Chojin Patriarch
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Yes, that's his true superpower. Third smartest man on Earth with at least 14 PH.Ds (Presumably Lex Luthor is above him.) Everything else? That's pure human achievement, including Olympic medalist-tier fitness, sheer toughness and raw determination that I'm amazed has never earned him a green ring.16th September 2012
21:05 GMT -5
Pain!
"Con-tact."
Hellfire burns around my armour and scorches my body. And inside, I can feel it burn at my metaphysique, my constructs and environmental shield shimmering as it's attached directly. And I realise that Michael Holt is a lot more intelligent that any demon.
Just be glad Lex Luthor-Hell died in the first minutes of this whole thing. Can you imagine him all cultist-ed up and throwing his brand of crazy science at you?
Careful, OL. You know demonic energies don't agree with you. Like the world's worst case of lactose intolerance. Only with more Greed.Flames burning in the void shimmer orange as I try and ingest whatever he's using to power this.
"Do you-"
If I understand his position, he's in orbit right now. Not sure any of the Nazis cloud help, while the Wonder Women and Kryptonians are needed to fight Demon-Superman.The pain lessens and my body knits itself back together.
"-need help?"
The joy of being able to fight remotely, huh? All the danger to the enemy, at no risk to you. And it's probably messing with the compulsions of the control spell."Not yet, thank-"
I lash our at the T-Spheres as they form a sphere around me, but they shimmer out of phase with reality before I can hit them. Terrific himself floats back slowly, none of the insane passion every other corrupted human has had visible on his mask-covered face.
Given two of the things that drove him into heroism were the deaths of his mentally handicapped brother (by suicide) and his wife and unborn child (in a car accident,) if either of them died in the invasion..."-you. Engaging Mister Terrific."
Back on Earth 16, Michael Holt is still building his company and hasn't shown any interest in superheroing. I hope that the Sheeda invasion hasn't butterflied that.
So he can basically throw anything he casts at the area inside the pattern, and know it'll hit, since he can see you.I form a railgun as Terrific continues to watch me impassively, not reacting as I fire mage slayer and phasic rounds at him. Not even a blur as they pass through the space his image occupies.
And another wave of fire! The T-Spheres-! A three dimensional pentagram! That's how it's hitting me despite my tattoos!
Amazing little things. Apparently their concept was so good, both the supervillain Roulette and Batman stole the design. Michael was okay with the latter, but a bit salty about the former.I fly down, moving a hundred metres closer to the distant Earth. Terrific keeps pace without making any apparent movement, but the T-Spheres lag behind and lose formation as they accelerate after me. Alright, try phasic and mage slayer rounds at a few of those… Negative impact. Right, fine, but they're interacting with the physical universe somehow or they wouldn't be able to move. Not magnetism, not a self-generated force field otherwise I'd be able to detect the plasma surrounding them.
Oooh, effective! Keep that up!So gravity. Which means that if I generate an impeller construct and twist-.
The T-Spheres jerk, shifting their acceleration from me and towards a central point in their formation. For a second, at which point they go ballistic-
The joy of overspecialising your inventory.Shoot them again!
-with their gravity drives deactivated so that I can no longer interact with them by manipulating their motive system, but.. that doesn't mean that the magic keeping them out of normal space stops working. Can I..? Combine phasing and magic-draining into a single round? Not without a trip to Sephtian.
Last time, you nearly created a singularity inside Mount Justice, and needed the full bonding of the ophidian... Let's not go fooling around with it again?"Interesting."
Nth metal would probably work, but I'm all out. I could in theory make more, but-.
Oh, that's nasty. Seriously, the super-genius heroes can be really scary when they go bad...T-Spheres swirl, forming-move!
I dart aside as a portal opens between the T-Spheres, some sort of shimmering… Vapour? Gas? Drifts out. I spot the edge of the patch touch one of my gas traps and dissolve it, the gas being frozen by the cold field as the force field breaches before being so totally unmade that I can't even detect radiation that might be given off by a conventional disintegration effect.
Like trying to look a drone operator in the eye: Not all that effective.Need to get Terrific himself.
I try staring into his soul, but he's not actually here. There's nothing to see… But… I'm the focus of his thoughts and desires at the moment. I should be able to-.
