The Next Generation

"Well, this wasn't how I planned to spend my Saturday," Rose muttered, reaching into her backpack to pull out her energy sword handles. She clicked the buttons to form the blades, though she really rather wished she had her armor as well, considering it was five against two. "I really hope you're ready to-"

She didn't get a chance to finish her sentence, as Suddenly Kid Flash disappeared, only to reappear right in front of her with a super speed punch to the jaw that sent her flying backwards. She didn't hit the wall, though, instead being caught by Wonder Girl's lasso and swung into the broken computer screen. A powerful jolt of godly lightning then zapped through the lasso and surged into Rose's body, eliciting a horrid scream of pain.

"That's it, scream," Wonder Girl said with a sickeningly delighted grin. "Beg for your life."

Neal, on the other hand would have his own problems to contend with, as Kid Devil suddenly leaped forward and breathed out a wave of blistering hot fire. Not only that, but Terra raised her arms and manipulated the earth beneath the tower, causing razor sharp shards of stone and dirt to spike through the floor at Neal's feet.

"I hear ya, but I guess that we don't have much choice but to fight," Neal muttered as Rose drew out her own swords. There were too many of them, and the room was too small. Neal couldn't let his mind come up with a decent plan. As much as Neal hated to use it, he knew that Deathstroke's tactical genius would have been good to have right now. Neal wished he would have learned more from the man before sending his ass to prison.

"Rose!" Neal shouted as he saw the pain that she was in. He would have gone over to help her, but didn't exactly have time. As Kid Devil came forward to breathe fire, Neal was forced to raise his soul-self as a shield. Because of this though, he didn't react in time to Terra's attack. The spikes drove through Neal's legs, forcing him to emit a painful scream as he dropped his soul-self shield.

This was not looking good.

Rose tried to get back to her feet, but her entire body was numb. Taking a shot of Zeus' lightning would do that to you. Not to mention, the lasso was still bound tightly around her arms. As great a fighter as she was, even these odds were a bit too overwhelming, especially considering the caliber of opponents. Still, she wasn't about to give up now, not with Neal in danger. She could hear her screams, and it really, really pissed her off. Not having much more of an option, she decided to test a theory. They said that Wonder Woman's lasso was indestructible. Maybe so, but this wasn't Wonder Woman's lasso. This was Wonder Girl's. And Rose's energy blades could cut through virtually all matter except for flesh.

Angling her blades upwards, she rolled forward and slashed the energy sword across the extended rope, and to her relief, she felt the grip go slack as the lasso was cut. She shrugged out of the restraints a short few moments later, just in time to dodge a few incoming punches from Wonder Girl, and counter with a stab from her energy blades that sent her own charge of electricity through the blonde bitch. Unfortunately, her triumph didn't last, as Kid Flash came in again faster than she could react to, hitting her from behind about twenty times in a matter of seconds. The next thing she knew, she was flying through the air, straight into an axe kick to the back of the head by Bat Girl.

Terra manipulated the earth below them some more, bringing up two large chunks of stone through the floor that wound up and batted Neal in between them like a ping pong ball for a while, only to be caught by Kid Devil's tail and slammed towards the ground. Hopefully he could figure out a way to get out of that. Meanwhile, Cyborg was doing everything he could on his end, in spite of his condition.

Out of the back of his torso, a panel opened up and a piece of wiring extended, heading towards the circuitry on the damaged computer console behind him. if he could just jack himself into the system, he could activate extreme security measures It was going to take a few minutes, though.

"Owowowowowowow," Neal said each time his face made contact with earth. Damn, he never thought that someone with a manipulation of earth could use it to this mastery. Neal was feeling immense pain, but he wasn't out of the fight just yet. He was slammed onto the ground as Kid Devil's tail rapped around him and shot him down. Neal knew what he had to do, but he had to admit that he wasn't going to like it. Neal quickly reached out both hands, wrapping them around Kid Devil's tail. "Sorry pal, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it'll hurt me," Neal said as he activated his illusions.

