ya_assemble | "You have to start out learning to believe the little lies to believe the big ones."

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"You have to start out learning to believe the little lies to believe the big ones."

They had to try their best to do this thing incognito. After all, the plan was get in, get the shard, get out, and while several of them were total unknowns in this world, three of them ran the risk of being recognized by some of the resident superheroes and supervillains since they were from a similar dimension and had equivalents here.

Nightwing, not so much since he usually wore a mask, but Cassie and Kon didn't wear masks as part of their costumes, and Kon especially wore a very familiar face. He was younger than Kal but still approaching adulthood now and that meant his cloney resemblance to the current de facto ruler of the world was pretty uncanny now.

That was why Kon was in disguise. He was wearing his usual jeans, black long-sleeved shirt, black boots, and black gloves. But he had a dumpy, shapeless, brown jacket over top of it all, a blue baseball cap, and a pair of dorky, large-framed glasses. Fortunately, spring was only just starting in this world and hadn't quite chased away the chill of winter so they could all bundle up with clothes that made them look innocuous.

The magical door had appeared in an alley, against a nondescript wall. As soon as they were all through and had closed it behind then, Kon peered around a corner to see if he could recognize where they were by the city's night-time skyline.

"Looks like Gotham." A pause. "It's hardly recognizable, though. I've never seen Gotham this clean."

He squinted instinctually, trying to peer around some more with his X-ray vision and found it working in full when he usually struggled with it back in the Guardians' universe. He held up his hand and poured on the teke, creating a field around it.

"My powers seem to be stronger here for some reason. The ones that are limited in the Guardians' universe are back, like my teke. You guys feeling the same? Most of us are superheroes or equivalents in our worlds. Being in a superhero universe might be amping up our powers or something. Maybe making the belief stronger."

It all ran on narratives, right? Stories? This was a story superheroes were supposed to be in.

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Dick didn't even bother trying to match Kon exactly. Everybody had their own stride and learning to work yours to others was part of working as a group. If they had to, he was already formulating a story that put Haruto as a rookie, out on patrol with them for the first time.

With any luck, that would work. Though, with MORE luck, they wouldn't need the story at all.

He wasn't counting on that much luck at the moment.

"I've done blind-fighting, Peter, I don't have to see you to pinch you," Cassie whispered. "Shhhhhhh!"

Not that she disagreed with his assessment of the situation. Being invisible herself was pretty weird -- though not as much of a pain as flying an invisible plane.

They marched along and Kon discreetly checked his brand as they did, his other hand over it like before to hide the glow. (Fortunately, due to having superpowers, the stormtroopers didn't carry guns so they didn't have to.) Moving didn't seem to be helping. They just weren't getting a read on the thing.

"Still not getting a bead on the shard," Kon said, and when he looked up for another scan of his X-ray vision, his eyes widened behind the mask.

"We're in trouble," he said. "These guys know what they're doing. I've got a group of stormtroopers coming at us from around the corner and if we run back the other we're gonna be line of sight for two others. We're gonna have to fast-talk our way out of this."

The stormtroopers rounded the corner.

"Hey! What are you doing off route?" one of them called out.

"Heard a noise," Kon quickly lied. "But it's nothing. Turned out to be just a stray. But, you know, we didn't wanna take any chances."

"Well, get back on course," said the stormtrooper. "Phillips will kill us if we leave any gaps in our patrol patterns. Especially after last time."

Kon nodded a curt nod and the stormtrooper almost turned around to go back the other way with his companions, but spotted something that made him stop. He pointed to Haruto's belt buckle.

"What are you doing, wearing that? It's against regs."

Kon looked over at Haruto and Nightwing, hoping desperately one of them had a good lie. He couldn't think of one.

Edited 2015-05-27 21:29 (UTC)

"Idiot rookie mistake," Dick spoke up, putting a bit of gruffness into his voice. Not that most people would recognize Dick Grayson's voice, but still. "First day and he was TRYING to make an impression." He set his mouth in a disapproving line. "Didn't have a chance to track down another belt before we had to be on patrol." He reached out, cuffing Haruto on the shoulder. "He's been taken to task over it. Swears it won't happen again, don't you, kid?"

