Young Justice Plus

Cheyenne, Wyoming- July 9, 09:22 MDT

It is good to be on the move again, back in "civilization." Say what you will about the United States, but their highway system is a wonder of the world. The American continent is huge, and they unified it, tamed it.

You lived here, once. Eighteen months in Wyoming's capital when the cool states had been used up. It was worth living in Wyoming to watch Francis E. Warren Air Force Base being shut down. Decades of Abin Sur and Red Tornado giving speeches had failed to motivate nuclear disarmament, but Dark Thursday had finally gotten it through to human meatbrains that having the ability to end human civilization was a bad thing.

The US Air Force had never been your favorite people.

You had needed somewhere to stop on the way, and you knew the city, so Cheyenne it was. You stop at a diner for a breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes smothered in butter and two different kinds of syrup.

The man in the corner has a medium build, rather severe features, and is not smiling. The short black facial hair makes him very much not your type, and he's too old for you. He is picking at bacon, toast, and sausage, and he is staring at you.

Don't run yet. That would be suspicious. He might call someone.

You enjoy your first real meal since lunch on the fourth. You can take him, he's just a random cape watcher, probably.

He gets up and leaves before you are finished. You don't tip when you pay for your meal this time, feeling bad about it but the waitress looks like her even if the uniform is completely different.

"Cape." The man is standing outside. His expression is hard to read.

"Is that a codename?" You laugh at him. "Do you dress up here and escort ladies back from bars? Or are you going to try and take me in."

"I don't make a habit of it, no. Did the League just attack you?" You smile. "It was a big misunderstanding. Would you expect Meteor Rock jewelry in a purse?"

"Nope." He falls in besides you as you walk to your car. "So they..."

"Sent a sidekick to investigate stolen Meteor Rock. Got a fight for their trouble. Do you want a fight?"

"That is what I am trying to avoid. Got a name?" You shake your head.

"Not for you." He looks vaguely disappointed. Then he gives a slight smirk, and there is a clap of thunder, moving him maybe ten feet to the right. Your eyes are hurting from the brightness.

"Oh." You blush. "I thought you were just a gawker who saw me on the news."

"You're the first person like us I've met," He replies. Interesting. You are still insulted. There is no us here.

"It's not random, you know. Chaos, destiny, a pull. This has all happened before, and will happen again." He scowls now.

"Destiny? There is no such thing." You laugh at him.

"I've seen it happen. A thousand different decisions could have set me off my path in life, and every one led me back home. If anything in this world is real, it is destiny."

"Home?" You reach your car, parked down the street in the hope of mild stealth. That hope was probably vain with this guy around. The Meteor Freak or whatever he is looks very, very annoyed.

"My home, not yours." His annoyance grows.

"Who are you?" The question rings out on the street.

"You first," You give him a gentle smile.

"Chain Lightning," He responds, a look of unmistakable pride in his eyes. You giggle.

"You make that one up yourself when you threw the Meteor Rocks and microwave in the bathtub?"

"Better than nothing, blondie." You laugh again.

"Ooh, good one. And it's brown. Just stalking me, or got a question?" He pauses.

"Got a team?" You shake your head. "Not anymore. That's what I am after." You guess that whoever is there would appreciate you a bit more if you bring them someone else. "I'm heading east. I know a guy who said to do that. He claimed there was a man there who was hiring, basically."

"Hiring for what?" Chain Lightning looks interested.

"No clue. Dreamland's phone lines are tapped. If I was higher priority they'd probably have police scanning the route. Heck, maybe they do." Chain's face looks worried again. "All I know is to go to Erie, Pennsylvania. Want a ride?" Chain Lightning's smirk is back.

"I'll race you there." He vanishes.

"Freak," You mutter under your breath, and pop the car door back open with a wave of your hand. Time to get moving.

Erie, Pennsylvania- July 11, 11:16 EDT

You haven't had a real shower in a week, you're getting hungry, it's too cold for July, and you can't figure out how to get the car's heater to work.

You also have no idea how you are supposed to meet this man. You don't want to get a hotel room in case he offers you something better. You've heard rumors that supervillains get paid really well, and if they want to court you...

