Chapter 35

With the entire prison on Lockdown, the female prisoners all moved around, with the guards observing them. A lock click echoed, with Killer Frost just smiling when her attention had been turned to the guard. The guard lifted up a hand.

"Get back in line," the guard said.

Killer Frost just smiled even more wildly. The guard started to panic very hard.

"Get back in line!" the guard repeated. "This is your last warning."

A blast of cold air knocked the guard down onto the ground. Killer Frost smiled and turned towards the other prisoners.

"Collars are off," she told them. "Watch the door, make some none of them try and get in. I'll take care of the rest of the guards."

The other female inmates nodded, and made their way across the way. Except for one, that being Tuppence Terror, who stood there, arms folded.

"What are you going to do with them?" Tuppence asked.

"Didn't you hear a word I said?" Killer Frost asked.

"I asked you a question," Tuppence said, just barely holding onto the accent.

Killer Frost sighed, but still ignored the muscle. She drew warm air from around them, and caused the other guards to drop down to their knees.

Tuppence's hands began to shake. Despite the fact that she should stick with the plan, despite that never ending mantra going off in her hand, she could not just stick with the plan, no matter how hard that she tried. Her hands were unable to stick to her side.

One of the guards, shivered, and Killer Frost moved towards her.

"Ah, this is what I need."

Tuppence bodychecked Killer Frost down to the ground, and she flew off to the side.

"Something's off about you," Killer Frost said. "But, even if there isn't, you shouldn't have done that."

Tuppence blocked Killer Frost's latest attack with a mental shield. Killer Frost pushed back extremely hard, with Tuppence reinforcing the shield.

"So, the Terror Twins aren't who they say they are so…."

Killer Frost found herself knocked off of her feet and directly into a wall by the woman in question. Tuppence stepped forward.

'Harry, heads up, but my cover has been blown,' Megan thought.

She avoided getting frozen solid by Killer Frost. A wall of ice surrounded them on all sides, thus making sure there was nowhere to go. Megan's heart beat just that much faster.

Another dodge caused the ice to bounce off of the walls.

'Stick with the plan.'

The ice came directly at Megan again just as she swooped down to avoid it. Killer Frost moved towards her and prepared to head in for the kill.

Megan grabbed her hand and then a flash of cold light came up.

Captain Cold, Icicle Senior, and the recently returned Mister Freeze returned. Senior raised his eyebrow and Mister Freeze responded with a nod.

"Hugo Strange was more than helpful after I threatened his life, along with Waller and the guards," Freeze said. "The collars are completely off, shall we proceed."

"Frost's not here yet," Senior said.

He turned his attention towards the Terror twin, whatever his name was. Still despite being a nobody, the link he claimed to have with his sister was the most important thing that they could encounter, by far.

"Anything going on out there, Terror?" he asked. "Anything that I should know?"

Harry shook his head, brushing a stand of hair out of it. Megan's call to him unnerved him just a little bit, but he had to remember to stick with the plan the best as possible.

"Something's going on," Harry said. "They're taking care of the guards...maybe one of the inmates was a bit unruly or something...but my sister is helping Frost convince her to be on the right side."

"Keep me posted, kid," Senior said.

Captain Cold extended his arms forward and looked extremely agitated. Now he had his cold gun once again, Captain Cold was just itching to try something. He had been more than used to his plans working like clockwork.

"We're going to….we're going to have to start without her," Cold said.

"We won't get that far," Freeze said.

"But, the lockdown is going to cause people from the outside to know," Cold said. "And the Justice League, we can't hold them off idenfitally."

"He's right," Senior said.

The three ice villains lined up from the wall and blasted at the stone wall with ice. It appeared to be unyielding. Thankfully, they had some heavy hitters in the form of Brick and Mammoth who ended up punching the walls, causing a light crack in it.

Junior had been regarded to look out, only to head to the other side when Frost had given him the signal. It was supposed to be a two pronged attack.

