Quickly, I looked down at my watch and turned around, rushing back into the building.
"Cassandra," I stopped checking the incoming messages and placed a hand on the waiting girl's shoulder. "I have to go."
"Trouble," she said, not as a question but as a matter of fact. She must've gotten it from my body language.
"Don't worry, everything'll be okay."
"I know. I'm just worried about you," she signed.
I went down to eye level with her. "I promise I'll be back. Okay?"
She gave me a nod and I stood up, body brimming with urgency. "Now hurry up and go upstairs. Mike and Felicity know what to do."
I urged her on and she rushed me a quick hug before going for the elevator.
Immediately the metal doors closed and removed her from sight, I ran outside the building, found a spot with no cameras and vanished. The Soulsword flourished into existence with a thought and I leapt onto it.
The blue construct representative of my soul assumed the hoverboard configuration with unnerving ease and took off to the sky, bringing the gigantic horror that was the plant monster into proper view.
With a chant and a few hand signs, a blue light washed over me and my mundane clothes morphed into my new and improved suit. It had two modes, Spider and Director. This was Bludhaven, so the spider mask hiding my identity went without saying.
The screams of panic, fear, injury and the combination of multiple acts of destruction going filtered through my suit's scanners unceasingly. The wind whipped at my coat as I closed in on the hospital construction site.
That is where the plant—or whoever pulled its vines—had chosen to manifest it in the city.
Considering there were genomorphs on site, I had little doubt that the plant appearing here had to be Lex's doing. I owed the bastard a few punches but they could come later, after I'd put a stop to this overgrown plant.
I canceled the cloaking effect and dived toward the mess, mentally highlighting every injured and unmoving person in the vicinity. My scanners, a result of the formidable mix of magic and science, were nothing if comprehensive, highlighting even severed body parts and the dead.
By this point, every negative emotion possible had tried to take center stage in my mind. They found no purchase as I dedicated every ounce of brain power to the victims and not them. And I didn't even need the help of the candle flame for this.
Once the visor in my sight stopped filling up with markers, a quick tap on my watch changed the scenery around me. Blue lights flashed into existence near every single tagged thing and a left tiny drone behind.
They looked completely unremarkable. Black, rectangular with glowing blue edges that were barely visible; the average person would mistake them for high tech smartphones.
However, upon being summoned, each drone locked on the tag they'd been assigned and stuck themselves to the person, body part or limb, encasing them first in a forcefield, putting them in stasis second, and then finally, teleporting them to a safe location.
One by one, like someone was scraping the tags of my screen, the markers disappeared until none were left.
During the entire period the drones worked, I didn't stay idle.
I flew around and played the part the suit was meant for; pulling people out of falling building parts, out of the way of falling rubble, healing and repositioning those that had been hit by debris, all using a mix of webs and telekinesis when the situation called for it.
I also went after the vines and the things they decided to grab and crush and or throw, namely people and vehicles. One such vine had seized a car with two male occupants and was in the process of cracking its entire length like a whip.
The Soulsword sent me soaring forward like a bullet. Right as I entered striking distance, I unleashed a quick hand chop and sent forth a scything wave of telekinetic energy, severing the thick, green coil of plant matter.
The freed car resisted gravity with another application of telekinesis. Flicking a finger to throw off the limp vines coiling around the car like snakes, I lowered it out of the main plant's range and flew back up.
High above all the chaos, I surveyed the entire scene to ensure there were no more people in the aggressive plant's radius. My scanners unfortunately picked up more. A simple nudge sent the Soulsword blasting forward.
Spider Sense's constant ringing since the battle chose to intensify at this moment and my head snapped toward the stalk, more specifically the giant flower buds covering its thick, trunk-like body.
Quickly, I tagged the people needing my help in the distance and sent drones after them. These people just needed to be moved to safe locations. They didn't require medical help. Staying in the radius of whatever those buds were about to spew however, would change that.
As soon as I landed on the nearest intact skyscraper and the drones deployed near the victims, the flowers bloomed and each began to blast out plumes of sickly, orange gas.
