16th September 2012
21:02 GMT -5
"Shadow of War, in position."
In Babylon 5, the character Mr Morden once told the character Prime Minister Londo Mollari, 'What are you going to do, Mollari, eh? Blow up the island?'. And Mollari replies, '
Actually…'.
"Baron Gestapo, in position."
In the comics, that…
Weird, Middle Eastern Zod once turned the sun red in order to weaken Superman. I
could do that, eventually, but it wouldn't be very healthy for the Earth or the Sun. Instead, I'm creating a giant filter and surrounding it with gold kryptonite crystals. Superman, Overman and Overgirl know not to come anywhere near this, but demons aren't known for their sound judgement.
"Baroness Reiter in position."
Of course, it's still dark where the Demon Superman is, but this is a misdirect/trap, so-.
Gosh…
Darn he's huge. I thought the big heat vision beam when we first arrived was… I don't know, diffusion in the atmosphere due to the distance. Nope. That's just how big possession has made him. Somehow. I… Don't know enough about demon magic to know how that could happen. I mean, I'm
hoping it's just a result of the presence of the demon, because… I don't know what we'll do if he's stuck like that.
H
eh-.
Ah
crap I think he just looked at me. I
think. He looked this way and he was using telescopic vision, I know that for certain. But I don't know if he was looking at
me specifically.
Aahhh, I hate the fact that cold fields don't work in a vacuum. I've set up some cold-field-gas-contained-by-force fields traps, but I'm pretty sure he can just fly around those. But I'm as ready as I'm going to get.
I generate a gold kryptonite laser.
"Orange Lantern in position.
"
Bombarding Demon Superman with kryptonite won't work when he's got no pressing reason to stay in one place. And I can't do it while he's fighting because we've got three kryptonians on
our side who will be affected as well. And that's assuming that I can keep up when they're moving at maximum speed, which…
Probably not.
I watch as… Yes, they actually found Demon Flash. The local one is an older Wallace West, according to Diana. According to her, Demon Superman had him attacking the few people who managed to resist the corruption effect in America, but she had no idea what he'd been doing recently. I watch as the red blur runs back into Metropolis, completely ignoring the various people trying to scratch out a living from the ruins. It passes them in a f-.
Second, and few of them bother to react.
Demon Superman doesn't look around. Instead, he lowers his head and looks back across the Atlantic to where
our kryptonians are waiting.
And doesn't react at all as Baroness Reiter dashes past him wearing Flash's stolen uniform, x-ionised knife flying from her right hand to bite into his right ankle.
That gets a reaction. Red light blasts from his eyes but she's still moving, not faster than the beam but faster than his head can turn. Or at least
is turning at the moment. He still hasn't got up from his customary seat in the wreckage of the Daily Planet but the expression on his face has gotten just a little more wrathful.
I fire the kryptonite laser.
From this far away I actually get to count a few seconds before-.
It hits, but all the reaction it gets is a quick look up-.
Plasma shots from Baron Gestapo's robots slam into his left side from their position on the ruins of the Statue of Providence in the harbour. Okay, he's not affected by gold kryptonite.
"It looks like he's not affected by gold kryptonite.
"
"Counter-fire read-."
Heat vision ignites the air between Demon Superman and the Statue, only to vanish as three of the other robots fire cold beams into its path.
Some radiation gets through, but they're easily tough enough to survive it.
"Ready." Baron Gestapo can't keep the smugness out of his voice. "I
told you that the targetting-."
Demon Superman lowers his gaze, moving the heat beam so that it's pointing at the water of the bay. The cold gun armed robots match his angle even as their brethren continue to pepper him with shots. We were pretty sure that they wouldn't do any damage, but that's not what they're supposed to do.
"That the targetting system would be able to
cope."
Another knife buries itself into Demon Superman's leg as Baroness Reiter dashes past him on the opposite side, and I see it as his right hand turns the rubble it's resting on into dust.
He's not hurt, but he's getting annoyed. Okay, can I do anything about his protective aura? If he stays exactly where he is, maybe. Diana said that they didn't have any specifically anti-magic weapons, so he's probably never encountered anything exactly like my mage slayers before.
I'm mostly supposed to be a distraction until he gets up, so… Yes. I change the laser construct into a teleport gun construct, because a railgun shot would be
far too slow. It won't hit hard enough to hurt him… Heck, if he makes an effort he could still dodge it. But it looks like we haven't annoyed him enough to even get up yet.
What
is he waiting for?
A few miles south west Demon
Citizen Steel is intercepted by a vampire enthralled to Count Berlin. The vampire won't be able to hurt him significantly but the reverse is also true as the vampire can turn into mist or a cloud of bats to evade Heywood's punches. If we're
really lucky the vampire will be able to mesmerise him, but we don't
need that to happen.
We don't want anyone providing cover for Demon Superman, and we want him to
know that we're blocking them. We're not.. sure what the mechanism is for him getting corrupted superhumans to aid him. Diana said that he couldn't do it when he first transformed, but that it definitely predated Wolf's efforts. If we could work it out… We might have tried interfering with it using magic. But those vampires can earn their clemency.
The sea between the bay and the statue is completely frozen and Demon Superman cuts off his heat vision. He's smiling faintly. Okay, so-?
Hordes of rag-clad cultists charge out from the city and begin the run towards the statue.
"Raaahhhh!"
Ah, that would explain-.
The plasma gun armed robots shift their fire-. And he's using the stun setting, thank goodness. We had a talk about the inadvisability of killing people in an area affected by demonic magic, but it's nice to see that it actually sunk in.
Baroness Reiter dashes past again, this time running directly in front of him. He ignores the hit, instead, using… Flashes of heat vision to turn the broken ground into a series of molten pits that will make it far harder for her to travel there again.
There's a flash of light next to-
"No mark?"
-me as a twisted version of
Michael Holt appears, T-spheres with a pentagram decorating their face floating around him.
"No life."
Filaments flash out from my construct armour, reaching for-. Passing through him. Phasing? I can get around-.
The T-spheres glow and
agh!
