Roy Harper leaped from the top of the highway overpass sign to the ground level of the nearby complex. He collapsed into a rolling leap just on the inside of the private estate, vanishing into the shadows of the only corner that he'd pegged as a blindspot for the cameras. What few security guards were here were on their rounds, and he had a small window to move.
Roy knew this task like the back of his hand. Knew what it would take to succeed, had the skills necessary to pull off the job of a damn lifetime. Ollie would never expect it, to him having solved something like this solo. When this was done, Roy was certain that the League would have to respect him, perhaps even offer him membership.
With a controlled breath and the snap of a taut bowstring, a tech-infused arrow pinged against the wall just below a trio of cameras, each pointed at different viewpoints of the complex's exterior. A second later, his tech looped the camera feed between himself and the exterior access window he planned to use to enter the warehouse. He scanned with his eyes for any movement of potential guards, a possible change in rotation, and then sprinted forward to close the distance.
For a facility so vaunted that they claimed military sponsorship, security was far more lax than he might have suspected. Or perhaps he was truly that good. Either way, Roy would take advantage of their lapse in judgment.
He rappelled up the building and slipped within the window, careful to snap the button in place that would retract the corded line he used to ascend to that position. With a whirring release of pressure, the line whipped into the coiled ready position again, and he slipped it back onto his quiver.
The railing he had landed on was nothing more than a maintenance access walkway, far above the main interior of the facility. Below him, a storage deck revealed military hardware – ammunition, medical supplies, vehicle replacement parts, and other various technologies that might be useful in times of war. And in times of peace, not that the government often considered the difference between the two.
Before Roy moved, he carefully checked for signs of cameras. Noticing one, he looped another before alarm klaxons could alert the entire compound to his position. From this vantage point, he could drop to anywhere in the main floor of the warehouse without being seen, so long as he readied himself to move when he landed.
Gripping a pair of binoculars, he activated their scanning functions and glanced through them. Designed to pick up on text he couldn't see with his own eyes, Roy read description after description of just what they had in storage. Tags revealed military-grade ordinance, auxiliary scopes and silencers, grenade pins and bandoliers.
"Serious equipment here," he muttered into his collar, a microphone built into the fabric designed to record messages and link to the main computer systems he and Ollie used. Lately, they had adopted the broader League-affiliated tech, but he remembers when they instead relied on Queen Consolidated and its monies. It had not been that long ago, and despite Oliver's joining the League several years ago, they had slowly begun to rely on the League more over time.
The fact that they had yet to recognize Roy's talent frustrated him more, in light of that. He could use the resources of the League, but without any of the perks?
With a breath, he focused on the task at hand, continuing his quiet verbal report. "If the motive is theft, then they must have been taking small amounts of inventory from each. Before they rig the whole warehouse to explode, that is."
Roy couldn't be sure why any of this was happening just yet. Over the past several months, there had been a series of explosions in various cities across the United States. Some larger, some smaller, but there were a few links that confused him enough to want to investigate. No signs of common explosives. No casings, no residue. And each of these bombings were connected to a few shell companies, with spurious links to military contractors. The most recent bombing had only been two weeks ago, and Roy had done everything in his power since to confirm this would be the likeliest target: a warehouse practically in his backyard, owned and funded by mogul Maxwell Lord and a few subsidiaries.
If his knowledge had been correct, then he was certain that he would find the team doing this, take them out, and save the damn day. Government contractors, shady business dealings, terrorist bombings – this was the damn big leagues, and he'd be respected.
Roy waited with bated breath for any signs of change from below, studying the late-night crew like a hawk. They performed all the expected routines of a graveyard shift: checked inventory, reorganized supplies, prepared for new clients the next day. Ammunition cases were not live, nor were many of them touched. Given the connections to the military and these explosions, Roy expected the source of the bombs were likely a cover-up. But for what, for whom, he could not say.
Vehicles came and went into the complex on a regular interval, and the crews responded to them with expected results. So routine that Roy barely clocked when a semi moved onto the loading dock that they had not scheduled. One worker checked a clipboard, while two moved closer to understand exactly why this guy had moved into the line. The semi had no discerning details – it matched many of the other nondescript trucks that had been moving into and out of the warehouse.
