Freedom

"She must die."

That was the wrong thing to say.

His footing became firm and instead of running away, Esau remained where he was, glaring out at the ten foxes who watched his every move closely. "You ever lay a hand on her and I'll kill you all!" He roared out and suddenly, the world around him became a blur and with a gasp, Esau's eyes snapped open as he shot up into an upright position. His body had erupted in a cold sweat and he took in a number of deep breaths to calm his erratically beating heart. 'Who...what was that?' Gripping his head tightly, Esau shook his head, utterly oblivious to the fighting going on around him.

It was only when he felt the building shake followed by cracking stone did he look to see the roof on the verge of collapsing. "Esau!" A familiar voice cried out and looked to see Batgirl running towards him, leaping and tackling him to the ground ready to protect him from the rubble with her body.

He reflexively caught her and went to spin around so that he was protecting her, but that was when he saw a dome of ice surrounding them. His eyes panned over to the third person in the dome and they widened in shock upon seeing Killer Frost, arms thrust forward and slightly curled in as they glowed blue, her powers working to reinforce the ice as the building collapsed on top of them.

-X-

Monday 5th July 2010, 00:45.

Washington D.C,

Cadmus Research Facility.

Ducking under a swipe from a Genomorph, successfully avoiding its razor-sharp claws, Barbara lashed out with a kick knocking it to one side. As the creature stumbled away into a number of its compatriots, she threw a Batarang into the mix, the explosion sending the unconscious creatures flying.

She honestly hadn't expected things to get this bad.

Well, that wasn't entirely true, she had theorised that things could have gotten worse, it was an occupational hazard.

But that didn't mean she expected those theories to come true.

Yet they had.

First, she had come to free Esau and in her impatience, unleashed a berserk Esau that had knocked Kid Flash out cold and exhausted Frost by forcing her to overuse her powers in order to restrain him. While Robin and Ravager had been unscathed, Aqualad and Superman's clone bore the brunt of Esau's attacks.

Luckily Esau had been knocked unconscious before he could do any real damage, but he had still cut Superman's clone.

It was suffice to say that her impatience could have been extremely costly, especially with Esau's strength seemingly increasing as the fight went on. Then they got to the current time, each of them having made their way as quickly as possible out of the thirty-fourth floor and just in time as Robin had caught images of the entire floor being flooded with Genomorphs. A few minutes earlier and they would have been fighting off a berserk Esau and a small army of genetically modified creatures.

But, they hadn't escaped entirely.

Turns out that group had been the vanguard, they had run into the main force almost as soon as they reached the ground floor, led by Cadmus' head scientist, Doctor Mark Desmond. He had talked about bringing order to Cadmus once more and securing them all for study before downing a vial of liquid he called Project Blockbuster.

Before their very eyes, Desmond has turned into a grotesque, purple figure with large bulging muscles and remnants of the original Desmond's torn skin hanging off his body.

From there, things dissolved into an all-out brawl.

Aqualad, Robin, Kid Flash and Superman's clone went on to fight against Dr Desmond while she, Ravager and Killer Frost dealt with the small army of Genomorphs while protecting Esau's unconscious body. It wasn't as difficult as it seemed at first, on paper the sheer number of creatures should have overwhelmed them however, that was also their biggest weakness.

There were just too many of them and they got in each other's way.

They, on the other hand, were much smaller in number and had split up.

From what she could see, Ravager was little ways up ahead, having positioned herself at the exit of a narrow corridor and just used her enhanced speed and strength along with her superior fighting skills to take down scours of creatures. Barbara could actually see that she was standing on a small mountain of corpses with her blades dripping with blue blood.

Barbara herself had positioned herself a little closer to the door which led to the large, empty room in which the four boys were facing off against Desmond. She made sure that none got close or even entered the room, she had seen the strength of the transformed Desmond and the last thing the boys needed was little Genomorphs interfering as well.

Seriously, whatever Project Blockbuster was, it allowed Desmond to overpower Superman's clone with ease, knocking him around with powerful blows. Each one only served to make the clone angrier and angrier, which in turn, left more openings, then resulted in him receiving more and more blows. It was just a never-ending cycle and if it wasn't for his superhuman durability, he would probably be dead already. Even then, Desmond's blows were doing damage and were causing him to bleed from a broken nose, bust lip and a few nasty cuts.

Whatever he had taken not only gifted him with great strength but allowed him to bypass the invulnerability of a Kryptonian.

While the clone was getting smacked around, Aqualad was faring much better. Not as strong, but more skilled and level-headed. He always avoided a straight contest of strength knowing he would lose and instead used his Water-Bearers to attack Desmond. The hardened water constructs actually managed to pierce the hide of Desmond, but it was not much, only shallow cuts equivalent to that of paper cuts.

