Adventures of Superguy

July 22, 2010 - Isla Santa Prisca

Caribbean Sea

20:25:03

“Okay, ninos, Bane will tell you the part of the story you are missing.” The villainess declared as she leaned back against the tree to which she was bound and stopped straining the rope binding her. Superboy didn’t hear her heartbeat change its rhythm, regardless of her outward change in attitude. 

“A month ago, my factory is humming along nicely, product coming off the line and going to my distributors. Then, out of nowhere, we are under attack from these putas in robes. Disciplined, trained, armed and led by their cura. I do not know how they infiltrated Santa Prisca without me knowing of it; it is something I have been mulling over ever since. They took the factory in one night, and imprisoned me and my sicarios. I expected them to kill us, but they didn’t. After a few days a prisoner in my own factory, they wanted me to fight their campeone. They offer to leave if I defeat him, even gave me back my injector harness for it.” 

As she tells her tale, her tone grows grimmer ever so slightly. 

I’m guessing it didn’t go well.

“But their campeone is like you, meta. Or he was once they inject him; scrawny little thing one moment, then twice my size the next! Grew so fast, his skin split open, not that it bothered him. I fought hard, but like you, he was not in my ‘weight class.’” She finishes, and he can hear the restrained anger in her voice as she glares at him. Acknowledging a defeat does not come naturally to Bane. Superboy doesn’t think she’s making excuses for her loss, either, merely relaying the facts. 

She isn’t taking that defeat lying down, either. I can see the gears turning in her head. But this champion… that sounds familiar.

He shares a look with the team, and they huddle up.

“You know what that sounds like to me?” Kid asks in a low voice, side eyeing Bane.

“Blockbuster. But how would Kobra have access to that?” Robin asks.

“Are we sure its Blockbuster formula? There’s gotta be like a million mad science drugs that turn you into a hulking rage monster.” Superboy says, with a meaningful jerk of his head at Bane herself.

“No, our details are scant. We cannot confirm much right now. We will need to access the factory itself to discover what Kobra is truly brewing here.” Aqualass declares, and the assembled team nods in acknowledgement.

“If you ninos wish to tour my factory, this can be arranged.” Bane says slowly and with a knowing smile, clearly having heard them.

Superboy’s eyes narrow as he glares at her. This is a sudden reversal in attitude.

“So now you want to help us directly?” Robin asks, folding her arms.

“It is as your friend says; the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Bane says, smiling beneath her luchador mask. It is not a pretty sight.

Not that she’s… unattractive. But she smiles the way a shark does. Brrr… he thought, shivering slightly despite the tropical warmth.

“And what manner of ‘tour’ can you arrange?” Aqualass asks, stepping forward.

“A secret entrance into the factory. Underground. My personal escape tunnel, should things ever become too hot. I never got the chance to use it when the putas captured me. We slipped away while they were busy getting the factory back up and running, into the jungle. I am sure they have not discovered it yet.” Bane said with easy confidence.

Superboy frowned, looking at Robin, who met it with her own grimace.

“How convenient for us. And you.” Robin replied, making her suspicion clear.

“A businesswoman must be prepared for all eventualities. Just in case they need a useful bargaining chip in future dealings.” The supervillain cartel boss answered smoothly.

“You can’t think we can trust la luchadora here?” Kid asked incredulously. 

“I do not think we have much choice. Kobra will soon discover his missing patrol, if he has not already. Then they will know that there is an enemy here. We need to move swiftly to maintain the element of surprise.” Aqualass explained, and not even Kid could argue the logic of her argument. 

Superboy hemmed and hawed, unsure of the best course.

Bane is smart. Smarter than me, as smart as Batman is. This is very convenient for her. But we don’t have time, and we don’t have the intel either. If we take things slow, that will just alert them to the danger. But then we have to trust Bane of all people…

He was already regretting suggesting getting intel out of Bane. 

“We’re just playing into her hands! This is definitely a trap-” Robin exclaimed, taking the contrarian position. 

“Then we will put it to a vote.” Aqualass interrupted her, and Robin’s jaw set at the suggestion.

“We’re on a mission.” She said tersely. “This isn’t the time to make decisions by committee. We need leadership.” She said with emphasis.

Aqualass met her gaze and didn’t waver in the face of the clear challenge, if not to her authority, to her position.

“Yet we have not yet elected one, and until we do, we will make what decisions we can as a team.” She said, looking to Ms. Martian and Superboy for support. 

Ms. Martian looked uncomfortable as the team turned to her, kicking at the dirt, but nodded. Aqualass swung her gaze to Superboy, who grew thinlipped as he considered.

Pumping Bane for intel was my idea, after all… he thought, reluctantly.

He nodded, and Robin rolled her eyes and Kid Quick sighed.

Aqulass nodded at them and turned back to Bane.

“Show us.”