Assuming Kid Devil's mind could be affected by illusions, he would see that Neal was literally beginning to rip his tail in half with nothing but his bare hands. The amount of pain that would go the kid's mind would be immense, it was like practically getting your arm ripped open. As Kid Devil dealt with the pain, Neal turned his gaze so that it fixed on Terra. This was a risky move, but he had to give it a shot. He tried to cast an illusion to make it look like Neal got up and shoved Kid Devil to the ground, effectively switching their positions. Neal hoped that Terra would use her ability on the one she thought was Neal, which in fact was still Kid Devil.

"I don't think so," Wonder Girl said, walking over to where Cyborg was and ripping the wiring away from the computer console that he was trying to use to activate the security. She then went ahead and ripped her hand straight into his mechanical torso and pulled out his power source, effectively shutting him down. "That's better."

Rose could barely do anything right now. While sue could probably take Wonder Girl on her own, if she had her armor and no interference, and she knew for a fact that she could take down Batgirl, throwing Kid Flash into the mix was something entirely different. She just wasn't prepared to be fighting a speedster. As fast as her reflexes were, they weren't speedster fast, and without advanced planning there was no way she was going to hit him, especially when she had two other people to deal with. She lost rack of how many blows she took. A hundred. A thousand maybe? And all in the span of seconds. Plus, without her armor, her body was going to get ripped apart at this rate. She could already feel her bones starting to crack, and blood dripping from open cuts.

While Neal's illusions worked to an extent, they still weren't going to save him. Since Kid Devil had gone and collapsed in pain, holding his tail, right before the next illusion hit, Terra didn't feel like waiting for him to get out of the way, so instead decided to just raise up a massive boulder and throw it on top of both of them. She was pretty sure she'd get him that way. However, as the boulder came falling down, another earth construct surged through the floor, this one in the shape of a hand that caught the boulder. Then, another earthen pillar speared upwards and smashed Terra into the wall.

Suddenly, the other wall behind them burst inwards as a white, red, and blue blue flew straight into the combat, hitting Kid Flash as he was preoccupied with Rose and drilling him into the computer screen. The blur then redirected itself and delivered a thunderous punch that sent Wonder Girl flying through not just one wall, but about a dozen, until she ended up skidding across the ground outside.

"Hey!" a voice said, as another figure wandered in through one of the newly formed holes in the wall. "You guys need a hand?" It was Atlee.

That could only mean that the blur was... "Alright, who the hell is next?!" Power Girl shouted, a pure look of rage induced combat on her face. She was cut up pretty bad, and her costume was torn in multiple places, as though she'd just come out of a big battle. One thing was certain, though, she was pissed and still in fighting condition.

At first, Neal thought that he might have come up with a victorious plan to defeat his two enemies. It seemed like Kid Devil was easily caught in the illusion, and truly believe that his tail had just basically been ripped in half. Neal thought that it might have bought him some time. However, his gaze shifted over to Terra who was prepared to crush them both with a giant piece of earth. Neal's legs were too badly torn up, there was no way that he could move in time. For a moment, he thought that he was going to die right there.

However, apparently Fate wasn't going to let Neal die quite yet. As the earth came towards Neal, something intervened. Neal narrowed his eyes, was that more earth? But why would Terra stop her own attack? Terra herself was attacked a moment later, causing Neal to look up as he heard a familiar voice. "Terra! Thank God you showed up on time!" Neal shouted before looking back at Kid Devil. He imagined several large spikes falling into his wrists and legs to pin him to the ground. The kid was already in pain, might as well stop him from fighting.

Neal also looked over to see that someone else had saved Rose, and his eyes only widened as a very familiar face showed up. "Power Girl," he said under his breath as she walked through. There were so many questions going through Neal's mind. Why did Power Girl look beat up? Why had these two shown up? What happened to the three new Titans? Why weren't they here? "Excellent timing there," Neal said with a smile as he looked over at his ex-girlfriend. "What happened to you two though?"

"There'll be more time to explain that later," Power Girl said, flying over to retrieve Cyborg and all his pieces. She tossed them over by Atlee, along with Rose, who wasn't in any condition to get up right now. She just hurt too much, everywhere. The only one of the resurrected heroes left standing at the moment, before they all recovered, was Batgirl, who foolishly tried to attack. Power Girl merely kicked her through the opposite wall, leaving them safe for the moment. Chances were, though, they'd all be back on their feet soon. "Alright, get us out of here, Atlee."

