I do not own any of the Star Wars and DC characters and ideas represented in this work.
This story is a mixture of Legends and New Canon
"Careful with that, you bumbling primates!" a once calm Vandal Savage exploded as he was surveying machinery on a table, then noted that Grodd's idiotic gorillas were carrying a vital component in a manhandling fashion. He rushed over and continued to berate them. "Those energy transfer pylons are delicate despite the way they look. And don't carry them like that!" He angrily added. "They're made out of material worth more than your empty heads!"
The two male gorillas looked confused and thought they would have an answer as they both looked into one another. Vandal slapped his head and shook it side to side. "Never mind then, just drop it and leave. I'll install it myself."
The gorillas did what they were told, though maybe taking it too literally when they exactly dropped it to the metal ground. They walked to perform other assigned tasks. The now seething Vandal Savage could only inhale deeply to calm his nerves.
Within his underground facility, where few actually know of its existence, Vandal was standing amongst machinery and other equipment that was in the process of being operated and built by Gorilla Grodd's gorillas that defected from their advanced city ti join the telepathic gorilla. They either worked in duos, teams, or large groups to complete or maintain their assigned tasks. Some splice and wielded components and metal together. Others carried vital inter-working materials needed.
All of this worked towards one supreme goal: To build a gravity-manipulating machine that could help Vandal Savage take over the world and kill its current protectors. A true master of the world where he waited oh so long to be.
Gorilla Grodd is obviously in on the deal as well; he only cited that the gravity machine's first target would be his home, Gorilla City, to rid himself of the grievances he has about the advanced hidden city. In exchange for that, Grodd has helped Savage build this invitation with his army of gorillas. They had their purposes and uses, but he would be glad to dispose of all of them once the machine is fully operational.
Vandal Savage lived for a very long time and had many personas and identities that expanded over the millennia. Some were secretive; others were well-known figures in the world's history. Most of those identified were leading toward Savage's ultimate plan of being the world's sole leader as he saw humanity's follies and ambitions these past millennia, and he alone could be the one to save mankind from the brink.
He wasn't going to share that power with a hairy, stinky ape.
This will inevitably lead to an impasse, one that involves taking out Grodd for the better good. Though, at the behest of Savage, Grodd's telepathic gifts will make a surprise attack harder than it should be. But Vandal had his ways of overcoming such problems; he's been doing it for tens of thousands of years.
"Ah, Vandal, no need for the ebullition." A well-mannered voice spoke out to Vandal in one of the top catwalks integrated into the stone wall.
Vandal knew this as his "partner," Grodd, standing on the balcony with a smile. He jumped downward to ground level and, just like a human, walked on two legs with his hand interlocked at his back. To Vandal, it would be somewhat strange but not jaw-droppingly amazing to see a walking and talking gorilla; he was an immortal caveman, after all. Yet, the rest of the human population would see it as unbelievable, superheroes and otherworldly events notwithstanding.
Pleasantly, Grodd went to Vandal and then followed it with a friendly question, "Why the rigidity? Has that Kaznian prison done a number on you?"
In coincidence, Vandal twisted his head a bit in order to crack his neck. A dry breaking sound came forward and Vandal lout out a huff, "If there was anything I could give the Kaznian's credit for in that flyover of a country; they're tactics in torture are admirable, even transcending to an art form."
Grodd made a stiff laugh, "I see they didn't whip the humor out of you before your escape."
"It would need to take a lot more of what they did to fully break me," Vandal stated, knowing full well the many uncountable instances of events and actions that should have killed him but he couldn't reach the veil of death. He looked at the unfinished gravity machine. "With this, however, I'll be untouchable."
"We…be untouchable." Grodd corrected Vadnal with purposeful heavy emphasis while his smile faltered.
Vandal nodded, "Right, We. My apologies, I'm not used to partnering with other intellects up until now."
Grodd sympathized with admittance, "I was at the same position, once I thought I could take revenge on my city and the Justice League. But afterward, the weak in their numbers could still defeat the strong. Even the buffoons I assembled for the secret society had a bigger chance, yet we still failed." Grodd balled his fist in confidence and locked eyes with Vandal's, "But together Savage, with our genius, we can take down the league for good."
Vandal Savage did agree to that, to an extent, at least. "I concur," then he gestured to the unfinished machine still being constructed by Grodd's gorilla minions. "Though we will have to fix our little energy crisis for our project." Yes, major systems of the machine have been realized and created, but the main struggle was the power source capable of delivering the output the machine will consume. There were also the most complex components that still have not been finalized.
"Not to worry," The super intelligent gorilla said, "I have an idea to procure the means of securing a solution."
"If that means getting a local source," Savage said, "The only thing you're going to get here in Africa is a bunch of car batteries. And I hope it's not nuclear, that will be a sign on our backs once they find the trail of radiation if we do so."
"Nonsense, I was thinking of a more…," he deliberately trailed off as he snapped his large fingers and a gorilla henchman came hurrying to Grodd so that he could deliver the gorilla mastermind a newspaper. Grodd handed Vandal the folded newspaper, "...Environmentally friendly source," Grodd finished.
Vandal took the newspaper and noted that it was one of the American newspapers, specifically from Opal City. Wrote on manufactured pressed ink, the headlines talked about a STAR Labs researcher by the name of Ted Knight, who has almost finished an invention capable of absorbing concentrated rays from the sun and converting them to energy.
[Note: Ted Knight is the secret identity of Starman from the Golden Age of Comics]
"Solar energy?" The newspaper dipped as Savage had a questioning look.
Grodd corrected with a "Far more advanced than anything today. And incredibly, it leaves no trail for anyone to notice."