********

An hour’s hike took them to a ridge overlooking the factory, with Bane in the lead, Superboy at her back. The ridge gave them an excellent line of sight, and he, Robin and Kid Quick went to their bellies to minimize their silhouettes as they got a better look. It was almost a kilometer down the ridge, an ugly scar taken out of the jungle, and a large steel and concrete factory built in the middle of nowhere, with only chainlink fences and dirt roads surrounding it before the impenetrable Santa Priscan jungle began. The factory itself was a large facility, with large rusting chemical tanks and a tangled web of piping extending from it.

Robin drew a compact pair of high tech binoculars, Kid Quick lowered her goggles, and Superboy simply focused his vision enough to employ his telescopic supervision. The factory leapt into focus, and he could see its lights were on and operating, but the open yards around the building were dark, flood lights off, and swarming with Kobra cultists in their black clothes and red hooded robes. Most were armed, patrolling the perimeter, but others were driving forklifts to move pallets of stacked and plastic wrapped product out of the factory and into the marshalling yard in front of the building. The pallets were laid out in a careful grid.

“Look at all that product…” Robin said.

“They’re laying it out for somebody.” Kid Quick added.

“But if they’re not selling to the usual suspects-”

“Then we need to identify the buyer.” Aqualass finished for her from behind.

Superboy put his chin in his hand as he saw the cultists working like busy little bees below. 

“Something tells me Kobra isn’t big in the narcotics trade. Taking this place over, however they managed to get the drop on Bane. Starting the factory back up, arranging this buy. This isn’t really their bag, is it? Shouldn’t they be kidnapping virgins to throw in a snake pit or something?” He theorized, and Robin stroked her chin as she thought.

“You have a point.” She admitted, but didn’t offer any theories of her own.

“I think that just means more questions, and takes it back to our original problem; we need answers.” Ms. Martian added helpfully, hovering over them silently.

  Superboy felt a psychic warning from Gizmo, and sprang up, looking around curiously. He didn’t see what had disturbed his lil bro, until he realized what he wasn’t seeing.

Bane!

He didn’t see her, so he shut his eyes and focused on his hearing. The rustle of the wind through the jungle, the chirping of insects and birds, the rustle of animals in the undergrowth. Then, a grunt and the grinding of stone on earth, and he rushed to the spot.

He found Bane hefting a boulder almost as big as she was from its place against a cliff wall, revealing a black cavernous space beyond. She didn’t start as she heard him arrive, and she greeted his arrival with a sly smile. She waved him towards the tunnel entrance she had uncovered like a carnival barker enticing rubes to visit her attraction. 

“Answers are this way.” Bane said simply.

The team arrived at his back, and they saw what looked initially like a natural cave entrance was a carved tunnel, complete with wooden bracing along the walls and ceiling, and strung up electric lights illuminating it. The tunnel resembled a mine shaft more than a secret tunnel, and the team shared a dubious look before entering.

“Kinda feels like la luchadora is our leader, now.” Kid said sarcastically, and Robin shoved her shoulder as she scoffed.

Bane led the team further into the tunnel as it wound around and descended, presumably toward the factory. But Superboy couldn’t keep any kind of directional sense down here with nothing to navigate by. Each stretch of tunnel seemed identical to the last; same rough hewn walls, wooden bracing, string of industrial lights hanging from the ceiling. There were no other branches off of the tunnel, so that at least made navigating easier. Eventually they reached a large steel door, with a high tech magnetic locking mechanism. It was woefully out of place in the hand carved tunnel, and the out of date factory building it connected to.

Bane was still in the lead, and walked up to it, putting her thumbprint on a scanner, and the red light on the magnetic look turned green. A circular tumbler in the door turned, and the door split down the middle to admit them. 

What lay beyond was a concrete floor and walls that looked decidedly industrial, a short corridor with overhead lights that led to a steel door. It was a marked contrast to the tunnel, and presumably was the entrance into the factory. Bane continued leading them down to the door, where she put a hand on its handle and paused. Robin moved up to the wall next to the door, and Bane cracked it open to peer through the slit. Robin pushed up to the crack and crouched slightly to reconnoiter the situation. Next to Bane, she looked tiny.

They heard the sound of industry dimly as the door cracked open, but there was no cry of alarm or anything else, so Robin pushed the door open fully and the team exited onto the factory floor. Above was a high ceiling several stories tall, and a large open area with tall chemical tanks stacked to one side and what looked like refinery towers opposite them. Everything was the color of water stained concrete or rusted steel, with a few bits still covered in flaking paint. Looking around, Superboy noted a sense of neglect as well as revamped industry, with a noticeable drop in standards of maintenance and quality. 

I bet this place didn’t start out as a drug factory. Probably a regular factory. Dunno what Santa Prisca’s major exports are, though. Other than Venom… and Bane. 

