Adventures of Superguy

July 22, 2010 - Isla Santa Prisca

Caribbean Sea

22:15:14

Why is there always a big guy? Superboy reflected as Mammoth charged him in a lunging rush, his massive paws reaching out to grab. He ducked and rolled to the side to avoid the charge and swept the legs of his more massive opponent. It was like kicking a tree trunk… if he were still strictly human. Mammoth stumbled but didn’t fall, turning back to snarl as Superboy rose.

Bricks are pretty common. Most of my fights have been against bricks so far. But I’d really appreciate at least one fight where nobody can go toe to toe with me. Bane doesn’t count, she didn’t even have Venom.

He felt centered as Mammoth charged again, a calmness taking over. He wasn’t worried about Gizmo; he had left the bag stashed by the tanks where the team had voted. Part of this flow state was the training the memory palace instilled in him, dojo rooms filled with faceless opponents reenacting similar battles telling him to turn into Mammoth’s chopping right and seize the wrist for a throw.

So he did, tugging the massive meta-human off his feet and using his considerable weight and momentum against, smashing him onto his back with a peal of thunder. Mammoth grunted as the wind rushed out of him, and Superboy grinned at his success. 

Which meant he was less than prepared for the steroidal Mammoth to do a physics defying kip up and catch him with a headbutt as he did so. Stars burst behind his eyes and he felt his brain bounce inside his skull as he stumbled back. He kept his feet but barely got his guard up as Mammoth came in again with his fists up, throwing rights and lefts that hammered into Superboy’s guard. He protected his head but that only left him vulnerable to an uppercut to the gut that sent him reeling.

On Mammoth came, spittle and bestial snarls coming out of his ape-like mouth, and behind him he saw Ms. Martian launched into a flying charge at Shimmer. But the lean and agile Shimmer threw herself into a backflip to avoid it. As she did so, her hands gained a blue shimmering haze, and the dirt she touched with them turned into some noxious looking green gas, which Ms. Martian flew into. Whatever it was blinded her, and she came out retching with four extra arms spread wide to catch Shimmer, but only grabbed air as her original arms rubbed at her tearing eyes.

Then his whole vision was filled with the brown and wet red of Mammoth’s torso as the brute threw punches that Superboy desperately tried to slip past. Mammoth’s reach was a huge gulf to bridge, his arms almost as long as Superboy was tall. He moved with a terrible swiftness  that belied his huge size which reminded him of Docbuster, but Superboy was familiar with that particular combination. He dodged what he could, blocked what he couldn’t, and endured what blows he must. Gritting his teeth, he advanced into the fusillade; in strength and toughness, the two were similarly matched. Superboy lowered his head and raised his guard, determined to get inside Mammoth’s reach and negate that advantage.

As he endured blows, driving forward while Mammoth gave ground to deny him the inside, Superboy reflected that there were a few disadvantages to being the bigger fighter with the longer reach.

He’s punching down, and focusing on his fists rather than anything else.

A smaller opponent meant Mammoth targeted what was easiest for him, which meant he went for Superboy’s head. So Superboy kept a high guard and ducked what he could, buffeted just by the passing wind of Mammoth’s sizable mitts. Finally, he ducked beneath a straight punch that could have taken his head off and crouched down before launching a battery of uppercuts and hooks into Mammoth’s solar plexus and ribs. The former made his opponent grunt but the latter made him wince, and Superboy could hear Mammoth’s ribs creak with each of those blows. 

Mammoth tried to smother him, wrapping him up in his gorilla arms but seeing that coming, Superboy ducked low and to the side again, frustrating his opponent with the dodge and himself by getting out of infighting range. He skipped back as Mammoth clutched at his ribs and snarled in pain and anger. Superboy took a moment to survey the battlefield.

Gunfire echoed through the night, clumps of Kobra cultists firing this way and that as they tried to aim for the dark blur that sped between them. Kid was keeping them wonderfully occupied while whittling at their numbers. Superboy noted she didn’t run between the wildly shooting and disorganized cultists, to keep them from shooting each other. That spoke to her training and experience.

Aqualass was slowly advancing down the marshalling yard, a half dome shield of water before her that caught bullets and slowed them till they simply popped out the back harmlessly, falling to the ground. It clearly took a great deal of her concentration to utilize her hydrokinesis in such a broad but finely tuned bulwark, but she kept moving steadily, trusting to Kid Quick to guard her flanks. Occasionally she retaliated with water bullets, flattening cultists. Perhaps half their number were still on their feet.

