Metropolis

Domonic shrugged,absorbed the glove,and let his arm drop. "The authorities may think otherwise." He turned around and absorbed the bench,then said over his shoulder, "Speaking of which,I advise we make ourselves scarce. If I followed the smoke,then the authorities will,too." He walked to his bike,picked it up,mounted it,and began to ride off. "Adieu."
 
Shaking her head, she looked at the other man, before nodding her head. Turning the bike back on, she took off in the same direction she had been heading before, before cutting down an ally and turning back towards where she knew Nightwing would have gone to. Bruce Wayne.
 
Domonic biked away from the scene with his goal fulfilled; Gather as much mass as he can carry. He returned to his garage,and absorbed the bike,then reduced it to a small,dense orb. He liked to call these "Dark Matter Matricies",since he usually reused these objects. He dumped a large portion of his absorbed mass into the car frame,then stopped. "Why a car? They aren't very mobile..." He looked at the Matrix that held the mass for his bicycle. "Motorcycles are too big..." He absorbed the bike's Matrix,and made the bike again. He absorbed some mass from the car frame,and made an engine,modified the frame,and added a gas tank. By the end of it all,he had a small,compact motorcycle,with pedals. Most of his car frame remained,and he had nothing to do with it.


Domonic shrugged,and absorbed it all,and quickly turned it into a dark matter orb,before he collapsed under the weight. He had no idea what he'd do with that particular ball of mass. "I'll get an idea eventually." He hopped onto his new bike,and pedaled out of the garage. By law,it was still a normal bicycle,since it still had a pedal drive system. He rode around,enjoying the city,then,on a lark,he decided to kick on the engine,and go down to the buisness district. He stopped in front of Stark Industries,which was set up across the street from Wayne Industries. It seemed they were always competing with eachother,to see who would make the next big thing in technology.


He looked around,and,ensuring no one was watching,he turned his back to the CCTV camera pointed at the bike rack,and produced himself a bicycle lock,and attached it to the rear wheel and the rack. He stood up,and walked into the building. He looked at the hall,and,in the center of the foyer,rather than the usual fountain or statue most buisnesses had,was an arc fusion reactor. He heard stories about how it powered the surrounding area,save for Wayne,who refuses the power. He approached the receptionist's desk,and asked, "Are there any tours? I'm interested in learning about the technologies produced here."
 
Ryker had finally finished drawing his flesh to his body as the boy on the motorcycle took off.


"Weird kid" He muttered to himself "what's the world coming to these days... It's hard enough to walk down the street without being shot or blown up."


His jawbone clicked back into place, and he worked it back and forth with his fingers to make sure it wasn't hanging at an odd angle before walking back to where he had dropped his knife. Picking it back up off the ground he wiped it on his grimy shirt, already stained with blood.


"And I need to find myself a new change of clothes. that's the third set I've ruined this week."
 
Surprise overtook Talon’s features when the boy gave her an angry look and talked to her in the same way. Brushing off his anger, she watched as he opened his backpack to tiny robot bugs that flew out; the same bugs that should be helping them now, she guessed. Turning her attention back to superman she asked the obvious.


“So now what? Abandon ship?” she questioned, confused.
 
Arriving back at his safehouse, Grimm had already stopped bleeding, and deemed it worthwhile to get some rest. Killing and being killed was an awful lot of work. Despite his perpetual energy, even the madman had to sleep eventually. That happened to be the time. It would likely be about a week or so before his arm grew completely back, so he'd need to lie low.
 
"Toyman?" She repeated thoughtfully, keeping an eye on the bugs, prepared to swat them away if they ventured too close. At least they weren't real bugs, or so she assumed, judging by the kid's name. "This is him?" It probably came out more offensive than she'd meant it, but she was a little surprised that their informant was some kid with toys. "So... what are we supposed to do now? Just wing it?" she couldn't help but laugh a little at her pun. But in all seriousness, if he was supposed to help them (by knowing more than them) where were they now?


[[shooze bish, swhat i do]]
 
Toyman was a little angered at Scarlett's words. He made and angered expression before having the mechanical bugs return to his backpack.


