Hello there,
If you enjoy my stories, you can read up to 15 chapters in advance per story on my Patreon page : patreon.com/Samael61
—
Metropolis
Miles had spent the days before the coordinated assault against Intergang contacting local district attorneys to take action against the shell companies used by Morgan to funnel illicit funds to the gang.
With ample proof acquired through interrogating the real Morgan Edge and the ones passed to them by the impostor, getting the attorneys to take action was simple. Timing it, however, so the arrests would be at the same time, was more challenging.
The shell companies were mostly based in Metropolis and the surrounding cities with exceptional financial institutions and industrial presence, and the entire process could be completed within a very short time frame.
When the green light was given, five coordinated assaults would take place to do the most damage to Intergang.
—
Phoenix, Arizona
Abandoned Mine
Batman lowered his binoculars, analyzing Intergang's defenses. On the outside, there appeared nothing except for the well-camouflaged sensors and cameras.
"Batman, can you receive the visual?" Batman looked at the tablet in his hand, showing the inside of the cave. The Martian Manhunter's abilities were perfect for stealth, and constrained for time as they were, it made sense to send him in first.
Engraving the defenses, the weak points, and the location of the cameras, sensors, and all other defensive measures, Batman moved out with Question behind him. Once they were inside, Flash would take the scene.
Sneaking inside was a simple matter for both, sticking to the shadows, staying out of the vision range of the cameras, blinding the sensors, and distracting Intergang members.
The first level was nothing more than security, and the second level was the living quarters, but the third and final level was where the kidnapped metahumans were held. The two detectives sabotaged the security, leaving EM's, smoke bombs, and flashbangs ready to be activated with the push of a button. The devices they brought along were limited, so only the most dangerous parts were targeted.
The Martian Manhunter phased through the walls, entering the prison block to watch over the metahumans and to protect them in case Intergang tried to use them as hostages.
"I have located the metahumans. You may proceed." With his invisibility, J'onn approached the guards inside, quietly taking them down.
"Understood."
—
Flash stood outside the detection range of the mine security, stretching.
"Showtime." The world crawled to a stop, and the speedster blitzed through the open terrain. Wally's enhanced perception allowed him to easily take the turns in the mine, and too fast for anyone to realize, his punch had sent an Intergang guard to the realm of Morpheus, followed by another before the first one even hit the ground.
Batman and Question's little surprises had already gone off, causing mass chaos that the fastest man alive only made worse for the enemy.
—
Now that it was time to attack, Batman emerged from the shadows, a chop knocking an Intergang member out cold, while Question used a crowbar for the same job. Disappearing back into the shadows, the hunt continued.
Utilizing the distraction Flash caused, the detectives fought their way to the control room. Batman slapped a breaching charge on it, his last explosive, and burst into the room, moving low and fast.
The guards inside weren't idle; they were already on ready and turned their weapons to Batman.
Pushing one weapon aside, Batman uppercut the guard, throwing the weapon to the gang member on the left, while kicking the first guard to the one on the right. Question followed up, knocking out the downed guards, while Batman leaped to the one on the console, slamming his head to the computers.
"I have system control. Shutting down all automated systems." Batman informed his teammates.
"I am almost done here too. How are the prisoners?" The usual joviality Flash had was gone.
Under the current situation, it was not a surprise.
"Their conditions are stable."
Searching the system, Batman accessed the prison controls. "Martian, I can put the prison block in lockdown from here. Move to assist Flash."
"Understood."
—
Some of the guards had the mind to come together and lay down traps for Flash, but another enemy they did not anticipate phased out of the ground.
Transforming into a serpentine creature, J'onn used his tail to sweep the gathered Intergang members aside before slithering through the hallway, using his bulk to run the gangsters down.
"I don't know how you super freaks found this base, but don't think for one second you are getting out." A tall and muscled man in Intergang gear shouted, carrying an equally large gun that he fired at the Martian. A red beam almost hit J'onn, but he turned intangible, allowing it to pass freely through his body. Flying to the leader of the metahuman trafficking base, the Martian ripped the weapon from the man's hand and backhanded him to unconsciousness.
His eyes glowed, and the rest of the guards fell asleep like puppets whose strings had been cut.
"I have apprehended Donell Khelam."
A red blur stopped next to J'onn, dusting his suit. "And I have apprehended most of them."
"The base is secure," Batman announced.
