***
---Los Angeles---
Barnes parked his Hellcat and pushed against Raven's arm, promptly waking her up. "We're here?" she asks, groggy from the long car ride as she pushes her seat back to normal.
Then they both get out as Barnes grabs their bags out of the trunk while Raven takes the cash and walks into the reception. "One room for two," Raven asks as she puts down two thousand dollars.
Barnes walks in as a hotel employee takes his bags off him, and Raven receives the keys to their room. "Follow me," the employee asks them.
They reach their room and go inside, with Barnes turning around and immediately locking it “So what do we do first?” Barnes asks.
“First, I want to shower,” Raven says as she smells herself, not liking that she stinks from sweating while sleeping in the car.
“Okay, but take less than thirty minutes,” Barnes asks, reminding Raven that they need to get out into the city as soon as possible before sitting on the bed, thinking about what has transpired these past few days. Went from fighting Superman, being an observer member of the Justice League, to Jon being kidnapped.
He decides that while Raven enjoys her shower, he’ll put on his armor so he throws down an EMP that deactivates any surveillance device that could’ve been in the room, quickly putting on his armor.
His phone then starts ringing as he goes to see that Clark was calling him, he hesitantly picks up, remembering how he lashed out against him on the watchtower for letting Jon be kidnapped.
“Clark?” Barnes sighs with his eyes closed, hoping that this was a call to fix things between them.
“Barnes, I want to say that I am sorry for how I acted against you on the watchtower” Clark starts his apology to Barnes “As much as I wish to blame you for my son being kidnapped, it wasn’t your fault. Intergang made sure to avoid attacking police stations to concentrate the JL in those areas”
“It’s alright Clark, I can understand your anger. My father became the vengeful being that I told you all about because the demons killed his first son and I don’t want you to go down that self-destructive path” Barnes tells him.
“So you weren’t his firstborn?” Clark asks why did Barnes leave out this nugget of information.
“No, I gave you guys all the information on every piece of information my father archived in terms of his species, hell, argent d’nure, and Urdak. Family is different but since we’re already on the topic, I will open up about my family ties” Barnes adds, he’s happy that Clark is clearing his mind with this conversation so that he won’t sulk while on the mission to find Jon.
“Before my father was found on argent d’nure, he was a Marine, served for ten years, and rose to the rank of staff sergeant, he got kicked out of the military for killing his C.O after he was ordered to shoot civilians.” Barnes starts explaining the history of how his father became the man that he was before his honorable death after killing the dark lord.
“He was facing the death sentence before all of the marines that were there in the incident testified and instead he was sent to a Mars base. This is where the shit hits the fan, a company named the UAC was messing with portals and accidentally opened the portal to hell, my dad fought off the invasion force and went in to kill the spider mastermind, the brains behind the invasion and when he came out, he saw his wife, son, and pet rabbit all beheaded with their heads on pikes.” Barnes explains what the demons took from his father,
“I’m ready” Raven walks out of the shower in her hooded navy-blue cloak, matching ruffled ankle boots with grayish-black soles, and a long-sleeve dark navy-blue legless leotard with regular navy-blue cuffs
“Good talk, Clark, I’ll make sure to find your son,” Barnes says as he cuts the call and looks at Raven “Into the city of Angels we go.” He says as he grabs onto Raven's shoulder, she puts her two fingers against her head, teleporting them out on top of a different building, looking over Los Angeles.
“At this rate, we have just a day and a half until that van arrives in either three cities so i suggest doing patrol shifts, today I roam the city to look for sleeper cells and you patrol the port” Doomguy proposes.
“First off, you’re so damn trigger-happy that Deadshot has you as his role model, second of all, this is a team effort and we have to stick together” Raven scolds at him, knowing full well of his behavior in combat.
“Fair enough, but where are we going first?” Doomguy asks, wanting to know wheres their first target.
“Batman gave us some locations we can monitor” Raven emphasizes so that Doomguy can hear her “But if you want to attack, make a silencer and equip it on that heavy assault rifle of yours” Raven gives him the option of stealth, allowing him to choose.
“Where do we look first?” He asks Raven.
“There are dozens of areas around this city that Intergang can hide in—abandoned warehouses, apartment buildings, hotels, motels, neighborhoods—the possibilities are endless,” Raven explained.
“We don’t need to raid all of them, just the ones with the right information” Doomguy tells her.
“But we have to do it without being seen because all they need to do is get one good photo of us two online and that van is not coming to the city” Raven tells him, reinstating the fact that stealth is of upmost importance for this mission.
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“I’ll do whatever it takes to find my nephew,” Doomguy says while looking at her dead in the eye.
“Alright, hold my hand and we’ll teleport to our first target” Raven says, pushing her two fingers against her head while holding her hand out.
Doomguy opted to grab her shoulder instead as they immediately teleported on top of an abandoned factory in the middle of a run down industrial zone.
“I’ll use my soul detection technique, you scout the area” Raven orders Doomguy.
She closes her eyes and puts her hands together to create a small triangle as a purple aura emanated from her body, lifting up her cloak ever so slightly.
