Lucien's will was always strong. That's not true. But it was strengthened a long time ago. He used those memories to fuel and solidify his constructs with Arisia's help.
They hovered above ground in S.T.A.R Labs main floor as the rest of his team— those willing, started their try-outs.
He'd lost sight of Hawk-girl as the battle started. He was still new to seeing superhumans in real time. In real life. They were hard to follow when he wasn't powered by his Lupine transformation. When he wasn't in the heat of the moment.
They were a blur in the maze.
Vixen's necklace spewed wintery blue energy as the spectral form of a wolf surrounded her. Suddenly she was exponentially faster with claws, fangs and a wicked growl accenting her exhales.
She found the first vamp.
"Scent tracking." Lucien realized.
She ran low, drifting around a corner of the maze like an orange-furred wolfish blur in the black-green shadows.
The construct of the parallaxian vampire had faster reflexes and flipped out of the way of her charge. It landed in a crouch on the side of the wall. Lucien could almost feel the construct on construct pressure.
Vixen pressed onward, slashing and snapping her jaws at the beastly construct as it flipped and rolled to evade.
She finally caught the vampire with a disorienting bark before tackling it.
As soon as they hit the ground, the vampire construct erupted into green smoke.
Vixen got to her feet, watching the smoke drift.
"Ok. Just have to do that a few more times—"
The smoke rematerialized into the vampire.
Vixen sighed with irritation.
Right when she was about to give chase, Lucien cringed. His ring flickered as a woman roared.
Hawk-girl burst through the wall of one of his constructs. Her nth-metal energy mace smashed into the head of the vampire construct and obliterated it entirely.
"We stealing flags now?" Vixen asked.
"It's a free for all. Yes." Hawkgirl flapped her wings once and flew down the hallway towards the sounds of more violence.
Lucien looked ahead of Hawkgirl to the next battlefield in the maze.
Up at the top left corner, Lagoonboy fought off three vampires. He would've been suffering from success…. if he was succeeding.
Arisia's constructs ripped and punched him relentlessly until he was on the ground trying to guard any of the maddening assault.
"Hmmm…" Bruce observed as he stood on a platform made by Arisia beside Lucien.
"What?" Lucien asked.
"I'm glad he's started to use his size alteration skill more strategically."
Lucien thought on it for a second, and in that time, Lagoonboy suddenly doubled in size. His muscles bubbled like they were suddenly filled with air. His fishy scaled skin hardened and became adorned with tiny spikes. The stripes on his neck and arms glowed with an electrical pulse.
"The people of Atlantis tend to naturally be connected to some form of magic." Lucien remembered.
The vampires once overwhelming him where blown back against the construct walls and down the hall.
Two died from the impact.
The other was getting to its feet when Lagoonboy pounced. He cleared thirty feet in a single bound and smashed the construct with his new weight.
From around the corner leading to the center of the maze, Beastboy crashed and burned against two vampires with the bat-like wings sprouted from his back flapping uselessly.
"Come on, beauty- you gotta bulk up!" Lagoonboy roared and grabbed Beastboy by the leg, yanking him out from under the swarming vampire constructs.
He jumped into the air with beastboy still dragged along by the leg.
As if the metahuman was a hammer, Lagoonboy lifted him up over his head and slammed the young adult back down onto the vampires. As Beastboy fell, he transformed into a hybrid gorilla monster with sabered fangs, tiger stripes and hawk-wings.
The vampires didn't stand a chance.
The two brutes looked at eachother in the darkness.
"Hell yea."
They bumped fists.
"We do need breachers." Bruce thought.
"Explain." Lucien replied to Bruce's thoughts as he watched the battle unfold further, taking mental note of Lagoonboy suddenly becoming the prime candidate for the bite. Atlantean shifter magic? The ability to breathe underwater? Beneficial to say the least.
"Well, when in war, you need roles. Which I'm sure you know."
"It's the only way formations work. Each role and individuals skillset is a tool— a weapon. Without weapons, you can only fight so well." Lucien replied.
"Exactly." Bruce said. "So if we were to classify ourselves, you're heavy assault. Armed with an Oan power ring, ancient skinwalker magic that packs a punch, and some mutant strain of your lineage that makes you a cut above the rest. You're combative, you're efficient and you recover quick physically. But you're also costly. You need more calories than the flash family after a relay race around the planet."