The newspaper you stole from one of those open newspaper machines has a cover story on Green Lantern bringing an alien princess who dresses like a stripper to Earth.

Princess Koriand'r of Tamaran is beautiful. Dark, inhumanly orange skin, green eyes without whites larger than a human's, a head that is hidden under a long set of red 80's hair, with a strangely flat face.

She wears a shy smile in both of her pictures, one of her face and the other floating next to Green Lantern at a press conference. A mildly confused looking Superboy and a Superman trying not to laugh are in the picture as well.

Other news items are skimmed. Luthorcorp is on trial due to complicated legal shenanigans involving a "Lexcorp" that apparently existed mostly as a shield to legal liability. Chloe Sullivan was giving a book tour for Gods of War, her book on the Project Ares fiasco. Richard Castle's sequel to Heat Wave, Naked Heat, was apparently coming out in late September. There was another dockworkers strike over the new J'onzz Company ships. It was a mix of sensationalism and the expected, mostly.

"Miss Littleton, is it?" The British man who sits down next to you on the park bench gives off an air of unease. His smile is fake and mildly scary.

"Not really." You smile back. "You would be the person Cameron mentioned?" His smile grows wider.

"I merely know someone, and am paid a great deal of money to be discrete about who I know." He leans over you and investigates the paper. "How very noir of you, reading the paper in the park for a secretive meeting."

"I'm just a Derek Storm fan, Mr..." He laughs. "Nice try."

"We won't get very far without something to call each other. Even if you did steal some of my hair." He looks impressed.

"Not many people would have noticed that." You hadn't noticed anything. Criminals give fake names, wizards don't give names at all.

"I want money, a place to stay, and not having to watch my back for the League breathing down my neck." He nods.

"I can give all of that and more than you could possibly imagine. We supervillains need to stick together." You smile.

"You have no idea what I can imagine. I have seen things, I know things, I remember things. I'm not some little girl who just fell into a well and hit her head on a Meteor Rock." He laughs happily.

"So you're the one who told the newbie where I was. He doesn't like you very much." You nod. "I think you made a mistake. He is not one of the lesser ones. Mr. Someone was delighted by him." Interesting.

"Would Mr. Someone be delighted by me?" You jokingly bat your eyes at him. He is way, way too old for it not to be a joke.

"Well, a leptokinetic illusionist? I think he'd be ecstatic." His breath is hot on your cheek. You try not to show how impressed you are with that statement.

"What next?" You ask with only a mild sense of trepidation.

"We go home, Derek Storm fan. Follow me." You smile. "That is too much of a name, even a fake one." You liked them short and sweet.

"What would you suggest?"

[X] Write in.

 

Erie, Pennsylvania- July 11, 13:12 EDT

The motel room is among the scarier dwellings you have seen. Sets of strange clay masks cover the walls, mocking the faces of superheroes and supervillains you recognize. A wide variety of creepy, tribal looking sticks fill a small basket. The one table is covered with a creepy scrap book of things like hair, nail clippings, drops of blood, and photographs.

It is amazing how it barely bothers you after a shower and reheated leftovers for lunch.

"Cozy," You remark, gesturing at the paraphernalia.

"You should see my last apartment." He waves his hand. "I used to have far less savory items, but a stint in prison here, a breakout there, a trashed storage locker, and you end up needing to economize."

"What is it you do, exactly? As a supervillain." He shrugs.

"I go wherever the wind takes me. There is always work for someone who has questionable ethics and esoteric skills. Currently I am working on a personal project in a place called Ravenswood. If you can avoid capture the life can afford long stretches of downtime. If I find what I am looking for in Ravenswood I could expect to retire happily for my few remaining years." You frown.

"You don't look that old, and surely you can find a way to keep on going as a, well, wizard." He shakes his head.

"I die on February 1st, 2013. Not a thing I can do to stop that. My soul will do what the soul of a magician who made a number of bad decisions does if Death has mercy on me. Better to burn out than to fade away." You shake your head.

"That has never been my philosophy." He laughs.

