Chapter 49: Blazing Conviction Part 1

(General P.O.V)

"Lantern Stewart to Batman."
Batman narrowed his eyes and touched his earpiece to receive the call.
"I read you loud and clear. What is the update on the satellite feed readings."
Green Lantern did not delay in answering,
"Nothing on the scene itself. That said, something did register on our scans. I'm sending over the satellite images now."
Batman controlled the bat jet to land a ways off from the gathered investigation teams.

The hatch to the jet opened and he glided downwards.
"Team rendezvous on me."
"Got it."
"On my way."
"Copied."
Batman's wrist computer lit up and the Dark Knight's frown intensified. A few minutes later, Captain Atom, Lantern Jordan and Wonder Woman flew down to land before Batman.
"The Watchtower found something."

Batman started clicking on the hologram computer. Following his actions, a map of the moon was projected. A red blinking light pulsed on it's surface.
"That's the dark side of the moon."
Green Lantern stated.
"Exactly. And the dimensions of whatever this structure is, match the same diameter as the missing portion of the park."
Batman explained. Realization dawned on their faces.
"Then what are we waiting for? Let us go and rescue them."
Wonder Woman declared.

(Elsewhere)

"This is all your fault Artemis!"
Wally said while leaping off the wall in quick succession and kicking one of the creatures on the torso. The speedster bounced off it's metallic chest piece, getting pushed back. The only visible result was the creature getting thrown back a few inches. That brief respite was enough for two birdarangs to slice through the air and dig themselves on the aforementioned torso. They exploded destroying the Para-mental and two more of it's kind, coming in from behind.

"Me? Where do you even come up with these ideas?"
Artemis asked, burying one of the arrows clutched in her hands inside a small space on the neck of one of the creatures. The head sparked as the Para-mental fell down, jerking uncontrollably.
"You're the one who suggested we go right!"
Kid Flash shot back, forming a tornado with his body that cleared the creatures near them away, throwing them back over the mess of bodies belonging to the Para-mentals they'd already taken down.

"Uughhh! I can't even! You only said we go left because you like arguing with me!"
Artemis responded in frustration, dodging a gout of fire and then kicking the creature on it's chin, pointing the head up. The flames from it's mouth spread through the air, burning through the wings of another Para-mental causing it to crash on another of it's species.

"Keep both your heads in the game. This is so not the time for this."
Robin shouted at them, despite the fact that his right hand was injured, the young detective made sure to hit back harder than the enemy. And for a while it had been working. Using his superior acrobatic moves, Robin was the decoy, Wally the support and Artemis the one who finished them off. The roles cycled through them based on the situation. Luckily, taking them down was the easy part, mostly because of how untrained the creatures were. However their numbers were the problem. It was clear to Robin that the three of them were running on fumes. Boy Wonder had no idea how long they could keep this up for.

(Aden's P.O.V)

My next environment/floor convinced me I was right. This place was built like a dungeon. And the thing about dungeons? They always have a final boss, dungeon core or a dungeon master. Defeat that and you're free. Emboldened, I continued flying through the lava, increasing the speed of my ascent as the heat surrounding my tightly constructed air bubble became almost too much for me to handle. I really need to figure out firebending and preferably soon. Air was versatile but it's main utility was escaping and redirecting confrontation. Fire on the other hand…was violent, straight up confrontational and had a wreck em all down and let god sort them out or something vibe, still can't quite remember that expression.

I broke through the surface of the lava only to find hundreds of Para-mentals covering the air. Still can't believe someone was dumb enough to mix tech from Darkseid's realm with Morrow's. I was just glad that Morrow's real Androids were missing from the equation or else the others would be in real danger. I wouldn't count them out too quickly though. Looking at the Para-mentals, they had clearly been heavily influenced by the look of his Androids.

Speaking of which, the creatures spotted me almost immediately and flew down to attack me in a swarm. Good thing they were dumb because, friendly fire took out most of the first wave. A bubble of air formed under me as I flew up.
"Sorry gotta run."
The bubble held compressed air that violently exploded, pushing me up even faster than I could go. The surroundings blurred in my eyes and my visor was painted a visceral green as I speared through a section of the Para-mentals, no doubt killing most.