For better or worse in corroborating their alibi, Haruto looked a touch nervous at the approaching group in his body language. Thankfully, Dick's comment gave him something to run with - or at least stumble with, once he gets bopped on the shoulder. He wobbles forward, then raises an awkward salute. "Aye, sir, never again!"

"You better not. They're cracking down on dresscode violations. Edwards got dinged for graffiti on his helmet the other day." The guard signaled for his two compatriots to get back on course for their patrol, then stopped suddenly, as if listening to some niggling instinct, turning to look back at Kon. "You know, your voice sounds an awful lot like his."

"Uh, 'his'?" Kon said, instinctually speaking in a deeper voice, like a teenager being called on a fake ID, not realizing that making his voice deeper was only going to add to the problem. "Whose?"

"The Big Guy's. The bossman's. Uncanny, really. Best impression I've ever heard and you're not even trying."

"Oh, I get that a lot," said Kon. "I'm six foot. I got them booming, manful dulcet tones you get when you're big as me." He shrugged. "Back on my high school football team my nickname was 'Man of Steel' and everything. Part of why I signed up for this gig is I always looked up to him."

Fuuuu -

It hadn't occurred to him to really change his voice like Dick had. He didn't have to worry about anyone recognizing Superboy's voice when he was younger and wasn't that big a deal in this world - or in many worlds, really. But of course they'd recognize Superman's voice when he was on the TV giving booming speeches as he ascended to world dictatorship. And if this Superman was younger and he was older...

It hadn't occurred to him that he'd gotten that old, changed so much to be like the Big Guy, and it was a very recognizable voice to most people that heard it.

So right now this guard probably didn't know what to do with the fact that a random Stormtrooper, slightly off course from his patrol, sounded like his fearless leader and the guy setting himself up as ruler of the world. It was like the setup of some kinda zany Charlie Chaplin film. Even if he couldn't figure out what it meant he was clearly registering that, bare minimum, it was weird.

"What position did you play?" the guard asked.

"Defensive tackle," Kon said, mentally thanking the students of Smallville high school for never shutting up about football so he knew enough to bluff. "Notched 62 tackles my senior year. Why?"

"Nothing, it's just -" The man suddenly had a bout of inspiration as he realized that he didn't have to figure out exactly what was going on so much as just figuring out something was wrong. And all he had to do to do it was to ask one question: "Who's your commanding officer, by the way?"

He held up a hand before Kon could answer. "And I want all three of you to answer when I count down from five. At the same time."

Busted.

"Captain Hit Him," Kon said before the guard started counting.

"Oh, I know Hitham -" one of the guards behind the Smart Guard interjected but he wasn't going to be allowed to finish.

Edited 2015-05-28 03:57 (UTC)

There was an audible "BONK!" as said guard was whacked in the back of the head by a glowing green baseball bat.

"Just our luck. We would get a stormtrooper too smart for his own good." Danny said as he reappeared.

Edited 2015-05-28 05:10 (UTC)

"Take 'em out before they call out!" Cassie said, going for a second. There were other stormtroopers in shouting range, and they did not want them to bring their weapons to bear on them.

Peter didn't go for the nearest stormtrooper. No, he instead went for the nearest wall, darting off bursts of webs at the stormtrooper's faces and weapons as he skittered up it. Better to stay a moving target. Well, best not to be a target at all, but you couldn't have everything.

"Remember how I said that this would all go horribly wrong? Anyone? I must be developing psychic powers. Either that or an incredible grasp of the depressingly inevitable."

Dick threw himself straight into the fight. Thanks to Kon, they knew there were other teams very close by and he could only hope that the sounds of a scuffle wouldn't bring them.

Like their luck was that good.

"Pretty sure it's just the depressingly inevitable," Dick replied, aiming a snap kick at the head of the nearest guard, neatly avoiding Peter's webbing. "Not enough research time. Actual, intelligent stormtroopers. It was only a matter of time."

Which was why they'd split up in the first place. Because, yeah, this was likely to happen.

Haruto was in Peter's boat - namely, the get some distance and disable from afar one. "Mind the chill," he says, moving to the side with far more flair than anyone in that uniform should before scanning a ring on his belt, and holding his hand out toward the enemy troopers. VERY NICE! BLIZZARD! FABULOUS! A blue spell circle draws itself in the air in front of his hand, and a stream of snow and ice sprays out toward the accusing troopers' legs.

