Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ Teen Titans: Future Storm ❯ Vermillion ( Chapter 27 )

 

“Teen Titans: Future Storm”

Arc 6: “Justice”

Chapter 2: “Vermillion”

Disclaimer: Teen Titans belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers, not me. The characters of Nightstar, Mercury, Ravager, Slade, and several others do not belong to me, either. Everyone and everything else is mine, though.

Author's note: I was worried that people were starting to lose interest in this story, but I've gotten a few good reviews that have told me otherwise. Feedback is good because it makes the fanfic writer believe that his or her work is worth a damn. In many cases, even criticism - as long as it's constructive - is good because the critic just might believe that your work is worth enough of a damn that he or she wants to make it better. Thanks, my reviewers, for helping me to keep the faith.

Anyway, a small warning: There is death here. There is a death at the end. It is not a nice death. It is not a pleasant death. It is a death that will test the spirits of the Titans. And now, enough of the foreboding talk and time for you to see what leads to this death.

The next day during lunch at school, the Titans were sitting by themselves. The cafeteria around them was abuzz with conversation, although Nightstar's and Bladefire's ears were sharp enough to distinguish at least sixty percent of what their fellow students were saying. The conversations taking place concerned the newest teen hero team to arrive in the spotlight, Infinity, Inc.

“Who do you think's cuter, Solarflare or Hermes?”

“Hermes! Runners rule!”

“Who do you think would win in a fight between Nightstar and Nightside?”

“Dunno. Do I have to choose?”

“Let's look at the stats here. Nightstar has super-strength, can fly, has that sweet whip, and the optic blasts. Nightside has super-strength, too, and she's really fast. Plus, they're both skilled in martial arts.”

“If you say it like that, then it sounds like they're about even.”

“Ok, let's put it in terms we can both comprehend. Who's cuter?”

“I don't know. I'd have to say Nightstar, if only because I can't see behind that mask Nightside wears.”

“Copout, suckface. Copout.”

“Our fangirls have finally stopped bothering us,” Mercury said. “I'm almost grateful to Infinity, Inc.”

“Well, fangirls are very fickle,” Inferno remarked. “I'm just wondering where they came from.”

“They've been rather forthcoming about that,” Bladefire answered. “In the cases of all but Nightside, it was a dormant meta-gene that activated one day. In Nightside's case, it was radical neurosurgery to save her life from a disease attacking her nervous system. That's where her strength and speed come from; it's neuromuscular enhancement.”

“Hasn't anybody noticed that pretty much everyone on Infinity, Inc. has the same basic abilities and motif as a member of the Justice League?” Beast Girl asked.

“Now that I think about it, yeah,” Mercury replied. “Solarflare and Ultraviolet are like Superman and Wonder Woman, only instead of heat vision, Solarflare can disassemble anything he looks at and Ultraviolet's lasso is created from ultraviolet radiation. Nightside's a lot like Batman, only female. Hermes is a speedster, Garnet can do the same things with plasma energy that a Green Lantern can do with their power ring, and Aquamarine is a hydrokinetic. Interesting coincidences.”

“It's not like there's a copyright on powers,” Nightstar mused.

“The doctors who patched up Nightside were medical scientists working for Lena Luthor,” Bladefire mentioned.

“And that patch-up turned Nightside into a meta,” Nightstar said, “a meta who joined Infinity, Inc., the same team that has the distinction of being the only metahuman crime-fighting team Lena supports. This is starting to stink more and more.”

“We'll have to worry about that later,” Inferno answered, looking at the clock. “Lunch period's over. We gotta go to class.”

That day, the assorted members of Infinity, Inc. were hanging out in the obelisk-shaped headquarters provided for them by Lena Luthor. The six had been ordinary teenagers once upon a time, until things had changed for them. Lena Luthor had been the one to make that change and they were all grateful to her for it. They had a new lease on life and superhuman powers to go along with it.

“You ran into Mercury, didn't you?” Solarflare asked Hermes. The leader of the team, he was a tall, athletic boy with dusty brown hair and clear blue eyes. His outfit was a dark red full-body suit with an ornately designed golden S-symbol on the chest.

“Yeah, so?” Hermes asked, his goggle-glasses removed to reveal green eyes. “That poser ran away from me.”

“You know the fun part about all this?” Ultraviolet asked, a twinkle in her violet eyes. “Being loved by so many people. Never thought that would happen to me.”