"And for your information, i am the only man to actually get any information on this place." Toyman replied while almost entering a child's temper tantrum.


Superman looked down at the kid and nodded. Looking back at the other two, then right back at Toyman, he took a breath.


"So you actually got some information?" Superman asked.


Smiling at this moment, Toyman reached into his pocket and grabbed out a destroyed heap of metal.


"This was the only one to actually make it past the 'barrier' before being destroyed." Toyman said.


Wonderwoman walked around a little before shrugging her shoulders and paused at the heap of metal that was in his hand.


"And, how is that going to help us now?" wonderwoman asked.


~~~~


Meanwhile, back at the Wayne manor, Nightwing was pacing around the main room waiting on Gear. He had no idea if she would come here after disappearing, or if she wouldn't ever come back. His only choice was to stay here and wait. As he paced around the room, Bruce sat in a large chair near the fire place. They were both dressed in their casual clothes.


"Im sorry Bruce. I didn't know that she was no longer following me." Richard said.


"It is ok Richard. We will see what her side of the story is, if she shows up here." Bruce replied.
 
Toyman was getting angrier and angrier at everything she and Scarlett were saying, so Talon thought it best to keep out of the conversation. She really didn’t want to deal with a crying kid…especially one that was super-powered up. The informant, as he was, only had information in the form of one of his broken robot-bugs. Wonder woman was questioning if he could still get anything from it and she realized with some relief that the conversation was steered away from the two of them.


Talon noticed the map wasn’t moving and felt the need to interrupt a key point now,


“Are we here?” she asked, not sure who she had just spoken over.
 
Reaching the mannor, Gear stared at the gated wall around it, before leaning her head against the handlebars. The shock was wearing off, and a lot of delayed panic kept coming in flashes. She had no idea if she'd even be able to explain what happened, or how they would react to her at all. And given that her clothes were torn, ripped, and bloody, lying wasn't much of an option. For a moment, she almost felt like she was going to cry.


Drawing in a sharp breath, she pressed a button to the guard station before being let in. Going slowly up the drive, so the engine was barely audible, she gritted her teeth. Tightening her grip on the bike, she barked it off to the side, near an entrance into the manor. Getting off, she stopped and stared at her arm for a moment, flexing out the fingers once more. The whole thing was screaming in pain.


With the tightness in her throat growing, she moved across the grass before stopping, and knocking on the front door. Shutting her eyes for a moment, she realized that given the bat's way about her, she might not be leaving alive.
 
Wonder woman nodded and proceeded to the map. Pointing to the map, she outlined the route the two of them were going to take and set out to tell her all the troublesome spots.


"I can relay all the information to this jet's map console if you would like." Toyman said as he awaited her approval.


Superman stepped up to the map and placed his hands on the edge of the framing. Taking a breath, he awaited the information that toyman had gathered.


~~~~


Richard and Bruce waited in the main room as they sat near the fire place.


"So Richard. You think she will come back here?" Bruce asked.


As they heard the knocking, Alfred proceeded to the door and opened it up.


"They are waiting for you in the main room." Alfred said to the girl.
 
"Waiting...." Gear parroted, before shaking her head, giving him a half smile, and stepping in. Following his direction towards the main room, she felt the tightness grow worse and worse with each step. About to run her hand over her face as a habit to make it look 'clean' she stopped, and realized she was still bleeding on her one hand.


Approaching the main room, she paused for a moment, before stopping in front of that door as well. Looking down at the ground, she knocked once, and waited silently.
 
Gear stepped into the room quietly, well aware of their eyes. Stopping about five feet into the room, she stood there. As he spoke again, she looked at him for a second, before looking down at her shoes again. "Peyton, Sir." She said on a slow exhale, not even aware that she had been holding her breath the entire time since she'd entered the room, the same for the reason as to why she even spoke her birth name.
 
"ok Peyton. What would you like us to refer to you as? And can you explain your whereabouts and your current condition?" Bruce asked as he sat in his chair and brought his hands up to his mouth in a very intimidating way but had that curious thought to his face.