He saw the transport chopper sitting dark and idle at the end of the yard, and Sportsmaster was on its roof, elbow deep in an engine cowling. She must have discovered Robin’s sabotage, and was working to restore the chopper to working order. How long that might take her, Superboy didn’t know but he doubted it was long. Removing sparkplugs was a simple kind of sabotage, especially if you had spares. Sportsmaster struck him as the kind of overly prepared villain who would have spare parts in some kind of sports themed package stashed in the chopper.

Maybe in a box of golf tees.

Shimmer and Ms. Martian continued their duel, now at range. Shimmer was an agile and skilled fighter, and her powers relied on her touch. Now that he saw what she could do, Superboy remembered her; a transmuter. She changed things she touched from one element to another, with a tell tale shimmer as she did so. Which Ms. Martian had also discovered, so was now staying at range, telekinetically hurling rocks and crates at Shimmer. But what Shimmer couldn’t dodge she laid the slightest touch on and the projectiles turned into showers of dust or gas that flowed around her harmlessly. They seemed at an impasse.

Mammoth and he were not, however, and his opponent apparently decided more aggression was the answer. He leapt into the air and brought both fists down as he flew, and Superboy had to leap out of the way as those fists smashed a crater into the ground you could have buried a compact car in. Rolling to his feet, Mammoth was already charging him with arms wide spread to catch him in a grapple. Throwing himself to one side, Superboy almost escaped the trap but Mammoth’s sausage-like fingers caught him around the bicep and dragged him back in. 

Suddenly he was in a prison of Mammoth’s python arms, crushed against his broad chest, feeling wetness on his shirt where the skin was rent open. The pressure increased exponentially as Mammoth got both arms around him and began to squeeze. Superboy strained with all his indomitable might just to keep his chest from being compressed, but he had little leverage as Mammoth picked him up off the ground and left his feet dangling around Mammoth’s knees. Even more unpleasantly, now he was very close to Mammoth’s face and he saw the brutal atavistic mug of his opponent in disturbing detail. Said opponent grinned in triumph as his enormous muscles bulged and strained, trying to crush the life out of Superboy.

Starting… to remember him, too. Pretty sure… he and Shimmer… are siblings. Kinda… hard… to see… the… resemblance…

What air was left in his lungs was being driven out by the inexorable compression of Mammoth’s bear hug, and he began to get light headed. He felt around desperately with his hands, even with his arms pinned against his sides by the grab. Both hands felt the thick, leathery hide of Mammoth’s skin, but his left felt more of that wetness that was staining his shirt, and the coppery scent of blood filled his nostrils, along with Mammoth’s fetid breath. His fingertips touched a gap, feeling between the cracks of Mammoths’ sundered skin.

Realizing where his fingers were, and the edges of his vision darkening, leaving Mammoths’ savage glee at his predicament his only view. Anger filled him, that this brutish bully was getting the better of him. He strained to hold back the crushing pressure, every muscle screaming, and Mammoth grunted as he tried to contain Superboy. But Superboy wasn’t trying to break free, just give his fingers some wiggle room.

Wiggle they did, and any disgust he felt was quashed in desperation. His fingers on his left hand slipped into a wet and suffocating pressure as he worked them under the cracked skin, and he saw Mammoth wince and growl in agony. As he did so, his grip loosened just a bit, which gave Superboy the room to jam his hand into the gap between Mammoth’s skin and muscle tissue and pull. Now, Superboy grinned as Mammoth howled in pain, and he continued to pull. Mammoth screamed and released the grapple to throw Superboy away.

He tumbled across the ground, sliding to a stop near to where Ms. Martian and Shimmer battled. Stones flew like cannon balls but Shimmer danced among them, throwing handfuls of a confusing medley of materials, until one burst into flames as soon as it left her shimmering hands. It burned with a pure white fire and Ms. Martian recoiled, stopping her barrage and telekinetically hurtling herself away. Over the mindlink, he felt the sheer panic that raced through her at sight of the burning material. Even as flecks of the burning stuff scattered across the ground they still burned, making even the dirt smoulder, and filling the air with a bizarre smell of cooking garlic. 

Superboy: M’gann, switch with me! I’ll get Shimmer.

Ms. Martian: O-okay!

Ms. Martian’s telepathic reply wasn’t the most confident, but he sprang towards Shimmer even as Ms. Martian flew higher and away from her throwing range. To her credit, Shimmer immediately switched gears and backflipped away from him like an acrobat. As she did so, her hand shimmered and the ground where she touched dissolved away into a smoke cloud that filled the air with thick particulates and swiftly hid her from view. 