“I love you,” Nightside whispered softly.

“I don't want you to love me,” Ultraviolet answered harshly. “I'm not attracted to you, ok? Get that through your head before I push it through for you.”

Ultraviolet and Nightside were about as different as day and night. Ultraviolet was silver-haired and garbed in violet and silver, her outfit consisting of a body-hugging suit colored violet with long gloves and tall boots colored silver. A silver sash wrapped around her torso diagonally and silver star-shaped earrings dangled from her ears. Nightside was dark-haired and dressed in a black one-piece that covered her torso from neck to pelvis. Long black gloves covered her hands and arms and tall black boots covered her feet and most of her legs, leaving barely any skin exposed. The lower half of her face was concealed by a black mask, leaving dark eyes - and the hurt in them - exposed.

“Ultra, chill out,” Garnet said. She was a girl with bright red hair, red eyes, and dressed in a figure-hugging black suit with red shoulder guards, red elbow guards, red wrist guards, and red knee guards. At the moment, she was shaping her plasma energy into random chess pieces, like knights, rooks, bishops, kings, and queens.

“Why should I?” Ultraviolet asked. “I've made it clear that I'm not interested and she keeps mooning after me like some lovesick psycho!”

“Doesn't mean you have to be a bitch about it,” a woman's voice cut in. The assorted Infinity, Inc. members turned around to look at their visitor. It was the PR agent hired for them by Lena Luthor, Ms. Catherine Rook. Her brown hair was in its usual neat bun and she was garbed in a crisp navy pantsuit. “Where's Aquamarine?”

“Still in the pool,” Hermes replied. “Want me to get her?” Before Ms. Rook could answer, he had already sped away to retrieve the aquatic girl. Within a few minutes, he had returned with Aquamarine, a girl with blue hair and violet eyes. She wore what looked like a silver-and-blue short-sleeved wetsuit.

“What is it, Ms. Rook?” Aquamarine asked, her voice wispy.

“You kids have a public appearance to make,” Ms. Rook replied.

“Where?” Solarflare inquired.

“The local youth center,” Ms. Rook answered. “It's been renamed the Infinity Youth Center, in your honor.”

“Gee, I wonder how much Ms. Luthor paid them to do that,” Ultraviolet commented with biting sarcasm in her voice.

“Does it matter?” Ms. Rook asked. “As long as you're able to do your job and have the full support of the public behind you, no. In fact, this whole operation depends on you maintaining a good public front.” She glared at Solarflare and Hermes. “You know what that means, you two.”

“Yeah,” Solarflare droned in bored tones. “No fun.”

“Your concept of fun would disgust those same parents who want their kids to grow up to be like you,” Ms. Rook retorted. “Your appearance at the youth center is in 30 minutes. You should be able to make it.”

In Titans Tower, the Titans had finished their homework. Mercury had been the first to finish, accelerating his mind to complete his assignments in the space of half an hour. Nightstar and Bladefire had been next, followed by Inferno and later Beast Girl. Samara's face was buried in her medical cyber-text, mainly by choice; she wasn't as eager as some of her fellow Titans to be through with her work. In the background, she heard Nightstar watching the 5 o'clock news, which was displaying Infinity, Inc. at the youth center that had been recently renamed in their honor.

“What do you think would happen if the Watchmen Act was passed?” a reporter asked the Infinitors.

“If it happened, we wouldn't mind,” Solarflare replied. “The superheroes out there have their hearts in the right place, no doubt about that, but what they don't get is that they can't just run around playing cops and robbers. Besides, right now, who do they answer to if something goes wrong and somebody gets hurt or killed while they're doing their thing? With the Watchmen Act, we'd all have to be more careful and there'd even be a screening process so not just anybody with powers or combat skills can just throw on a costume and start beating people up.”

“How do you know there'd be a screening process?” another reporter asked.

“We talked to a senator about it,” Solarflare answered. “And a screening process would be an excellent idea, in light of the fact that some people calling themselves superheroes are just maladjusted vigilantes. Can't have people like that responsible for protecting innocent people.”

Nightstar shut off the television. “Self-righteous, smug little -”

“`Who watches the watchmen?'” Bladefire quoted darkly.

Nightstar stood up from her seat. “Come on, guys,” she said. “It's time for combat training.”