And with that, to good Terra raised up a giant chunk of earth that functioned as a floating platform, which started flying out of the tower and through the air. Power Girl was flying right alongside them for a while, before finally setting herself down on the rocky platform, exhausted. She let out a groan, holding her ribs and wiping her bleeding lip.

"I guess we got here just in time for you two," she uttered, groaning. "Not fast enough to help the others, though."

"You're probably wondering what's going on," Atlee said, looking back at them as she concentrated on levitating the rock as far from the tower as possible.

Rose lifted an eyebrow and glanced up at her. "Well no shit."

"Turns out, heroes from all over have been returning from the dead," Power Girl said, coughing out a pained breath. "Wasn't just those five back there. Former Justice League members just showed up one day, too... Superman included. We were all so... so happy, relieved, that we didn't look into it as well as we should have. Something is obviously wrong, but we're not sure what, still. We don't know who or what brought them back, or what made them all of a sudden decide to turn on us."

"From what I heard, it was real chaos up on the watchtower," Terra said, lowering her gaze. "Peej got away, so did a couple others, but the majority of the Justice League didn't... they're either dead or something else, we can't be sure."

Neal didn't interrupt as Power Girl defeated Batgirl, the only remaining hero that had been resurrected. Within a few moments they were up in the air, Atlee was using her powers in order to raise up a giant earth platform that would help the injured heroes. Neal appreciated it, as he wasn't sure that he could put that much weight on his body right now. He sat there, waiting for them to get a good distance away from the tower before Power Girl began to explain what was going on.

So, it wasn't just these five that had returned, but a whole group of heroes. Superman included. How could they have been so stupid? They should have contacted each other more, they should have known that something was wrong, they were far too trusting! "We need to figure out what brought them back as soon as we can, that's the only way to end a nightmare like this," Neal remarked before looking over at Power Girl.

Most of the Justice League was dead? Did that mean that there were confirmed casualties? "Are there any official deaths?" he asked despite not wanting to hear the answer.

"Nothing official, no," Power Girl said, bowing her head. "I saw a lot of my friends get pretty messed up, but I can't say for sure if they died. I don't see how not, though, unless those... things, whatever they are, had other plans for them." Clearly, she wasn't regarding these resurrected heroes as real people, and who could blame her? Even if they were 'real', they were still mind controlled monsters that had turned on them. "By the time I got to the teleporter, Flash was out, so was Wonder Woman. Batman was still fighting, but even his crazy preparedness couldn't have predicted something like this. Only myself, Zatanna, and J'onn got away. The others... I don't know."

"They're waiting for us, too," Atlee said, in regards to Zatanna and Martian Manhunter. "We've had to set up a new base until we can figure out what's going on. If we can figure it out."

Rose raised herself into a siting position and folded her arms. "Well, we'd better figure it out. I want another crack at some of those assholes. Think they can jump me three on one and get away with it, well not next time."

Neal just sat there and listened as Power Girl described about how so many people had been attacked, she didn't even know how many had officially survived or not. What could have possibly created something like this? It was beyond anything that Neal had heard of before, and he had a feeling that it was only going to get worse from here. Zatanna and J'onn were the only two that Power Girl was positive had been able to escape the tower. Everyone else could already be dead for all she knew. Neal only hung his head, muttering a small prayer for any that had been killed.

As Rose mentioned that she wanted to take another shot at the heroes, Neal couldn't help but worry. They had practically been defeated by five heroes that had already died in the line of battle, how were they supposed to stand up to someone like Superman though? If he was still alive, how could they win? He pushed those thoughts away for the time being.

"Have you guys come up with a plan yet? Or are we just trying to find any survivors right now?"

"Right now we're trying to round up anyone who's still capable of fighting," Power Girl explained. "Shouldn't be too difficult to find a bunch of heroes for back up, the problem is that we're at a disadvantage position wise. There are a lot heavy hitters up on the watchtower right now, and up there, they can see everything. Most likely, the larger hero groups were the ones hit, with their former members coming back to take them out. The Titans, the JSA, the JLA, the JLI, all of them. The heroes that work mostly solo should be relatively unaffected, I hope."