Richard sat in his chair about 5 feet from Bruce and awaited to hear where she had been and why she looks like she does.
 
"Which ever you wish, Sir..." She said softly. Swallowing hard, she could feel her ability to talk dying out. "The middle ground of the business and residential district. The man on the roof, his beeper was recieving message orders from there." She left out part of the truth, true, it had, she still had it with her as proof, if it wasn't destroyed, but her reasoning was left for them to figure out. As the thoughts of what she could say about why she looked like she did, tears started forming in her eyes, burning and hot, evaporating before they could even fall half way down her cheeks. The very thought of what they would do, how they would react....hello issues round number 5.


"A-" Her voice choked, and she shook her head, completely unable to speak as she just stood there, twenty years of age, terrified like a five year old. Ironic, given how many times she'd done that to kids in the old place she'd used to live. A few more seconds, and a complete sense of panic flowed over her and she just crumbled in on herself, unable to breathe, pulse rate spiking, the phantom pain of explosion in her arm coming back as if it was happening all over again.
 
Scarlett didn't have much of a reaction to Toyman's anger or Talon's question. She really just was curious to hear what Toyman had found out. It was supposed to help them find Superboy, or so she assumed. Whatever it was it would be better than the information she had now, which was literally nothing other than the fact that Superman and Wonder Woman couldn't get near this place.


Her attention turned to the map just as everyone else's had, and she waited for Toyman's information patiently, at least she looked patient. On the inside she was anxious to find anything out about this place, otherwise they would just have to run around hoping to find Superboy. She was also nervous but determined enough not to let it bother her too much. There was no doubt in her mind that they would find Superboy, they would keep looking until they did. It was just a matter of how fast and how easily, this is where she was hoping Toyman would help.
 
Bruce and Richard both watched as Gear started to have a panic attack but Richard was the only one to actually show any motion of worry.