"I really should stop being so morbid. Now, Figment, interesting choice of a name. Perhaps a bit pretentious, but that is our right. Now there are several..." He suddenly freezes up. "You were followed."

"How do you do that?" You ask curiously.

"I am afraid in just the right way. Nothing else to it besides talking to the air." He gets up. "I am told you can fight." He examines a strange looking staff.

"What are we dealing with?" He frowns. "That is a harder question. Dangerous people, but..." He starts looking frantic. "Buy me some time and I can finish this! Try to keep them outside."

You leave the motel room, wondering what your chances are of actually getting assistance.

The man who falls from the sky is big. Not inhumanly big, but tall and wide and strong. He lands on the ground of the parking lot, looking very angry.

He is wearing an "early League classic" hoodie in dark colors. It's a subtle costume, dressed for winter with gloves and a bulky utility belt. It could have just been someone sneaking around if he hadn't fallen from the sky. Dark makeup or grease takes the place of a mask around his upper face, splashed around in purposeful looking designs.

"Got a name?" He asks with a scowl.

"I just settled on Figment. Like it?" He shrugs. "I've heard better."

"What about you?" He shakes his head. "I've got some ideas."

Oh no. He wanted you to keep talking.

"There's no chance you're just going to let me walk out of here, is there?"

"You attacked my daughter." You step back. That's bad.

He crouches and leaps forward at incredible speed, right through the illusion standing several feet to your side. He laughs at that and spins with a surprising grace.

You could not let this guy near you. The attempt to turn his clothes into burning clothes fails to do anything. Transmuting around him seems difficult given how quickly he moves, how strong he seems to be, how much control he has.

Where does the League find these people?

You maintain an illusion of invisibility. The brick smiles again, and throws himself in another of those bullet like moves across the parking lot. If he hit you with one of those it would be bad.

"I thought you weren't allowed to kill?" You ask him through another illusion.

"You almost killed my daughter," He answers with a growl, and throws himself again.

Calm down. The League wouldn't kill, not over this. They wouldn't send a killer. He was just scaring you. If he couldn't control those leaps he wouldn't be using them.

The fight would be over if he got his hands on you either way...

You drop your illusion for a second and raise a wall between the two of you. You go right, your illusionary clone goes left. The superhero jumps over the wall in another of those bursts, slightly slowed. But does it mean he doesn't want to smash it, or can't?

You liquify the ground beneath his feet, and he sinks down to his knees. He swings around in the new pool, unable to move properly.

"And that's that." The hard object against your back is very disconcerting. The quiet, female voice sounds satisfied.

"I guess this is where I surrender," You state. You could melt the object, but someone who could sneak up on you that easily with unknown powers and equipment would probably knock you out if you resisted from here.

"It is." She presses harder, a hand on your shoulder. "Let my husband go."

Then the pressure is gone, but why? There's a white blur around where Jim is for a second, and then it is gone.

"And now we run." The voice is Cameron's. Twirling around you see the wizard wearing one of those clay masks and a shirt that looks like Icicle Junior's. His walk is different and he looks a good deal happier.

"What exactly is this?" You ask.

"Chaos, love. Chaos. Now please keep the brute in that hole, but don't kill him. That kind of thing really does get too much heat even for us."

"I can't keep him there long. Where did the other one go?" He frowns. "She disappeared when I..."

The flash bang goes off. When you know where you are again the woman is holding a long pole against the wizard's throat and Jim has vanished. She has a full head mask that looks like a fencer's and a white costume. Her own utility belt is distinctive and appears color coded for tools.

"Now dearie, I am sure we can work this all out!" the accent changes from British to American in a second and there is a blast of ice that covers her feet. The shake behind you is far more worrying, with a strong set of arms lifting you up.

"Let her go." The superhero growls. He smiles of sweat and oil and dirt, his arm pressing against your throat.

"I can't!" The whine is very much Cameron's. "I can make ice, but not manipulate it," The British voice explains.
"Take off the mask, Ethan, and we can talk." Ethan, interesting.