Vandal Savage nodded in inner thought. It could work as he began to plan the final steps of the machine. "Still, we will need to get it." He swiveled his head, with a face of skepticism, to the minions of Grodd who still carried out their menial work. "And without raising awareness. Your workforce might not cut it."
Grodd answered to Vandal's worry, "Let's say I have a feline underling who can grab our final piece to the puzzle."
Savage kept silent. Whoever Grodd employed, or even mind controlled, might be able to take the STAR Labs device, hopefully covertly. Vandal may not like the ape, but the immortal caveman knew that Grodd wouldn't put it up to a nobody, especially when the league was still around.
Speaking about the league. "We'll still have to take care of the Justice League," Vandal Savage concerned to Gordd.
"And?" Grodd shrugged. "Without Superman, they're not as big of a threat they used to be now."
"What about his replacement? Skywalker was his name if I can recall."
Grodd created a dismissive waving gesture, "Please, he's no Superman, what possibly can he do? Face it, they're good as dead once we finish this machine."
Vandal did consider Grodd's words and eventually reached the same conclusion that without the man of steel, the gravity invention that they will construct would have no rivals, not the world, the Justice League or their latest recruit could stop them.
A smile finally reached onto Vandal's fairly trimmed bearded face. Who on this Earth could possibly be a threat to them?
***
R2-D2's opinion on the watchtower was mixed as that was the best way he could put it. On one hand, the space station was advanced for its time and era amongst this somewhat relatively less advanced star system. On the other hand, R2 has seen better computers and electronic systems in junk dealer shops on so many backward worlds from his original galaxy. But, this would have to do, and it was good enough to be just adequate.
In the watchtower's control room, R2 was connected to the main computers by a scomp link while Luke and the avian-humanoid, Hawkgirl, sat next to each other in casual conversation that the droid occasionally listened to.
While the watchtower was never intended to be used by an astromech like R2, interfacing the tower's systems was an example, R2 and Luke fixed that problem by having a scomp link converter box next to R2's height level and connecting it to the consoles. It was a relatively simple boxy device from the X-Wing storage compartment, its more complex inner workings was the scomp link receiver hole with addition of multiple cables and wires on the back so that a connection to a computer can be made.
This was so that if an astromech needed to make a connection to a computer that didn't have a scomp link port, a converter box could easily be attached to a mainframe and allow the droid to interface with it if needed to do so. In this case, R2 was hooked to the watchtower's computer for monitoring duty, as if there was anything to do in this station anyhow.
From time to time, R2 would swivel his dome head to Luke's and Hawkgirl's conversation, and train his audio sensors at their location. He did so in that moment as no major threats or emergency calls were detected.
"So you're telling me that a big shot governor and his daughter made robot versions of themselves so they get run away from the alliance?" Hawkgirl asked when Luke completed his recalling of the adventure he and C-3PO had when attempting to escape the Imperial blockade on Yavin 4 after the battle and inexplicably discovering Hoth.
[Note: Reference to Legends comic Classic Star Wars issues #12 and 13 out of 1993]
Luke had a simple response, "Something like that."
"And you just happened to crash land on the same planet the robots were hiding and the father shot the daughter?"
"Well...it was an accident." Luke somberly said as R2's audio sensors registered his voice, changing his tone to slightly regretful. "And he was only protective about his daughter because he thought bringing the alliance to Hoth would start trouble."
"Kinda a strange way for a robot to think," Hawkgirl remarked.
"In my experience," Luke heaved his shoulders, "There are droids that are more human than some humans." He glanced over to R2 and had a smirk as R2's photoreceptor recognized it. "Artoo is a good testimony of that."
R2 let out a chipper binary talk, professing that flamboyant C-3PO had beaten R2 in that category.
Luke let out a chuckle and Hawkgirl was left behind at the joke. Then she and Luke started talking some more and R2 swiveled back his head to the console readout. Nothing out of usual, at least not yet.
Atmospheric sensors and the quick sound of a 'whoosh' suggested that the supersonic human that was the Flash blurred behind R2. Sound indicated that he was also eating, open-mouthed of course. R2 rotated his head away from the console and his suspicions were correct as he saw, you guessed it, the Flash eating. This time, it was an American cuisine that goes by as a 'hot dog', which the example being devoured by the Flash had way too many toppings and condiments that any baseline might get sick from it if consumed by them.
Flash finished the food in an exaggerated satisfied fashion then, as usual, bellowed up a burp. In one of the many aftermarket parts and components R2 has in his chassis, he was glad that not one of them was an olfactory sensor. "Man, that hit the spot!" Flash pointed out gleefully. He looks down at R2 and pats the droid on his chrome head, "Hey, buddy, got anything for us?"
R2, at genuine care, did tell Flash that there were no problems rising in the planet below in binary. The red costumed human's smile widened, "Oh so we got a mission? Let's hear it!" R2 reasserted his statement on no activity on Earth being seen. Whatever Flash heard was completely the opposite. "Oh so giant lizards rampaging through Tokyo? I'm game!"
R2 angrily chippered and shook his body. Flash continued on being clueless, "So huh, alien invasion?"
R2 shook his head, as it was the only way he could communicate clearly. The speedster's face frowned, "The Russians aren't coming?" Again, the astromech shook his head. Flash's disappointment deepens. "So we're not gonna defeat the giant monkey man and save the ninth dimension?"
How does a human achieve just a wild imagination? R2 thought
An incoming transmission was detected by the watchtower's signal system. R2 swiveled his head quickly to the console controls and with the computer, he registered the transmission to be coming from Batman, the League's recluse caped crusader.
The voice of Gotham's vigilante, a deliberated cold and stern one, went out of the computer, its location came from Opal City, an urban city located in the American East Coast. "Batman to watchtower, we have a situation at the Opal City STAR Labs, best you all come and see this."