Finishing "Alright, that's what I am talking about. Let's tie these guys up and wreck this place before handing them to the cops."
—
New York
Doodletown
Intergang Research Laboratory
While Batman and his team were having a rather easy time with their assignment, Superman, Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, and Inferno were not.
Having somehow been detected, Intergang sent out a hulking creature with tough, stone-like skin and a good amount of strength, but it wasn't the worst part.
No, it was the constant screams of agony the creature, once a metahuman, now turned to a monster, let out whenever it was wounded.
Green Lantern's ring had confirmed that he used to be a human, and the League were having a hard time deciding what to do.
"Guys, I don't know about you, but I think it is for the best that we put an end to his pain. I can't think of anyone who could heal what has been done to him."
"I agree; I'll handle him." Shayera, more used to killing than the others, flew at the creature, diving beneath his arms to avoid getting grabbed, and slammed her mace on the test subject's abdomen.
Doubling over in pain, the mutated metahuman could not block the strike to his chin, nor the one to his head that granted him peace.
Superman squeezed his fists, nails digging into flesh, and dove at the ground, tearing through the soil and rocks, going straight to the base.
Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, and Red Inferno followed him down through the elevator shaft in one of the abandoned buildings.
They came across quite the sight, with Intergang members knocked out left and right, groaning in pain, with their automated, Apokolips-tech-based systems torn apart.
The boy scout was angry, just as they all were.
Moving through the wreck Superman had left behind, they found him fighting another mutated metahuman, this one with smooth, gray skin and tentacles bursting out of its back.
This base was a horror show.
Catching one of the tentacles, Superman slammed the scientific abomination to the walls several times, one final hit reducing it to an unconscious mess.
Bursting through the walls, Superman's heat beams destroyed the weapons turned on him, and his hand wrapped around the scientist that was ordering Intergang around.
"Why? Why do this? What did those people ever do to you?"
"All hail Darkseid." The scientist gasped out with a crazed look on his face. Choking as the man was, Superman dropped him, fearing that he had squeezed too hard, but the foam around the madman's lips told him a different story.
"Damn it. Poisoned himself to not speak. Bastard."
—
Michigan
Central Mine
Intergang Supply Depot
"Wonder Woman, we are in position."
"Then let's not wait." Diana left her position behind the rocks, diving at the ghost town Intergang used as a supply depot.
Of course, a female flying through the air was easy to see, even at nighttime, and red beams cut through the darkness, aimed at her.
Raising her bracelets, she expertly ricocheted the shots away, targeting the gangsters at the rooftops first. She slammed both her fists into the chest of the gangster in the middle, turned back, and deflected another shot, spartan kicking the man away. Catching the runner with her lasso, she swung him around, releasing him just at the right time towards another rooftop, knocking two gangsters out.
The red siblings flanked the enemy, with Tornado on the right, summoning a tornado that sucked up Intergang members, swirling them into unconsciousness, while Torpedo flooded the terrain.
"I knew these mortals could not be trusted." A male, dressed in green with gold pauldrons, a visor, and a belt, with a sigil similar to a trident on his oversized cap, sneered.
This person was not in the files provided by Miles. "Who are you, stranger?"
"I am Tyrus; that is all you need to know." With a simple command, the Cerberus next to the unusually dressed man attacked. Wonder Woman met the best halfway, one punch sending it through one of the buildings and out of sight.
Tyrus pulled out a rifle, firing in rapid succession at the Amazonian, but Diana simply avoided the blasts, getting into close-quarters range. The man, most likely an alien, pulled out a spear next, and Diana knew he was an expert.
Blocking the spear with her bracelets, Wonder Woman swung from the right, and Tyrus quickly pulled his weapon back, batting Diana's hand away. He brought the spear down, but too fast for his enhanced physiology to react. Wonder Woman pivoted on her heel clockwise, sweeping Tyrus' feet.
Recovering quickly with a backflip, the unknown member of Intergang was soon joined by his three-headed hound.
They were ready to attack, but a tornado hit the two from the back, sending them to Diana's waiting arms.
Planting her feet on the ground firmly where there was a crack, she clotheslined both to the ground, knocking the Cerberus out and winding Tyrus. Quickly kicking the spear away, she caught Tyrus by the foot and slammed him on the ground over and over again.
After the tenth time, the alien was finally out like a light.
"Thank you, Tornado."
"We are teammates; you are welcome." Both knew the Amazonian could easily handle this, Tyrus, but they weren't fighting alone.
