Issue #274

"ANGUISH"

by Dale W. Glaser

Wonder Woman entered the Watchtower's trophy room to find Batman securing his outer-space battlesuit on a short pedestal. He had made room between the mannequin that modeled General Glory's costume and an eight-foot tall head that had been liberated from its gigantic robotic body during one of T. O. Morrow's more physically forceful campaigns. Batman aimed as small acetylene torch at the boots of the exoskeleton, welding it onto the metal stand. He finished the final seam and stood up. His back still to the Amazon princess, he said, "Hello, Diana."

"You heard me walk in - over the noise of that tool?" Wonder Woman asked with modulated incredulity.

"Saw you reflected in the surface of the robot's head," Batman indicated the oversized metal cranium beside his battlesuit.

"I see," Wonder Woman nodded. She moved closer to Batman. "You felt we needed something to memorialize our battle against Mongul's alien war fleet?" she asked, appraising the sleek black armor on its pedestal.

Batman turned to face Wonder Woman. "More of something I needed to do for myself. I've decided that ... monstrosity ... was an excess of hubris on my part. I needed to remind myself of my place on this team, and accept the fact that it's not knocking down walls with my fists. I don't think I had a significant impact on the battle with Mongul's horde. I've even made ... mistakes."

Wonder Woman knew that Batman was still roiling with guilt over the death of the Start Tsar at his hands. She instinctively reached out to place a hand on Batman's arm; the Dark Knight made no reaction, positive or negative.

"I won't be using that exoskeleton again," Batman proclaimed. "I made my decision, and welding it down is beside the point, but it was somewhat cathartic," he admitted. Wonder Woman nodded in understanding.

"This is Oracle, hailing the Watchtower," the electronic voice of the information coordinator for the JLA announced over the moonbase's loudspeakers. "Who's home?"

"About half of us," Batman answered, knowing he need not introduce himself. "Superman, Steel, Supergirl and the Martian Manhunter are helping various rebuilding efforts on Earth. Green Lantern is home but on standby as far as I know. Wonder Woman, Plastic-Man, Firehawk, Flash and myself are here."

"Half is probably more than enough," Oracle responded. "Priority call just came in from the Slab*."

(* = maximum security metahuman prison - DG)

"Break-out?" Batman inquired.

"No, break-in," Oracle countered. "Motley bunch, apparently, four of them, some of which the guards couldn't identify. They're requesting backup."

"They'll get it," Batman declared. "Call Green Lantern and have him meet us there. Batman out." He started toward the trophy room door and said to Wonder Woman, "Let's get everyone down there."

"Are you sure?" Wonder Woman asked skeptically. "Four metahumans already inside the prison - it sounds like something Green Lantern could handle by himself."

Batman again turned to meet Wonder Woman's gaze. "Between you and me, I know that. And I also know how shaken everyone has been by the hell Mongul just put us through. Especially Kyle, and Lorraine, and Linda. This will do us some good - a clean, simple mission. We all need to start rebuilding our faith in ourselves."

"And you believe a small, guaranteed victory will do that," Wonder Woman acknowledged.

"Any victory will do that," Batman answered, heading out of the room again. "But I don't believe anything in this world is guaranteed."

Wonder Woman brought her invisible jet to a hovering stop over the Slab, directly above the cell block where the guards had pinned down the four metahuman intruders. Batman and Plastic-Man were seated in the jet. The Flash skipped across the water surrounding the island prison, raced across the yards and up the wall until he was on the roof of the structure, awaiting the others. Firehawk floated beside the jet, and the emerald glow of Green Lantern's power ring approached from the north as he answered the summons of his JLA communicator.

Batman slid down a heavy nylon line from the jet to the roof of the prison, while Plastic-Man stepped down on funhouse mirror legs, absurdly long and thin; Wonder Woman and Firehawk glided down to meet them. As Green Lantern arrived and alighted on the roof, Batman began issuing orders.

"According to the latest information Oracle was able to get to us, it's a stalemate in there. The prison guards have the break-in group sequestered, but can't shut them down. We're here to tip the scales."

"Oh, yeah, don't mention it, Batman," Green Lantern said, as though Batman had been apologizing. "I'm still behind on some of my design assignments but I wasn't getting much done this morning anyway."

