-1-“How close can we get?” Katana asked.
Electrocutioner, who was piloting, was unhappy. “Depends on how close it gets to land before we can reach it. There's no real island in the Caribbean where we can just land and then fight it. But it's heading for the States, so the problem becomes getting to its general target zone first.”
Katana wasted no time asking if they could fly some members close enough to battle it over the ocean. The logistical nightmare such a question presented rendered it irrelevant. “Can we get to land first?”
“Probably. It's fast, but not too fast. The real trick will be to land close enough to be ready for it when it makes landfall.”
“Her,” Katana corrected absently.
“Yeah, her.” Electrocutioner's mouth twisted. “Why does she just wanna attack? For money? Revenge?”
Katana shook her head. “From what I understand, and this data is incomplete and uncertain mind you, it is simple hate.”
“Oh great.”
She had no answer for that so she left him alone.
*****************
-2-Knockout was trying to explain the concept of what they were facing to the Parademon.
He had become more focused and aware these last few weeks; he would never be 'human' anymore than she herself was, but he was beginning to learn enough not to be a mindless killing machine. It did Knockout's heart good to see it.
“A living storm, Mistress?” he asked uncertainly, trying to wrap his primal brain around the concept.
She smiled sadly. “A person is at the center, directing the storm.”
“So....that is our target?”
“Yes. We have fought through storms before, on Apokolips; I have, and I know you have.”
The Parademon nodded slowly.
“But those storms were not guided directly from within, by a guiding will. This will be a new challenge for both of us.”
“But might prevails in the end, if we do not falter,” the Parademon answered.
“Yes, but not faltering is the hard part. I know it takes a very long time for you to tire, but this time might be different.”
He straightened up. “I will not fail you, Mistress!”
She sighed. For all that he was improving, there were still some basic concepts he did not understand. “I know you will not fail me. Just be ready to face a different sort of trial than you have before.”
*****************
-3-The storm was hers, and she guided it toward the coast. Soon, yes, very soon.
She was mildly surprised she had faced no real opposition yet. Costumed metahumans.
But she was sure she would, and she couldn't wait.
Destruction was it's own art form, it's own pleasure.
She had never understood the cowardice and restraint that others displayed—except in the case of saving one's own skin, of course—and now that she had power, she would never hold back again.
She was worried about some of the ‘big name’ heroes coming after her; Wonder Woman, or Green Lantern, perhaps even Superman. But she was confident that given time, they could be beaten, even killed.
Because she could feel her power growing all the time. Time was, quite literally, on her side.
*****************
-4-She came ashore near Mobile, Alabama. The area had still never fully recovered from Katrina a few years back, and was vital to the American economy.
But this hurricane was different. It was guided by a furiously heartless mind and will, and it would tear apart everything in its path, simply for the gratification of the mind behind it. And it would not stop or dissipate over land, it would simply keep going and going until it's host got tired or was stopped.
By any means necessary.
The Squad jet aimed for a landing, but those members who could advance alone did not wait. Parademon flew on, and Enchantress teleported out, whilst Resurrection Man flew after her.
“I need a jetpack,” Malthus lamented. “I shall have to start building one immediately after this is over.”
“If we survive,” Manhunter said dryly.
Knockout said nothing, but watched Parademon fly away, towards the maelstrom, concerned for her charge, until the plane turned away.
Frost could not fly, but even before the plane was over land she jumped out and blasted the shallow waters of the Gulf with her frigid abilities. She slipped and slithered uncertainly on the iced-over water at first, but gained confidence and managed to set off at a run towards the storm, creating a bridge of ice in front of her as she went.
Enchantress was the first to arrive, and she began to chant spells of power, but the wind drowned out her voice. No matter, she could still use simple manipulation of magic energy.
Almost casually, she gestured and sent a wave of sickly green energy into the whirling, raging storm. For a moment there was nothing. She frowned, that surely should have had some kind of affect.