The drill from before appeared around my body as I hit the ceiling and punctured through it. Damn, I can be great for construction work. Especially the part about destroying things. Maybe this was an alternative to making money through entertainment media? I had always asked myself if superpowers could be used in other ways and if they could sustain someone as a main source of income.

The main problem with that would be the social discrimination and jealousy towards anyone who tried to use their abilities in that way. Not to mention just how many businesses would fail because of the cheaper alternative. You need your land cleared? Bring in the guy with the earth based powers and voila it's done within a few hours.

The world just wasn't wired like that. If you had powers the only viable thing to do was a) Join the hero side, b) join the villain side or c) stay far away from both sides and hope they don't notice you. The mercs with powers were the outliers on that front and the closest example of a world with pro-active superpower usage. In comparison to that ideal society, the Young Justice universe was relatively young. The presence of a meta-gene was not even that widely known to people despite the fact it had been there for a long time, giving people powers based on pre-existing factors in a person's systems.

I shook my head to get rid of the train of thought as I broke through the earthen surface to find myself in a long hallway. The walls of the hallway were made of earth and the weird red crystals from earlier that hung above my head, casting a grim scarlet light on everything.

"So we have a desert, an ocean, a lava and now a tunnel. This suspiciously matches up with air to represent the violent winds present in the desert, water for the abundance found in the ocean, fire for the heat attribute in magma and earth which is self explanatory. All the four elements associated by their constituents environments. Self sustaining yet separate. Morrow what the fuck did you do?"

You are reading story Aden Strong: Avatar In DC at novel35.com

Not just anything had the power to pull out something like this. It was less about the energy needed to power it but more like the complexity of creating it in the first place and stabilizing it. The implications scared me and a theory I had forming in my head was becoming more and more conceivable as time went on. I refused to give it voice because nothing good ever came whenever the things I was thinking of were concerned.

I turned my attention back to the area and scanned it. The whole tunnel/ hallway felt ominous. Like a scene from a horror movie. This was probably the last floor before I got to where the core of this whole space was. That is if my theory was correct. I hadn't been attacked yet but I kept out a constant vigilance. I closed my eyes and connected with the air, stretching out through both hallways.

I felt a vibration along the hallway on the right that made me stiffen. I blinked my eyes and boom! A shockwave was left behind as I shot off through the tunnel. Behind me, the ground was left splintered due to my abrupt exit. My speed increased more and more as I called on the air to take me faster, taking turns left and right while following my senses. I had to get there quickly before it was too late!

"Come on! Come on!!"

(General P.O.V)

Robin had taken a nasty blow that dislocated his shoulder while trying to protect Wally who had passed out a few seconds ago. The boy Wonder palmed the last of his explosive birdarangs while hiding behind a barricade made of the Para-mental's remains, courtesy of their resident speedster last ditch effort to protect them before he had passed out due to exhaustion.

He looked at Artemis who was breathing heavily beside him. Her uniform was dirty with grime and dried green blood, matching his. Her mask was torn apart and she had a nasty cut on her left arm.

The battle was still going on but the creatures were smarter now. Somewhere along the way they'd learned to stop the ill advised diving attacks because of how easily they were dispatched. Not only that but they had stopped attacking individually, whoever was controlling them had started to strategize. For now, they looked content in waiting them out. Waiting until Robin and the others were too exhausted mentally and physically to put up a strong fight. And it seemed as if they'd waited long enough. Robin could feel them preparing something. He looked through a peep hole and saw a few Para-mentals step forward.

His eyes widened as he saw the licks of flames and draft of air surrounding them. Robin stared at the wall then back at his explosive birdarang. Maybe if he could destroy the wall then perhaps...a hand touched his.

"Maybe we...we should surrender."

Artemis eyes brought him another suggestion that he hadn't thought of ever entertaining. Normally, Robin would swallow his pride and agree but...

"They don't want to take us alive."

Artemis sighed and looked down, tightening her hands on her arrows. Her hands were covered with dried green blood.

"Then we take out with us as many of them as possible."

It was good to see she still hadn't lost her touch. Boy Wonder smiled.

"My thoughts exactly."

You can find story with these keywords: Aden Strong: Avatar In DC, Read Aden Strong: Avatar In DC, Aden Strong: Avatar In DC novel, Aden Strong: Avatar In DC book, Aden Strong: Avatar In DC story, Aden Strong: Avatar In DC full, Aden Strong: Avatar In DC Latest Chapter