"It will take hours to get them through," Junior commented.

"You sure?" Tommy asked.

"Yeah, I did the math," Junior said. "Is there...is there something up with your sister?"

"What do you mean?" Tommy asked.

"Well, she could have run into trouble…."

"She did, because….I didn't want to tell your father, but the link just collapsed," Tommy said.

Junior almost gave it away with a gasp. Tommy clapped a hand over his mouth to prevent him from yelling out and blowing their cover. Junior's eyes widened, and he made several sounds before Tommy retracted his hand and he grew quiet.

"They...they might have also gotten control of the lady's wing, and they could be figuring out a way to get control of the men's there," Tommy said. "Best I reckon, Tuppence was helping Killer Frost deal with that but...they could use another hand."

"My father said…."

"Are you going to listen to him all of the time or are you going to be your own man?" Tommy asked. "Thought that you might be something out there, but if you're going to let your Daddy boss you around, but then you're…."

"Hey, hey, hey, I can do something without him telling me," Junior said.

"Well, do you have sand in your boots?" Tommy asked. "Let's get a move on, and git er done!"

Tommy slapped Junior on the back so roughly he almost fell onto his face. The other ice villains paid him no mind, just blasting completely at the wall.

'Oh, this idiot, I swear,' Harry thought. 'At least you know how they're intending to break out.'

"Let's go, pal," Tommy said.

The doors were locked, but Icicle Junior blasted it with ice. Tommy reared back and punched it hard, causing it to swing open, and almost fly down the steps.

"Maybe you should have been helping the big guys up there," Junior commented in awe.

'Little bit of magic goes a long way,' Harry muses.

They did not waste any time, heading down, and hoping that they could get around. Harry hoped that they could finish this little infiltration mission.

Junior walked past the office area. Harry, still under the guise of Tommy Terror, walked closed in. They moved past an office, where Strange, Waller, and several of the guards had been locked up. Harry knew that the control room would be pretty close by that location.

The sounds of something echoed from downstairs. Junior lifted his hand up to fight. The basement door blasted open and Killer Frost broke through.

"Hold your fire, tex," Killer Frost told him.

Junior dropped his hand, and Tommy put a hand on the other.

"Any problem," Tommy said.

"We got to stop the guards from turning on the collars on the other end," Killer Frost said.

She rose her hand and the ice powers she had a few seconds later, faded into nothingness. They were completely gone and both sides realized that it was only a matter of time.

"We should tell…"

"Kid, trust me, there's no time," Killer Frost said. "Your father would have wanted you to take drastic action right now and the most drastic action is getting that control room….he said that it was just down those stairs right over there."

Junior nodded and puffed out of his chest. They were going to shut his father down. Well this lucky guard, he's going to pay, pay big time.

Tommy's eyes locked onto Killer Frost's who nodded in response.

"Well, we better not dawdle then," Tommy said. "Put some pep in your step and get this done."

They moved down the stairwell, and towards the control room. Two of the guards rose their weapons when pointing at them.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Collars are coming back on," Junior said. "We need to get through."

"Why are you telling them this?" Killer Frost asked.

"Relax, Frostie, they're two of the guards that my father is in tight with," Junior said. "Gentlemen….gentlemen….listen, the collars, they're turning back on."

One of the guards frowned and was about to say something to the contrary. At least he was, if his eyes did not shift over for a second.

"Right, right, right, we'll let you get them back on," the guard in the front said. "We...we should make sure everything is okay and no one else tries to be a hero."

"People not getting with the problem," another one of the guards said.

"Make sure no one comes down this hallway!" Killer Frost demanded of them.

The guards scrambled, not even sparing a passing glance at Junior, Killer Frost, and Tommy Terror when they walked down the hallway.

'Just a bit further,' Harry thought.

Another blast of ice and another slam hard slam against the wall. Mister Freeze, Captain Cold, and Icicle Senior kept working through it. There had been no trouble, at least not yet. Captain Cold stopped, his cold gun dangling off to the side, and is frown growing even wider.