Then a blast of lightning reached out of the storm and struck her. Her natural defenses helped some; she was not killed outright. But she fell, stunned, towards the ocean, and within her mind Erinyes was trapped. For all their common bond and shared power, the younger witch could neither wake her mentor nor take over the body herself.
Resurrection Man flew after, trying to catch her.
The Parademon arrived next. He lunged into the storm, howling and hacking away with his axe, to no avail. On some level he was aware that he had to find the host inside to do any real damage, but his berserker rage was taking over.
Bolts of lightning flew at him. He dodged the first two, but the third struck home; and while the high voltage made his body armor sizzle and his teeth ache, in truth it only made him angry.
Then the wind of the hurricane itself was focused upon him, and he struggled to stay upright. He controlled his own flight, and the dark steel of Apokolips could not be damaged by these winds. But what the storm could do was send his flight pattern all over the place and keep him at bay.
Killer Frost was next, still uneasy on her ‘ice surfing’ technique. She made no attempt to actually enter the range of full force winds, but stayed outside the stronger buffets and began to freeze the ocean itself. The surface waters began to lock up and turn brittle in a slow, strange pattern heading into the storm, then bits of it were ripped up. Frost smiled and gestured, sending them into the heart of the storm like daggers.
Her aim was not the best and she didn't know where exactly in the eye of the storm the enemy metahuman was, but they were now aware of her, though. A bolt of lightning ripped past her. It slammed into the ice and went everywhere in the water for miles, causing Frost's ice to explode. She screamed and splashed into the water just as the cruel electric arcs were fading.
Enchantress was recovering in Resurrection Man's arms. Wordlessly she pointed, and they moved into the storm itself. She put up a magical shield to protect them from the winds ravages. Under her guidance, they aimed for the eye of the storm.
*****************
-5-Manhunter, Vixen, Electrocutioner, Knockout, Cavalier, Doctor Malthus, and Katana got out of their plane and headed as fast as they could for the ocean.
For perhaps the first time since his leadership tenure of the Squad had begun, Manhunter mourned the fact that they didn't have a speedster on the team. Oh, Vixen could call upon a cheetah's speed well enough—was doing it now, in fact—but there was nothing quite like having someone on the team who could move at nearly the speed of light.
Having Enchantress on the team was almost as good, she could teleport people. But she and Resurrection Man had gone ahead to face the enemy, and he couldn't really fault them for that.
He and Vixen had briefly considered trying to evacuate Mobile and the surrounding areas, but for one thing the less altruistic members of the team would never agree to it. For another, they had neither the time nor the resources to get it done. The hurricane simply moved too fast to do anything about it; even the local authorities hadn't even properly begun the evacuation. And they could not properly evacuate even a fraction of the population in time. Manhunter shuddered to think what, say, Knockout would have done to someone who was reluctant to leave.
But greatest of all was his concern of how exactly they were going to stop this thing.
*****************
-6-Knockout rolled her eyes as Vixen charging ahead. She loped after her at a more casual pace.
She was not at all surprised when she came to the water and found Vixen coming back, bedraggled and out of breath.
“Couldn't get through the storm?” she said with false sympathy.
Vixen spat and fumed. “Unfortunately,” she admitted.
Someone else might have said that Vixen had let her emotions run away with her. Knockout merely saw her as another stupid Earthling. But, a potentially useful stupid Earthling.
Trying not to sound patronizing, she said “Perhaps you could take the form of a....dolphin, I think it's called....or some other swimming beast, and swim under the storm?”
Vixen raised an eyebrow. “The ocean is also affected by the storm,” she said.
“Yes, but at least then you'd have a fighting chance to reach the eye, and the target.”
“You have a plan?”
“After a fashion. Take that swimming form, and let me hang on until you get there. Then perhaps we can do something.”
“You can't fly, what if she's up in the air or something?”
Knockout curbed her anger with some difficulty. “At least we will be in a position to see what is going on, and perhaps we will be able to lure her down to us, if she is floating. And in any case, what was your plan if you went in without me?”