Behind him, he heard Mammoth tearing trees out of the ground and hurling them at Ms. Martian, but she was far too agile in the air for that to work. She tried throwing a few back at him but he smashes his way through them without difficulty, so she switched to picking up smaller rocks and accelerating them at supersonic speeds. They still pattered off Mammoth’s elephantine hide, but they clearly stung and distracted him. Focusing on his own fight, he heard Shimmer’s taunt.

“What was that about me ‘not being in your weight class’? Why don’t you come closer and you can see what a little Willie Pete does to you…” Shimmer’s voice echoed through the dust cloud, and he struggled to place her with the noisome chaos going around them. The gunfire had lessened, no doubt due to fewer cultists still being conscious, but there were still sounds of battle all around, especially the shriek of projectiles between Ms. Martian and Mammoth. Straining to pick out one set of light footsteps and an unfamiliar heartbeat was difficult. The smoke cloud  was thick but still illuminated in spots from the burning white phosphorus on the ground.

Outside the cloud he heard Mammoth’s roar and the crash of tree trunks and boulders being flung about. Ms. Martian’s feelings over the mindlink conveyed the danger but he felt her greater confidence. Mammoth was a threat she could deal with, since her mobility and telekinesis weren’t something he could easily overcome.

Needing to keep Shimmer talking, he decided to indulge in some classic superhero/supervillain banter.

“I’ll admit, I didn’t think you had much going for you. But now I remember you; I’ve studied the Justice Guild’s files. You and the big lummox are siblings, right? Twins? Its funny, the last pair of meta-human twins I fought had the same powers. You two lack a theme, might want to work on that.” He opined, thinking of a simple cover for his knowledge.

She and Mammoth are on… some kinda team. I think they fought the Titans? Not big names, C-listers. If I had a nickel for every time I fought supervillain twins… I’d have two nickels. But it’s still weird that it happened twice.

“We ain’t some genetic knock-offs, mate! Lucked into me powers, poor Baran’s been itching for something to pop for him. But Lord Kobra did us right, and Baran volunteered to be the first to test the Kobra Venom. Looks like it’s made him more’n a match for you.” Shimmer taunted, and Superboy smiled.

Because I know something she doesn’t know…

“That a fact…” He said as he turned towards where his super hearing heard her footsteps crunch to a stop and her hands dig into the dirt to turn another handful of it into something deadly. With a massive inhale, he strained his lungs and felt them compress the air improbably. Then with an even more titanic exhalation, the breath burst out in a tidal wave and blasted apart the smoke cloud, revealing shimmer standing with a fistful of dirt and her hands shimmering, shocked at the sudden reveal. She braced herself to stay standing in the gale of his super breath, but he didn’t let have a second to plan anything new. He rushed forward and she just barely managed to start hurling another fistful of burning white phosphorus when he socked her in the gut and she crumpled around his fist. He pulled the punch enough to knock her out without doing any permanent damage.

Not that it mollified Mammoth at all. There was a bestial roar behind him and then a whistling as Mammoth leapt in to defend his sister. With desperate speed, Superboy called out to Ms. Martian over the mindlink.

Superboy: Catch him in the air, now!

Ms. Martian didn’t even send him an answer as the request consumed her focus, but even as he hurtled closer, Mammoth began to slow and the savage rage on his face gave way to puzzlement as he didn’t get any closer to his target. He floated in the air, limbs wriggling as he tried to somehow reach the ground and Superboy. Rage contorted his face more as he found himself stuck, unable to move or attack while suspended in the air from Ms. Martian’s telekinesis. He slowly rotated like he was in zero gravity, growling in frustration as he thrashed.

Ms. Martian: Got him. Now what? I can’t keep him up forever.

Superboy: …How high do you think you can hoist him?

Ms. Martian: Let’s find out!

Superboy liked her enthusiasm. Mammoth only flailed and panicked more as he rose in the air swiftly, his ascent only growing swifter. Eventually he hit the limit of Ms. Martian’s range or weight limit, since he stopped floating and was hurled up into the air, a few hundred feet into the sky. Superboy raced to position himself beneath the falling villain’s shadow, and once his supervision assured him he was right under the swiftly falling Mammoth, he crouched low to center himself and leapt into the sky, right fist leading. 

“Up, up and away!” Superboy cried out.