Like a conductor before an orchestra, I raised both arms, moving my fingers to a peculiar tune while the converted impulses from my mind synced up with those from my gloves.
Drones, these one thrice as large as the evacuator ones, flashed into existence one by one around the giant stalk, projecting films of translucent blue energy.
On their own, they formed an incomplete image. But as more of them appeared and projected their own fields, the image of one giant force field became apparent. Taking advantage of the slowly closing gaps, I controlled more drones to pick up every piece of a severed vine and then tossed them into the restrained cloud of toxic gas.
Speaking of said gas, the substance analysis report of it came back and I put more zeal into my hands, speeding up the work of the drones. I owed Joker a few bullets and a trip to the upper atmosphere. If Batman wouldn't deal with him, I would.
The giant, egg-shaped forcefield finally took shape and encompassed the entire plant, the lower section scooped out of the hole it grew out of by the drones. I lowered my hands and flicked a finger toward it, summoning a small but unique grenade into existence within the trapped gas.
It went off not a second later and a blue sun appeared in the district.
Completely unbothered by the intense illumination, I stared my handiwork head on until the light abated. When it did, the interior of the forcefield gradually revealed itself, revealing how it had been wiped clean.
There was no smoke, no falling dust or debris. Just empty space, the ground of which had been carved out and smoothed over like someone had taken a scoop of frozen ice cream with a spoon.
Except right in the perfect scoop, a dark hole that led into the underbelly of the city had been dug.
A flare of intent sent every drone back into Subspace and I began to respond to the messages of my agents. I also checked on the people in stasis, filtering out the unconscious ones with no injuries from those that needed medical attention and those that had been killed.
The third concurrent task I worked on was contacting the team to ask about their progress.
They were the ones supposed to shut down the control site of the plants, and by my calculations, they should be arriving now. Before I could hit send, I felt Spider Sense flare up and point to everything around me.
Defenses upon defenses were activated in my suit but none of them managed to stop the invisible weight that latched on to me. It pulled. Hard. But it failed to take me where it wanted. Even so, it remained pretty insistent.
My acquired experience told me this was magic. A spell was trying to affect me. Of course, with See Supernatural and Mystic Eyes of Permanence, I confirmed it directly and began the process of deciphering the effects when a notification came through my watch.
Now this particular one stood out because I had made it that way for my family; Mike, Felicity and Cassandra. To my horror, it was none of the first two that made contact.
I put up a cloak, accepted the call and brought up a holographic video feed of Cassandra.
"Mike and Felicity are gone."
.
.
.
.
Bludhaven
October 1, 16:24
"Specialist to team, can you guys hear me?"
"We read you loud and clear," Kaldur's dependable voice came through.
"SP, aren't you Spider man now?"
Robin's question as he entered the frame of the camera made me do a double take. This whole situation had me wound up tight.
"Yeah. It's Spider Man. It's just… you know forget it. We have a situation on our hands. Where are you guys?"
"We're searching the Louisiana Bayou for the control center. We can't find it anywhere."
"I'd be surprised if you did," I said, gauging the faces of everyone in the frame and wondering how they'd take the news. "It's not there."
Artemis, the team's latest inductee, caught my hesitation. Well, some of the others did but they trusted me to be honest with them since I've been doing so from the day I met them. "What aren't you saying?"
"The world has been split. Children and adults and now in different dimensions… copies of Earth."
"WHAT!" "SP." "Such a feat of magic…" "How?"
"Listen!" I said in a more forceful tone, bringing their focus to a solution and taking it from the horrifying implications of the nuke I just dropped on them. "We need to stop this now. I'm sending you coordinates to the ritual site. Since this is the child dimension, I think Klarion is the one you'll find there. Kaldur, I just sent you a data packet."
"Received."
"The blueprints are anti-magic arsenal—armor, bullets, grenades, blades… whatever you need to undo the ritual. Just feed the data to the fabricator in the Zephyr. I don't need to tell you who Klarion is. Be careful."
"We know SP. Quick question, if this is the child dimension, why are you here?"
