Mettle, Metal, Meddled - Chapter 38 - Taking a hit (Patreon)

“Robin, send the league a message. This just became too much for us to handle alone,” Kaldur said, Robin immediately pulling up his wrist computer and typing away.

“I’ve activated the emergency beacon, but it's not getting through!” Robin said, even as the Kobra Venom-enhanced cultists roared in their drug-induced rage. “We are on our own!”

I pulled out my shield as M’gann and I rushed to join Kaldur and Wally, Superboy blowing past us. One of the mutated cultists, whose skin had cracked all along their arms and across their back, leaped into the air, straight at Kaldur. Kyle adjusted his direction and jumped as well, shoulder-checking the behemoth aside, the large angry hulk tumbling twice across the ground. It recovered quickly, turning to focus directly on Kyle, who zipped out of the way of a wild haymaker.

My attention was pulled away, forced to focus on the closer threat of two more mutated monsters bounding forward, the final third heading straight toward Kaldur and Wally. Robin ran up behind us, two birdarangs flying over my shoulders to dig into the thick hide of each of the charging monster cultists. The birdarang exploded nt a second later, detonating with a thunderclap that engulfed both of them in black smoke.

“We need to keep them off-center!” Robin shouted between our link. “Skarn, do that shifting foot thing!”

I nodded and stood up, getting into a low horse stance. This was going to be the toughest we had ever fought before, and I needed to be perfectly focused. The dark smoke of Robin’s delaying distraction cleared, even as our three other teammates fought their own double dose of drug-enhanced baddies. Both of the mutated cultists focused on us roared, one leaping into the air, the other running directly at me.

I stepped and swung my arm out in a chop, the ground beneath the running behemoth shifting, spinning just enough to force it to tumble, fall, and roll under its own forward momentum. The second transformed cultist landed hard enough to shake the ground, immediately jumping again, this time almost straight up, trying to reach M’gann.

It managed to wrap its hand around M’ganns leg, only for her to morph it into a boneless, almost tentacle-like form, the beast unable to grip it well enough to pull her from the sky. It fell back to earth empty-handed, giving me the perfect chance to act. As it fell to the ground I did a little hop, slamming down a wave of softened earth. The behemoth sank low as it fell, the soft earth swallowing up its legs past its knee and its right arm all the way down to its elbow as it stumbled, losing its balance in the shifting earth. I pushed more energy into the ground before coming up with a chopping motion, solidifying the ground around its trapped limbs into stone.

The second it realized it was trapped it frantically tried to free itself, the stone already starting to crack as it slammed its free fist down against it. Knowing I had a few seconds I whirled around, shoving my hands forward to force the second Kobra Venom-enhanced cultist to stumble and fall, its legs shoved out from under it. I was already turning back, just catching Robin from the corner of my eye as he pulled out his taser and launched darts into the exposed muscle tissue of his adversary, crackling out its full charge into his target.

When I focused back on the partially restrained, raging cultist I was just in time to see it break its arm free. Not willing to wait for it to get free and put us back to square one, I winced before spin jumping forward, and jamming my arms down, forcing the stone around its ankle to constrict and jut into its flesh. A muffled crack echoed through the stone, and the cultist roared in pain. I quickly let up the pressure, worried that the cultist would kill itself in its pain blinded rage. The monster mutate falling to the ground and quickly pulled its legs free, both of them sporting an extra bend a foot or so above its ankle.

Seeing the crippled monster was unable to even stand, I turned and rushed back to Robin, who was busy dodging wide swings from the second big guy. M’gann was helping, smashing rocks against its back whenever she could. As I ran closer the monster managed to grab hold of Robin’s bo staff, yanking it out of his grasp and sending the young hero tumbling and skidding across the ground in the process. Seeing him fall I poured on the speed, using earthen waves to boost me forward even faster.

The behemoth was on him in seconds though, shouting in triumph as it cocked its fist back and fired an exaggerated, but incredibly powerful punch against the unprepared hero.

And I took it entirely.

Arriving just in time, my shield was up and braced with my other arm, The enhanced cultist delivered a vicious blow, one that would have all but destroyed the thirteen-year-old hero. Instead, it landed squarely on my shield, the metal alloy holding for just the barest of moments before it crumpled, bending like cardboard around its fist.

My arm snapped like kindling.

The follow through of the massive blow raised me up and over Robin, and twenty feet further, sending me tumbling and rolling.

“Fuck!” I screamed as I did, pain radiating from my arm.