Batman ignored Green Lantern's sarcasm. "The main thing to remember here is that this is a metahuman prison. We can't knock down walls and let loose a wing of thirty super-powered convicts while trying to capture four. Collateral damage has to be kept at an absolute minimum."

"Awww, we'll be gentle little lambs, Baaaats," Plastic-Man said, morphing his body into that of a red and pink sheep.

"Just subdue the villains as quickly as possible," Wonder Woman urged her teammates. Her voice held none of Batman's anger or foreboding yet still carried as much authority.

"Piece of cake," Flash gave a thumbs-up.

"And ..." Batman spoke again curtly, drawing all eyes back to his dark, cowled eyes. He paused another moment, as if weighing the consequences of continuing the thought aloud, then pressed on, "Stay aware of the situation. Something here is not what it seems. The villains who've broken in seem to have no agenda, no demands - they haven't tried to abscond with anyone or anything in the prison. Be ready for the missing piece to fall into place." The other Leaguers nodded their understanding.

"We need to get in quickly and quietly," Batman announced.

"Leave that to me," Green Lantern volunteered, aiming his power ring at the roof of the Slab. "Hal's been teaching me a few of his old tricks, and I think I've got this one down." Emerald energy shone forth from the ring and pooled on the tarred surface. A moment later the area of rooftop bathed in green light became translucent, and through the haze the Leaguers could see the room, a lounge, below.

"Roof's phased," Green Lantern announced. "Everybody hop in." Wonder Woman and Flash went through the insubstantial portal first, followed by Plastic-Man and Firehawk. Batman dropped down next, and Green Lantern flew through the roof and resealed it with his ring.

The room was forty feet on a side, had a television mounted in one corner near the ceiling and was otherwise featureless. A long table, a few card tables and various chairs had been set up throught the room but in the course of the altercation had been overturned and scattered at random. Just outside the room, on either side of the double-door entryway, were several prison guards. A few were injured; the others were occasionally firing shots from their service revolvers into the lounge. Inside the room were three unlucky, unconscious guards, and the four villains who had broken into the prison.

The most visible target was a nine-foot tall man who looked like a Hell's Angels version of Atilla the Hun. He wore black leather pants, and a spiked leather harness cut across his massive upper-body muscles. A long black topknot grew from the crown of his otherwise bald head, and a fu manchu mustache framed his scowling mouth. Wonder Woman flew toward him immediately, and threw a solid punch across the brute's jaw. His head snapped back, but his feet remained firmly in their places. The Amazon princess now had his undivided attention.

Another man crouched low to the floor, dressed in a skintight snakeskin costume with a large snake's head cowl. Flash ran past the villain in a crackling blur, snatched him off the ground and then hurled him at Plastic-Man, who was waving his hands wildly for the pass. Plastic-Man's outstretched body was soon wrapped around the serpentine foe, who clawed ferociously at the pliable Justice Leaguer.

A humanoid creature with four long, fingerless arms, a wrinkled and almost sad face like an old man and light brown spiny skin slapped two of its appendages at Green Lantern. The creature was slow but remarkably strong, catching Green Lantern by surprise. Firehawk was close-by, and sent a wave of flames into the creature's midsection. Green Lantern was able to fly free, and constructed a lobster-trap of solid green light around the creature, manned by a giant fisherman in emerald slicker and rainhat.

Batman's feet had barely touched the floor of the lounge when the last villain sprang at him, a lean, muscled man completely covered in a jet black bodysuit, brandishing a wicked sliver blade. Batman recognized Night Slayer, a brutal thief who had once impersonated the Dark Knight in a devastating crime spree, even as he sidestepped the attack and Night Slayer's momentum carried him into the corner of the room.

Night Slayer quickly regained his feet, but hesitated in the corner, too long a pause to be a simple tactical calculation. Batman's detective instincts raced, trying to see the pattern in the senseless attack on the prison. He glanced around and saw Wonder Woman throw a kick into her opponent's right knee; the massive combatant fell on to his back, and began pushing himself away from Wonder Woman. Across the room, the creature penned by Green Lantern's energy construct backed up to its farmost edge. Plastic-Man continued to try to entangle his opponent, whom Batman also recognized as Copperhead, but Copperhead squeezed between the coils of Plastic-Man's body and darted for the corner of the room. The muscular brute was backing into a corner as well, as was the creature in Green Lantern's trap. All four into separate corners...

