Injustice 3: Rings War (Book 2)

Chapter 1: Assessment Test

The Man:

I roll onto my back before landing on my feet. Looking back, I push myself up before running away. Barely running five steps, Flash reaches me. Running around in circles, he traps me.

Closing and opening my eyes, the world around me slows down. The red blur turns into the Flash, and timing it right, I shoot out my arm and watch as Flash runs right into it. Screaming as he falls to the ground, I punch the back of his head and knock him out. His body dropping to the floor, I sense something incoming and turn around.

Two fireballs coming toward me, I once roll out of the way before they can hit me. Bursting into bits of flames as they hit the ground, I find myself face-to-face with Firestorm.

"You asked for this" Firestorm screams, more fireballs forming in their hands.

"Easy there hothead," I say, backing up. "I don't want you setting off the sprinkles."

Firestorm shoots out their hands, bright orange beams come toward me. I jump out of the way and watch as the beams go right past me. Having to adjust their aim, I take the opportunity to run toward Firestorm. Despite being in the air, I still manage to grab onto one of their feet with a leap. Wiping away some sweat, I climb onto the two even before they can react.

"Time to chill," I say, hitting the two in the neck with my two fingers. Firestorm screams as the fire around them die before the three of us start to fall. Jumping off and landing on my feet, Jason and Professor Stein defuse and hit the floor.

"Ollie," Black Canary screams, skidding to a stop in front of me. "Try and hit him."

Oliver meanwhile comes up from behind me, a bow in hand and arrows already loaded. Rapidly firing them at me, I have to dodge an assortment of trick arrows; net arrows, explosive arrows, and even a few regular arrows.

Slicing a flash arrow with my flattened hand, I look away as a flash goes off.

"He's not looking," Harleen says, "I'm going in. Cover me."

"No," Cheetahs says, "I'm faster. I'm going."

Even without looking, I can hear as clear as day Harleen's and Cheetah's footsteps as they run to me. Focusing and listening, I push down on my fist and ram my elbow into Harleen's stomach. Only a second later, I swing my fist around and hit Cheetah as she tries to lunge at me.

"I have more than one way of listening," I say, hearing both Harleen and Cheetah as they fall to the ground.

"Oliver," Blue Beetle yells, "I got his left. You shoot from his back."

"Cross-fire," Oliver yells back, the two of them simultaneously firing.

Looking between Blue Beetle and Green Arrow, I roll, duck, and step back as a barrage of arrows and blue blasts storm toward me.

"He's too fast," Blue Beetle says, "We can't hit him."

"Let's see if he's faster than sound," Black Canary interrupts, the barrage stopping. Landing on my feet, I watch as Black Canary inhales.

"Oh son of a bastard," I say, crossing my arms. Screaming, Black Canary unleashes a sonic storm.

Invisible rings hitting me over and over, I manage to stay my ground, my feet only skidding against the floor. Eventually, running out of breath, Black Canary drops to the floor. Meanwhile, I'm still standing, uncrossing my arms. Just to be sure, I snap my fingers before letting out a sigh of relief.

"No way," Oliver says, his eyes stuck on Black Canary. "How did you survive that? There's no one anyone could have survived that."

"Trust me," I reply, "I'm not happy I survived that earlier."

Once more, I sense incoming danger and dodge to the right as Blue Beetle tries to hit me with dual sword arms.

"We can't hit you from afar," Blue Beetle says, raising one of his sword arms, "But maybe I can from close range."

"I wouldn't recommend Bug Boy," I reply, raising my fists. "

Letting out a war cry as he charges, Beetle swings his arms wildly around. Jumping left and right as I dodge them, I grab Beetle by his wrist before kicking out his leg. Force onto his knee, a swift punch to the head is what knocks him down.

"Just you and me," I say, turning to face the last of the Insurgency. Green Arrow loading an arrow into his bow, he aims it at me. While holding his bow and arrow, I notice shaking coming from his hands. His arrow bouncing against his bow, I roll my eyes.

"You can't even shoot straight," I say, reaching into my pocket and tossing a pellet. The pellet hits Green Arrow right in the face, it explodes and unleashes green smoke. Coughing for a little bit, he then drops onto his knees before collapsing.

"I thought you promised no tools," Dr. Crane says from the battlefield's sideline. "Why the smoke pellet?"

"I have better thing to do than watch Green Arrow miss," I reply, walking over to the unconscious Emerald Archer. Grabbing his body and tossing it onto my back, I carry him over to the sideline. Meanwhile, the Doc grabs Blue Beetle's body and carries him over too.

"So how was the uhh, assessment," the doc asks, now carrying Flash's body. "Was it bad, or not so bad?"

"It is horribly, insanely, on the brink of no hope whatsoever, bad," I answer, tossing the professor onto my back while dragging Jason by his leg. "None of them could so much as hit me. You saw it all. I had a harder time brushing my teeth."

The Doc picking up Harleen stops me before I can go grab anyone else.

"For the record," he starts, "And take into account, I used to fight Batman on the daily, you are unlike others I've seen. You're a lot faster, stronger, and smarter, and all of that together is a hard-to-beat combination."

"I don't have super-speed likes he does," I reply, pointing at Flash. "I don't have super-strength like the man of steel himself, and I doubt I'm a whole lot smarter than Bruce Wayne. Thanks for the compliments, but no thanks."

About to go grab someone else, the Doc once again stops me.

"You can go. I got this."

Patting the red duffle bag with a cross on it, he walks back onto the battlefield. I on the other side shrug my shoulder and leave. Exiting through the double doors, I grab my phone.

"Christelight," I start, the hacker answering within seconds.

"Yes. What's up? What do you need?"

"I'm just checking to see how the tracker is working. How is Hal?"

Hearing the sound of Christelight's keyboard go off, each push of the button sounding like thunder, he answers a few seconds later.

"The tracker is working a-okay. It's bright green, and shows that Hal is on Oa right now."

"Awesome."

"Hey listen. Not to doubt you or anything, but why did you say it was okay for Hal to leave? Especially in the condition he was in when he left?"

Thinking back to when Superman and his One Earth goons attacked Harleen's old base, to when Superman was trying to convince all of them to join him, he had captured Hal in the old Gotham pipes. Luckily, because Hal was so badly beaten, the soldiers guarding him felt they didn't have to watch him too carefully, and that's when I managed to sneak him into the base before helping the others. Unluckily for Hal however, he wasn't a hundred percent recovered before leaving for Oa.

"It was Hal's choice, and honestly, I really didn't want to get into another fight with him. Besides, if anything does happen to him, the tracker will send a signal to us and the color will change."

"And I guess since he is on Oa, home of the Green Lanterns, he'll have a few thousand lanterns watching his back. Still though."

About to reply, I stop when I sense very wrong. Feeling like waves of powerful magic had just hit me square in the face, I place my phone near my ear again.

"Hey Christel," I say. "Thanks again for the update and for the help earlier with the betas, but something just come up. See ya."

I hang up the phone and put it in my pocket before running to check on something.