Luke and Hawkgirl stopped their conversation and quickly went to the comms control, Flash turned serious, for a second of course. "Long time no see bats." He quipped, "Glad to see you coming out of the cave for old times sake."
"Get here," Batman's tone didn't seem to like Flash's joke nor was in the mood for light talk. "Now."
Hawkgirl went into the discussion, "What is it about?"
"It's easier to see it than me explain it to you."
Luke made his turn to talk. "We'll be there, and thank you for the heads up, we'll—," the transmission, on Batman's side, prematurely ended. Static filled the channel and R2 closed it. "Uh, nevermind." Luke added later
Flash looked between Hawkgirl and Luke, "Guess he woke up on the wrong side of the cave, huh?"
Hawkgirl crossed her arm, making a disapproving and frustrated expression that looked into the screen that once emitted Batman's voice. "When has he not?
R2 identified Luke's facial features as a slightly suffering look. "I don't understand the distrust he has with me."
"It's definitely him more than anything." Hawkgirl answered easily. "It took months for us to get a friendly conversation out of him after the first time we met him. Not exactly a social butterfly."
R2 saw that Luke's face went into a suffering and doubting one with a head shaking side to side. "I'm not too sure if it's me or I'm doing something wrong. I just feel that he seems to hate me with all of the lack of talk between us."
Hawkgirl snapped though in reassurance, "Oh don't let mister big bad introvert get to you, if he likes Superman, then he'll…tolerate you."
Luke accepted the avian-humanoid's words and moved an observant glance that took itself to the turbo-lift. "I guess we won't know until we go down." His eyes shifted downward to R2 and had a fondly smile following a gloved hand to the astromechs head. "What do you say, Artoo, ready for a mission?"
The droid would have made a cheerful beep to Luke, but Flash had to ruin it. "Yeah, Artoo the robo-detective is on the case! Right buddy?"
R2's vocabulator let out a mournful, electronic sigh.
***
Opal City, located in one of the American states, Maryland, didn't suffer from high crime compared to its neighboring cities like Baltimore or Gotham on the North American East Coast. But a peaceful morning in the city's business district was ruined by a gruesome murder in the STAR Labs facility. A branch of the wider STAR Labs research group, this facility in Opal city was known for its advanced testing in solar energy.
Spearheaded by the famed Doctor Ted Knight, the researchers and employees who entered in the morning to their laboratory to continue their most cherished works would have had a normal day just like any other. Unfortunately, they found the admired Doctor Knight dead on the laboratory floor, torn and ripped to shreds in what could only be described as an animalistic mauling.
Law enforcement was, of course, called in and secured the area, besides the bloodied corpse, nothing else was found by the police's investigation teams. Nothing was stolen, no points of breaking being seen, the only real evidence that shows foul play was the broken security cameras in the main laboratory where the murder took place.
Luke Skywalker with R2-D2 Hawkgirl and the Flash watched as the remains of Ted Knight, in a body bag, was wheeled away on a gurney by the coroner team. The room was clean, say, for the spot where Knight was found which in of itself was being cleaned up, had a high ceiling with machinery against the walls. Lab equipment and tables were neatly organized on the lab floor.
"Well there goes my lunch." Flash nonchalantly said as the gurney goes out of view. Both Luke and Hawkgirl twisted their heads toward Flash in somewhat tamed scowling eyes. "What?" He said in all honesty, "If I wanted to ruin my morning appetite, I would have just watched Animal Planet's videos on lion attacks."
A voice that Luke recognized as Batman's response to Flash's inappropriate comment behind the group. "He has a point."
Luke and R2 were the only two that weren't startled. Hawkgirl was shortly spooked but whirled around to see it was the black dressed vigilante. Flash's reaction was a bit more comical than it needed to be. Being attuned to the living force more often, Luke detected Batman's covert entrance into the room. The Jedi was warned about Batman occasionally sneaking behind people, he guessed that the dark knight wanted to test the Jedi's awareness.
Luke simply turned around to see Batman standing behind them, Hawkgirl was annoyed and Flash was frustrated in his usual way. "Geez Bats, trying to get me a heart attack? With the insurance coverage I have, you might as well shoot me and get it over with."
Batman looked to Flash, with a bland expression. Switched eyes to Luke with an unimpressed look. Then, he set his gaze at Hawkgirl, "Doctor Ted Knight, was the leading researcher in this facility. He has a son named David Knight who just happened to work here too." His masked head inclined to the hallway out of the room, "He has some things to say." He walked to the corridor before actually seeing either of the League members would follow.
Hawkgirl and Luke exchanged looks, then followed the dark knight with R2 and Flash closely behind. Walking to whatever Batman wanted to take them, he asked the Gotham vigilante, "I never thought you would patrol in Opal City of all places."
Batman didn't make a second glance behind or change his tone. "It was a quiet patrol in Gotham," he explained, "Was close by at least and the police scanner has a call in for a "Lion attack". And last time I checked, there were no lions in Maryland."
Luke stayed silent while Batman continued to guide them. Disregarding Batman's slightly vague appearance at coming here, Luke wondered who could possibly murder and brutalize this harmless man and seemingly not take anything from this technological advanced lab? Something was afoot and his feelings told him that it would escalate to a greater threat.
Finally, Batman's intended destination for himself and the Leaguers led to an office that, next to the door, had a plaque with engraved letters showing that it belonged to the recently deceased Ted Knight. Batman opened the door to reveal a man in normal clothing, in his forties with brown hair, and in total distress. The man noticed the swinging of the door opening and went up to his chair. He was surprised to see the other members of the League, though somewhat expected to see Batman.
"Oh, thank you Batman for bringing in the league." The man said, attempting to hide the sorrowness that was within him.
Batman greeted the man to the team, "League, David Knight. Doctor Knight, League." He added, "David here works at STAR Labs with his father, same project in fact."