Batman lunged at Night Slayer, and yelled to his teammates, "Don't let them ...," and then pain whited out his thoughts before he could finish the sentence. Batman crumpled to the ground, and the rest of the Justice League followed suit. The villains they opposed did so as well, but rested on the ground limply, with mouths hanging open and vacant expressions in their eyes. The heroes, however, writhed in pain on the floor of the lounge.

It was as if each Leaguer were experiencing every agony their bodies had ever endured, amplified a hundredfold. Every neuron capable of transmitting pain screamed the message at top volume. Their skins felt as if they had been saturated with gasoline and set ablaze; muscles insisted that rusty screws were boring through and tearing them apart; bones imploded; organs exploded.

Plastic-Man's body spread out across the light blue linoleum like melting putty, and a gurgling scream emitted from his morphing vocal cords. Firehawk shrieked agonizingly as well. Green Lantern and Flash both growled through clenched teeth like animals, fighting against the pain as best they could. Wonder Woman moaned pitifully; her Amazonian toughness, which usually kept her unfamiliar with pain, left her woefully unprepared for the maelstrom seizing her nervous system then. Batman alone was silent, something his teammates might have marveled at if the mushroom clouds of exquisite, all-encompassing hurt wracking their bodies and brains had left any synapses free to think.

Even the unconscious guards in the lounge twitched and jerked uncontrollably as the unseen force permeating the room filled them with pain upon pain. And the members of the Justice League helplessly endured the agonizing torture of relentless stimulation on their pain centers, for what felt like countless eternities.

Gradually the heroes began to realize that their suffering was being fine-tuned. While the assault on their pain centers went on largely unabated, the whitish haze across their eyes lifted, and the ringing in their ears subsided. Movement was still an impossibility, speaking anything other than desperate cries was unlikely, but they could see and hear enough to realize another figure was walking into the room.

The new arrival was dressed in plain, dingy clothes, with a stained labcoat over them. It was a man, in the loosest sense: gray-skinned hands covered in irregular bumps extended from his labcoat's cuffs, and a misshapen head of the same sickly gray, sporting stray tufts of black hair and goose-egg sized bumps, sat atop his shoulders. A black rod with three angled tines was clutched in the man's right hand. A silvery headband crowned the man's deformed head. And a madly cruel grin split his hideous face.

"No, no, don't get up," the mad scientist insisted with a vicious chuckle. "I'm just so happy to see you all. You have no idea. No, of course you don't. How could you know that today you would bring about the greatest moment in the life of Professor Ivo!"

The members of the Justice League made no answer. Ivo, obviously expecting none, continued, "It occurred to me, in one of my brooding spells after my last defeat at your hands of course, that I had been limiting myself far too much all these years. All of my grandiose schemes were far too complicated." Ivo paced around the room like a schoolteacher giving a lesson to a class well-known for not paying attention without a watchful eye upon them. "Soulless automatons that replicate the powers of the Justice League - pfaagh! Lifelike androids programmed to infiltrate your heroes' clubhouse and destroy you from within - double pfaagh!!" Ivo laughed again. "Unnecessary foolishness! When all I ever wanted ..." - the so-called professor's voice dropped menacingly - "was to hurt you all."

Professor Ivo spun on his heel suddenly and strode toward the Flash, who vibrated in place on his back in superspeed convulsions. "The clarity of that realization was incredible!" Ivo shouted. "And suddenly I knew exactly what I needed to do. I needed to forget about building super weapons and aiming that at you, hoping against hope that they would exploit your weaknesses and bring you down painfully. I needed to cut out the middleman! Pain was what I wanted - not to give you a good fight, not to break things - to cause you pain and suffering! I set myself to that task, and as you can see," Ivo hissed as he bent down and wrapped his fists in the front of Flash's costume, "I succeeded brilliantly."