The Titans went to the combat simulation room, which was nothing but four bare gray walls. Nightstar had paused in the monitor area to activate a combat routine. She joined her fellow Titans in the combat area to wait for the routine to fully activate. Once it did, it shifted into an arena identical to the interior of Alcatraz Prison. The cells were open, allowing the inmates to attempt to escape.

“The prison break simulation, huh?” Samara commented.

“Go,” Nightstar ordered, flying into the swarm of escaping meta-criminals. Fists and feet slammed forcefully into the torsos of those attempting to escape. She extended her energy lariat and ensnared several would-be escapees. Beside her, Bladefire was forcibly returning the meta-criminals to their cells. Mercury sped through the false prison, dashing the holographic criminals' hopes of escaping so quickly it was almost as though they'd never had the opportunity in the first place. Beast Girl charged through the prison as a gorilla, putting her animal strength and agility to good use in returning the escaping inmates to their cells. Inferno and Samara tag-teamed against a score of inmates, combining their powers to neutralize them.

The real trouble came when the more powerful inmates began to rear their heads, such as Effigy. The pyrokinetic launched an assault of fiery constructs, sending them after the Titans. Inferno cut through the constructs with a hard-flame saber, absorbing the fallen remains. Effigy continued to send constructs after the Titans, but Nightstar and Bladefire sliced through them with her energy whip and his energy sword, respectively.

Samara decided to fight fire with fire and created constructs out of her shadow energy. These constructs resembled knights out of some madman's dark fantasy, but since they were made by Samara, maybe they were from her dark fantasies. Beside her, Inferno morphed his flames into gladiators and sent them into battle along with Samara's dark knights. Effigy's constructs did battle with theirs and in the end, their constructs won.

Finally, the Titans were able to contain all the would-be escapees and the simulation ended. Inferno powered down from his fiery state and Samara lowered her hood. The team panted from exertion, their uniforms clinging to them even more tightly than usual from sweat.

“That was good work,” Nightstar said.

“Thanks,” Mercury answered. He looked at the sweaty Beast Girl with a glint in his eye and whispered in her ear, “You're very sexy when you're sweating, you know that? I think it's your scent.”

At that moment, the klaxon rang through the Tower, signaling that the mainframe had picked up a crime in progress. “Save it for later, guys,” Bladefire said.

The Titans went to the mainframe screen and Bladefire slipped on the interface headset, scanning for the detected crime that had set off the alarm. When he found it, he pulled off the headset and looked at his team. “It's a break-in at the tech sector,” he told them.

“Let's go,” Nightstar said.

When the Titans arrived at the coordinates, they found six people waiting for them in the tech warehouse. Five were chillingly familiar; the sixth was a new face. The first was a woman dressed in a combination of black leather and gray chain mail-style mesh with twin swords at the ready and a bisected black-and-burnt orange mask concealing her face. The second was a pink-haired girl in a black corset and leather pants. The third was a dark-haired woman in a similar outfit to that of the pink-haired girl but with the addition of a mesh shirt underneath the corset. The fourth was a young man in a lab coat over black clothes with flame prints on them. The fifth was a woman dressed in a black-and-red version of the Flash's costume. The sixth was a white-haired teenage boy dressed in a black costume with wire designs woven through it.

Mercury let out a gasp of horror when he saw the woman in the black Flash costume. “You . . . you're supposed to be dead!” he exclaimed.

“You'renotthatfortunate,” the Black Flash answered cruelly, her words rolling together.

“How did you survive?” Mercury asked.

“Thaaank Warrrp,” Black Flash replied, her words stretching this time. Her words were clearer when she next spoke. “He pinpointed the moment in time that I was lost and pulled me back here. Now it's time for you to suffer.”

“Ravager!” Nightstar yelled. “What's the meaning of this?”

The masked assassin merely crossed her katana blades. “The meaning? We're Tartarus, that's the meaning . . . and the time for talk is past. Now it's time to fight.”

“Come with it, then!” Nightstar declared. “Titans Together!”

The two teams charged each other. Nightstar lashed out with her energy whip, but Ravager dodged and slashed at her with one of her swords. Nightstar flew into the air to evade and flipped into a vicious kick that sliced Ravager's cheek. The wound quickly sealed itself and Ravager retaliated with a vicious spinning slash of her swords. Nightstar evaded again and sliced at Ravager with her energy whip, only for Ravager to jump over the whip and kick Nightstar in the face.