"Sit down Richard!" Bruce yelled out as he continued to sit in his chair and watch what was unfolding.


~~~~


Toyman walked over and removed a panel from the platform and proceeded to connect a flurry of wires. As he connected the last wire, the holographic screen flickered and it started to replay the information.


~screen~


As the information formed into a video, it showed a large grey cloud of bugs and they all surrounded the base. All at once, the mechanical bugs shot towards the base and all within short range of the base, they were obliterated. The last bug watched as the other bug fragments fell to the ground and it sped up its video feed. As the video sped up, it was able to capture a blurry figure.


"Ok. So all you have to go on, is a blurry figure. I guess, that is better then what we have at the moment." Superman said.


"Ok ladies. Get your gear and get ready. We are going in fast." Wonderwoman said to Talon and Scarlett.
 
No, no no no no no....don't do it...don't loose control...She could feel it in her veins, the magma like sensation that would come before she started a fire, so to speak. Fumbling back to her feet, she kept shaking her head, staring at her hands as smoke came off of them. She suddenly wheeled around on her heel and ran out of the room. About two feet away from the door outside, everything slowed down, blurred, and started sliding. As she gripped the wall, desperately trying to take in air that wouldn't come, everything turned black, and for a moment, her skin went back to normal.
 
Awake not an hour after his head hit the pillow, Grimm thought of something brilliant.


"The pain... it was so incredible!" he shouted madly, flinging himself across the room, dragging an old banker's box out from beneath his modest desk, marked intricately by a knife long ago.


"They made me this way... they can make me stronger!" he went on, looking over the dusty documents on the lab he'd been made in.


"That girl could make for so much fun!" Grimm shouted gleefully, keeping his place on the page as he waved the new stub of his arm about wildly.


If Grimm were to gain access to the advanced labs of the government program originally started to create him, likely the scientists would still be there, and all their research. To advance himself, the prototype to his experiment, he could wind up far more destructive, unstable, and powerful than he was now. Even a child could see it, and Grimm happily decided he would.


"How could it not have occurred to me sooner!?" the madman queried to no one in particular as he walked back out of the safehouse, his boots crunching over the layers of dried blood on the cold concrete floors.


The trip to the lab would be the longest five kilometers of his existence, but they would make for the most interesting years to follow...
 
A panel removed, Toyman started working on connecting different wires and Talon watched the hologram amused. It seemed to switch color and shape, then turn into a haze before finally showing what he had uncovered. The bugs swarmed the base, and one bug managed to catch a blurry figure; with superman’s comment, she realized that was all there was to it.


A little confused at how that helped them at all, Talon was a little hesitant to grab her gear. Not that she knew what gear Wonder woman was talking about, as all she thought they were bringing were themselves.


“Gear?” she questioned the woman, shooting a confused look at Scarlett.
 
The complex, the plain squat concrete building brought back some memories, his first kills. Now they would bring more, more excitement; already injured things would be so much more interesting.


Approaching the plain steel gate, Grimm strolled right up to the guard posted there, and punched him in the throat, not even breaking a sweat as he murdered the armed man with his bare hands, er... hand. The entry scanners were still the same, checking for retinal and handprint scans; so he just tore the poor soul's eye from his socket as he lifted the man's arm into the scanner, and held the eye into it's own.


Right as rain, the gate opened, and somehow, Grimm hadn't laughed yet, the anticipation for future violence dulled the present. Infiltration was an easy matter, without it's former resources, the complex had quite little in the ways of security, allowing the super-soldier to easily gain access to the base.


"Why is this so boring!?" Grimm asked himself exasperatedly as he killed yet another poorly trained guard with nothing but the stub of his right arm.


"I know you can hear me!" Grimm shouted at the top of his lungs, sounding almost sane.


Another guard rounded the corner, this one Grimm didn't kill right away, he slapped the rifle aside, swiftly stepping in to flip the safety, eject the magazine, and tear out the firing pin, all in one swift series of motion, before the guard could even react. What seemed like an eternity later, they inhaled sharply, a gasp of surprise; with a much higher pitch than he'd expected. This one was a woman?


"Oh, ha ha!" Grimm cackled excitedly, "I love killing women slow... they scream so beautifully!" he continued, elbowing her in the ribs, right where there was no vest, knocking the wind from her lungs. This was hardly for the enjoyment; Grimm was playing a mind game, though no one would have realized it should they have known him before this. As he drew her combat knife, he snickered a little, this time real, as he drew the blade across her cheek gently, just as a little reminder before he started to cut sloughs away.


Suddenly the intercomm crackled to life, a voice shouting in desperation, "Just tell us what it is that you want!? You don't need to kill any more people!"


Such a simple train of thought... just to remind them who was to be in charge, Grimm sliced half the woman's ear clean off, cartilage and minute bone fragments spilling onto the floor amidst the blood.


"I don't think you truly understand the situation! Bring me to my creators!" he shouted, giggling a little at the pathetic whimpering of the guard beneath him.
 
Bruce and Richard still watched as Gear more or less stumbled out of the room.


"We need to do something bruce! Look at her!" Richard yelled out twice at Bruce.


"Keep your head calm Richard. All will turn out right in the end. After all, she did come back here after vanishing from your sight, did she not?" Bruce replied in a nice calm voice.


Raising his hand and pointing two fingers out towards the door, a book shelf opened up and 3 small child like figures exited from behind the bookshelf and followed Gear. Reaching her, the child like figures grabbed a hold of her arms and drug her up stairs towards her room. It was one kid on each of her arms and one kid walked behind her up the stairs. Every visible sign of her powers seemed to vanish as the kids approached her.


~~~~


"That is the great part. This ship is equipped with the highest technology that anyone has ever seen. It is not just go invisible, it will equip any gear possibly imagined." Wonder woman replied to Talon.
 
Ending up in her room, Gear remained unconscious, her inner mind sealing in a swirl of events. Fire and blood, gun shots, smoke, faces and laughter. A fever started to grow, and she began to waver in and out between being awake and coughing harshly, and in the black and drowning in a both a conscious and subconscious guilt.
 
Wonder woman straightened up and looked at talon once again.


"I am just kidding. Trying to lighten the mood before you go in there." Wonder woman said.


"We will be on the other side of the base as a distraction. We will attempt to draw all the fire away from you three." Superman said as he looked at the still image of the blurry figure.
 
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