"This is the slowest prison break I've ever been a part of," Captain Cold said.

He should know. Captain Cold did not have any of his fellow rogues with him, and he had a feeling this would go off a lot more efficiently. The prison walls were thick and without them hammering it from the other side.

"Why don't you get your kid involved on this?" Freeze asked.

"Junior's ran off to do something," Senior said. "Maybe he decided to make himself useful for a change…..I sent some others to make sure him and Frost got back."

"Yet, he deviated from the plan," Freeze said. "You can't keep your own son in line. That is…."

"Just keep working, and remember your bargain," Senior warned Freeze..

They were getting closer, they were almost about ready to break through. Another twenty minutes of work and they would be able to make some headway, with or without Frost and Junior hitting it from the other side.

So many things could go wrong with this little gambit, but Harry resolved to keep an open mind. They were almost there, until another challenge managed to hit them. Namely a wall of prisoners who had blocked their way from the main control room.

A few seconds passed and Harry slipped into Tommy mode.

"Ya'll need to move out of the way, so me and Junior can fix the collars," Tommy said. "We ain't got time for you to be lolligaggy."

"Captain Cold told us not to let anyone get by here," one of the prisoners said.

"Well, my father runs this prison, and Captain Cold would listen to him," Junior said. "Therefore, you should listen to me, and I have on good authority that the collars for the woman's side has been reopened. They're all trapped back there ,with half of the guards."

"Yes," Killer Frost said. "So move it."

They were a bit nervous, but if her powers had been shut off, they were not scared as well.

"This is your last warning," Tommy said. "But, where I come from, when a lady says move, you should move it because you don't know what she'll do next. But, I guaren-dam-tee you you won't like it."

One of the more surlier prisoners stood up to a standing position.

"We told you, Cold did not…."

A loud crack echoed with Tommy sending the prisoner and at least two others down onto the ground. Junior followed the progress of their falling bodies, rubbing his hands together in thinly disguised glee. He bounced up and down a little bit.

The rest of the prisoners moved out of the way, and made their way to the door. One moved so fast, he just happened to crash into the wall.

"Did I tell you're amazing?" Junior asked.

"Just get going," Tommy said. "My sister's in there...you do a good job, and I might sweet talk her into giving you a chance. Understand?"

Junior almost made a fool out of himself scrambling towards the door. Killer Frost rolled her eyes a few seconds later.

"Idiot," she muttered. "Seriously, how do you put up with him?"

The doors opened, and Brick and Mammoth came inside.

"Where's Junior?" Brick demanded.

"Oh, he should be around somewhere," Tommy said.

The switch of the collars flipped on instantly, and they shocked the prisoners back into position. Brick and Mammoth, among others just dropped back down to the ground.

Suddenly, Junior escaped, without the collar shocking him into place somehow. He noticed the prisoners on the ground, with the collars activated, and he frowned at the sight before him.

"I don't understand."

Killer Frost nailed him with an uppercut punch to the face and knocked him down to the ground.

"That much is obvious," she replied.

Right before Junior succumbed to unconsciousness, Killer Frost shifted briefly back into Tuppence, and then into Miss Martian, while Tommy shifted into Superman. Superman leaned down and pinched his nerve endings, putting Junior into la-la land.

"Cover's been blown," Miss Martian said.

"We're about done here," Superman said.

Captain Cold rose up to nail him with the cold gun, but Harry disarmed him quickly. Both Freeze and Senior had been frozen in place by the failsafes of their collar and the other prisoners.

"Go to the office, release Waller and the rest of the guards," Harry told her. "I'll keep an eye on this lot."

"Be back in a minute," Miss Martian said.

'So, mission accomplished,' Aquagirl thought.

'Yes, most certainly, Harry thought. 'We exposed the corruption inside of Belle Reve.'