With the two powerhouses keeping Desmond's attention occupied, Kid Flash was zooming around, never stopping still and using hit-and-run tactics. Always running interference to keep Desmond's attention on him when Aqualad or Superman's clone was vulnerable.

Then there was Robin, he wasn't actually fighting, instead, he was using his holographic map to study the room and find a way in order to tip the favour of the fight in his favour. Unlike their mentor, neither of them was at a level to make a difference in a straight-up fight like this, but they could tip the favour by using other means.

'I hope this ends soon.' Unlike Wally and Superman's clone, she didn't have a healing factor and therefore, she was still feeling sore from where Esau had knocked her unconscious. Her back was stiff and she had a killer headache, she was just glad that Ravager seemed so happy to fight a large number of Genomorphs all alone. So she, just like Killer Frost was delegated to taking out those that sneaked past her while also protecting Esau's unconscious form.

Sparing him a glance, Barbara grabbed hold of one of the Genomorphs and launched it toward Killer Frost who used her ice powers to freeze it in a block of ice that shattered into thousands upon landing on the ground. While her extended use of powers had exhausted her, Killer Frost seemed to have recovered remarkably quickly as soon as the fighting began. Even then she wasn't doing much, just simple blasts of ice that froze the creatures in place, nothing compared to what she had shown the capability of doing before.

'She's holding back.' She quickly deduced as her eyes narrowed, understanding exactly why Killer Frost was doing so. 'She's planning to escape once this is all done when we're split up and exhausted.'

Before she could think on it further, her eyes picked up movement and looked to see Esau sitting up. He didn't look to be okay, having erupted in a cold sweat and looked as if he had seen a ghost, but he was alive. That was all that mattered to Barbara and she felt a smile come onto her face as she saw him conscious and himself.

"Thank god." She whispered in relief, but that all came to an abrupt stop when the building groaned, cracks forming and spreading along it and her eyes widened in shock. 'Robin, what have you done?' She questioned in shock as she looked to where the young hero and his allies were fighting. But as she realised that the building was about to collapse, Barbara burst into action as she rushed towards Esau. "Esau!" She called his name urgently and as she got closer, she jumped tackling him back to the ground and moving to position herself in such a way that she would protect him from the falling building.

This was just in time as the floor above them gave way as the Cadmus Research Facility came crashing down upon them.

Barbara tensed, bracing herself only to feel a sudden chill down her spine and nothing else, no crushing pain, nothing.

Taking a quick peek, Barbara saw that Killer Frost had created a protective dome of ice that surrounded them. The thickness of it and the fact that she was adding more power meant that it was more than capable of withstanding the weight of an entire building.

Before she could think any further about this, Esau's voice reached out to her.

"Bar-Batgirl?" He asked both arms wrapped securely around his waist as he looked at her in confusion. "W-what are you doing here?"

Relieved beyond measure to see him safe, Barbara gave him a large smile. "I'm here to save you, you idiot." She answered as if it was the most obvious thing and after a few moments, Esau's lips twitched upwards. It wasn't a full-blown smile, but she was happy to see it nonetheless.

-X-

Monday 5th July 2010, 01:00.

Washington D.C,

Cadmus Research Facility.

Puffing, Rose came to a stop in a nearby alleyway looking on at the wreckage of what had once been the Cadmus Research Facility. She had used the distraction caused by its collapse to escape, she knew that the sidekicks wouldn't let her go and she wouldn't put it past them to contact the League the moment they found out about what Cadmus was really doing.

The Justice League was the last thing she needed to deal with and so she ran, shamelessly leaving Killer Frost behind.

It's not like Rose would lose any sleep because of it, she knew for a fact that they were both planning to abandon the other if the situation called for it.

The situation had called for it.

She had waited, standing nearby to see if Esau was okay and as soon as she saw the dome of ice, the blurry, warped figures of Batgirl, Killer Frost and Esau inside, she ran. Esau was okay, she had succeeded in doing what she came here to do and that was it, despite what Killer Frost said, she didn't like Esau.

She didn't!

Rose owed him a debt and now that she had repaid it, they were square and that was the end of it.

Running had turned out to be the smart thing to do as well because the Justice League turned up minutes afterwards, Killer Frost was already being restrained by one of the Green Lanterns while what looked to be the entire League turned up.

Even though she was curious, Rose didn't stick around much longer, only sparing another glance towards Esau to make sure that he was okay. 'We're equal now, Esau.'