The falling villain met the rising hero with a thunderous boom of knuckles meeting lantern jaw and Mammoth was hurled once more into the air and sailed away, crashing somewhere off in the jungle. The way his head snapped back and his body rag dolled as he flew let Superboy know that it was lights out for the Australian bruiser. Wherever it was he landed.

Ms. Martian flew down and threw up a high five, which he returned.

“Yes! We got them!” She exclaimed.

“We sure did. Great teamwork!” He replied, and she beamed.

The two heroes share another high five, but Superboy quickly snapped his head back towards the marshalling yard. 

“The chopper’s leaving!” He shouts and sprints toward the yard and Ms. Martian flies above him as they hurry back. As the yard comes into view, they see the transport chopper’s blades spin up and it begins rising into the air, Sportsmaster at the controls. Struggling in some kind of net, is the dark blur of Kid Quick as she tries to escape its confines. Aqualass is sheltering her behind her watery bulwark, the remaining cultists focusing all their fire on her. The shining water is dimming with each fusillade, and Aqualass’ teeth grit as she struggles to protect herself and Kid. 

Panic flashes across the mindlink as all four of them see a team of cultists preparing a pair of RPGs to crack her defenses. At the same time, Superboy and Ms. Martian see the fish belly pale form of Lord Kobra over the prostrate form of Robin, grinding his heel into her back. There is no time for anything but the mindlink’s communication, and in that instant the two split apart and head for their targets.

Ms. Martian camouflages herself again and flies at top speed towards the RPG wielding cultists but doesn’t arrive in time to prevent their fire. With twin flashes of backblast lighting up the night, conical rockets launch towards Aqualass’ watery shield, and she closes her eyes and hunches her shoulder waiting for the inevitable. But the rockets twist and wobble mid flight, their straight arrow trajectories thrown into a headlong tumble, chaotically propelled by their rocket motors. They fly wildly out of control and miss their target entirely, impacting against the factory wall and roof in fiery explosions.

WIth a sigh, Ms. Martian fades back into view, unable to maintain her camouflage and the telekinetic mastery at the same time. As the cultists see her flying and uncloaked form, they turn their weapons in her direction and with a yelp she launches into evasive maneuvers as muzzle flashes light up the night. Taking advantage of the cultists' split attention, Aqualass uses a water whip to drag Kid Quick’s struggling form over to her, and with a quick weapon shift, slashes her loose with an aquatic machete. Kid tears herself loose from the rest in a blur and hurls the remnants aside in frustration.

At the same time as Ms. Martian’s intervention, Superboy leaps toward Kobra and Robin, trying to dropkick the serpentine cult leader off his friend. But just as his outstretched foot is about to connect, Kobra’s hands move in a blur and the super powered dropkick turns into a flying tumble that gouges a long impact crater in the dirt of the yard. Leaping to his feet, Superboy’s face screws up in consternation.

How the fuck did he do that!? 

“What’s wrong, boy? You look disconcerted.” Kobra taunts him as Superboy bares his teeth and charges forward. Kobra watches him come on, posture stiff and his hands held behind his back, unconcerned with the threat. Superboy throws a punch that Kobra ducks with serpentine grace, bending effortlessly around it, his red armored boot never leaving Robin’s back.

But the Girl Wonder seizes on the distraction to twist around and seize the offending foot, twisting it enough to force it off of her and rolling away and to her feet with a practiced handspring. She stands beside Superboy as they take ready stances, the mindlink feeding their intentions to the other. Their nonverbal assent flicks across the telepathic wavelengths and they advance.

Superboy throws snappy jabs that Kobra has little difficulty avoiding but every duck and looping dodge is a distraction while Robin goes low, attacking Kobra’s legs with snap kicks and sweeps. Each pressures the cult leader, and meeting his gaze, Superboy understands with a shudder why the Kobra cult follows this man. His eyes are utterly inhuman, and the slitted snake pupils are the least inhuman thing about them. They burn with an intensity and self confidence that would border on delusional if the man didn’t seem capable of backing it up. Those orbs overflow with the utterly disdainful self confidence of a man who would be a god, a pinnacle of dark faith in one’s self. The only emotion they convey is a reptilian contempt for all they survey.

Kobra dodges away again, and sneers at the pair of them.

“The Guild must be desperate to send its whelps to task me.” He says icily.

“Well, these ‘whelps’ are mighty concerted to kick your tail, Kobe.” Robin quips, which sadly gets no rise from the snake cultist.

As the two prepare to challenge him again, there is a flash of alarm from Ms. Martian and Aqualass.