Gemini extended her fingers into sharp blades and sliced at Beast Girl with them. Beast Girl evaded the swings and morphed into her cat-girl form, jumping over Gemini and kicking her in the face. Gemini quickly recovered from the kick and stretched her finger-blades at Beast Girl, who ducked under them. Beast Girl became a mouse and ran at Gemini, morphing into a tigress when she was right in front of her and tackling her.

“Big mistake,” Gemini sneered and melted into a black liquid, re-forming behind Beast Girl and literally wrapping herself around her. Beast Girl generated an aura of molten earth, tearing herself free of Gemini, who simply retaliated by stretching her fists at Beast Girl like deadly slingshots. Beast Girl sprouted wings and talons and flew out of the way of Gemini's assault.

Hex fired waves of twisted probability at Samara, who blocked with her telekinetic fields. Unfortunately, Hex's probability-altering abilities caused Samara's telekinetic fields to disintegrate. Hex slammed her hand onto the ground and sent another wave of altered probability through it, causing the ground beneath Samara to melt into a quicksand-like substance. Samara telekinetically wrenched herself free and extended shadowy claws at Hex.

The lab-coated Dr. Blaze generated fiery knives and threw them at Inferno, who dodged and retaliated with his own fiery knives. Dr. Blaze shaped his flames into miniature devils that rushed at Inferno, clinging to him and exploding. The detonations sent Inferno flying back into a set of wooden crates, which splintered upon his landing. The pyromancer pulled himself up to his feet and charged at Dr. Blaze, shooting fireballs at the fire-wielding maniac. The aforementioned fire-wielding maniac simply caught the fireballs and absorbed them.

Mercury was having a hell of a time trying to keep up with Black Flash, who was operating in a faster timeframe than Mercury. Even though the platinum boy had super-speed on his side, Black Flash's existence in a faster timeframe made him look slow compared to her. He threw a punch at her, only for her to be out of the way before the punch could even have a chance to land. A brutal chop to the back of his neck from her nearly broke his vertebra. He attempted to retaliate, but she was on him with a barrage of hundreds of brutal punches in the space of a second. She grabbed him by the throat and spun around, throwing him into a set of crates.

The speedster got up and rushed Black Flash, only for her to sidestep his charge and trip him. He rose to his feet again and attacked with a series of hyper-speed punches and kicks. Black Flash blocked each and every one of them with a mocking ease. To her, he might as well have been moving through molasses.

Meanwhile, Bladefire was fighting the mysterious white-haired boy, or trying to. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't easy fighting someone who couldn't be touched. Every blow he attempted to make was casually blocked by some kind of morphing force field. No matter where he struck, the field effortlessly blocked his strikes.

Kinetic energy deflection, he concluded. This is going to be difficult.

The red-haired Tamaranean hybrid materialized his energy sword and slashed at the boy's force field, but the field morphed around the boy and shifted into a blade of his own. The boy smirked and slashed at Bladefire, who blocked the boy's sword with his. The two pushed against one another, trying to gain leverage over the other. Finally, the boy flipped away from Bladefire and onto a crate.

“What's your name?” Bladefire asked.

“Are you going to ask me on a date?” the boy asked flirtatiously.

Bladefire just arched an irritated eyebrow at him. “No, just curious. Besides, I like to know whose ass I'm kicking.”

“I'm called Fray,” the boy answered, flipping off the crate and slashing at Bladefire, who blocked with his energy sword. Fray kicked Bladefire's legs out from under him, or would have if Bladefire hadn't flown upward at the last second. The red-haired Titan came back down with a hard kick, but Fray's kinetic sword reshaped itself into the familiar force field and blocked the kick.

Ravager slashed at Nightstar with one of her swords, only for Nightstar to move out of the way of the slash. Unfortunately for Nightstar, Ravager had wanted her to evade that sword, for it led her right into another sword. Nightstar had figured that out in time to avoid being impaled, but Ravager's other sword managed to nick her in the arm.

“What's going on here, Ravager?” Nightstar asked. “What do you want this time?”

“Silly Nightstar,” Ravager replied. “Wanting to know the resolution before the story's finished.”

Nightstar snarled and lashed out at Ravager with her energy whip. Ravager merely allowed the energy whip to wrap around her arm and used it to tug Nightstar toward her. Nightstar turned her unwilling flight into a flying kick, but Ravager blocked that and whirled her into a throw that sent her crashing into a crate. Nightstar rose to her feet and literally flew at Ravager, who lunged at her and caught her in mid-flight. The two female fighters landed on the ground, grappling viciously with each other. Nightstar wedged a knee between herself and Ravager and used it to push Ravager off her. Ravager landed on her hands and flipped onto her feet, while Nightstar flipped onto her feet as well.