Roy moved closer in time to see the door to the back of the truck swing open from the inside. A ginger woman dressed in khaki fatigues hopped down onto the warehouse floor, sidearm on her belt, a thick rifle on her back. Roy's fingers twitched against his bow, hand already reaching for something in his quiver. When three more men dropped out of the back of the vehicle and brandished their weapons in the direction of the night crew, Roy moved into position and released an arrow.
Twin bolos disabled two, weapons trapped against them at odd angles as they crumbled to the floor. The woman's head snapped up to clock his position immediately, and he began to move before her gaze even settled on him. Gunfire peppered against the railing behind him, and he rappelled down into the warehouse floor to take advantage of the additional cover of the rows and rows of storage shelves. They continued firing – not wildly in his direction, but instead into the direction of security. He watched a guard ahead, more than thirty yards away, fall in a spray of blood.
Roy prepared for his next moment, took aim, and fired. With a burst of light, a flashbang arrow detonated right at the space where the group had been standing moments ago. The two he'd trapped were still there, struggling to see, but the last two assailants had moved. Another security guard fell, and Roy cursed.
"Which one are you again?" a female voice demanded over a loudspeaker, interrupting whatever normal channels their intercom systems must have used. That was so swiftly done that Roy wondered if they had backing elsewhere, perhaps someone in the security office? "Kid Flash or Speedy?"
Roy ignored the jab with a bit of difficulty. He had heard far worse.
"Has the Green Arrow come to play?"
The grip tightened on his bow.
A crate nearby exploded into smithereens, wooden and metal shrapnel showering the space around it. He braced himself, but it wasn't close enough to do more than cover him in dust. Had they thrown a grenade and he'd missed it?
Roy darted from that position, angling for a better vantage point, and grimaced when he rounded the corner in time to see another security guard fall in a splatter of blood.
He activated an amplifying microphone beneath the collar of his jacket. "Why the change of MO? All the rest, there were barely any casualties. Now, everyone's dropping like flies." Roy shifted his position again swiftly.
"Why does it surprise you that our methodology would change with you present?" the woman taunted. "Can't leave any survivors, now."
A three-tiered storage shelf full of medical supplies began to glow a soft pink light. A moment later, it exploded in a shower of metal, plastic, and cement. Unfortunately, Roy was closer to its epicenter, this time, metallic shards hitting his defending arms and clipping into his armored clothing.
"Source-less explosion," he coughed into his recording, rubbing at two places that had taken a glancing cut. "Possible female with explosive abilities."
One of Oliver's cardinal rules – never face an enhanced alone. Roy had broken that promise on more than one occasion over the years, and so had GA, but it was one of the earliest forms of advice the archer had given his student. By and large, it was good advice.
Roy zipped to the maintenance walkway above the warehouse floor. Flipping up and angling his torso into the shadows, he readied a shot for the woman and any more of her goons.
A thick arrowhead slammed into the torso of a gunmen, knocking him clean off his feet and throwing him back a few yards. He came to rest in a heap at the base of a storage shelf full of power tools and tank treads.
Another explosion rocked the ground below, this one larger than the other two had been, but he was far outside of its ring of destruction.
Police sirens sounded in the background. Roy hadn't needed to hit the panic button – there were far too many explosions and gunshots for Star City to not eventually send someone to investigate.
"Sound the retreat!" The woman's voice carried throughout the complex. He trained his eye on her as she came into his view, but he had maintained his hiding place.
A wall of metal, wood, and plastic began to glow with pink light, while a line of that light drifted from the ginger woman's left hand. A second light held like a tether from her right hand, ending in a warbling crackle of energy.
A second later, the line of storage shelves exploded in a shower of smoke, ash, and debris. Roy reached with practiced fingers and released a tracking arrowhead at the back of the truck. The beacon was in place.
"Definitely a woman with powers," he muttered more to himself than the speaker.
When the smoke cleared, three of the assailants and their vehicle were gone. The only one who remained behind was unconscious from his knockback arrow, and he was thankful for the chance to get some information.