The aftermath lead Belle Reve to be put back into place. Several of the guards would now be inmates, well the ones who worked for Senior, and was not blackmailed into doing so. That was a hell of a plan to sort out. Several members of the Justice League turned out.

A grim looking Waller was having a very uncomfortable conversation with the governor. From the distance, Harry and Megan, joined by Mareena and Thea, listened to everything. Harry's super hearing picked it up and Megan relayed it through the others from the psy-link.

'Waller's getting thrown under the bus for this one,' Thea thought. 'But, to be fair, maybe she should have vetted her guards a bit better...and thanks for letting me in on this one...that was the most annoying game of yell tag ever.'

Harry just smiled and walked away from the situation.

'I figured out about three ways they could have made their prison breakout a lot easier,' Harry thought. 'If they were smuggling parts for a mini-cold gun in, then they should have just went a step further, and modified it into some kind of thermal explosive device.'

'That would have worked,' Mareena agreed. 'Guess it's a good thing that the criminals don't think like that.'

'That was pretty convoluted plan,' Thea thought. 'Almost too convoluted...almost like it was designed to fail.'

'To what ends though?' Harry asked.

'Don't know, you're the one with the criminal tendencies,' Thea thought to Harry.

Harry just smiled at her, and she grinned back at him.

'So, I'm now even for Tapei?' Thea thought.

'Yeah, thanks for backing me up,' Mareena thought. 'I didn't really think I would do well against all of those prisoners alone.'

'Well, I'm not sure the two of us would have done better,' Thea thought.

Still this calculated plan, this calculated plan to take the League away from a prison break that did not even work. It raised a lot of questions. Senior obviously burned through a lot of political capital to fail, and it was surprising that Freeze and Cold worked for him, being independent agents, and hell Killer Frost as well. He turned to Megan, who had been very coy about how she turned the tables on Frost.

Of course, the air of mystery did make things more interesting. Off in the distance, Batman, Black Canary, and Superwoman talked to several of the guards, the ones who had been compromised. Off to the side, Hugo Strange stood, and there was a conversation between him and the governor, before the governor patted him on the shoulder.

Harry took a few seconds to just look out. Megan placed her hands on his shoulders and rubbed them slightly.

"We might have missed tacos today," Megan said. "But, at least...at least we stopped everyone from breaking out."

Mareena raised her eyebrow when she read the scroll on the news reports.

"Almost everyone, M'gann," Mareena said.

Harry just had to laugh, after all of that, the one person who had been shunned for assistance, had been the one who had escaped. He was pretty sure that the term irony, which seldom appropriate, was appropriate here.

Edward Nygma slipped off in the confusion.

"So, I guess the real Terror Twins are going to be brought to Belle Reve," Thea said.

"Yeah, Batman mentioned that they would be moved from the Star Labs holding cells to Belle Reve within the day after we succeeded in the mission," Harry said.

"Good thing you were able to play Junior like a fiddle," Thea said. "Do you think he'll be pissed at you?"

"Maybe," Harry said. "But, what can he do?"

Until he gets out of his father's shadow, then Harry could not see Icicle Junior as a threat. Perhaps that was just him though. Still, crisis averted, although there was something bothering Harry.

After Amanda Waller's disgrace and release, Hugo Strange had been put in charge as the Warden of Belle Reve. He took Waller's nameplate off of the desk, dropped it casually in the trash, and replaced it with one of his.

"Well, Doctor, you should be pleased...or should I say Warden right now?"

Strange just smiled, that was going to take some getting used to, but he was pretty sure he could manage it. Strange folded his hands at his desk. Now he could dictate policy at the prison, and knowing how some of the inmates worked help him.

"And not telling me that the Terror Twins were Superman and Miss Martian?"

"Well, I had to make the plan look convincing," Hugo said. "Besides, we all got what we want in the end. No one escaped, well almost no one."

"Yeah, that little worm Nygma slipped underneath the shadows undetected," Senior said as he leaned through the shadows.