Suddenly, the fight was interrupted by an energy blast piercing the wall of the warehouse in which they were fighting. Inside floated 12 robotic-seeming creatures, all of them colored bright blue with a liquid-like surface. They were all marked with a glowing eye on their heads and chests and a Mohawk-like protrusion on their heads. The robots looked at the Titans and Tartarus, assessing them with cold eyes.

“Number of metahumans: 12,” one of them uttered in a mechanical voice. “Assessing abilities and threat level.”

Their eyes locked upon Nightstar first. “Assessing. Name: Mar'i Grayson. Alias: Nightstar. Known metahuman abilities: Absorption of ultraviolet radiation grants superhuman strength, flight, and limited energy-shaping powers; possesses acute senses and high level of combat skills. Note: Tamaraneans normally possess energy projection as opposed to energy shaping, but Grayson's status as a hybrid makes the existence of an altered power set a possibility. Threat level: Beta.”

Their eyes locked upon Bladefire next. “Assessing. Name: Joh'n Grayson. Alias: Bladefire. Known metahuman abilities: Absorption of ultraviolet radiation grants superhuman strength, flight, and limited energy-shaping powers; possesses acute senses and high level of combat skills. Note: Tamaraneans normally possess energy projection as opposed to energy shaping, but Grayson's status as a hybrid makes the existence of an altered power set a possibility. Threat level: Beta.”

Then they turned to Mercury. “Assessing. Name: Peter Maxwell Allen. Alias: Mercury. Known metahuman abilities: Superhuman speed, possibly approaching or equaling that of light, and reaction time; kinetic energy manipulation and redirection, molecular manipulation; accelerated thinking; accelerated healing; lightning-like energy discharge. Threat level: Beta-Plus.”

Their attention fell upon Beast Girl. “Assessing. Name: Theresa Logan. Alias: Beast Girl. Known metahuman abilities: Animal-based shape-shifting; earth manipulation. Threat level: Beta.”

Their attention moved to Inferno. “Assessing. Name: Jeremiah Crockett. Alias: Inferno. Known metahuman abilities: Fire manipulation. Threat level: Beta-Plus.”

Their eyes landed on Samara. “Assessing. Name: Samara Arella Roth-Wilson. Known metahuman abilities: Psionic shadow manipulation, used in remote manipulation of objects, concussive blasts, constructs, and teleportation; projection into and control of other bodies; emotion sensing, manipulation, and draining; healing. Threat level: Beta-Plus.”

The mysterious humanoid machines' eyes turned to Tartarus, beginning with Ravager. “Assessing. Name: Rose Wilson Worth. Alias: Ravager. Known metahuman abilities: Chemical and nanotech augmentations granting superhuman strength, speed, agility, stamina, reaction time, mental processing ability, and regeneration; short-range precognition; highly skilled combatant. Threat level: Beta.”

“What the hell are you?” Dr. Blaze asked in irritation.

The machines simply ignored the pyrokinetic and turned to Fray. “Assessing. Name: Thomas Frakes. Alias: Fray. Known metahuman abilities: Kinetic energy deflection in the form of a metamorphic energy field surrounding its user and capable of taking the form of weapons; skilled combatant. Threat level: Beta.”

Their attentions turned to Black Flash. “Assessing. Name: Alison Zolomon. Alias: Black Flash. Known metahuman abilities: Ability to realign herself into a faster timeframe, simulating superhuman speed. Threat level: Beta-Plus.”

The robots locked their sights on Gemini. “Assessing. Name: Laurel De Mille. Alias: Gemini. Known metahuman abilities: Polymorphism. Threat level: Beta-Plus.”

The blue machines focused their attentions on Dr. Blaze. “Assessing. Name: Mario Blaze. Known metahuman abilities: Fire manipulation. Threat level: Beta-Plus.”

Finally, they gazed upon Hex. “Assessing. Name: Kali. Alias: Hex. Known metahuman abilities: Probability manipulation; entropy projection; intermittent superhuman speed. Threat level: Beta.”

“Who the hell are you?” Hex asked.

“We are OMAC - Observational Metahuman Activity Construct,” the blue machines replied. “All detected metahumans are to be terminated.”