He had no easy way to chase her down, and he had to hope she was dumb enough to not abandon the getaway vehicle at the first opportunity. Where she chose to drop it could still give useful information, but he hoped she took it straight to her headquarters.
Speedy turned to sweep the building of anyone else that did not belong, while at the same time, connecting to the Star City PD radios. "Speedy here. Unknown woman with enhanced abilities over explosions fleeing a scene on Fifth and Fox. Highly dangerous. In an unmarked gray semi-truck heading east, northeast. Do not engage. Send paramedics to warehouse eight on Fifth and Fox."
He did not wait to hear confirmation that they had gotten the memo. He and GA had left many a message like that over the years, and it was honestly a 50-50 if they bothered to listen. At the very least, paramedics would arrive in time to provide aid for the men who bad been injured.
He finished as quickly as he could, confirming the lack of any normal explosives and other members of her gang. The workers left behind were stunned when he hefted the thug onto his shoulders and ascended onto the roof to have a quiet chat.
Police would be here any second, but he wanted all the information that he could.
The man groggily grumbled under his breath when Roy finally managed to wake him, before he realized very quickly what was in store for him.
"What's the deal?" Roy demanded. "Street crime not lucrative anymore? Escalating to terrorism?"
"You thi-in-k I'll talk to you?"
Speedy didn't skip a beat. "I think you will if you wanna keep your fingers."
The man's eyes widened. "You wouldn't-"
Roy reached into his quiver and produced his sharpest arrowhead. "You see the vents on the side? That's where the heat comes out. This thing gets so hot, you won't bleed much at all." He activated it with a flick to the arrow's fletching, and a hiss of hot air escaped the vents. "Talented surgeon could maybe even re-attach them, but I don't think they pay prison docs well enough for that."
Did Roy have any real plans to follow through on the threat? No, but the man didn't need to know that.
"Who is your boss? What does she want?"
The man said nothing.
The police sirens and lights burst into view from his vantage point.
Roy brought the arrow closer, its internal motor still spinning. The man couldn't move his hands due to the bindings, but his fingers tried and failed to move away. The red and blue lights flickered across his face, and the sirens of incoming paramedics joined the police who had arrived.
"Tell me, or you'll never play pocket pool again."
For a second, Roy was certain that the man would hold his ground, but then his mouth opened. "Plastique!" the man cried out in desperation. "Her call-sign is Plastique. I don't know about the rest, just that we are hitting military targets."
A swift hit to the head brought the man down once more, to be left on the roof for the police to find.
Plastique was not a name that Roy recognized, but he had a place to start. Lifting the receiver from his belt, he checked the still-moving location of his tracker and made to follow, rooftop after rooftop. A Speedy-cycle of his own would be nice, he realized, and he promised himself to make it happen.
STAR CITY
April 18, 03:49 UTC-8
TEAM YEAR ZERO
Star City, Speedy, and Green Arrow was not my first choice, but it was a choice all the same. I had feelers out through Gabriel's tech for any big news involving one of the teenage disciples of the League. The first high-profile hit was through one Roy Harper.
Or at least, I was pretty sure it was Roy, because Speedy wasn't half-black like Connor or a woman like Mia or Thea or someone else.
Roy was a cool character though, and I vaguely recalled a daughter, a drug addiction, and a few different identities from the comics like Arsenal or Red Arrow. Speedy was the retro identity, and when I saw his picture on the internet, the uniform was easily just as old-school as the name might suggest.
Were the sidekicks all in their early Teen Titans days? Robin's uniform didn't have the booty shorts to match them, assuming blurry pics of the Boy Wonder was accurate. Some of the other Titans were either hidden or didn't exist yet, and it was more than a bit unclear where in the timeline we were.
If we were at all. DC had more Elseworld stories and adaptations than many of its contemporaries.
I brought my thoughts back to the coastal city, currently under threat by an explosive woman, according to his message to the police. There were so many characters that could be that I didn't recognize her, not that I always would. This terrorist could be an alien, a metahuman, a magician, someone using advanced tech, or something else entirely. And, I imagine, not every threat I come across will be one I recognize. I didn't recognize the Reach or Osmos V from DC stories, after all.