"If you were to turn off your own brutish powers I would be more than happy to. As it is no!" The voice changes with the last word again. Ethan raises a wall of ice between them. The hero crouches yet again and the two of you land behind the wall. You swing uncomfortable from one arm as he lunges, delivering a blow to the Ethan illusion's head. The real Ethan nods at you as the angry superhero picks the illusion up and throws him over his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" He asks his wife, who is still frozen to the ground. She nods, wincing a bit.

The man finds the half of his body carrying "Ethan" covered in ice a moment later. He breaks free, growling and spinning for an enemy he can't see. When his foot goes down next it sinks into another liquefied hole in the ground. He doesn't let go, and you hit your head against his shoulder for your trouble.

"Stop!" Cameron's voice hits you both, and Ethan is standing near the superheroine, pointing at her.

"Trade?" The superhero asks slowly after a moment of the two standing, with Ethan glaring and it feeling like your captor was as well.

"Let's." He nods and with a kick from the villain the ice shatters around the woman's feet, while the hero's arm lets go of you and he leaps away. Ethan has his hands raised, sliding on ice and moving back towards you as the brute lands next to his wife.

"Got any bright ideas, love?"

[X] "We run." You whisper. Just leave and hide, wait for it to blow over. "You said that before. Got a plan?" He shrugs. "Not a good one..."

[X] "Attack," You say. This problem will not solve itself, you need to take them down.
-[X] Figment's Attack Plan (Write in)

[X] "Follow my lead." Ethan nods. You have a plan to talk your way out of this.
-[X] Figment's Negotiation/Social Combat Plan (Write in)

 

Erie, Pennsylvania- July 11, 13:18 EDT

The heroes vanish in their incredible mover powers. The man lands on the street in front of the fleeing illusions, while the woman is nowhere to be seen.

"Do you ever wonder where the League finds these people?" Ethan sounds quite weary. "I heard they were already at ten even before these two showed up, and the League are all so bloody hax." You shake your head.

"You copy powers." He laughs.

"That whole deal is new. One doesn't worship chaos to be repetitive. You have any idea where the other one went?" Jim is engaging in cornering your incredibly energetic illusion clone.

"I think she's figuring out where we really are. I have leaned on this one quite a bit." He frowns. "We need to take out the devilish speedster. I believe the brick is within our mutual capabilities, but not when we need to deal with another strong combatant. You are narrowly missed by the man who bullets down the street.

"He knew." You frown. "He knew, so why..."

The wall of ice surrounds you both before the dozen or so flash bangs that hit the street. An illusion pair is crumpled several yards away.

You part the ice wall, hoping to catch he couple, or one of them, as they move to restrain the illusion. The rather familiar stream of gas from the small grenade near the "bodies" frustrates that.

"I didn't even see her drop it. Remind me to take her set when we win, Love."

"Patience." You raise a hand. "They need to pick us up after we're..."

You really hate the flash bangs. They must be on a remote control? It's so damn specific.

There's a strange feeling that hits before you recover, and you find Ethan holding his hand over your face, and you can hardly breathe.

"This is the escape plan," He whispers. You consider for a moment.

"Where are we?" You whisper back.

"About ten feet underneath the ground. I told you the plan was bad." You consider for a minute.

"Can you get us out on my mark?" He scoffs.

"Of course. Got a new plan?"

"Not exactly." He sighs. "Good enough.

You are already invisible when you rise to the surface. The illusion copies of you and Ethan explode into ice and fire. The husband leaps forward, into the new sink hole that does not effect the doubles in the slightest. He sinks, spinning, into the artificial super quicksand, attempting a swimming motion.

"Now!" Your double shouts, and the doubles sprint down the street towards you. Ethan hits the white whirlwind with a blast of ice covered by the illusions, and she falls.

"Keep her there!" You keep your eyes focused on the sinkhole, and let him sink in deep. You don't let air follow him.

You know how long a human can hold his breath.

Rosewood, Pennsylvania- July 11, 15:12 EDT

"We were lucky." Ethan sounds defeated. If not for an assassination in Mexico we would be sedated awaiting transit to Dreamland right now." He is peering into a smartphone that curiously appears to be off. "As it was, we only dealt with the volunteers. Ordinarily they would have been escorted by someone more experienced."

