Yvonne grew cautious of the evil smile that hinted on her boss's face. "They used it to hold Nightwing hostage. Batman's sidekick." She reached forward tapping on the tablet still in wallers possession and a video from a security camera in a nearby warehouse showed a glimpse of a limping Nightwing being supported by a woman before going out of view.
"Batman doesn't kill." Waller stated a fact known throughout the underworld. He may occasionally maim but never would he take a life but by the amount of bodies she saw strewn about in the pictures he must have had a hand in aiding his sidekicks escape.
"We don't have proof of his involvement but evidence shows she is involved and was the one to kill most of the captors inside the warehouse." She explained pointing to the woman. "She must be the one who helped fight against doomsday"
Wallers eyes lit up with recognition at that comment.
Yes she thought.
The right outfit and body build and apparently quite skilled. She would definitely get a visit from the dark night some time soon.
"Survivors?" Waller inquired. If she didn't know any better someone was framing her and this could lead to a confrontation with the justice league, something she wasn't ready for given the number of new friends they had.
"A few. Death stroke has been activated." Yvonne mentioned with Waller nodding in approval.
"Location?" She asked getting up from her desk heading to the door. She needed answers to confirm what she was thinking. There was only a handful of people who could pull such a stunt.
"Already fed it into your gprs" Yvonne answered intending to return to the control room where she left Tech 2 and Ivan trying to figure out the one responsible for all this.
"You're coming with me" a statement that made her freak out more than when a gun had been pulled on her earlier.
Why me! He mentally complained trying not to think of what she will have to witness now that she had taken Ivan's job.
At the watchtower.
"How is he?" Batmans thoughts was diverted after exiting the infirmary heading to the conference room. Black widow had been waiting outside for close to thirty minutes for any good news.
I hope I wasn't late…I should've brought back…I should've atleast told him were some of the thoughts on her mind.
Batman stopped walking and turned to face her. "Why didn't you call it in!?" He half demanded an answer. A joint effort meant the extraction could have been short and more efficient.
"How is he?" She repeated. She needed to know and Batman saw the expression on her face.
"He's stable but in intensive care." He still expected an answer from her which wouldn't be given to him by the apparent expression on her face.
"That is not how we do things here!" He suppressed the anger welling up inside him "who knows what would've have happened if I hadn't shown up!" He stressed incase she didn't see the gravity of the situation she was in.
When he had finally located and was surveying the warehouse from his batjet (newly acquired), rapid gunfire coming from inside forced him to infiltrate its perimeter without coming up with a viable strategy.
Without a plan or the element of surprise on his side, it took sometime for him to make his way past the security detail outside the warehouse and then noticed most firepower was focused on the humvee trying to make an escape.
By the time he figured out the identity of the passengers, an RPG had already been fired and the vehicle slamming hard on the perimeter wall. Something inside him clicked. He can't remember if he killed anyone while trying to get to them though he knew majority received fractures and most likely won't walk for some time or use their hand for that matter.
"Then It's a good thing you showed up otherwise I would have been forced to kill as many of them as possible." She stated, a fierce expression on her face. In no universe will Black widow go out without a fight.
The stare down continued for a couple of seconds before Batman turned and walked out the widow in toe. She swore to herself she saw hint of a smile in that angry expression of his.
All available heroes were seated in the conference room chatting among themselves when the two entered and batman sat at the head of the table with Captain America seated at the other end.
In attendance was Superman, Wonderwoman, Thor, Flash, Wanda, J'onn, Banner, Black widow, Ben and Green lantern. Cyborg and Shazam were currently on monitor duty and in charge of the other heroes when they were still in the meeting.
"Where's Clint?" Black widow had not seen her friend for hours now.
"He's dealing with some things back on earth" Cap whispered to her and glad that she was okay.
"He's with Tony." He added already knowing what she was intending to ask again confirmed by her nod.
"How is he?" Cap asked her but got an answer from batman instead.
"He's stable. The doctors are still tending to him for all of you wondering about the same." They needed to get to the bottom of whatever was happening.
The watchtower was buzzing with chatter on Nightwing's condition after they witnessed his arrival with batman and black widow by his side. Batgirl had teleported up to join the long line of heroes waiting to hear news about their friend and teammate.
It's a good thing the justice league was well funded and had the best medical doctors and equipments at their disposal.
"He is a fighter." J'onn added having sensed the young hero's will to live when he was brought in. "Do you have any leads as to who was behind it?" He asked looking at batman. He was always a step ahead of his enemies however not in this case.
"We're working on it." He stated assuming everyone knew he was talking about black widow who was scheming through the tablet infront of her.
"Wow! When I never thought he could willingly admit to working with somebody" flash whispered to Hal and Ben who maintained a straight face looking ahead much to his confusion but soon figured out why.
"Flash. Do you have any suggestion on who they are so you could enlighten us?" Thor beat batman at asking him having also noticed his hushed whispering.
"Uh..not really.." He quickly recovered. "But I will help in whatever's necessary to bring them in" Nice save
"We will all help." Cap reiterated regarding his team and the justice league nodded.
"I'll help too." Ben added feeling left out. He had been busy looking over all the information Trixx was sorting out for him through his HUD eyes and displaying various results. She was currently displaying information retrieved from that main ship he was trying to decommission.
"Good. I thought you were to report back in 24 hrs time?" Wonderwoman asked looking at Ben and Hal. She was surprised when they turned up for the meeting having been briefed by cyborg on their arrival time. From supermans and Batmans expressions she could tell they were also interested in that answer.