Solely and gloomy, David Knight responded, "We were."
Luke decided to send his sympathies toward the man honestly. "This must be a difficult time for you Doctor, but whatever it is worth, I'm sorry for what happened and we can promise you that whoever did this will be dealt with."
David saddened eased a bit, and made a reassured smile, if not forced. "T-Thank you, and it might sound strange, my father was old, so when the call came that he was gone, I was sad for sure, but it wasn't totally unexpected…" his head dipped to the ground, eyes wanting to remove whatever he saw of his father's corpse, "I just never thought that would…happen to him."
Hawkgirl stepped forward, "Someone or something doing that to your father definitely wasn't some street thug or just a lowly angry employee."
Flash followed her thought with a gesture back to the rest of the facility, "Nor just not take anything from here. This place ought to be a gold mine for an average crook."
"Which meant whoever murdered Ted Knight," Luke added to the speculative conversation, "Was not a common criminal and had something in mind to steal here."
Batman nodded to the group's theory of what happened, "The murderer most likely tried to probe Ted Knight questions on whatever they wanted. He didn't cough up and…paid the price for it."
"And for good reason," David affirmed the thought. The group was taken by surprise by the man's sudden lack of depression now. David Knight saw this and made placating hands, "Not that it's easy to say this, but me and my father knew our project we worked on together was important…and dangerous if used in the wrong hands."
He then went into detail, "You see, my father has been an expert on solar technologies and thought our current usage on fossil energy wasn't worth it." He then went behind the desk, where in the wall hung an old, fine painting of Opal City. He removed the painting carefully and revealed a silver squared safe that was built in within the room's white wall. Pressing several buttons on the safe's keypad, he continued, "He called it Project Starman. In a simple way of putting it, he was supposed to create an invention to harness cosmic energies from the sun and convert it into pure, usable energy."
A beep from the keypad sounds off unlocking bolts that happened behind the safe's thick door. He opened the safe and fished out a golden articulate rod. Being the size of a human forearm, the device had a sharp dome on top with three evenly spaced-out thick rings on the shaft below it. The rest of the rod had several switches and buttons along with available space used for properly handling it.
David Knight carried the rod toward the Justice League and used his free hand to gesture at it. "This is the Gravity Rod, as my father called it. Another form of solar technology, I guess you can call it. You see, instead of solar panels which use photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight to energy, the Gravity Rod uses—"
Hawkgirl held up a hand to stop the scientist. "No offense, but we're not here for the science lesson, we're here to see why someone would steal it."
"Um, right," Doctor Knight's answer was ungainly yet went straight to the point. "Since it can use solar energy more efficiently, it can use that power to do wonderful things. Like, control the magnetic field of any objects." He pointed the rod to an empty white mug on the wooden desk, "Here, watch."
Flipping a switch and two, David activated the rod, which emitted a small pulsing sound from its golden carapace. The mug that was targeted by the rod began to shake lightly at first, but then, when the pulses intensified, it started to slowly come toward David and then picked up momentum. The mug floated off the desk in a straight line but gained speed the more it got closer to David. It went from floating in a docil pace to a hasten motion, then finally speeding at David in a dangerous blur.
In the trajectory and just how fast it went, the mug would've struck David and certainly hurt him in a bone-breaking way, but Luke halted the mug with the force and the object ceased immediate movement before hitting David Knight. Suspended in the air, the mug lay still as what happened caught up to David in a shocked face, and then the rest of the team registered what happened. He went back a bit and deactivated the rod, making the humming noise stop.
Luke laid the mug back down with his telekinesis while David grasped the rod carefully and looked at the group with admitted embarrassment. "Heh, it needs some tinkering here and there, but it's a remarkable device I assure you." He offered the sophisticated rod to Batman first.
The Dark Knight took it and studied it for a bit, Luke and Hawkgirl went over to gauge the high-tech. R2 let out a whistle of amusement. Flash created an honest question to David, "Did you really have to pimp it out?"
"My father liked the color," David replied.
Flash's face went apologetic, "Oh, yeah, my bad."
Batman, with the two others done giving looks to the special device and finished giving Flash condemning eyes, handed back the rod to David Knight. Luke thought that it was amazing for this piece of technology to be made on a low-tech planet like Earth. This planet would have been a special world if it were in his galaxy.
As David places the gravity rod back in the safe, Batman inquires, "Any particular lists of enemies or rivals your father had?"
Locking back the safe, David leaned forward to his desk with a huff of contemplation. "If you don't want to consider how my father wouldn't be seen lightly by energy companies when the device is finished, not really."
Batman considered it. "If we don't have leads on who did it, the best course of action would be to stake out in the facility."
Hawkgirl scoffed at the idea, "What? You think they'll just come back here the very next day after what they did?"
Luke did see where Batman was going and supported him, "If they were willing to do that to a man, then they were definitely desperate. They'll be back."
For once, Batman gave Luke a positive message, albeit in the form of a nod. "Shifts would be preferred, that way, we still have someone in the watchtower in case anything happens outside of this situation."
David Knight offered, "If you all need the keys to the building or anything we can provide, I'll get it for you."
The team nodded, Batman didn't regard the man. Luke eyed in between the members of the group and gestured to himself, "If no one else minds, I'll take the first watch." R2 exclaimed with an excited series of chirps and chitters. The Jedi smiled at his astromech, then back at the group, "And R2, of course."
No one argued or made any visible sign of protest. Batman did it by making a skeptical look and then asking the two other leaguers, "Anyone else?"
Flash shrugged, "Hey, he offered, I got a football game to catch up tonight."
Hawkgirl said, "Luke's capable enough to be on his own. Don't see a reason not to let me take the first watch."