Aqualass: The rocket launchers! Kid can’t get to them!

Glancing back that way shows the cultists have reloaded and prepared their heavy weapons again. The remaining cultists split their firepower between Ms. Martian and Kid Quick, holding the two at bay with suppressive fire while the remainder keep Aqualass pinned down behind her shield. Robin desperately hurls a handful of birderangs at the RPG team, but Kobra interposes himself and snatches the weapons out of the air, filling his hands with them with a glint of amusement in his dead eyes. Superboy’s heart leaps into his throat as he sees his friends in danger, but as he tries to rush to their aid, another figure intervenes.

Said figure looms out of the shadow of the jungle’s edge and leaps upon the cultists with the heavy weapons, kicking one aside with a double foot dropkick and seizing the other in her python-like arms. The first goes flying and the other drops his weapon as she seizes him by the neck, and with a swift twist and crack like dry sticks breaking, he goes limp with his head twisted at an unnatural angle. Shocked momentarily by Bane’s brutality, Superboy watches stunned as she seizes the RPG and levels it toward the rising chopper. He sees her savage grin as she fires, illuminated in the rocket’s exhaust as it flies unerringly towards the chopper. It hits the rear fuselage below the rear rotor in a blossoming flower of flame and shrapnel, blowing open the rear of the vehicle and shattering the rear rotor.

The tail of the craft catches light and the body spins wildly under the remaining rotor with nothing to balance it, hundreds of feet in the air but swiftly descending. With his supervision, he sees a figure in purple and green leap out of the pilot’s hatch, a parachute deploying as they fall towards earth. The chopper’s descent is far less graceful as it shakes itself apart on the way down due to the centrifugal forces of its remaining rotor, until it hits the jungle in a burst of flame, hurling wood and metal all around. The explosion lights up the night, briefly illuminating the marshalling yard.

Elation fills Superboy and he eagerly turns back to Kobra, who watches the chopper and its precious cargo burn, the firelight reflected in his inhuman eyes. His face is a stoney mask, betraying neither anger nor self-recrimination, and as the flames dim and shadows around him grew longer, he turns slightly towards Robin and Superboy again.

“Another time, then…” he says, shocking softly, and languidly steps back into the jungle, slipping between shadowed tree trunks.

Robin and Superboy rush forward, taking opposite sides of the tree Kobra stepped behind but they only meet each other as they circle it. Skidding to a halt with disbelief, they come face to face. Robin snarls in frustration, but Superboy is apoplectic with disbelief. 

“Where the hell did he go!? He was right here!” He shouts, waving his hands at the empty space behind the tree and casting about for some clue.

“Can’t you hear his footsteps, or his heartbeat or something?” Robin demands.

Superboy closes his eyes, focusing on his hearing, listening past the crackling flames and the staccato rhythm of Robin’s heart, the suddenly still and frightened jungle animals, the grunts and protests of the last of the cultists as Kid, Aqulass and Ms. Martian capture the last of them. 

But he hears nothing else. No furtive footsteps, no ragged breaths, no excited heartbeats. Nothing but their own.

He shakes his head and frustration as he looks back at Robin.

“Nothing! How did he do that? He’s not magic, he’s just a nut… right?” He asks, doubt creeping in as he casts about uselessly for some missed sign.

“He’s not magic. He might know magic, a little, but he’s not… got powers or anything. He’s NOT a god, he just thinks he is.” She says, crossing her arms in frustration. 

Superboy blows a sigh and uses his telescopic vision to focus on the descending parachute of Sportsmaster until he loses it beneath the canopy a few miles away.

“Think we can catch Sportsmaster now?” He asks, knowing the answer.

Robin shakes her head curtly, arms still crossed.

He sighs again and puts a hand on her shoulder and she looks up at him.

“Well, we got the Kobra Venom, and that’s the important part. Kobra would be a lot more dangerous with an army of bruisers like Mammoth at his beck and call.” He reassures her.

Robin sighs and nods, forced to admit the point and buoyed by it.

“You’re right. We still don’t know who Sportsmaster is working for, though. She couldn’t have gotten Blockbuster on her own.” Robin says, still frustrated.

“Probably not. She’s not really the type to hang with the crazy snake guy, either. Weird pairing.” Superboy says, scratching his chin.

I remember him being a part of a team that fought the JSA. He had a wife on it, Tigress? Huntress? One of those. Maybe both. But he was flying solo tonight…

He didn’t share his speculations or meta-knowledge with Robin as they returned to the others.

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