I gritted my teeth, holding back any further screams when I finally came to a stop, battered and bruised.

“Warren!” I heard M’gann shout in my head.

“Stay with Robin!” I called back, fumbling with the thick, heavy-duty straps on the shield.  “I’m fine!”

I finally succeeded in pulling off the straps, freeing my arm from its forced brutal angle. Pulling on Steve’s knowledge I pulled my arm into a better position, my vision narrowing dangerously as the pain of doing so nearly overwhelmed me. I quickly wrapped it in sand, solidifying it into solid stone to keep it as stable as possible before turning back to the fight, just in time to watch M’gann, her eyes glowing a bright green, heft the behemoth up into the air with a furious shout, before pile driving him down. She lifted him again, slamming him down four more times before the enhanced cultist went limp.

Seeing our second beast go down I started running towards Kaldur and Superboy, only to watch as Superboy barraged his target with a staccato of punches, fired at a speed I couldn't see past a blur. He drove the behemoth into the ground, digging a furrow into the Earth. He suddenly stopped, arm pulled back in mid-punch, standing up from the smoking form of his adversary.

As he stood I could see his armor was pretty heavily damaged, many of the armor plates had been torn free, bent or broken. His helmet was also gone, his face marked with a growing bruise and a cut along his cheek.

As one we turned to find Kaldur and Wally fighting the last remaining behemoth, Wally zipping around in a blur, harassing the brute, while Kaldur delivered savage blows. The mutated cultist was already looking rough though and went down quickly when Wally managed to trip up it up long enough for Kaldur to rush in close and deliver a massive shock straight into the tear in its thick skin that ran along its stomach and up its side to its back. Kaldur kept up the shock for nearly fifteen seconds before stopping, the behemoth collapsing to its knees. Kaldur stepped around it easily as it collapsed to its stomach, out cold.

For a second we all waited, holding our breath for a moment before Kaldur recovered enough to take back control of the situation.  Before we could say anything Robin's wrist communicator beeped.

“New Titans, report!”

“Dammit!”  Robin said, holding his arm out, the voice of Wonder Woman shouting from it. “Scared the hell out of me!”

“Wonder Woman, we had a situation but it has been handled,” Kaldur explained, Robin holding out his arm. “A jamming field was placed over the island, preventing us from contacting you further.”

“We know, my ring is filtering out the interference. ” Lantern Stewart explained, voice still coming through Robin's wrist computer. “What was the situation?”

“We took down the cultists, as well as the Kobra and the mutate. However, once we were finished, four more cultists took Kobra Venom and attacked.” Kaldur explained. “We attempted to contact you but the jamming field was already up. We managed to take them down but Skarn was injured in the process.”

“I blocked a punch with my shield and it folded like paper,” I explained, trying to ignore M’ganns growing worry. “My arm folded too. It's fine though, I already have it splinted up.”

The area was quiet for a long minute before they finally responded.

“Green Lantern is on his way to act as support. We have been in communication with Batman and the rest of the League and we all agree, the discovery of a permanent, mass-producible method of creating meta-humans is too big of a problem to perform a simple asset denial raid. We will not repeat the mistakes of Cadmus.” Wonder Woman explained, her voice filled with determination. “We will be setting up shop here and scanning the island from top to bottom.”

“What should we do in the meantime?” Kaldur asked.

“Maintain vigilance with Lantern Stewart.” She ordered. “Keep your eyes out for any disturbances. Superman and I will maintain the perimeter until League reinforcements and UN investigators arrive.”

“Bane is still on the island,” Robin added. “He isn’t exactly a heavy hitter but he knows how to make trouble.”

“Copy that, we will keep our eyes peeled.” The voice of Superman responded.

“Very well, New Titans out,” Kaldur said, Robin closing his wrist computer down now that they were done.

“It seems the mission objective has shifted. We need to hold this ground, at least until we are relieved. Kid Flash, Superboy, M’gann, clear the warehouse. Drag the first… enhanced out here and clear the rest of the building. I don’t want any more surprises.” He said, turning to Robin. “Let's start getting everyone restrained properly.”

Superboy and Wally blurred away, with M’gann swooping in after them. I could feel her worry for me, to which I responded with mental waves of reassurance.  Superboy returned thirty seconds after entering with the unconscious form of the first behemoth M’gann took out. As they worked Kaldur stepped closer to me.

“Skarn, how bad is your injury really?” He asked out loud.