“Terminate this, robotard!” Mercury yelled, running to attack the OMACs. One of them crouched and planted its hand on the ground, a blue aura emanating from its hand. The ground turned into a glossy surface and Mercury slipped and crashed.

“One of the few reliable ways of stopping a speedster,” Ravager mused before attacking the OMACs with her katana blades. Unfortunately for her, the OMACs retaliated by materializing blades of their own and attacking her with them. They surrounded her in a circle, coming at her from all sides. She fought like a demon, moving with superhuman agility and speed to evade their slashes and retaliate with her own.

“Ravager!” Bladefire yelled and leaped into the fray, slashing at the OMACs with his energy sword. The OMACs turned around and began to fight him and Ravager. Some broke off to attack the other Titans and Tartarus members. Gemini morphed her hands into claws and swiped viciously at the blue machines, which retaliated with blasts of flame, causing her to literally shrink away. When she tried to escape, she was blocked by another OMAC, which emitted jets of painful heat. The polymorph tried to flee, only to be blasted with cold this time and frozen.

Surprisingly, Beast Girl leaped to Gemini's defense, striking the OMACs with molten earth energy to prevent them from killing her. The OMACs returned fire with energy blasts, which the geokinetic shape-shifter dodged with animal reflexes and agility. Nightstar sliced at the OMACs with her energy wire, but the OMACs proved highly resistant to being cut by the wire. Inferno and Dr. Blaze shot jets of fire at the OMACs, which retaliated with jets of water to put out their flames. Inferno simply powered up again, using the intense heat he was giving off to evaporate the water drenching him.

“We can't fight in here!” Samara exclaimed.

“She's right,” Nightstar said, flying out of the tech warehouse. The other Titans and Tartarus followed them, along with the OMACs. Now that the fight was out in the streets, they had greater freedom of motion, but they had to be more careful for the innocents that might be passing through.

Hex tried to collapse the street beneath the OMACs, but the OMACs simply hovered above the street, making her tactic useless. The OMACs retaliated by emitting a pulse that left her retching. She wasn't the only one affected by the pulse, though; Samara and Fray were throwing up as well.

“What's going on?” Black Flash asked.

“It's a pulse emitted on a frequency that'll clash with the frequencies used in psionic powers,” Ravager replied, just before retching as well. “As you can tell -” she paused to vomit again “- it causes nasty things to happen in the bodies of people with those powers.” She threw up one more time.

Black Flash snarled under her mask and charged the OMACs, one of which crouched and planted its hand on the street, turning it into a glossy surface. Unfortunately for them, that didn't stop Black Flash, mainly because her “speed” was based in time control and not actually running on a surface. She charged at the OMACs and struck them with hundreds of blows in the space of seconds. She grabbed one of them by its arm and whirled into a throw that sent it flying very, very far away. The others attempted to attack her, only to meet similar fates.

However, more OMACs were deployed to attack them and one of their first targets was Beast Girl. They fired a gooey substance at her, which pinned her to the floor and stretched to contain her no matter what form she took. One of them closed in for the kill, only for a discharge of lightning-like blue energy to burst out of the back of its left shoulder. A split second later, Mercury could be seen with his hand over the left side of the OMAC's upper torso, bluish lightning crackling from it. Surprisingly enough, the OMAC's metallic blue shell began to melt into it, revealing . . . a human being, a man in his early thirties with brown hair. His eyes were wide with shock as his blood splattered onto Mercury's uniform.

“No . . . no . . .” Mercury uttered frantically. “It can't . . . can't . . . can't . . . no, no . . . not right, can't be . . . no . . .” He let out a horrified and anguished scream as the human being that had once seemed nothing but machine collapsed, now dead.

“Noooooo! Nooooooo!”

End Notes: That's where I'm going to end it. I feel it has more impact that way.

Poor Mercury. If you remember the “Quicksilver” arc, then you remember that Mercury was horrified at the vicious, vengeful vigilante his alternate-universe self had devolved into after the loss of his world's Beast Girl. In fact, he pretty much said that he'd never become a killer, no matter how much he wanted to protect Beast Girl. Irony's a bitch, isn't she?

For those of you wondering, Ultraviolet isn't a bitch to Nightside because she hates lesbians; she's just not that nice a person, period. Not many in Infinity, Inc., if any at all, are really nice people. You'll see more of that later on in this arc.

Anyway, if the developments in this chapter interested you, feel free to let me know.