"Oh…."
"But you have your uses." Bruce added quickly, "Raven is also heavy assault. You two are our nukes or cannons. I'm stealth. I don't have as much mass as either of you. But my speed and shadow magic make me more akin to the vampires than not. They may not see that coming."
Lucien listened as Vixen became cloaked in the spectral shroud of a cheetah and suddenly entered a new domain of speed.
"Beastboy and Lagoonboy are defensive chargers. They put on size— which draws attention. That can be used for either of us to get through hordes of vampires without having to one, waste your costly energy or two, get me killed." Bruce said.
"They'd allow you to run the back line and me to be more energy efficient." Lucien said.
"Exactly." Bruce explained.
"Hawkgirl won't be able to do that." Lucien noted. "But then again, we'd all be more defensive with nth-metal and thanagarian constitutions."
At the bottom left, things started to heat up.
Bombs and batarangs lit up the green-dark like fireworks as Red-Robin fought off two Vampires.
They shifted to their smoke forms and avoided the heavy assault.
Red-Robin's hands flashed across his belt with near superhuman dexterity, plucking free a canister that he began to spray as the smoke formed fiends surrounded him.
In a few seconds time, the partially transformed vampires were frozen.
From there, Red-Robin raised his bo-staff and beat the constructs into unrecognizable shards.
Down the hallway, vixen came running, chasing down another vampire.
"Ears!" Red-Robin called to her before throwing a stun grenade.
Vixen jumped over the vampire and grenade.
Red-Robin, spun around and shot his grapple gun into the Star labs wall at an upward angle for Vixen.
Her necklace spit out a monkey-spirit cloak as she grabbed onto the wire and swung back into the maze, landing on the vampire with an elephant scream.
"Thanks, bird-boy." Vixen dusted her hands.
Red-Robin looked up at Arisia, "Is that all?"
"Nope."
The ground rumbled.
Lucien looked over to his teacher, "It's not?"
"Killowog always told me, even the most skilled teacher can't bring the best out of you the way the unexpected can." Arisia's ring flashed.
What looked like a thousand vampires burst out of the hole in the ground and landed in the maze.
They moved like a hiveminded horde following a singular directive.
Lucien smelled fear. From all of them in varying ways. The horde grew— literally at the taste of it. The constructs grew mouthes full of grotesque fangs and winged arms. Their muscles slithered like serpents. Their blood boiled and burst from their skin in glowing yellow pustules.
Red-Robin clicked his staff, turning it into a shield and braced himself.
Beastboy and Lagoonboy charged inward, swinging and smashing the rushing tide of vampire constructs.
Quickly— reflexively, the heroes stood together, meeting up at the center.
Dove and Hawk began to glow red and blue as their avatar of war and peace abilities took hold. Dove slowed the horde with calming waves while Hawk became faster and stronger, moving like a monster in her own right.
Slowly, though, they were being surrounded and overwhelmed in the small space.
A feathered blur cut through the madness, throwing people over walls and behind cover boxes suddenly.
Hawkgirl secured everyone before flying up to them.
"Do you mind?"
Lucien shook his head.
Hawk-girl's mace looked like a blue sun. He could feel its vibrations in the air.
She divebombed with the alien weapon.
The blast nearly leveled star labs.
When the dust settled, another hole was made in the floor. The heroes participating in the tryouts surrounded it, now in defensive bubbles thanks to Lucien.
He and his Skinwalkers landed.
"That concludes todays training. You fought well. I hope you better understand the nature of your enemy." Arisia explained.
A slow clap came from the back corner of the room.
Constantine came from the shadows with Etrigan, "That means don't get scared or you'll turn the vampires into….. super-vampires."
"Got it." Lagoonboy shrunk down to size.
"So who won?" Beastboy said, "I got like a hundred in the swarm. C'mon. Just say I'm your guy."
Lagoonboy shoved him lightly, "Dude….. get off your knees."
Beastboy waved him off, "Don't try to be too cool for school now."
"Always was."
"Listen up." Lucien started only to hear a scream in the distance.
Bruce straightened. "Barbara?!"
Lucien suddenly worried training was about to end with an abrupt live event on the very thing they were facing…..