"But if we don't find out what brought them back and how the're being controlled, we may not be able to win no matter how many on our side," Atlee added. "According to J'onn, one of those... things were torn right in half, completely by accident, too. But it... healed right up, like it hadn't been injured. I don't know if we can stop them."

Rose folded her arms. "Figures," she muttered. "These things may not be Black Lanterns, but they sure sound just as annoying."

Neal listened to Power Girl and Atlee as they described the current condition. So, not only were they outflanked, but now they might be outnumbered and their enemy might not even be capable of dying? That meant that the only way to defeat this thing was to find the source. "I don't care what that magician brat said, this can only be coming from magic or something worse," he added as he tended to his damaged legs. They still hurt like hell, and hopefully he could get them patched up at the new base.

"So once we get to this new base, what exactly do you want us to do? Or is that to be determined later?"

"We'll figure it out when we get there," Power Girl responded, letting out a small breath. Her ribs were throbbing something fierce; those blows from Superman had definitely done some damage. "Just taking it one step at a time right now."

"So where are we going?" Rose asked, trying to straighten out all the knots in her back. God, she felt like shit right now. She'd never been hit so much in her life... she really hated speedsters.

Atlee raised her hands and caused the platform to pick up some serious speed. "The one place that we can be safe," she said, as they flew across the country. They had a long way to go, but fortunately, she could make them go pretty fast.

---

They arrived in Gotham about five hours later. Atlee set the giant stone platform down outside of Wayne Manor, while they helped each other inside. Though Batman might not have been home, they still had people with access to probably the mots well defended place on the planet, the Batcave. After all, he'd had to beef up security quite a few times in the past. His personal lair was more like a heavily guarded fortress now.

When they finally made it down inside the batcave, quite a few heroes were waiting for them. There was Zatanna and J'onn, of course, as well as Green Arrow, Huntress, Black Canary, Beast Boy, Raven, Dr. Fate, and Red Robin. It was a whole mishmash of various surviving heroes in light of the recent attacks.

"Not exactly the coziest place on the planet..." Rose muttered, looking around the Batcave. "It's very... dank."

As they arrived in Gotham, Neal couldn't help but be a little surprised. Batman's place was where they were going huh? He supposed that he couldn't blame them, if there was one man on the planet who had the best security it would definitely be Batman. The man's paranoia was creepy sometimes, but Neal would be lying if he said that it wasn't deserved at times.

"I wouldn't be complaining about how dank it is, I just want to know that we're not going to be tracked here. As long as we're hidden I am just fine with that," Neal said as they moved into the cave. His eyes moved over to see the other heroes that had gathered. He was familiar with almost all of them personally. He had fought alongside every single one of them before, with the exception of Dr. Fate. Green Arrow and Huntress didn't remember Neal as he remembered them, after all he only fought with them after Darkseid took over the world.

Of course there were two people that Neal was happy to see more than the others. "Raven, Beast Boy, glad to see that the two of you are alright," he said with a smile as they moved forward. Neal was still limping slightly from the injury in his legs.

"Hey, dude, you made it!" Beast Boy declared, practically jumping from his seat. "We heard about the old Titans that came back to the tower... we didn't know if you guys made it out okay."

"With 'okay' being a relative term," Rose groaned, plopping herself down at the table and sinking back into her seat. "We're pretty beat up, and Cyborg is probably going to take weeks to repair, or more. And the three new ones, we couldn't even find them before getting jumped by Wonder Wench and her motley crew."

Raven stood up slowly and walked over to her, reaching forward with her hands. "You are hurt," she said, placing her fingers on either of Rose's temples and siphoning away the pain, thereby healing her. "You should feel better now."

"Oh... uh, yeah, thanks," Rose responded. She totally forgot that Raven could do that.

She then went over to do the same to Neal. "I am glad that you're both okay."

"We got lucky, I took Rose to visit my family back in New York. We weren't there when the attacks began," Neal explained. He had to wonder if it would have been better if they were present though. It would have been six against five, they might have won without losing anyone. Neal couldn't help but worry about Traci and the others, he hoped they were okay.