Meh, legs are unnecessary. But now you have some T-spheres who are in physical contact with you!Agh!
Stabbed! Smaller portals have opened beneath me, dull grey needles jutting out and penetrating my legs! But those-. Portals!
Ooh, that's gonna be fun squeezing that out later. But now you have some Tang-Spheres.Mine.
The wavering area around the edge of the portals turns orange, the T-Spheres trying to back away but being… Stuck, by their own innate magics. The spines retract as I choke the flow of magic… Ow, ow, definitely demon magic but it's working for me.
Progress!The other T-Spheres float closer, one flying by its fellows to try and work out what's wrong with them. Move the portal and stab!
Dead T-Sphere!
Good thing you have a little knowledge of what you're doing... Could be bad if you inadvertently create a demonic magical nuke...It fades fully into the material universe and I get a good look at its internals. Spell circuitry of a short that's… I recognise some things, but demon magic isn't studied much in Atlantis and I've never asked Mammon to share more but if I understand the general design correctly-.
Orange tendrils grab components and move them around, plugging certain demonic runes into others and dispensing with irrelevant parts-.
Ah, enemy-controlling skills. Always a bag of fun.Hah!
Assimilate that mess so I can sort-of control it, press there and railgun!
Gee, yah think, Mikey? That's what happens when you try to play Xanatos Speed-chess with an expert.Two more T-Spheres are torn apart, and the rest I can see disappear in a puff of blue flame. The two on the portal appear to be stuck there, which I'll accept.
"Troublesome."
Firewall? What firewall? Counter-intrusion software? Pales in the face of a Power Ring...I thrust the portal in his direction, and… Connect my bodged anti-T-Sphere to my metaphysique directly. Now extend my tendrils along the spines and
tell
them what I want from them.
And decisively out of the fight. ...Ow.Mr. Terrific doesn't move as the approach, settling for watching the stolen portal. Why-? Countermeasures. He's probably given a good deal of though to the question of how to kill a Green Lantern, but he didn't know that there were other colours, much less the differences in their abilities. Green Lanterns can't do this.
The spines leap at his image, vanishing as they hit it. I make a point of folding my arms across my chest and repairing my armour. Mr. Terrific waves at something out of shot -probably preparing some sort of Super T-Sphere or something- then falls to the ground at the spines explode from his legs and arms.
Now, back to the real boss fight...His image vanishes, and I shoot both of the remaining T-Spheres maintaining my stolen portal. Helpful as it might be I don't know enough about that demon or the portals to want to risk it.
"Mister Terrific has fallen back injured." I look back towards Metropolis. "Pleas up-?"
If the next stage involves tying him up, I hope the Lasso can expand as much as it needs to...There's giant Superman shaped blur in the centre of Metropolis smashing apart buildings as if they were of no consideration. Three other blurs dash around it, tiny red lines briefly connecting them to the larger blur. They're all staying close to the ground, which if I had to guess is because Demon Superman doesn't want to risk getting pushed to the outskirts of the thaumosphere.
"The Kryptonians have engaged. Baron-" Diana only hesitates for an instant. "-Gestapo has fallen back safely and Baroness Blitzkrieg is preparing for the next stage. Are you injured?"
If there's one thing he's good at, it's moving fast. Just ask Jade... No, wait, bad example."Fine fettle and raring to go. What do you need?"
"Stand by to evacuate our allies if they are injured. Crusader is almost ready-."
Whatever he's frying, it's evidently not something OL wants fried...There's a blast wave as Demon Superman backhands Overman, sending him flying through half the city and then heat visioning-.
Transition!
I have the feeling this fight could turn bad any second. Or, if their plan works, it'll be over in minutes. Either way, things will soon be done and over with. Hopefully by super-punching Rakkar right out of Demon-Superman... And then comes the next problem: How to get everyone back to their respective worlds of origin. The Nazi's method was sloppy at best, you can't rely on random portals, and OL never did find out how Truggs was crossing the dimensional barriers, did he?
Given the context, perhaps 'attacked'?...my constructs and environmental shield shimmering as it's attached directly.
I lash out at the T-Spheres...
He's probably given a good deal of thought to the question...
There's a giant Superman shaped blur...