Vixen's shoulders slumped, and she nodded. “All right.”
They took to the water.
*****************
-7-Katana waded in, focused and controlled. She needed no one to tell her to go under the water. Her only concern was if she would get deep enough to avoid the tidal disruptions, and also without killing herself. She did not have the invulnerability of Knockout or Vixen to simply wade through the storm surge as though it were nothing.
But she did have mental discipline and focus. She stalked in with grace and purity of purpose.
More than twenty feet back, Cavalier stared at her in amazement. He might be her match at swordplay, but in pure toughness she would always defeat him.
*****************
-8-As Cavalier came back to the others, hat askew and gasping, it became apparent that there was no way they could follow the others into the storm.
“This is nuts,” Electrocutioner said. “We can't get in there.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Manhunter snapped. He was very worried seeing Vixen go in.
“Not in....” said Malthus, realizing. “Over.”
“What?”
“I said over.”
Electrocutioner was nodding. “Yeah, yeah I get it. Back in the plane!”
“But...” and then Manhunter understood. They raced back to the plane.
*****************
-9-Enchantress and Resurrection Man pierced the eye of the storm and came into that open, eerie quietness at its center.
The woman who was the heart of this particular maelstrom floated about halfway up. They were still too far away to see her expression, but she reacted to their presence immediately; a bolt of lightning ripped out of the encircling storm wall and struck.
Enchantress' mystical shield held, with some difficulty.
“We must close with her,” Enchantress said.
“This is madness,” Resurrection Man said. “We can't keep this up!”
Enchantress raised an eyebrow at him; he had rarely shown such initiative since falling under her and Erinye's shared dominion. “Calm yourself,” she said gently. “We can defeat her. Move closer in now.”
Frowning unhappily, Resurrection Man did as he was bid.
Another lightning bolt lashed out, and again she blocked it.
“Why doesn't she just bring the storm down on us?” He wondered.
“Probably the physics of her powers don't work that way,” Enchantress guessed. “She couldn't do that without collapsing the storm entirely, and thus losing her main offensive weapon. But as you can see--” she blocked another lightning blast--”she is far from helpless.”
Needing no further prodding, Resurrection Man blasted at their enemy with his diminished version of Captain Atom's powers; a bolt of radiation was hurled at the foe. She did not block, but instead floated to one side, dodging.
“She cannot block, that is good to know,” Enchantress mused. She hurled a spell of withering at the storm-wielder, and while she cringed and shivered, she did not fall. “But apparently she does have some degree of inherent defense.”
Another lightning bolt slammed into them. Again Enchantress' shield held, but the force of the blast knocked them apart, and Resurrection Man was once again forced to fly down and catch her.
*****************
-10-It didn't take long for Vixen and Knockout to catch up to Katana. She was walking with a slow measured pace under the seabed. Holding her breath, Vixen wondered what sort of mental discipline was involved.
Knockout wasn't impressed, but she did respect Katana's discipline. {I]What a team this would make[/I], she thought,
if even half of them were true warriors like this one!Knockout had her arm around Vixen as she swam below the surface, both of them holding their breath as Vixen called upon the power of a dolphin. Knockout had bulled her way through the storm surge, carrying Vixen, and then they had reached the choppier but deeper waters where Vixen could truly begin to move.
Knockout hooked her arm around Katana as they swept past. Katana jerked and drew her namesake blade, slowly and sluggishly in the water. By the time she was ready to strike with it, she was aware of what was happening. Knockout had better underwater sight than humans, but here in the murky storm-darkened waters it was difficult to tell; she believed, however, that Katana shot her a glare. She grinned unpleasantly back, knowing it wouldn't be seen anyway.
Up ahead, the water was lightening. They were approaching the eye.
*****************
-11-The Squad jet shot up and over the storm wall. It wasn't really cleared or designed for these altitudes; the oxygen masks popped out and the remaining Squad members breathed deeply of them.