"He can prove to be useful," a shadowed figure said on the television monitor. "Today was a calculated risk."

"Yes," Strange said. "Indeed."

Strange removed a bottle liquor cabinet and poured out a drink for himself and Senior. Some of the guards who had been rooted out as moles, had been brainwashed by mind control technology from Jervis Tetch. The truth was pretty much every single guard in this prison knew where their next meal was coming from.

"To our future," Strange said.

"Yes, to our future," Senior said.

"And one where the Light will shine brightest of all."

Today went so much better than planned. Strange got the power and the position he always craved, Waller, who might have been a threat to their plans, had been disgraced and dismissed. And several very high-profile super villains had a secure prison which could serve as a base of operations, which not even the Justice League could penetrate.

On the couch, Megan leaned lightly against Harry's chest, smiling. Harry ran his hand through her hair, and leaned closer towards them. Today had been a very tough mission, and they were glad that Batman entrusted them into doing it. And the Riddler was the only one who escaped, so that could not be too bad. Harry draped his arm over Megan, who smiled.

"So?" Harry asked.

"Mmm?" Megan asked.

"How did you turn the tables on Killer Frost?" Harry asked.

One could see the amusement on Megan's face. She turned over, so she went face to face with Harry, practically straddling him. Her fingers played with the buttons of his shirt lightly.

"Well, she didn't expect me coming," Megan said. "And I was able to make the others believe that she buried me under ice...when I put buried her in one of the solitary cells, through the floor."

"I heard she was pissed when she woke up hours later in the basement," Harry said.

"Mmm, I'd imagine that she would be," Megan said. "I thought I blew our cover for a minute, but by taking Frost….I made it convincing. And I even put together one ice grenade to blast through the door, out of some spare parts."

"You amaze me sometimes," Harry said.

"Well, I've been putting things together," Megan said. "I've had some good teachers in that fact as of lately...some very good teachers."

Megan pressed against Harry, the warmth of his body causing her to barely keep coherent thoughts together. Harry tightened his arm around her and pulled Megan in ever so closer.

"And you played Junior like a flute," Megan said.

"Like a harp you mean?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, I get those two mixed up sometimes," Megan said with a light shrug. "So, now that we have mission accomplished…."

Megan lowered her lips down onto Harry's with a kiss. Harry returned the favor, with Megan's legs wrapping around him tight from this position. Their adrenaline had been rushing pretty high after today, so they needed someway to burn it off.

It took everything Megan had not to shift Harry out of his clothes in one fell swoop.

Karen returned to her studies of the Sphere, which remained immobile off to the corner of her lab. She had been working on it for the better part of the day. Caitlin walked into the lab, after having left to get a snack. Yet, she noticed Karen staring at it.

"It's been silent and I've been here all day," Karen said.

"Maybe you should just leave it along for today," Caitlin said.

"Fairchild, listen, if I can crack this…."

"I'm pretty sure you aren't going to crack it tonight," Caitlin told her with a soft smile. "Listen, Karen….you need a break...you're...well you're not human, but you have your limits."

Karen figured that she would be write. She attempted to translate the various beeps and blips that emitted from the Sphere, trying to find some kind of pattern. Only, there was no pattern. Caitlin clasped Karen's hand and practically pulled her down.

She shut off the lights and left the Sphere in complete and utter darkness. She was pretty sure that it was not going to do anything overnight.

"Time to check in with the League," Karen said. "I've kind of been ignoring them tonight."

If it was important, she was sure they would sent someone. She had been torn away from the Sphere once today, because of the Royal Flush Gang. Karen kicked their asses, maybe roughed them up a little bit more than normal, and returned to work.

The Sphere sat in complete and utter darkness for a good long while. Before, it started to hum and envelope the empty lab in bright purple light. A soft female voice began to speak, echoing from the Sphere.

"Neutral interface process repair complete. Core processes internal reboot initiate."