The cynical face of Batman that was partly concealed in his mask did let up. He walked to Luke and simply said, "Then you're gonna have a long night ahead of you." Without another word, he walked out of the room and proceeded to leave the facility in his own covert way.
David Knight's expression implied that he thought he was misinformed about something. "I'm sorry, but is he really like that?"
Luke made a sigh, "For a lot, yeah."
***
As the rest of the team went back up to the Watchtower, Luke, with R2, stayed at the Opal City STAR Labs facility for the rest of the day and wouldn't finish the shift until the next morning. Since the discovery of the murder, most of the staff's shifts in the following days were canceled, though this didn't stop some of them from continuing their work, if a bit downtrodden.
Being a newcomer not only to the facility but to Earth in general, the researchers asked many questions about his galaxy since they read about the paper of Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane interviewing him. Flattered as much as he allowed himself, he answered their questions the best he could while also translating R2's words when they asked the droid questions and was awed at the astromech.
When the sun went down, the very few employees that were at the facility left, leaving R2 and Luke by themselves. R2 was in Ted Knight's office, keeping watch on the important device. Luke, with nothing else on his mind, strolled throughout the building, only checking the rooms, atriums, visitor centers, and labs that had all lights turned off.
Casually walking to one corridor that had an extended window of a large laboratory on one wall, Luke's demeanor to the situation was relaxed at the moment. His comlink buzzed, indicating that the watchtower was trying to contact him. He unclipped it off his belt and brought it to his face. "Skywalker here."
"Getting bored yet?" The voice of a curious Hawkgirl was vocalized out of the comlink.
Sensing the presence of only himself in the building at the present, he lowered his shoulders and leaned against the hallway's wall. "With all of the things I've been through, being bored isn't such a bad thing."
"Pfft, I couldn't," Hawkgirl admitted, "If I were stuck in that stuffy building all day, I would have gone crazy."
"Crazy enough to want the Flash to keep you company?" Luke teased at the comlink.
"Okay, that's just Nuthouse crazy."
Luke laughed, "No, it's not too bad. Besides, I have R2 with me, so the day isn't ruined."
"I guess so," she paused, "Well…at least you and Batman talked today."
Luke let his tone slide to a disgruntled one, "I wouldn't call it talking as much as it was him critically analyzing me and R2."
"Trust us, being near him, he always does that. But hey, talk is talk."
"I still don't see how…" Luke'a words faded as he felt another presence enter the building. Uninvited and going through the facility from up to down. "Wait a minute," he said to Hawkgirl as he was now fully alarmed. "Something's not right."
"What's up? Is it the suspect?"
"I'm not too sure," he said while running through the hallway. "Just be on standby, I'll take a look." He switched comm channels to the one he shared with R2. "Artoo, keep alert, we're not alone." R2 sent out a whistle of acknowledgment.
Placing the commlink back on his belt, he went closer to the intruder through the clean corridors of the scientific facility. When he started his watch, he had his force perception widen all across the facility to ensure that he would detect any movement or activity that would enter the structure. Previously, he only sensed the faint pulses of birds perched up on top of the building, now, though, it had to be a human-sized being, crawling at a fast pace.
The force brought him to the very same wide laboratory where Ted Knight was murdered. He opened the doors and scanned the area. Lab equipment and machinery were at their places undisturbed and deactivated. Lights off, the only source of luminance was the moon's glow casting tight rays through the top windows above the lab.
Cautiously, the Jedi crept further into the lab, trying to find the intruder. Feeling their intentions, they had nefarious thoughts, but not in a way a common criminal or violent person would in a thinking fashion. Rather, it was primal—hunter-like even— raw instincts and natural impulses were what drove them. Luke had the disturbing sensation that he was like prey out in the open, and a set of predatory eyes stalked him hungrily. Almost like if…
The force warned him, screaming at him. A shadow from one dark side of the lab's corner burst in amazing speed and raced towards Luke. Time was at a standstill, and simple thought vanished as natural instinct took hold of him. Having no time to do anything but react, he rolled a jump in the air, making the blurred rush below him by mere centimeters. The jump he did landed him back on the floor, but the blur's reaction time was just as fast as his. It lightning bolted through the lab and went at the wall at less than in the blink of an eye. Instead of crashing or making a sudden halt, the blur used its charging momentum to reverberate against the wall and catapulted itself back toward Luke!
In its mid-flight, Luke summoned a flanking force wave that knocked the blur's attack at him by throwing it to a nearby table. It crashed hard, denting and ultimately collapsing the workbench, equipment and lab material flew all over the lab. Without a second thought, his lightsaber shot into his hand, and an emerald column of light thundered out of the hilt. Then, he used the force to dazzle the electricity and circuitry in the lab's ceiling lights to get a better picture of the assailant. The gloom veil that swallowed the lab retreated as the top artificial lights flooded the room.
Once the light revealed the intruder, Luke recognized their features from the Justice League's criminal files and uttered their name as though in confirmation. "Cheetah."
In the past, her real name was Barbara Ann Minerva, a renowned geneticist who's work pertained to DNA altering between Human and Animal Cells. Apparently, her research was not properly funded yet finding it possibly beneficial to the planet, she experimented on herself out of the idea for the greater good. The results, to say the least, were clear.
Taking many attributes from one of Earth's fastest feline predators, Barbara's human body mutated into a leanly feline build. Fur in color and pattern of a cheetah, digitigrade feet, a long tail, razor-like teeth, and facial features of a feline with the addition of two sharp eyes that shot Luke with a glare worthy of a predator of her name.
Luke angled the lightsaber toward the predatory criminal. Diana had been entangled with the agile Cheetah on multiple occasions and claimed that besides Flash and Superman, the Cheetah was one of the fastest beings on this planet. Not only that, her agility was remarkable and her retractable claws were seen injuring others in the League before.
