Buying Time #150

"Damn..." I muttered as I watched Brimstone Swat Crush down to the ground, giving her severe burns all over her body. Gritting my teeth, I channeled energy into Ebony and released a fully charged projectile.

The energy bullet hit Brimstone in the face, forcing him back before he could stomp on Crush and giving her enough time to get back to her feet and flee.

Crush was very strong, there was no doubt about it, and her healing factor was at least two times stronger than mine. However, she was nowhere near how strong Lobo was.

Her attacks, unfortunately, did little to no damage to Brimstone, and she suffered severe injuries every time her attacks connected as the giant's body was a cluster of concentrated flames.

Crush's healing factor, though rather potent, was barely keeping up with the accumulated damage, and worst of all, we might have won by now if Green Lantern wasn't dumb enough to create that gigantic protective dome.

Anyone with a brain cell would realize Brimstone wasn't interested in killing the regular people and was only doing it to lure heroes, the so-called graven images, and false idols.

He targeted the protective dome because the flaming giant was smart enough to take advantage of it and deplete Green Lantern's energy, but he didn't even try to attack civilians once it was down.

Crush and myself were already there once the fight started. However, we couldn't intervene because the dome kept us out, and here we were, buying time for Green Lantern to charge up so we could fight Brimstone together.

Looking at Crush staggering as her healing factor began lagging behind, I grit my teeth as I looked around. I took a deep breath as I headed toward a black Mercedes.

"Whoever owns this car better have insurance," I muttered as I gripped its frame from the side and picked it up. It immediately broke into two pieces because of fucking physics, which only seemed to apply to me.

"Hey fuck face!" I exclaimed to get Brimstone's attention as I hurled the front of the car at his face, and he turned towards me just in time to get hit right in where his nose would have been.

"Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" I added as I watched Brimstone's head jerk back before throwing the rear of the car. Accessing my inventory, I retrieved every single Spider Sentry and Sentry Gun inside.

I began shooting with Ebony and Ivory to keep Brimstone distracted as I activated my Machine Morphing and Machine Assembly powers on the machines.

The Sentry Guns and Spider Sentries began changing as they approached one another, slowly merging and forming a gigantic humanoid shape by the time Brimstone had enough of me taunting and seemed ready to strike me down.

"Huh... so it really does work..." I muttered, raising an eyebrow as I watched the humanoid machine standing at an impressive 20 feet, fully equipped with enough weapons to wipe out a small city.

Brimstone's colossal 70 feet figure still dwarfed it, but it was still a sight to see nonetheless, taking even Brimstone by surprise before charging the flaming giant and tackling his ankle.

Still, I did not get to appreciate my handiwork for long as parts of it were melting already due to mere contact with Brimstone. I moved the cooling devices to the melting areas and ordered the machine to back away.

Now that I think about it, I hadn't named the thing yet, and I quickly decided on the first name that came to mind; Sentry Titan.

In any case, I had the Titan retreat as I released the only three Drones I had and merged them into its body, giving it the tools to fix the damage, which it did.

However, Brimstone was already up and ready to continue fighting before Titan fixed itself, so I took things into my own hands. Quickly changing into my heat-resistant suit, I lunged at the flaming giant.

I channeled every ounce of energy I could muster into my right, forming a fist that I buried in the giant's face, and I seemed to take more damage than him by the looks of things as my arm turned black while he only took several steps back.

Luckily, Crush had already healed, and Titan had finished its self-maintenance, so they quickly tagged in while I retreated to allow my arm time to heal.

"How much longer?" I asked, my scorched arm dangling to my side as I used my other, intact one to shoot Brimstone and turned to Green lantern with a frown.

"Almost there," Green Lantern replied, holding his lantern close as he began chanting his oath to replenish his ring's charge, so I could do nothing but grit my teeth through the pain as I kept firing.

...

Gotham

The Batcave

"What... happened...?" Batman groggily asked as he slowly regained consciousness after raising his upper body to scan the area and noticing his current whereabouts.

He wasn't alone and not the only one lying on a sick bed, either. Nightwing, Batgirl, and even Robin were there beside him, with Alfred stitching up their wounds with a grimace.

"I was hoping you could tell me, master Bruce," Alfred said, sighing as he closed the last wound in Robin's chest and took off his clothes. "There was an explosion in the middle of Gotham..." the butler added as he walked to the Batcomputer.

"This... thing appeared in its wake, and we found you not far away from the crater, unconscious," he went on as he brought up footage of Brimstone wrecking Gotham.

"Brimstone..." Batman muttered, frowning as he turned to look at his proteges, connecting the dots and making sense of the situation, realizing what had happened.

"Deadshot... I need to go to Blackgate," Batman said as he shakily sat up after recalling the information about Brimstone and how he was defeated in the first place.

"Is The League here?" Batman asked as he began dressing up, much to Alfred's exasperation as he knew there was no point in trying to stop the caped crusader now, so he didn't bother.

"Only Green Lantern. The others are busy dealing with other threats, it seems," Alfred replied as he approached Batman and reluctantly helped him get dressed.

"However, Mr. Whitlock and a friend of his are helping Green Lantern and keeping the monster busy," he added as he finished helping Batman and returned to the Batcomputer.

"They have done well so far. However, I don't imagine the trio would last for too long," the butler concluded as he brought up live footage of the battle taking place at East End's edge.

"Then I need to hurry," Batman said, taking a deep breath as he took one final look at his unconscious proteges before heading to the Bat-jet, clearly in a rush.

"For once, I agree, master Bruce..." Alfred said, sighing as he looked at the three injured sidekicks, a concerned expression surfacing on his wizened visage.

...

Unknown location underground

As she slowly regained consciousness, Enchantress couldn't help but groan, feeling pain all over her body. She tried to move her arms, only to freeze upon realizing they were bound.

She opened her eyes and immediately panicked at the sight of countless green vines covering her mouth and binding her limbs, pinning her inside what seemed to be a spherical green room made entirely of plants.

The wall in front of her began wiggling as it parted, and a red-haired, green-skinned woman walked through it, stopping before Enchantress, and the heroine immediately recognized her as Poison Ivy.

The botanist was sweating, clearly in pain, as Brimstone's mere presence and the searing heat emanating from his body brought tremendous harm to every plant in the city. And by extension, Poison Ivy herself.

"What have you done? Is that thing destroying my babies out there your doing...?" Poison Ivy asked, her agony audible in her tone as she looked barely able to hold back the urge to tear Enchantress to shreds.

"What... what are you talking about...?" Enchantress asked as the vine covering her mouth moved away, and Poison Ivy immediately scowled at her reply.

The botanist injected her mind-control pheromones directly into the heroine's bloodstream and repeated her question, only to receive the same answer, causing her to frown.

Poison Ivy then explained the situation in Gotham to the heroine, and the look of realization, panic, guilt, and finally self-loathing on Enchantress's face was all the botanist needed to connect the dots.

"It was an accident. I never meant for any of this to happen..." The heroine said after hearing Ivy's explanation. "But it was because of me... I lost control..." she said, then went on to explain her side of the story, which Ivy intently listened to.

...

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