Professor Ivo stood up and dragged Flash upright; the scarlet speedster was helpless to resist. "And now that I've reminded myself of the shortest distance between wanting something and getting it," Ivo seethed, "I can do this." He cocked back his fist and punched Flash across the cheek, then dropped him to the ground. Flash gave voice to a weak protest as he hit the floor, all but drowned out by Ivo's mad laughter. "You don't enjoy the receiving end of suffering, do you, Flash?" Ivo demanded furiously. "Are you just going to lie there and take it? Won't hit me back? Can't?" Ivo's gales of cackling resumed.

Ivo crossed over to Plastic-Man's protoplasmic form, and ground his bootheel into the Leaguer's distended face. "And so the mighty are brought low! It was child's play, you know. There's always another lackey wanting a favor, tracking me down, whether it be Night Slayer looking for a power augmentation or Behemoth worried that he's dying of Promethium poisoning, or the Human Starfish hungry for a synthetic version of his power potion. I just lied to them all, told them the pain emitters I was implanting on the surface of their cortex would accomplish whatever they had just prattled on to me about."

Ivo made his way to Green Lantern and Firehawk, placing himself between their prone, nearly insensate bodies. He kicked Green Lantern's ribs with all his might; admittedly not very hard at all, but still eliciting a yelp of pain from the overloaded Lantern. He kicked Firehawk in the stomach, bringing out a sickening cry from the depths of her agony. He continued alternating kicks for them both as he soliloquized on: "Then I told them that the payment I required for my services was that they make a ruckus breaking and entering into this prison, and wait for the Justice League to show up. Simpletons that they were, they thought they had gotten the better deal."

Growing bored, Ivo walked over Green Lantern and put himself beside Wonder Woman. He tried to lift her as he had the Flash, but her densely muscled body was too heavy for his flabby arms. Instead he straddled her chest on his knees, and brandished the black, fork-like object in his hands, and said, "All that was left for me was to follow behind my unwitting accomplices with this control device ... and a bit of shielding for myself, of course," he chuckled, tapping his silver headband, "and let the Justice League waltz right into my trap." Ivo sighed with grotesque melancholy. "It's a shame Superman isn't with you. I so very much wanted to know how it felt to lay Superman down with one punch. But I suppose you'll do, Wonder Wench," he sneered, grabbing a fistful of Wonder Woman's hair in the hand that clutched the control device. He pulled her head up and smashed his other hand, balled into a tight fist, into Wonder Woman's nose. Ivo grunted himself, as the impact with the Amazon's skull inflicted its own share of pain on his knuckles, but nevertheless he punched her again. And again. And again and again, his rage steadily mounting.

Suddenly a blood-curdling scream sounded from the corner of the lounge. Ivo turned in that direction and gaped disbelievingly at Batman, who screamed wordlessly and terrifyingly but nevertheless was now standing upright. The Dark Knight's continuous scream did not stop as he staggered toward Ivo and Wonder Woman, closed within arm's reach of them, and unleashed a forceful palm-strike which rocked Ivo off Wonder Woman and onto the floor. Now it was Ivo's turn to howl miserably as he lay splayed across the linoleum. But Batman's scream, echoing with fury, persisted.

Enrage, Ivo quickly scrambled to get his feet under him and rise up to meet Batman, but nearly lost his balance as the hand holding his control device encountered resistance on the way up. Ivo glanced down at his fist and saw a miniature green hand clutching the black fork he held, doll-like green fingers wound around the separate tines of the rod, a green hand connected by the slimmest of tendrils to Green Lantern's ring. Ivo yanked his hand up, and the tiny green hand flexed, pulverizing the juncture point of the tines and rod.

"Noooooo!" Ivo screamed, as the fractured segments of the control device fell from his hand. He trembled for a moment as if about to weep oipenly, and then reflexively spun as he felt a tapping on his shoulder. Directly before his face was Wonder Woman's breastplate, the last thing he saw before an Amazonian roundhouse plunged the professor into dark unconsciousness.

Wonder Woman moved to Firehawk's side to help the young heroine up. The pain emitters had ceased their neural assault as soon as the controller had been destroyed, but Firehawk was still weak and nauseous. Flash was on his feet a moment later, shaking off most of the effects, and hurriedly gathered up Ivo and his pawns in the center of the room. "Kyle, you wanna giftwrap these guys?" he asked his teammate.