She was not to be messed with despite the irregularities of her appearance.
Cheetah crouched on what remained of the crushed table. She was in a position, body stance, and unbreakable eye contact with Luke that implied any fraction of a microsecond; she could leap toward the Jedi. Breaking eye contact would be a fatal mistake and one he isn't going to make, even though at the speeds she can employ, eye sight was futile to use.
Not moving on his own, too, both stared into each other like fixed statues. With the power of his will, he had the force activate the commlink attached to his belt, "Watchtower! I ne—" the Cheetah dashed forward before Luke could finish his cry for backup, her arms extended to him with claws and mouth open to tear him apart.
His foresight showed him where her attack would land; he did a side roll then, and she went past him. Then, while she was still in the air and passing him, Luke made a striking arc with a lightsaber to counter. But at the speed she reached and the relatively slow evasion he did, Luke only managed to graze her at the back of her right arm.
Her reaction was instant; she let out a painful cat-like cry. When she reached the floor, she flipped in his direction, going on all fours, then examined the seared arm. The already agitation on her face deepens and she hissed at him.
Luke wasn't undeterred by the snarl; he angled the lightsaber toward Cheetah. "If you surrender now, I might be able to heal that."
She made no response, only keeping a death stare at the Jedi. In fact, as Luke probed her mind, there wasn't any other inner dialogue or thought about his response within her mind. Almost as if she didn't understand what he said. That went opposite to what he heard about her intelligence, as Diana said, Cheetah, being a brilliant researcher, of course, often mocked the Princess at her face. There was also no evidence from her confinement that suggested her human thoughts were degrading due to transformation.
So why is she not having any other form of clear mental thought besides carnivorous impulse? Was she in some trance? Mind control?
She attacked again, this time with more power, more intent to utterly tear him limb from limb. He reacted by sidestepping, twirling, jumping over and away from multiple of her attacks. She was just as fast and agile as a Nexu; she probably had more ferocity than the Cholganna feline hunter. He was her prey, she slashed with her claws, bit and snipped at whatever opportunity she could take at him.
Some hit empty air, some of them were a hair away from cutting their mark, and one managed to clip him at the outside of his left thigh. Another one was when he retaliated by swirling his lightsaber in a horizontal arc. She jumped above him before a connection was made, and she herself tried to cut Luke's face off. He was fast enough to jolt his head away from the claw that missed centimeters, but the claws of her feet slashed at his right cheek, nothing serious, but still rather painful.
He grimaced at the wounds but powered through it by thrusting and swinging his lightsaber at her once she landed back behind. She dodged and ducked under the fans of green energy. She had pure animal instincts and raw speed; he, however, had the force with him, warning him and letting him predict her somewhat mindless behavior.
It was enough to close the gap between them until, like a vibrowhip, her tail, in blinding speed, struck Luke's lightsaber out of his mechanical hand and sent it flying away from him. Judging by how much pain he caused her by the lightsaber wound he inflicted, she must've thought getting rid of the Jedi weapon between them was an interest she wanted, primal thoughts or otherwise.
He now knew what it felt like to be a Panthac tamer without the whip, and staring into the feline it wasn't a good feeling. She made a pantherine scream, then lunged at Luke, claws reaching out to him. He sidestepped but as she missed, her tail attacked again by knocking him off his feet. He fell hard to the floor and Cheetah flipped back and renewed her offensive. Still on the floor, Luke reeled back his gloved, durasteel hand and broke her stance by swinging at her feet. She didn't expect this and fell to the floor next to him on her back.
It might've caught her guard off, but she didn't waste a moment on the ground, she quickly faced the Jedi and brought her non-wounded arm to drop her claws to his chest. Force energies surged in Luke's hand, and a blast of telekinetic power sent Cheetah backward at uplifting speeds. She was thrown through the lab and exited the building by one of the top windows unwillingly.
Free from being targeted by a pair of razor-sharp claws and teeth, Luke quickly went back to his feet and called the watchtower with his comlink while the lightsaber shot back to his hand. "Watchtower! It's Cheetah! The person who killed Ted Knight and tried to get the device was Cheetah!"
"What?!" Hawkgirl let out.
"She just tried to take the device again and kill me, too."
"Hang on, we'll be down there."
"She's outside of the facility, and Artoo's watching the Gravity rod," he said while jumping up across from the lab and onto the edge of the broken window Cheetah was thrown out. "I'm going to pursue, meet up with Artoo when you get here."
"We will, and don't get yourself scratched over there." She clicked off of the channel.
"I'm not exactly good with cats, but I'll try," Luke remarked to himself, then switched to Artoo's comm channel. "Artoo, keep watch at the rod until the rest of the team gets here. I got a cat burglar to chase." R2 replied with a chirp. Putting the comlink away, he exited the building through the destroyed window with a quick jump and landed on top of a nearby building.
It was already night in Opal City, traffic and citizens still did their nightly commutes but not as loudly or commonly during the day. Scanning the area, he saw on top of the building roof he was on were the same shards of glass from the window Cheetah destroyed in her forceful exit. Scanning the area deeper, he saw the feline mutant leaping, vaulting, and jumping atop buildings at incredible speeds and heights.
Luke braced himself for a moment and went into action to chase her, bounding across rooftops and buildings, gaining speed to catch up on the criminal.
***
What tipped off R2 that there was something wrong was when he heard Luke yelling in the main laboratory of the building. Then, R2's audio sensors picked up the sounds of felines screaming and roaring in the same vicinity. The sounds of a struggle were further detailed by tables being shattered and glass broken. Luke's call to R2 by a comlink about the situation only confirmed the obvious.