"They're new." You shudder.

"I dare say that without numerical parity we would have been defeated quite soundly. It was a close call as it was." Ethan sighs. "I really did like it in Erie. So much safer than a place this close to Ravenswood. Ah well, we never did finish our conversation."

"It would be nice to know more about this career path." You look around the McDonald's parking lot. The latest stolen and modified car was one of the nicer ones, changed to resemble Ethan's tastes. It was definitely an improvement over your usual changes.

I think there are two major choices." He sits back. in his driver's seat and takes his hands off the wheel, staring with a kind of reluctance at his grease hands. "I believe either one would be rather competitive compared to mundane entry level positions for someone with your age and education."

"Sounds good." Everything is feeling a bit better. "What are they?" The food was helping remove some of the stress.

"They have a job for you. If you want I can help get you into a boat tomorrow afternoon."

You shake your head. "That was fast."

He nods. "Magic cellphone, and we knew you were coming from the lad calling himself Chain.

"A boat?" That was new, oddly enough. You had only left the US once, and not on a boat.

"Yes, a boat. There is a certain facility in South America that could use your powers for production and needs tighter security. This facility is very valuable. The figure I was quoted for your assistance is that you are given one million dollars to start with." That number is just wow.

"A million dollars?" He nods. "I was not given details on hourly wages, length of time, benefits, or any other details, but yes. A million American dollars are what they will give you when you arrive. I consider these people quite trustworthy."

"Is it normal not to tell people much about their jobs in this line of work?" He nods.

"In my experience you usually get strange notes hidden in your glove box or anonymous texts cutting the lyrics of Top 40 songs requesting the strangest items one could imagine. Admittedly, my circles tend to run a bit stranger than a normal villain. Chaos and all that."

"And option two?" You ask.

"I hire you," He answers. "This place is very peculiar. I will need help to unlock the secrets of Ravenswood, and I am going to die. You have the right aura for learning magic, I think. I can't promise it won't be risky, but I can promise you that after I die you can take everything I have taught you and everything I have acquired to do what you want with."

"Why me?" You ask. He smiles again.

"You have powers I do not, I have very few options. You are young and beautiful and I think you have what it takes to replace me."

"I never thought about that," You say truthfully.

"The truth is, as you saw, you are not a major player in this world. You could barely fight a minor task force from the Justice League. Being my apprentice will give you more power, possibly a lot more depending on what we can unlock from your natural abilities." You nod carefully.

"With a million dollars, and a few more jobs like that, I could leave the life all together, hide somewhere or cut a deal."

"Indeed you could. I assure you the road I am going down is dark, very dark. I can assure you that people will die from this work, and that people will be born. If I am successful our names will be in the history books. Then again, I suspect that Mr. Chain Lightning will be in those books, and I know he is already guarding the facility."

"My name's already in them." He looks curious. "There's a reason I don't want to use it."

"Ah, little Figment. I do wonder where you come from." You smile and give him a gesture. He nods thoughtfully. "Ah, of course."

"And if I want some peace and quiet?" He pauses. "I cannot say too much, but I have heard rumors that where you would go if you take the job is not for the faint of heart. The people I may work for will not be quiet for long. Perhaps..." He shrugs. "There are risks and rewards to either path."

"I see." You begin to really consider.

"The sooner you can give me an answer the better. I do not have a lot of time." Ethan moves away from you. "I would like a decision sooner than later. I have my own project to work on." He examines the locks of blonde hair he took from the speedster.

[X] The sooner you get out of the country the better. And, well, a million dollars sounds nice. More than a million, certainly. You could enjoy being wealthy. You never have felt comfortable with Ethan.

[X] Magic? That sounds good. You no longer feel safe, not with what the Justice League can deploy. Not with what the villains can deploy, either.

[X] You're starting to reconsider this whole supervillain thing. Ethan seems to be into something big, dark and serious. This isn't cops and robbers, this is life and death. Even the unknown facility comes from the same set of sources, and that leap could land you anywhere. Maybe if you turn him into the League they would forgive you. There is stealing a purse, and there is this.