Speeding through the city's skyscape, I had only two goals in mind. One: find the woman. Two: find Speedy. I hoped the two happened at the same time, because I didn't want to step on Speedy's toes. An ally, not a scene-stealer.
My Badge sounded with announcements by police across the city and their responses. Given the severity of the threat, I overheard a sergeant call for the National Guard, and the situation looked to escalate rather quickly. A woman with exploding powers could range anywhere from Piper Halliwell-level to a living nuclear bomb like Peter Petrelli. I hoped for the former, rather than the latter.
Conflicting reports of strange sightings and potential assailants rattled across every frequency at once. A breaking news alert on GBS had already begun, with the famous Cat Grant's face displayed on the screens overlooking Roberts Square. She had little information about the ongoing event, but I suspected news helicopters and cameras would be all over this place within minutes.
That lack of information did not last long when something exploded only a few blocks away from my flight path. A column of heat and smoke rose into the sky, and I sped toward the sight at just below the speed of sound.
From the window of a speeding semi, something pink lashed out like a whip toward the front of a cop car that aimed to tail them. Where it struck, the metal melted from intense heat and then sparked, exploding the pursuing vehicle with such force that shopfront windows and high-rise balcony windows shattered nearby.
The traveling truck took advantage of a momentary reprieve to push past a blockade that had yet to solidify in time. The truck barreled through one squad car, sending it spinning into an armored van that didn't arrive in time to put a dent into its path.
I gained momentum, grabbed a concrete layer from a cement wall, and dropped into the road in front of it. Breaks squealed on the driver's instinct for a good half-second before it continued to accelerate unabated, with me in its path.
I angled a pair of neural shock blasts toward its tire. One missed, but the other hit, and with a green crackle of light, the tire collapsed, and the vehicle lost control of its momentum.
The semi-truck struck with such force that I only managed to hold my ground for a second until I flew backward and crumbled against the side of a parked taxi, caving in its frame.
The pain was immense, from mere blunt force trauma, and the concrete armor had cracked under the pressure. Bruises were in my future, my lungs hated me, but I would heal.
The truck, however, would not.
Its engine block sundered under the impact pressure, the front of the truck a shattered, splintered mess. The windshield had cracked, and smoke billowed from its weakened front. The vehicle had driven for a few more yards before coming to an abrupt stop, the weight of a parked van finally ending its forward momentum.
I floated to a hovering position, just over the ground, and studied the interior through the spider web of cracks in the glass. The ache from what had happened still rang in my ears, thrummed in my torso, and I felt myself losing altitude from a lack of concentration.
The driver, blood dripping from his forehead and ruining his left eyesight, opened the door, raised his side arm, and fired. I braced with my arm, but the bullets that managed to aim true pinged against my abdomen, my hip, my shoulders – all still coated in concrete.
"Y-you won't do much there," I offered through gunshots. "Maybe save your ammo for the cops to identify later."
The explosive woman in question, perhaps, climbed into the cab next to her lackey from the back. Red hair in a tight bun, khaki fatigues, her appearance screamed military. The expression on her face was not happy. A small burst of light and sound preceded the truck door flying from its hinges, crashing through a nearby window to an office building.
She launched herself from the truck and landed on the street. Her hand crackled with pink light, while the other held a rifle at the ready.
"I don't know why you freaks keep interrupting tonight, but you signed their death warrants."
The rifle spun around, not in my direction but toward the line of cop cars behind her that had begun to form. I ran forward quickly to grab for the barrel, each step one of frustrating pain, but I was too late as her shots began to ring into the night. Cops fell, while others began to exchange fire.
As I approached to cut off her assault, she brandished her other hand in a swing of energy. I held off to keep some space between us. However her powers worked, I doubted I was durable enough to survive that if she managed to tag me.
"Not cool," I argued, keeping my distance. Cops didn't stop shooting, some shots wild enough that I was as much a target as her. "If you stand down now, I'm sure a judge will-"
The woman's bark of laughter unsettled me, and she crouched behind the cover of a Camaro's engine block. "You civilian hero types have faith in the system? That's priceless."