R2 was ordered by Luke to stay with the former officer of the late Doctor Ted Knight as a guard to keep watch on the cosmic rod the League suspected was the center of his murder. Up until then, the shift of safeguarding the special device had been relaxed and non-excited, to say the least. R2 was told by Luke that the rest of the Justice League team would come and they would arrive in a matter of minutes.
R2's life form scanner detected only one sentient-shaped organism entering the facility and coming into an approach to the office. R2 went upright and saw the office's door opening. Expecting a brightly costumed person, R2 sent a series of attitude-charged beeps stating that they should have gotten here faster. Who actually opened the door was a male human in the uniform of the Opal City Police department.
R2 made a confusing whistle and pressed towards the law enforcement officer on why he was there, only to be not responded to by the officer. The policeman's face was a blank expression that showed no emotion or interest to R2; his eyes targeted the wall that contained the painting and the secret safe behind it. He walked toward it and didn't regard R2 until the astromech rolled in front of the man to stop him from doing whatever he was about to do.
The droid exclaimed; obscenely binary speak didn't bother the officer nor his obstruction from the painting. The officer brought one hand to the side and slapped the droid across the room. R2 screamed and crashed against filled bookshelves that ran parallel to one of the room's walls. He tumbled to the floor along with the broken books and wooden pieces of the book collection.
There was no way a regular human could have done that, he said to himself. R2 managed to get back up on his rolling legs with the rocket boosters. When he got up, he saw with his only photoreceptor that the officer looked at the painting for a brief moment, ripped it from its perch, and revealed the safe concealed by it. Afterward, with impossible strength that no human in this world should have, the officer ripped the safe's door with little effort and sent the compact door crashing to the side.
The officer, still with no evidence of showing emotion, grabbed the golden gravity rod that Doctor Ted Knight had worked on his entire life. R2 protested with a yell, he undid the compartmental door to his tow cable, then sent it flying toward the rod, where it latched it onto the handle and pulled it out of the policeman's arms. The recapture rod then traveled across the room with the help of the cable and entered the largest empty compartment R2 had available.
The man's only expression of the rod being taken was of irritation. He stomped toward R2 and tried to grab hold of the droid, but R2 rolled away or to the side every time the man tried to get him. The silent officer did place a hand onto R2, but the droid didn't let the man take him; he pulled one of his mechanical arms that served as an electric splicer, and then he shocked the man in the arm.
The man went back and sounded off with a yell of pain which was followed by a growl. R2 kept the shocker out, letting it dance with electricity. The droid noticed something very particular about the man. At the place where R2 shocked him, the officer's arm, clothing, including skin, and his blue-sleeved jacket turned brown, almost looking like dirt.
Before R2 could pull out his comlink and warn the League about the second intruder, the man transformed into something inhuman. His body grew larger in size, his head grew big and went further to the torso, his arms and hands thickened, and the entirety of his clothing and skin turned into earthy brown. R2 rolled back a bit and uttered an intimidated whine as the figure was now a hulking brute of mass slimey rocky material.
The body proportions and shape were collected through R2's processor and sent to his memory banks to find the identity of the monster before him. What came back was the file of Matthew Hagen, otherwise known by the nomenclature of Clayface to Earth's population. Mutated from a cellular altering drug, what was once a famous, handsome actor was now a brute of a monster made up of living clay.
R2 made a 'uh oh' emitted out from his vocoder and tried to get the comlink, but Clayface's arm stretched out to grab the droid before he could do anything. He then seized R2 back to him and crashed out of the building's walls with his other hand. The massive hunk of clay ran into a dark alley through the street, scaring random bystanders and stopping vehicles in shock.
The only warning R2 managed to get out to the League before Clayface knocked the comlink from his mechanical hand was a terrified shriek. And R2 continued screaming when they both disappeared into the night.
***
The chase Luke Skywalker did after Cheetah took them all across Opal City. Kilometer after kilometer, Cheetah sprang over streets, latched onto buildings to dash across their sides, and jumped on the bottom of roads only to excel over entire sections of street and residential areas. Luke did the same, letting the force flow through him, he jumped, rolled, somersaulted, and dived in pursuit of the athletic metahuman. In this entire time, she tried to perform complex maneuvers and quick and abrupt routes to lose the Jedi, but he was hot on her tail and wouldn't let up.
He didn't know how long they were running, but what should have taken them hours to travel across the city took them a few minutes to go through. Cheetah, possibly having enough of being the prey, landed on a roof into a crouch, then bolted upward into a construction site. She blurred into inky darkness where the skeleton frame of a tall, unbuilt building lay.
Luke paused the pursuit; he stopped at the same roof she performed the giant leap and studied the construction grounds. Within and around the construction area, locked vehicles lay silent, and equipment and tools were around across the site. Cautiously, he jumped into the skeleton frame of the building and bounded from structure beam to structure beam until he landed on the rough concrete floor.
Looking up, left, right, and all around him, the unfinished structure with its supporting steel girders seemed like a never-ending pattern of construction work. Piles of supplies and huddled-up beams were sprinkled throughout the developing grounds.
Sensing the predatory eyes of the Cheetah train on him from afar; he knew that the only way of knowing her location was through the force. She had the traits of a killer cat; instincts of concealment and ambush were in her enhanced blood, his human sight wouldn't cut it here.
Instead of acting that he knew her location, he simply relaxed his posture, and made sure his voice could be heard throughout the complex so that she might hear it. "I can't assume everything, but knowing your past, you killed Doctor Ted Knight, didn't you?"
Cheetah's mental thoughts on his words were not as intelligent as he imagined they would be. The only surface-level thoughts he detected were feral and brutal, instinctual driven. He continued, "Wonder Woman and Batman talked to you before, I've never thought you to be a murderer in cold blood." Luke's words reverberated around the empty, constructed site. "Maybe selfish and ego-driven…but a butcher in heart? I don't think so."