The team fanned out, plus Bane, moving quietly between the tanks. No cultists appeared, so they continued their exploration. They moved towards the sound of industry, marked by the high pitched beeping of a forklift backing up. Moving stealthily, they slipped from one stack of oil drums to chemical tanks, on the watch for Kobra cultists around every corner. But as yet, none appeared. As they came into the open, they saw a cultists driving a forklift, a pallet of fuel barrels on it. They ducked behind a convenient wall of crates before anybody saw them.

Superboy crouched with his team, then realized he didn’t hear a familiar heartbeat. He looked around, and his confusion was noticed by Aqulass and Bane.

“Where’s Robin?” He whispered, and Aqualass grit her teeth as she too cast about for the Girl Wonder.

“Has the little fool already been caught?” Bane asked angrily as she put her back against a stack of crates.

“No, she just… does that.” Aqualass replied, and she keyed her earpiece, before wincing.

“Static.” She stated flatly, and foolishly Superboy tried his own, and got the same white noise. Loud enough that he had to take it out, before turning it off.

“What does that mean?” He asked, worried now that Robin was off on her lonesome again, and without comms.

“Either we are having a suspiciously timed communication problem, or we are being jammed.” Aqualass answered, grimly.

“Then they know we’re here?” Ms. Martian asked. 

“If they did, they would already be shooting at us, chica. I do not think the jamming is for us.” Bane replied, crossing her own arms as she leaned casually against the wall of crates.

Superboy peered over the top of the wall, and saw the vast rolling doors of the factory were open to the marshalling yard. The beeping forklift continued away from them, amber warning lights on, as it maneuvered another pallet of product out of the factory and into the neat grid of its brethren. As it did so, he saw the acid green emblem that had been stenciled onto the pallet wrapping; a cobra encircling the earth. The symbol was not on the crates they hid behind. 

He glanced at Bane, then lifted a plank off the top of the crate as quietly as he could. With only a slight squeal of nail exiting wood, he saw the crate was full of red boxes with clear plastic lids, holding ampoules of red liquid. He saw that none of the cultists had heard, and waved at the contents of the crate.

“They’re not touching this Venom.” He pointed at the pallets arrayed outside and the fresh product joining it off the factory floor. 

“Maybe freshness counts?” Ms. Martian added helpfully.

The remaining team looked at each other, and Superboy again glanced at Bane. But the hulking villainess kept her own counsel. 

That was when a new sound reached his ears, courtesy of super hearing; a whump-whump-whump that drifted to him over the sound of the wind and activity outside. He raised a hand to the others. 

“Chopper, incoming.” He said, and they all tensed.

“The buyer.” Aqualass said simply.

“Running out of time here, real fast.” Kid Quick said, bouncing from one foot to the other.

“Great, now we need to know what they’re up to with this junk, AND who the buyer is, before they get away with the product.” Superboy said with frustration.

“And find where Robin is. Without access to comms.” Ms. Martian said as she bit her lip.

“Can you mind link us?” Superboy asked her, and she seemed surprised at the suggestion. Then she face palmed again.

“Hello, Megan! Of course I can. I keep forgetting you all can’t do that on your own…” She said self-deprecatingly. Then she frowned. “But I’d still need to find Robin among all these other minds…” She worried, gazing out at all the Kobra cultists milling about.

“Don’t worry about that part, Ms. M! Just link me and I’ll find Robi in two shakes of a tail feather.” Kid said with a grin.

“So what’s the plan?” Superboy asked, hearing the choppers approaching closer. It was much harder to pinpoint the source, as the helicopter’s blades were loud and the sound of rotorwash came from far away. It might be out of his accurate hearing range, but it was getting closer. But it was impossible to calculate exactly how far and swiftly approaching it was.

“Ms. Martian, link us up. Kid, find Robin and Ms. Martian will link her once  you’ve found her. Superboy, find us a sample of the new product that Kobra are so eager to ship out. I expect Robin is trying to find out its nature already, but if she cannot, we will need evidence for the Guild to evaluate. I will keep watch and try to identify the buyer.” Aqualass decided for them, and they each nodded.

“I can sneak closer in camouflage mode, that should make it easier to get eyes on the buyer.” Ms. Martian suggested, and smiled when Aqualass nodded at her. Then she put her fingers to her temples and her eyes flashed green, and Superboy once more felt the featherlight touch of her mind establishing the mindlink. Gizmo’s familiar gravity remained, and he felt secure that his secrets remained safe while his team linked their thoughts.

There was a silent assent through the link as each team member moved to their assigned task. Kid Quick disappeared in a dark blur, Ms. Martian put up her hood and almost faded from view as she engaged her camouflage. As he stood to do his part, Bane tapped him on the shoulder and jerked her head to one side. Warily, he followed her as she snuck off, and she whispered over her shoulder to him as she led him deeper into the factory.

“This way, chico; the lab is where the Venom is produced. We do not want to take any from these pallets they pay so close attention to.” She explained as she padded off, startlingly quiet for someone her size.

Warily, he nodded at her back and followed her into the shadowed halls.

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