“I should have thought of this before,” Malthus said into his mask.
The others wasted no time replying. At last, they came over top of the eye and dove in.
*****************
-12-The storm wielding psychopath looked up and saw the jet flying down towards her, just as Katana, Vixen, and Knockout broke the surface below, gasping in deep breaths.
The metahuman bared her teeth into something that wasn't exactly a smile, and conjured a bolt of lightning that slammed into the jet.
It did not explode, but did lose power, and started to plummet towards the ocean below.
The recovering Enchantress once again called upon her power to catch the plane and settle it gently into the water. It was a strain, and she needed Erinyes' help to lower it with the gentleness required. Even so, it splashed and shuddered, and some of the windows cracked. All the while Resurrection Man was blasting at the enemy, keeping her distracted.
“Continue to keep her busy,” Enchantress told him. She could not, properly speaking, fly. But she could levitate herself and others, which was how she had controlled the jet's fall. She had also seen the three women come up through the water, and shifted the plane to avoid them. This had all taken some doing.
The storm-wielder had shown much strength and power to shield herself, and while Enchantress wasn't sure, she suspected the storm-wielder was increasing her power.
As she thought this, she noticed that the winds were whipping up; the storm-wielder was shrinking the eye. She did not have to wield her powers in the form of a hurricane if she chose not to; and clearly she meant to consume them all in the storm until they were dead.
Enchantress herself and Knockout would probably survive that. Maybe Vixen too. And death really meant nothing to Resurrection Man....except she would lose her hold on him. That could not be allowed.
She believed she could, given time, chant a powerful enough incantation to slay the storm-wielder. But clearly, her foe would not give her that time.
So she continued with the plan she had decided on. Focusing as much as she could, with Erinyes help, she lifted Vixen, Knockout and Katana. Vixen and Knockout she simply threw at the enemy; but Katana she brought to herself.
“This enemy has much resistance, I have learned,” she said to Katana. “We must combine our strength.” So saying, she reached out and touched Katana's namesake blade, muttering a word of power. The blade crackled with green, sizzling energies.
Katana hated to see her weapon so dishonored by sorcery, but understood the plan. She nodded.
Knockout and Vixen were pounding away at the storm-wielder, without much effect. Parademon and Killer Frost were still lost in the storm. And the eye was closing.
The storm-wielder knocked Vixen and Knockout away just as a blast from Resurrection Man struck her in the face. She shook her head to clear it of the minor inconvenience, but as she did Enchantress sent Katana flying at her. She saw her coming and started to summon a lightning bolt, but before she could finish, Katana reached her and swung her blade.
It cleaved through the storm-wielder 's neck in a single strike.
For a moment the storm raged on...then the storm-wielder 's headless body fell into the ocean. The turbulent weather weakened and faded into simple, mild rain, which would quickly dissipate.
*****************
-13-The Squad jet might have been salvaged, but without power it was sinking into the ocean. Vixen and Knockout rescued Manhunter, Electrocutioner, and Doctor Malthus from the sinking wreck. All of them were unconscious, and Electrocutioner was badly burned due to feedback overload form his own equipment, but all three of them would survive.
“Waller will not be pleased,” Resurrection Man said.
Vixen looked up from where she was tending Manhunter on the beach and gave a bitter laugh. “What else is new?”
“We won,” Knockout said. “That's all that mattered.”
“Well hooray for us,” Killer Frost said, and Resurrection Man nodded his agreement. Enchantress shot him another glance, he would need another enchantment, and soon. They had to get out of the public eye, first.
“I cannot say it was an honorable engagement,” Katana said. She turned to Enchantress. “You have wisdom, but there is much darkness in you.”
Enchantress grinned unpleasantly. “You have no idea.” Beside her, Resurrection Man shifted uncertainly again.
Katana said not another word, but turned and stalked into town.
She had never been so pleased to leave a group of people behind in her life.