"The spell is—does not work on me. It's still trying, but that's not important. A few more things. There are two ritual sites in both worlds, so they need to be deactivated simultaneously. Once we're done here I'll let the spell take me to the adult side and have Captain Marvel serve as communication between my agents and you guys.
They'll break the spell there and you guys will do it here. Roy, this plan hinges on you. There's a crystal focus integral to the ritual. Let the team harass Klarion while you stay back. Once Captain Marvel gives you the word, you and my agent will both take the shot and destroy it at the same time. Use an anti-magic round when you take the shot."
"Got it."
"Spider-Man," said Aqualad. "What about you?"
"Once I find Captain Marvel and explain everything to him, I'll deal with the plant control site and rendezvous with you guys at the ritual site. Be careful guys. I've got to go."
"You be careful too," said Ron.
"See you on the other side, hero," added Grace.
"What are you talking about? We're heroes too."
"Not me."
I chuckled and ended the call. My latest portal jump had brought me to Captain Marvel's last seen location before the world split. The undeterred spell still worked, waiting for me to accept its summons, but there was one last thing to do before I jumped.
All over the world, in every known country, city, or town, I deployed an uncountable number of drones built—not for this exact purpose, but for any situation that required a lot more hands than there were available.
The job of these little miracles were the same as the ones deployed at the ruined construction site except with a slight twist. They didn't teleport the children to any secret location.
There was no need to since there were no adults around. They had one job: keep every child alive and safe by any means. A good deal of programming had gone into them so they had good prioritization abilities.
Kids suddenly left alone in a park wouldn't require much supervision. A drone or two would do. But for the vehicles that suddenly lost their drivers, kids that dropped from a parent holding them up, and a million more uncountable situations, the drones knew to assess the situation, deal with any source of apparent danger and attend to any injuries.
For the kids that unfortunately died, they were brought back. Two months had been enough for me to have working technological variants of the various means of resurrection at my disposal.
All in all, the mere thought that I had to go this far was harrowing, just as was the fact there were some I had definitely missed. I had gotten better at controlling my emotions, so I ignored all the rage and hate bubbling within and kept it at bay, waiting for the right time and right people to unleash it on.
I drew my eyes away from the rapidly fluctuating death count in my visor and let the world splitting spell take me. The moment I reappeared, my watch shook so hard I thought it would fly off my wrist.
Keeping the mission at hand as a first priority, I quickly located Captain Marvel and sent him a message to stop flying. He did and a portal opened at his location, one I stepped out of.
I gave him a quick rundown of the situation and read the rapid changes on his face before waving at him to follow me. We ended up in Shield's new base of operations; the helicarrier where my agents were in a panic and initially scouring the earth for me.
"Sir," Lyla stood at attention, arms behind her back. The others did the same and I asked them to follow me. In a hurry to get things rolling, I let Captain Marvel quickly demonstrate his ability to travel between the dimensions after explaining the whole situation.
From there, I gave them their missions, explaining to them the importance of getting the timing right. Before I could dismiss them and hurry off to the bayou, an alert came in and Economos expanded it.
"Mass breakout at Belle Reve. Over one hundred Kobra brutes on site."
Adding the elicited curses and emotions to the already accumulated pile, I gave Lyla's team a glance and dismissed them. I wanted to split them up but there was no need.
As untimely as it was, the Belle Reve situation was no threat. We were already aware of The Light's plan to get their best and brightest out and assume control of the prison in one fell swoop.
The new recruits could handle this. Because while they were new to Shield, they were not new to active combat. Besides, the Kobra Venom cure was going to be part of their arsenal.
"Economos, I'm organising the new recruits into two teams. Send them to Belle Reve with these mission details," I said and hastily drafted said briefings, finishing up with the inclusion of the completed cure in their loadout.
"Use our access in the prison's systems to help them. I want every prisoner back in their cell and every brute cured."
"It will be done sir," he answered. "What about you?"
"What about me?"
"What will you be doing, sir?"
"...Punishing those responsible."
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