Useful, but not very stealthy.

Kon punched the one Haruto had frozen to the ground, causing the ice (and possibly his ankle bones) to shatter as he fell. All of their efforts meant the guards were now down. They really hadn't stood a chance, considering who they were up against. When the last Stormtrooper fell, Kon went over and started moving the body of the Smart Guard.

"Now we just have to shove them in the alley or something and see if we can take advantage of the gap it'll -"

Smart Guard's radio crackled.

"Benison, your team's late for your call-in. What's your status? Over."

"Great, they probably have regular check-ins a few times an hour." Kon fumbled for the radio, thumped his chest slightly with his fist and cleared his throat.

"This is Benison," he said in a near perfect imitation of Smart Guard's voice. Had he thought to mask his voice earlier, apparently it wouldn't have been a problem to do it. At all. "Sorry for the delay. Heard a noise in an alley but it was just a stray. Everything's clear here. Over."

He let go of the broadcast button so it was muted on their end, looking over at the others, knowing that the fact he could pretty much steal someone else's voice was probably pretty freaky. He hadn't even shown that new trick off to Cass or Nightwing yet.

"Before anyone says anything, I know it's freaky. Apparently Kryptonians can do weird things with their vocal chords with precise muscle control."

It was something Kal probably could do, too, and likely just hadn't thought to try. But the Project had pushed Kon to the absolute limit in terms of figuring out his abilities and getting him to develop them.

The radio crackled again. "You know procedure. For a late call-in, give us your squad's call sign."

Kon cursed.

"Welp," he said to Nightwing. "We're boned. If we call up the door we can go back to the Pole, but if we try to open it again to come back it'll just open right here where we left it."

Which meant the Stormtroopers might still be around later, especially since they couldn't stay away that long before trying again to find the shard.

"Benison, I repeat, state your call sign."

"Or we can make a run for it and see if we can slip past them and hide somewhere. Your call, fearless leader."

Edited 2015-05-30 04:40 (UTC)

There were days when Dick wished he wasn't the one who was in charge. This was definitely shaping up as one of them.

Still, he took a breath and shook his head. "We run. Danny, Cassie, Peter. You guys go invisible again. Right now, having the element of surprise may help more if we get in trouble again. Kon, Haruto and I will stay on the ground and visible."

Partly because they needed somebody to be able to see their brand in order to pinpoint the Shard. Which, honestly, he was starting to get a terrible feeling about. Until they had proof, though, it was a feeling he'd keep to himself. "Stay close, all of you. Now, let's get the hell out of dodge before they start sending other patrols to see what's going on."

He really, really wanted the rooftops. But the roofs were the domain of the Bats and Superman knew that.

Didn't stop him wanting height.

"Will do." Danny said, grabbing Peter and Cassie by the hand and once again ghosting them out of sight.

"Have to say though, Kon. You missed a golden opportunity to quote Han Solo."

"Oh, come on, that totally would've given us away," Kon said, doing a quick scan all around them with his X-ray vision. "So far we've had bad luck and gotten smart guards. With that, we'd probably have been unlucky enough to get a genre-savvy one."

After his look around, Kon singled for the others to follow him.

"C'mon, guys, I'll try to use my X-ray vision to help us avoid them. Maybe we can lose 'em."

Then he started running, leading the way, turning them down alley after alley.

Far off in the distance, they could hear the sound of helicopters approaching and even those without superhearing could likely heard the sound of jackboots on the pavement in the distance as the horde started their search.

But it wasn't the Stormtroopers that found them.

For no apparent reason, Kon suddenly staggered and stopped mid-step, as if he'd been hit in the back by something.

"I've got him," he suddenly called out, the tone and inflection of his voice suddenly changing. It sounded strange. Unlike him. Calmer and more collected - and very familiar to Nightwing's. "Not that that's a good thing. I still think this is a terrible idea"

Another voice sounded out of the empty air.

"Enog eb ytilibisivni!" it said, and then all of a sudden Danny's invisibility was nullified, making all of them visible.

"Ffo s'temleh!" Those of them that were wearing helmets would find them suddenly disappearing.