As Raven approached Neal, he couldn't help but feel bad. He had meditated with Raven before, and he knew how much pain it caused her to take away others and cast it upon herself. He always hated it when Raven did it to him. "You don't need to do that Raven, I'll be fine I swear" he said as he tried to give her an out.

"And I'm glad that you're okay too. I was really worried about you two"

"Hush," Raven said in response, holding her hands to his temples. "You are hurt... I don't like it when you're hurt." Closing her eyes, she let out a cool breath as she took in his pain. It wasn't more than she could handle.

Rose folded her arms and glanced back at Beast Boy. "Those two really were a good couple, huh?"

Beast Boy nodded. "Yeah, shame what happened, though... still, everything worked out alright."

"Yeah, suppose so," she said, leaning back in her seat again and holding her hands behind her head. Rose had Neal, Raven had Beast Boy, and everyone was happy.

"So, what's Martian Man doing over there?" Rose asked, thumbing in J'onn's direction. He was hovering in the air, just standing motionless with his eyes glowing.

Raven looked over at her. "He is doing a psychic sweep of... well, everything. The entire planet. The tests on the resurrected heroes yielded no scientific results, and no magical results. He thinks that it may possibly be a telekinetic link that is controlling them. He is trying to scan for any such link. If he finds it, he may be able to trace it back to the source."

As Raven insisted that she would heal him anyway, Neal couldn't help but smile. It was this kind of thing that had made Neal fall in love with her in the first place. So many people called Raven cold, and yet she was still one of the most selfless people that Neal had ever met. Neal just closed his eyes and allowed her to do her work. "Thank you Raven, as always you are kind to me" he whispered as he let her finish the work.

As Rose asked about what J'onn was up to, Neal couldn't help but listen as Raven explained that he was potentially looking for the source of all these problems. "Well that would be a lucky find if we could locate it," Neal admitted as he looked over at J'onn. "Whoever is doing this must be using a lot of focus, if we can distract and take him down this whole mess will come to a quick end...........do we know of anyone with this kind of capability?" Neal asked curiously.

"Yes, of course it will take a very long time," Raven added. "Scanning the entire planet for a telepathic link that may not even be there is not something that can be done in a day."

When Neal asked if they knew of anyone who could do something like this, Beast Boy just laughed. "You mean bring back the dead or control people with their minds? Or with untraceable magic, or whatever. Yeah, I'd say that narrows the list down to about a few dozen possibilities. Of course, it may very well be someone we've never even come across before, who knows?"

"Well, whoever it is," Rose said, tapping her fingers on the table, "I owe them a nice hard kick to the face. And maybe a shiv to the eye."

A few moments later, Beast Boy let out a small yawn and stood up from his seat. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting hungry. I'm gonna go fix us up some dinner or something. I hear the old Batcave's got quite the stockpile, like he was expecting it use it as a fallout shelter or something."

Raven stood up a moment later. "I will go with you."

When the two of them went off to go find something to eat, Rose propped her feet up on the table and let out a yawn, while looking around a little. "Don't really see a whole lot of places for real privacy down here..."

Shortly after her comment, Power Girl rejoined them, sitting next to Rose and leaning against the table. Her outfit was still pretty torn up, and she likely didn't have a replacement in the Batcave of all places. "So, how are you two doing?"

"But of course. I just can't help but be a little anxious to get this over with. I know that these heroes are being used by someone, but it's still hard to fight them and watch them be manipulated like this. If it was happening to me, I'd want someone to put me out of my misery," Neal admitted as he took a seat right next to Rose.

As Beast Boy excused himself to make some dinner, Neal watched as Raven excused herself and went with him. He smiled at them, for he was truly glad that they were happy together. And at the very least he and Raven hadn't broken up on bad terms. It just......had to happen. Still, Neal had been able to go after Rose and he had zero complaints with how their relationship was going. "Privacy huh? Did you have something in mind?" Neal asked jokingly as he smiled right at Rose.

It was only at that exact moment that Power Girl showed up, sitting on the other side of Rose and beginning to talk to them. Well, this should be interesting. Neal never really had a confrontation of the girlfriends before, not that he expected anything terrible to come out of it anyway. He and Power Girl had broken up a long time ago, it was in the past. "We're doing pretty well minus the whole dead hero thing," Neal said with a tiny shrug.