“It’s definitely broken, but I’m alright. I have it set pretty well I think so I should be good, especially if I hang back and earthbend.”

“Alright, can you restrain the enhanced cultists?” He said, looking around. “Like you did with the first one?

“Easily, I can sink them into the ground, all the way up to their necks to keep them from having any leverage” I responded, getting a nod in return.

“Do it.” He said simply, turning back to help Robin start securing the normal cultists, pulling a bundle of zip ties out of his utility belt.

It took about twenty minutes before we had gathered all of the cultists and coraled them together, all of them completely restrained. Kobra in particular had several zip ties securing him, as well as an entire spool of cable from a grapple gun cartridge. By then some of the cultists were just starting to wake up and Green Lantern had arrived. He did a quick scan of my arm to confirm it was set properly before heading off to scan the surrounding area for patrols and any surprises the Cult of Kobra might have left around. He seemed content to let us do our thing as he did.

“Robin, any guesses on what is responsible for jamming our transmissions?” Kaldur asked.

“No, but it's powerful if the beacon isn't getting through at all,” Robin responded. “We are going to need to find it to shut it down.”

“Well it activated once this place was alerted, so chances are it's somewhere in the warehouse,” I commented. “Probably somewhere up high.”

“Probably, I’ll start looking.”  Robin said, turning to head back into the warehouse.”Kid Flash, lend me a hand?”

Wally and Robin re-entered the facility through the large front entrance, the former zipping ahead to start searching. With the Kobra Venom enhanced cultists now firmly secured in giant hunks of solid rock, their heads the only thing above the ground, I started raising stone barriers, giving us cover. It was a little harder with only one arm but I wasn't trying to make anything fancy.

“Skarn, what are you doing?” Kaldur asked when he saw me raising a chunk of rock as tall as me.

“Bane and his people are still out there, and we don't know how many Kobra patrols might be on their way back,” I explained as M’gann landed next to me. “Just throwing up some barriers, just in case.”

“Very well.”

It took around ten minutes for Robin to secure the radio jammer, both Wally and him carrying it outside together. It was a grey box about three feet wide and two feet tall, with a console of buttons and a wide screen on top. Robin and Kid Flash were carrying it by two robust handles on either side, it also had four spread-out antennae attached to the back, each one about two feet long.

“Found it,” Wally called, the both of them putting it down gently.

“It's a powerful model, made to function as the hub of a network of jammers, which it's doing now, or as a single powerful unit. It also can communicate through its own jamming through a randomizing signal output matrix. Top of the line, extremely hard to get your hands on,” Robin explained, crossing his arms.  “I’ll give you one guess as to who makes it.”

“Lexcorp.” Kaldur guessed, getting a nod of confirmation in return.

“That's right,” Robin responded, turning to the controls and tapping away. “I would have just turned it off or trashed it, but… well Bioship’s trick with the stasis pods made me think. The more tricks Bioship has up their sleeve the better.”

“Damn, that's a good idea… Any way we could snag some of the network nodes as well?” I suggested, but Robin waved the suggestion away.

“We can make our own nodes, that's relatively easy. This is the smart hub, it's the important bit.” He explained, working on the jammer for a few more seconds before its various lights dimmed, the screen going back. “Alright, it's off.”

With the last major problem solved, we huddled down to wait. Green Lantern Stweart returned after another ten minutes, carrying a bunch of cultists and four others, including an unconscious Bane, having apparently found him and his compatriots trying to convince the Cult of the Cobra members to fight alongside them to free their boss. I sealed Bane in rock and the rest of the team restrained the goons with more zip ties.

We waited a while longer, M’gann eventually calling the bioship over to scan the Lexcorp jammer, which took about thirty minutes. When it was done it formed a biotech equivalent in seconds, showing off its abilities before reabsorbing it.

“We all need to keep our eyes open for more stuff for Bioship to learn, assuming she is up for it,” I said, gesturing to the large red and black craft. “Every advantage we give her vastly improves our effectiveness.”

“Oh, she loves learning new tech!” M’gann assured us, smiling happily. “As long as it's not openly a weapon at least. She wasn’t built as a warship so it goes against her instincts.”

“She has been a valuable addition to our team,” Kaldur said, M’gann’s smile getting even bigger.

Eventually, Hawkman and Hawkwoman arrived at the island, as did Red Tornado. They relieved us of watching over the warehouse and we climbed back onto Bioship, leaving the Island behind and going directly to get my arm looked at and into a proper cast.