I frowned, knowing that was not true. Earthbound governments were just as likely to be corrupt as the Oans could be, as Aggregor could be.
"Nope. I don't have much faith in that or anything else, but if you add another kill right now? The years will just keep adding on. That's a fact, not faith."
She chuckled again, raising her crackling hands in surrender. "I've already raked in more than a life sentence. What's another forty years?"
Forty years for me would only be a fraction of how long I might live.
"Ma'am, do you know how many superpowers accidentally result in a longer lifespan? Quite a few of them."
That stymied her.
"Stop shooting! Throw down your weapons, put your hands up where we can see them!" A cop bellowed from his megaphone, and I made to maneuver around to put myself between her and them. She flicked the energy like a whip, charging a nearby manhole cover with pink light. The warning was clear, and I held off before Gambit turned me to paste.
"Whoa, whoa. Let's not get hasty. You have to realize that even if I don't take you down, you've caught so much heat now that you have no chance of escaping this."
The woman chuckled, though it was not a chuckle of confidence this time. I was getting to her, and all I needed now was to delay until Speedy caught up.
"I know you could torch that whole line of police back there," I added. "But what are a few more lives lost going to do? They aren't connected to your plotting. Your 9/11 hands aren't -"
The woman's eyes flashed with the same light, and I forced myself into flight despite the pain, the weakness. I didn't cover enough distance, and when the asphalt exploded beneath where I had been standing, the force of it sent me tumbling through the air, end over end. I smashed hard into brick, more of my skin exposed as a person-shaped impact fracture formed behind me.
Bullets sang through the air as the police tried again to intervene. The pink whip of light moved again, not aiming toward them, but instead toward me. I peeled myself from the building, but not fast enough -
Something exploded just in front of me, showering me uselessly with pieces of wood.
I fell, controlling my descent through sheer force of will, and crouched behind a newspaper kiosk. Glancing upward, I smiled. The red-wearing archer in his silly yellow cap took aim with a volley of arrows.
"Plastique!"
Oh, that was her! I knew nothing except that she existed. Maybe a name from Suicide Squad?
A trick arrow trapped a fleeing lackey in a net. A second tied her legs together, forcing her to lose her balance. She reached with her finger to tap the corded line, but a third hit the center of her back, trapping her arms to her sides before she could.
"Unless you wanna blow yourself up," I challenged from my crouching position, "I s-suggest you listen to Speedy."
"This won't hold me!" Plastique hurled back.
A fourth arrow released a cloud of visible gas just beneath her nose. She breathed in the fumes and was out like a light in seconds.
STAR CITY
April 18, 04:51 UTC-8
TEAM YEAR ZERO
Roy, furious, threw his finger in the new kid's face, half-obscured by the darkness of the alleyway. Dumb, overconfident newbie without a proper costume or even a simple mask. The most he could say the idiot had done was to give Roy time to arrive, but he'd been reckless to himself and others.
"Who are you to operate on my turf?"
The boy's brow rose. "I wasn't trying to- I just wanted to help."
From the looks of it, despite the half-hour that had gone by since the police and the feds took over, he was still recovering from the explosion he'd tanked. Or maybe it was the semi-truck that he'd let try to run him over.
"I don't care how durable you are, I think if you'd been hit by her powers-"
"I'm not a moron, Speedy," the kid challenged. "I knew to not get hit directly, so I maintained my distance. In that way, same as you."
Roy fumed. He couldn't believe this. "What, exactly, were you thinking then?"
"I was trying to stall, to give you an opening," the boy spat. "If you'd have gotten there faster, I could have followed your lead. Had to improvise."
"I don't want you following my lead," Roy grunted. "I'm not wasting my time with someone so new. Go fuck off in someone else's city."
"I'm not new," the blond replied sharply. "I won't stick around if you don't want me here. There's plenty of other places for crime-fighting. But, I'll warn you now – if I see an opportunity to help, I'm gonna take it and you'll just have to swallow your pride."
With that, the boy flew off into the sky and disappeared into the night.
Because of that damn kid, the League won't even register any of this.