Ever so slowly, Cheetah, upside down on a beam girder, quietly inched toward Luke but not truly revealing herself yet. "And I don't think you're a criminal," he said, "Not truly." Closer and closer, Cheetah pressed silently to Luke. The force messaged Luke with a hint of an attack approaching. "And I don't think you're totally in control of yourself. Otherwise, you would be talking to me…won't you?"
Cheetah struck, plunging out of the darkness and toward Luke. The Jedi quickly summoned a nearby steel girder to leave its place on a beam pile and crash onto Cheetah's flank. She staggered down in mid-air to the ground with the beam on her. With Cheetah stunned for a moment, Luke launched a psychic intrusion into Cheetah's mind.
He searched for anything related to sentience but only found a purpose. No, it was not something she wanted for herself, but rather, for someone, as in, someone told her so, and she didn't want it. Mind control, Luke realized Cheetah was being heavily influenced in the mind by those who did so put in one mental command to follow: Capture the Gravity Rod. Everything else was inconsequential.
The Jedi attempted to undo the mind control the best way he knew how, but the force screamed at him, and once he was aware of what was on, Cheetah fully recovered and bolted towards Luke. He shifted to the side and tried to get out his lightsaber, nearly matching Cheetah's speed, but he did it too late, and she managed to cut him in the left forearm where an artery was. Any slower or later, Luke's left side, torso, and arm would have been minced meat.
Her attack sent his evasion maneuver off balance, and made him fall to the floor, the wound she dealt with him opened an artery that sprayed blood furiously. He cupped the leaking hole with his mechanical hand in a strong grip. Force healing wouldn't work in this situation due Cheetah twirling around and striking back at the downed Jedi with another lunge.
Luke wasn't defenseless. A Jedi technique he had learned during his travels to uncover ancient and forgotten lore, Force blinding was an ability to produce a powerfully bright lumination to blind adversaries. With his left arm outward, palm extended, and his right hand still cupping onto the artery wound, Luke surged force energy that manifested into reality in the form of a great burst of light. Like a miniature star, the quick flash of intense light was bright enough to make the area of the construction site almost seem like it was in daylight.
The effects it imposed on Cheetah were also intense. She would have pounced on Luke, but she was training her eyes on the Jedi, and the ball of light punished her for that. Back in his galaxy, any ordinary being that saw the attack would most certainly be blinded in extreme pain, Cheetah, being an enhanced being with advanced eyesight, her agony would have been tenfold. She screamed and hissed when the light disappeared from Luke's real hand. She fell to the floor with her hands to her eyes, continuing to write on the ground while still screaming and hissing.
With time on his side, Luke quickly brought healing energies to his arm wound. Pouring the energy into the artery, the wound healed further and further until it was closed up and became a sore patch of flesh where the outlines of her claws could be seen. When he was done healing, Cheetah hissed and clenched her sharp teeth to fight back the pain. She crouched to her feet, eyes closed, but Luke knew that the Cheetah didn't need eyes to detect enemies just like him. Luke never thought a feline could be so angry with an expression before, Cheetah provided such a hateful response.
The backs of her hair rose, ears flattening, and a scowled target at Luke that showed teeth eager to be plunged into his body. Luke spotted far above Cheetah, a dangling platform suspended by a thick table supported by four smaller cables on the corners that attached to the main rope. On the platform were stacked girders in the form of a triangle.
Being a great way to contain the elusive and now very angry cat, Luke undid the main cable that suspended the platform. The cable snapped, and all of the weight on the platform sent it falling down earthward, coincidentally where Cheetah was standing. Cheetah was so deep in her blood rage that she didn't hear the falling heavy platform coming upon her. When she did, it took a moment for her to register it with the ears picking upward. Then, realizing what it was, her blinded face with red-stained eyes moved up where the platform was. She looked dreadful.
She turned to evade, but the platform fell on it before she could leap away. The crash was loud, shaking the area a bit and sending a cloud of dust from ground zero. Luke went up from his fallen position and dulled his pain when he walked toward the now heap of girders and metal debris. Within the mound of crushed metal at its bottom, Cheetah lay under from its devastating impact and weight. She tried to move her head up a bit but then dropped it and went into unconsciousness.
Sensing that she was no longer a threat, he went to her and kneeled down to place a hand on her furry head. With his own injuries healed at the moment, his perception spread throughout her enhanced feline body to detect any fatal wounds. Multiple broken bone fractures, a concussion, and a few torn muscles, but nothing major was found. Her healing factor gifted by chemical enhancements has already started, though in the rough condition she was in, it would take time.
The beeping of his comlink stopped him from investigating in her mind who forced her to do this. Bringing it to his face, the scream of R2-D2 startled him, the astromech's yelling was comprehensive enough for Luke to say that he was in trouble. "Artoo?!" Luke tried to contact his droid friend, but what the replied back was only static. "Artoo!"
He quickly up, turned from Cheetah, and faced her one more time to debate whether he should stay or go, then deciding that her imprisonment in the heap of heavy metals was good enough. Then, he dashed out of the construction site, leaping and bounding back to the STAR labs facility the fastest he could.
While doing so he pulled out the comlink in the League channel, "Watchtower! Artoo's in trouble! Cheetah is dealt with, but I'm heading back to the lab!"
"We're almost there!" Hawkgirl said. "Just tell him to hang on!"
Luke had an uneasy and worrying face that only deepened once the Lab facility was in view. He noted the big wall that gaped outside in the room of Doctor Ted Knight. He jumped across the street and into the office. Darting his head around, he found the safe that contained the Gravity rod broken with its safe-guarded device gone. R2 was gone as well. "Artoo!" He projected his voice, but no binary chirp replied. "ARTOO!"
***
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