Of course he knows about the Almerac invasion despite everything that took place she thought.
"We used the guardians teleporter." Hal explained hoping it was enough.
"I didn't know they had a teleporter." J'onn thought out loud. In his very long life he had never heard of them possessing one. Now that he thought about it, it was stupid to assume they didn't have one.
"They deemed it necessary to be used because of the attack on Almerac." He answered while the others were busy reading through the report on their tablets.
"Thanos!" Thor chocked out his name causing everyone to look at him and prompting him to continue "Thanos commands the chitauri. The creatures you fought against"
"Who's Thanos?" Cap asked him the only unknown matter to them as they had fought against the chitauri before when they were under Lokis command.
"Who are those?" Flash asked when he noticed Thor tense when muttering the names. Anything that made that powerhouse tense was bad news according to him.
Everyone listened in when Thor began retelling the stories he heard of the mad Titan and his campaign to bring balance to the universe by killing half the population in every planet he conquered.
Meanwhile Ben had attempted to search for that name in the files he retrieved but came up blank.
The connection to their main server was cut before I was able to hack into it was Trixxs explanation when he mentally asked her about it.
"So the guardians are not the only ones who are more technologically advanced than earth." Ben asked Trixx recalling on how it took her longer than usual to infiltrate and retrieve files pertaining to the ships design.
I detected the presence of an AI that immediately cut all connections when I had attempted to breach their main server was Trixx answer. Ben had interacted with her long enough to fill in the blanks whenever she gave answers and in this case if the connection wasn't cut she could have accessed the server.
It still Intrigued him to know she still had the capacity to evolve with her currently developing her own algorithms based on the ones retrieved from the lanterns and the ships specs and infusing it with her own. A part of her processing power was set aside to handle that with the lanterns code adaptation currently at 11%.
"It might have been a shock to the black order when they invaded this planet without proper planning. It seems this universe is more evolved than our own." Their universe did not have a planet full of super powered being like Almerac or Krypton.
"Retreat is a harsh wake up call" Wanda added her opinion. When their base had been attacked she had felt the determination emanating from Bizarro when he battled against the hulk and the anger that replaced every other feeling from it when he knew he would have to make a run for it. She assumed every would be conquerer would be inclined to feel like that.
"They had no choice." Hal pointed out. "The Almeracians were actually holding there own against them. All we did was take out their ships."
"I managed to get a map of their ships but I'm guessing they will look to change their design once they figure that out." Ben added then proceeded to project its hologram via the watchtowers system onto their conference table.
"Those were initially weak points in their ships." The major things like engine rooms, thrusters and control rooms were highlighted for most of them to see.
"You hacked them" it was more of a statement than question from batman.
"Had no choice." He replied. No one in the room seem surprised. "Though they cut off the connection to their main server before I could hack it and this is all I got." He added anticipating their next question.
"Did you meet the queen?" Black widow asked still looking over the report and details about Almerac still in awe how a whole planet could be so powerful.
"Yes we did." Hal answered. "She actually subdued two of the commanders. I'd hate to be them right now just thinking of the mood she could be in."
"Tell me about it." Superman unconsciously crossed his legs recalling the first time he met the queen. She hit hard and it took all his power just to escape that planet since he was not as powerful as he is now.
Something occurred to batman, "if you met Maxima then…"
Following his line of thought Ben nodded lifting his arm indicating the Omnitrix, something Hal and the others noticed thud having a hard time not looking at the watch.
"I actually saw it happen. Kind of cool." Hal admitted then a smile formed on his face.
"You could've seen the way Maxima threw herself at him." He added causing Bens face to heat up a little at the attention and memory of that encounter.
Trixx had brought any and all information regarding Almerac and the queen which suggested that had it not been for them teleporting away, he would have had to literally fight the queen to get away, something he knew by the consoling look on supermans face to him.
"Such a vulgar woman. Doesn't she know you're just but a child." Wonderwoman muttered then looked at Clark no doubt recalling the story he had told her about his encounter.
Ben on the other hand was blushing and fidgeting in his seat unable to retort a wise crack at Wonderwomans comment. Something about her just garnered respect plus she seemed ticked off in regards to this topic.
"Well…to be fair he was a 28 years old version of Thor" Hal pointed out gesturing to Thor. "She didn't know about the watch or him being underage." He smiled mischievously.
"Hey! I'm practically 23!" Ben shoved Hal's shoulder while the rest just chuckled at his outburst.
"When I say it I'm suddenly the bad guy" Hal retorted meaning the earlier comment from Wonderwoman.
"The difference is I can actually hit you!" Ben suddenly wished he could've missed this meeting and stayed chatting with the heroines.
"It's a good thing she doesn't know about the watch." Batman concluded.
Everyone knew Maximas family and their obsession with interbreeding with the best genes available to them and with Ben she could have a million of them.
That is if he could even conceive when he changes to a different specie he thought.
"You may not be the only ones who could have traveled to this universe. This thanos guy proves it." J'onn who was mostly quiet spoke up.
"That's what the guardians are investigating. They maybe starting with that Thanos since they have his ship." Came from Hal.
"Maybe but we still need to do our own investigations. I have spoken with Captain America and we've decided any information found concerning anything to do with whatever's going on will be funneled through Banner and J'onn. Aside from the official control room, we are setting up another one that will be accessed by only the founding members, the avengers and Ben." He announced while Cap, Banner and J'onn rose up and nodded accepting the responsibility.