"Don't think ... I really can," Green Lantern panted, rubbing his head gingerly. "Took all my willpower ... just to snap Ivo's mean magic wand. And I was lucky ... Batman got him that close to me ..."

"No sweat," Flash replied, gathering up several folding chairs and twisting them at superspeed into a rough chain around the semi-conscious villains.

"How did you manage to fight through that ... agony?" Firehawk asked Batman with awe in her voice.

Batman drew a ragged breath. "Old technique used by Oriental mystics. Distance yourself from the pain. Scream to give the pain an avenue of escape as you push it away. It can be quite effective for short periods of time," he grimaced. "But not easy."

"More power to you, all I could think about was Tylenol," Plastic-Man admitted, his body contorting to the shape of a sunglasses-wearing aspirin bottle.

"I couldn't think of anything. If I had I probably would have thought I was going to die," Firehawk said morosely.

"You didn't, though," Wonder Woman said. "The Justice League isn't perfect. We take our share of hard blows, and sometimes, like today, we ache for a while afterwards. But we usually prevail in the end, as long as we all ... know what our roles are." She cast a sidelong glance at Batman as she finished the thought, but could see no response in her teammate.

"Yeah, and I know mine: get paid so I don't get evicted," Green Lantern said. "Assuming this case is considered closed, I've got to get going."

"Me, too, I'm overdue to get back to Central City," the Flash agreed.

Wonder Woman nodded and Flash sped through the doors in a fraction of a heartbeat. Green Lantern rose to the ceiling. He willed his power ring to render the roof intangible again, but paused before passing through. "It's no lie, Firehawk," he said confidently. "Lumps and all, the JLA usually wins." With that he flew through the roof.

Plastic-Man morphed one of his hands into a stethoscope, placing tow fingers in his ears and one against the side of Firehawk's head. "Better get you back to the Watchtower," he shook his head sadly, "and make sure nothing's permanently broke in there. Trust me, our sickbay accommodations are really four-star."

Firehawk smiled and allowed Wonder Woman and Plastic-Man to help her out of the room. Batman remained behind a moment longer, surveying the room. Ivo stirred slightly under his twisted metal chains. One eye was swollen from Wonder Woman's blow, but the other opened and locked on Batman. Laughing feebly, Ivo whispered, "It was worth it, just this once. It was worth it."

Batman drew closer to Ivo, hunched down to his level, and thrust out his palm like a ramrod, stopping an inch in front of Ivo's face. Ivo flinched and whimpered. Then Batman lowered his head until his nose nearly touched Ivo's, and stared hard at the demented scientist, recalling the force of will that had been necessary to climb out of the abyss of pain Ivo had artificially inflicted.

"For me, too," Batman said simply.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Welcome to the second year in the continuing adventures of the World's Greatest Heroes! I wanted to start off with a small-team, one-shot story in my debut issue as the new JLA writer, but fear not, the stories coming down the line will see the entire JLA facing the kind of mind-blowing, survival-of-humanity-on-the-line threats that only they can. I'm not entirely sure how the roster will develop over my tenure, so if you have any suggestions, or want to see a certain kind of story, or ever want to pass along compliments or criticism, you can send them all to me at badblood51@hotmail.com (not intended as a shameless plug for Bad Blood, honest! First title I worked on = e-mail alias I registered for).

For those of you who keep score, my hapless lackeys in this story really do all come from DC history. Most of you probably know Copperhead, last seen (I believe) in the DCU as a stooge for the DEO's Suicide Squad in the pages of Chase. Night-Slayer is a genuine third-tier Batman villain, Behemoth was part of Steve Dayton's misfit team of reluctant villains the Hybrid, who tangled with the Teen Titans, and the Human Starfish was an opponent of the Blackhawks back in the day (yep, he's downright geriatric now, but do you think Ivo could really be all that choosy?).

Anyway, thanks for reading, and the "coming attractions" follow ... DG

NEXT ISSUE: It's your standard superheroes vs. giant rampaging monsters kind of yarn. But how will the Earth's most powerful heroes prevail, when they don't dare throw a single punch? Be here next time for part one of "The Will of the People!"