"Power Girl this is Rose, also known as Ravager. She's also my girlfriend actually. And rose, this is Power Girl, my ex-girlfriend"

"Yes, I believe I've head of you," Power Girl stated, offering a hand for Rose to shake. "I heard from Batman and Wonder Woman that you two took down Deathstroke together. Nice work."

Rose reached forward and shook her hand. "Thanks. It was tough, but hey, we're awesome." She smirked, pulling her hand back and holding it behind her head again with the other. "And trust me, I know who the famous Power Girl is... kind of hard to miss you, if you know what I mean."

Power Girl lifted an eyebrow and glanced down at her chest. "Oh, sure, i might have an idea of what you mean. So, you're dating Neal now, hm?"

"That's right," Rose said, folding her arms. "That isn't a problem is it?"

"Oh, no, of course not," Power Girl assured. She then leaned a little closer and then whispered (or rather pretended to whisper, still keeping her voice loud enough for Neal to hear), "The sex is great, isn't it?"

Rose played along, leaning forward and also pretending to whisper, "No kidding. He's a real keeper in the sack."

Power Girl laughed quietly under her breath. "Yeah, those were some good times."

"Well maybe if you're good I'll let you have some more good times with us," Rose commented, casually, giving her hair a little flip as her gaze shifted away. "But only if you beg."

Power Girl grinned a little, narrowing her gaze. "Well, I've never been one for begging."

"What a coincidence," Rose responded, glancing back out of the corner of her eyes. "I've never been one for sharing."

Neal smiled as Power Girl brought up Deathstroke. "Yeah, that was a sweet time. You should have seen Rose and I, we were working together like we had known each other our whole lives," Neal said as he looked over at Rose and smiled at her. It was hard to believe that Deathstroke had been arrested for like half a year now, it still seemed hard to believe that they had defeated him at all some days.

As Rose and Power Girl began to have their conversation, Neal just sat there while they talked. It was a girl thing, or so Neal thought in the beginning. He just assumed that they wanted to compare how the two relationships had been different from one another. He began to hear their whispering though, and his demeanor began to change. Wait, were they comparing him right now?

As the conversation continued, Neal only let out a laugh as the banter between them finally came to an end. "SO glad that you two are getting along. And for a moment I was worried I'd have to pull the two of you apart"

"Well, if we can come up with a compromise, you might have to pull us apart in a different sense," Power Girl replied with a suggestive wink. This got a laugh out of Rose, who was liking this woman more and more. She knew how to have fun with a situation.

"Yeah, a compromise," Rose responded, leaning over and putting an arm around Neal's shoulders. "What do you think, hun, can we come up with a compromise? Maybe have some suggestions?"

For the most part, these two women were just having fun screwing with Neal. But, underlying it all, was the part of them that might really be interested in trying something. Power Girl would have no complaints, of course, considering she was outside the relationship looking in. And to Rose, well, it was always good to mix things up a little once in a while, right? Keep things interesting, fun, hot?

As Power Girl and Rose actually began to suggest something dirty, Neal couldn't help but feel like he was being set up. Was this just a ploy by Power Girl to see if he would remain loyal to Rose, because it wasn't going to work! Neal just gave a tiny laugh and looked right at Rose. "I think I'll leave that up to you dear, I'll do anything that you want you should know that by now" he finally said as he threw it back at Rose.

It was a win win for Neal. Either it was a trap and Rose wouldn't push Neal into it, or this was actually going to happen......and Neal didn't need to explain why that was a good thing.

Rose lifted an eyebrow and couldn't help but smirk a little. Well, he was smarter than he looked after all. She knew she was with the right guy. "Leaving it up to me now, are you?" she said, raising one of her hands up to her chin and thinking. "Hmm... well, what do you think, Power Girl? Can we come to a compromise?"

Power Girl leaned back in her seat, pretending to think deeply on the subject. "Well, maybe... what if I were to just say 'please'? Would that suffice as begging?"

"Weeell... I suppose it's good enough," Rose responded with a small shrug. She glanced back over at Neal and gave his chest a firm pat. "What do you think? That good enough?"