"Laever!" it cried out again and suddenly they were all surrounded, a group of woman standing nearby on the surround fire escapes. One of them, the woman with a top hat, was glowing with mystical energy, making it clear she was the one that had detected and exposed them.

Edited 2015-06-08 00:23 (UTC)

Taking advantage of the distraction the appearance of the women caused, a dark shape swooped down out of the shadows, landing in front of them with a flare of his cape.

The Batman.

"We need to talk."

Edited 2015-06-08 00:24 (UTC)

Danny's ghost sense didn't quite go off in time to warn anyone of the other ghost in their midst. And things had moved quickly enough that he hadn't gotten a chance until just now.

"Hold that thought." He snapped, going intangible, and charging at Kon, bodily shoving the possessing spirit out of him.

"Protip. You wanna talk? You do not start by getting someone possessed." Danny growled. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

He'd felt it. He'd encountered Deadman before, even if it was a different Deadman. Most people who were possessed by Deadman just blanked during the time he was in their body but they'd a little chitchat since Deadman was trying to set up a seance with Kon and the spirit of the recently dead Guardian, so he knew to go save his baby clone. He remembered the strange, unreal feeling.

More than that, Kon'd trained extensively with J'onn and a host of other other people to learn how to deal with possession and mind control after his experience of being mind controlled by Lex Luthor. That meant he'd already started putting up a fight when Danny knocked the spirit clean out of him.

Which meant the rage juices were already flowing. That was why he let out an absolutely furious roar the moment he was free, his body crackling with blue telekinetic energy.

"What the hell was that?" he yelled, taking a step forward towards Batman. "Nobody gets to mess with my brain! You hear me? Nobody!"

Up on one of the fire escapes, Batwoman suddenly changed mannerisms as Deadman possessed her.

"Told you it was a terrible idea," he said down to Batman. "Sometimes I think the only reason you keep me around is because you enjoy having someone to never listen to."

Edited 2015-06-08 00:47 (UTC)

Haruto frowned as his helmet disappeared, and with a quick ring-switch, he summoned his sword-gun, though kept it braced on his shoulder as he dissipated the illusory stormtrooper outfits.

"Funny way of getting our attention," he comments, slowly stepping out from behind Kon and to his side, glancing around the assorted newcomers. "Probably for the best that you say what you have to quickly, lest this turn into having to talk with our fists," he says, tilting his head in the direction of Danny and Kon. Not so much a threat as it was an idle observation, but if it worked as a threat, he wasn't going to complain.

Cassie grabbed Kon by the arm, both to restrain him from moving further forward and to offer physical reassurance. She too was glaring at Batman, though she also flicked a glance toward the woman on the fire escape.

"Looks like someone forgot to renew his World's Greatest Detective license," she said scornfully. "We already had storm troopers on our tails, I suggest we put 'talking' on the back burner and haul it!"

Things happened a lot faster than Dick could react to. He was, after all, only human. Still, it didn't take much to actually PROCESS what was happening.

He glanced up at Batwoman, having a moment of weirdness, knowing it was his alternate self speaking out of Kate's mouth.

Instead of dwelling on that, he drew himself up to his full (if unimpressive) height, chin set and looking at Batman full in the eye. "Wonder Girl is right. We don't have the time to have this conversation here. Unless you really want to be overrun by Kal's forces. We can talk when everybody is to safety. And still free."

Because, yeah, he knew that Batman would lock Kon up if he had the chance. Better to let him know that he wouldn't stand for it in the first place. It was one of the things he fully planned to use his position as Dick Grayson/Nightwing to his advantage.

Bruce did not look happy over the idea of letting Superboy into his hideout without it being under more...controlled conditions but the hostility from them all gave him pause.

And the challenge in Nightwing's voice was clear.

"Zatanna, teleport us to base," Batman said.

Edited 2015-06-08 17:27 (UTC)

"Esab ot tropelet!"

With that, they were all teleported away to the Resistance's hideout.

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"You have to start out learning to believe the little lies to believe the big ones."

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npc tag

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interjecting an npc tag, then the invisible peeps can go

Re: interjecting an npc tag, then the invisible peeps can go

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npc tag

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npc tag!

Re: npc tag!

gonna do a quick reaction tag

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