need more than one satellite considering we simply do not know if this magic energy has any averse side effects. I'm working on a small project myself with this energy here, and from what I've found, we only need to focus the energy; it's a constant, it doesn't die. More of this energy leaves too many unexplained and untestable variables, and I doubt we need more of those.

Although. . ."

Marvin went in search of a pencil...

"I bet NASA has a whole lot of unpaid interns looking for some long term career security."

--

The signature soft hum that often signalled Zoey was thinking rang out, the redhead staring off into the distance while tapping a painted fingernail against her lower lip.

"It certainly wouldn't be much of a strain on my resources to foot the bill for this. It's a bit more important than just some capitol anyway. If we could provide the outline it would certainly expediate things - of course we'd need a cover story. Research? I was thinking of buying a cellphone company but that doesn't really cover it as much as I'd like," Zoey huffed, raising a hand to run through her hair. Abruptly she turned her gaze to the bottle she had set on the workshop table, and after grabbing a rather sharp ice-pick looking device pried the cork of the wine open. If she was going to stay up even longer she was at least having a drink.

... Maybe the tabloids were right about her being an alcoholic.

"Here, we're going to be here awhile," Luckily she had both a clean and used glass down here - she had originally intended to use the clean one herself and had at the time just ended up drinking straight out of the bottle. Pouring Tiger a glass she nudged it to him before taking the already used one. Fuck it if she cared about mixing wines. Downing the entire thing Zoey poured another glass before finally pushing off from the worktable to go to Tiger's side and peer at his scribbles.

"Right then, let's see if we can give those nerds something to go on."