Doomguy shot his meathook into the roof of the building they were on and jumped into the exposed part of the roof, allowing a smooth, quiet landing as he pulls the meathook back to his super shotgun
He swaps to his heavy assault rifle as he hears Ravens voice in his head “There are eight intergang in a factory just two-hundred meters away from us.”
Doomguy activates a portal of his own and teleports on top of the factory where the intergang goons are.
Slowly stepping on top of the rusting roof as to not create too much noise, he activates an X-ray lens to see the outlines of the goons inside, all talking about the big scores they made in the past few days, from killing thousands of civilians to kidnapping Jon, and the money that they made.
“Thank god I wasn’t sent to metropolis when that freak of nature Doomguy was there, the footage of him mowing down our guys was disgusting,” One of the goons said as he held onto his gun.
“I saw the videos, dudes worse than that pig surgeon from Gotham, if it wasn’t for Doom-man morals, he’d be League enemy number one” One of other goons said, mixing up Doomguy's name.
“Whatever you do, do it quick so that they don’t go on their radio” Raven telepathically tells him.
Doomguy thinks of a quick breaching plan as he puts down explosives along with EMPs on the roof, tossing some towards the bottom of the building so if anyone finds the wreckage, they’ll think it was just a controlled demolition.
“3,2,1 breach” Doomguy counts down as he detonates the explosives via AI, catching the intergang off guard as he falls from the roof, using his quick reaction speeds to fire a round from his heavy rifle into seven of the intergang members, killing them while leaving one alive.
He lands, seeing the last goon run away from fear, trying to radio his superiors, only to be met with crackling silence from his radio thanks to the electronics being fried.
Realizing that he is all alone, he decides to turn around to see the 6’7 hulk of armor making a straight B-line for him.
With only a rhino revolver, he pulls it out and starts shooting, only to deflect right off of the praetor suit.
Right before Doomguy tackled him, he closed his eyes, feeling Doomguys metal arms grab onto his body and toss him into the dirt below.
“Where is the boy?!” Doomguy roars into his ears.
“I don’t know, swear to god” He says, pleading for his life to be spared, only to receive a stomp on the hand, breaking several fingers as he screams out in pain.
Raven teleports next to them and watches as Doomguy interrogates the
“Ask him, where is the boy going” Batman says on comms.
Doomguy grunts as he grabs the goon by the neck and lifts him “Where is the boy going?!”
“I don’t know!” The goon lies, trying to break free of the grip which was not harming him.
Doomguy was ready to slam his head into the concrete to kill him but he remembers the goon he shot in the metropolis bank.
Instead, he takes the rhino revolver that the goon dropped on the floor, taking an interest in it as he brings the goon back onto the ground, still confined to Doomguy's grip but now had a gun in his face.
“I should kill you but how about I make a deal hmm? I don’t shoot you but you will tell me where the van is heading” Doomguy bargains with the terrorist.
The goon started choking, tapping on the gauntlet to release the grip as Doomguy complies, releasing enough for the goon to breath but not enough to get out.
“I seriously don’t know where they’re taking him but I know someone who does!” The goon spits out, trying to speak quickly so that Doomguy would hear him.
“I don’t have much time before the fuckers in Santa Prisca upload a video of them cutting the kid into bloody slabs of meat so tell me his name NOW!” Doomguy shouts preparing to shoot him.
“It’s Deathstroke, he’s in San Francisco” The goon screamed as his life depended on it.
Doomguy looks at Raven and asks “Who’s Deathstroke” Obviously still new to this world and its enemies.
“A highly trained assassin who can go toe to toe with the Justice League and the Titans” Raven tells him.
“If Deathstroke catches wind of our presence, rest assured he'll relish in wasting more of our precious time, orchestrating attacks across the cities.,” Batman said on comms.
“Then what do we do if Intergang starts shooting up Hollywood” Doomguy asks.
“Deathstroke's not gonna waste time playing hide-and-seek in Hollywood with InterGang. If he's the only one in the loop on Jon's location, you better believe he's gearing up to make his move. But he will be hot-headed enough to confront you, Barnes, in person” Nightwing said.
Deathstroke was far more of an enemy to the Titans, and Nightwing had been battling him since he was just a Robin when the Titans were the Teen Titans. "Why would he try to attack someone like me? Is he stupid?" Doomguy asks, pondering the logic behind what Nightwing said.
"Because he also attacked me a few years back and nearly succeeded in killing me with kryptonite," Superman says on comms. Doomguy then hears gagging as he looks down to see the goon trying to break out, so he removes his hand from the goon's neck. "I’ll get this goon to you, Batman; then, we search for Deathstroke," Doomguy says as he carries the goon on his shoulder.
Batman sends the coordinates as Doomguy activates a portal as he walks through with Raven following through it into a dark room that had just a small light bulb lighting up a table and a chair.
He sees Batman son, Damian standing next to the table while holding his sword out, his signature weapon.
“Why do you swap between portals and instant teleportation?” Damian asks.
“I have to imagine a place that is easy to imagine, like on top of a famous tower, a room in the middle of san francisco isn’t easy to imagine and it’s why I can’t teleport to Jon and rescue him” Raven said to Damian.
Doomguy put the goon down on the chair and rubbed Damian's head, messing up his hair and causing the kid to get infuriated with him. As they left the room, the goon woke up and had his head immediately slammed into the table by Batman.