For good measure, Diana wrapped several iron beams around the alien to keep him from going anywhere.
Torpedo came riding a wave. "I have destroyed the supplies on the surface, but they barred the way down to the underground depot."
"Let me." Diana flew to the large metal door and could see that it wasn't steel or anything else she knew of.
That would not deter her, however, and she wedged her fingers in the middle, bending the metal, and began to force the door open. Tornado and Torpedo pulled from both ends, and the door was pushed open, the mechanism behind it failing due to the power exerted against it.
Pulling all the available water in the area, from the water bottles to the underground reservoir, Torpedo flooded the elevator shaft down, calculating it so that while no one would drown, they definitely wouldn't be in a condition to fight.
Their weapons and other technological surprises kept beneath the ground would also be swept away by the violent torrents.
—
Atlantic Ocean
King Arthur of Atlantis was furious.
The human criminal group, known as Intergang, had built a base in the ocean, all without his knowledge. Even his friends in the Justice League had recently become aware of the place, and Arthur was all too glad to take the chance.
This base was a rather small but important one, a drop location for technology and weapons from Apokolips, a hellish world if there ever was one.
They did not bother with stealth, for the ocean was their territory, and these criminals would rue the day they were born.
"Charge!" Arthur ordered, and the ships opened fire on the base, meeting resistance as an energy shield flared to life, protecting the base.
The enemy returned fire, the red plasma proving to be ineffective against the ships, especially underwater.
"Keep firing; that shield cannot protect them forever." At his command, all the ships fired at once to exhaust the shield.
One of the ships redirected fire, and Arthur frowned, looking at the gate opened in the surface of the cliff the base was built on.
Mutated sea creatures, ones that he could not communicate with, surged forward. They were similar to sharks and other predators in the ocean, but whatever the criminals had done, had turned them to monsters.
"Forward at the creatures; put them out of their misery." Arthur ordered, pushing his vehicle to the maximum.
—
The crazed beasts were no match for the Atlanteans, and eventually, the shield covering the base flickered out.
Rather than breach the base and fight in close quarters, Arthur ordered the base to be destroyed after their demands of surrender went unanswered.
No need to lose any more soldiers to the criminals inside.
Each cannon shot stripped the defenses of the base away, and something caused an explosion large enough to leave a hole where the base used to be, a shot most likely finding its way to the energy core of the base.
Several pieces of the foreign technology were retrieved to be studied, and the Atlantean army returned home after combing the area for any survivors.
—
Metropolis
At the same time as the assault on the bases had begun, FBI teams launched a comprehensive wave of arrests, taking down the heads of the shell corporations and their upper management teams known to be in the money laundering scheme. The assets belonging to the companies were frozen, and every single account that had done transactions with the corporations was under heavy scrutiny.
Morgan Edge, exposed as the frontman of Intergang, was found and arrested while hiding alone in an abandoned warehouse.
Coincidentally, his father, Vincent Edge, was arrested several hours prior on the charges of sexual assault, leaving their empire without a leader.
The stocks of Galaxy Communications and every single one of its affiliates had tanked, with investors pulling out, the business deals cancelled, and mass resignations due to fears of being unwitting accessories to Morgan's crimes.
Intergang was not idle, realizing they had been discovered, and abandoned the rest of their bases, taking as much supplies, tech and funds as possible, dispersing to fall points only known by the leader of each base, and not recorded in any form or shape.
The rescued metahumans were taken to a private hospital owned by Miles, while the laboratory was reduced to ash, not even a single victim surviving without the life support machines they were tied to.
It was a unanimous decision between Superman, Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, and Inferno. Those people were nothing more than shells suffering in constant pain and madness, and the government could not be trusted to not just experiment more on them.
Regardless of everything, Intergang had just faced a massive loss.
—
In the next chapter:
"Shocking news across the country. Morgan Edge, the CEO of Galaxy Communications, has been ousted as the head of the criminal organization known as Intergang. After his arrest, the company has been left without a leader, as the only possible replacement, Morgan Edge's father, Vincent Edge, had been taken into custody on the charges of sexual assault.
Justice League, as the sole organization that pulled off this operation, handed Intergang members to local law enforcement, while Wayne Enterprises and EnviroCorps have offered to assist the humans trafficked by the criminals.
Today is a good day for the world."
Curious about the next chapter? Please consider supporting me on Patreon.