LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 24.2
As a Kryptonian, and someone wearing literal tons of armor, Kara breached the new floor first. The laboratory was surprisingly spacious, with clean wide corridors and white floors. There were no exposed cables or robots in sight.
Kara tried commanding her drones forward, but they dropped to the floor as soon as it happened. Her armor immediately informed her there was some kind of signal blocker being used in the hallway and the devices were too small and vulnerable to overcome it.
Stepping back, she ordered a few of her devices to latch on to her back and physically connect to her while reconfiguring themselves into a transmitter. It wouldn’t be enough to cover the entire base, but could still allow her to use the drones in a dozen meters around herself.
When she stepped back into the room there were two enormous turrets sprouting from the walls. They immediately pelted her with bullets. She let them bounce off her armor and lifted her own weapons. Shooting both turrets with lasers and causing them to explode.
“Who is this?” Came Prof. Morrows annoyed voice from speakers all around the base. “Ah, no matter, I was expecting dear Ivo to send someone after me as soon as he stole my Red Inferno. My morrowbots will make short work of you.”
“Morrowbots? Really?” Kara couldn’t help but ask, getting a pat on the back from Green Arrow.
“Ah, villains and their ridiculous minion names. Don’t worry, you get used to it.”
Detective Chimp peeked down to the fifth floor and looked at the turrets, “Alright. I have to confess chimps have a weakness, we’re deadly averse to getting shot up, and I am a detective, not a fighter. I guess I’ll stay up here and, you know, investigate or whatever…”
“Fine, the disabled systems won’t be coming back on anytime soon. Try to see if you can find a connection to other villains.” Kara said. “I’m pretty sure Prof. Morrow kept a watch on his fellow scientists.”
The sound of metallic footsteps came from over a corner, making Kara lift her gun back again. The androids that came over were still humanoid, but they were faceless and completely white, they lifted their guns in unison and Kara was about to destroy them when an arrow flew and pierced the one in the middle before releasing a pulse of EMP.
With a discharge of electricity, the robots crumbled to the floor, the EMP having fired their circuitry. “Hmmm, they pack quite a punch don’t they?”
“Yep.” Kara nodded. The end of the hallway opened into three different directions.
Kara tried to activate her X-Ray vision to find the best path, but Prof. Morrow had managed to stop that, the walls were filled with at least a small layer of lead.
“Spread out?” Red Arrow asked.
“Spread out.” Kara and Green Arrow said at the same time.
Choosing the left patch, Kara started walking. Waves of robots came towards her, some held traditional guns, other had laser weapons and a few had the weapons embedded into their limbs. Kara barely paid them any attention.
A hail of bulled pinged off her armor as she walked towards the center of the base. Kara had started to feel kind of silly holding her gun in front of her, so she put it back into place.
Instead, she had ordered her modular drones to form into a turret on her armor and start shooting laser at the robots automatically from its place at her shoulder.
Grabbing one of the androids, she lifted it up to her face and couldn’t help but admire the craftsmanship that had gone into it. The thing was clearly mass produced, but Morrow still showed considerable skill and attention to detail on the things.
Suddenly, thick metal doors cut off her advance, falling to the floor with such weight the entire base trembled. A quick glance behind her back confirmed what Kara already knew. A second door had fallen and locked her in the hallway.
A green gas started filling the small space even as the ceiling started to lower in order to crush her. All that was missing was the floor opening up into spikes. Sealed safely inside her armor, Kara couldn’t care less.
Lifting an arm, she stopped the ceiling from falling. Pushing the ceiling back, she walked right towards the door, her turret already reconfiguring itself, it quickly shot a stream of plasma like a blowtorch and, in less than a minute, melted a hole through the meter thick door.
Picking up her pace, Kara massacred the robots as soon as they appeared. She knew her companions must have been doing the same thing because, soon, Morrow spoke again.
“You’re destroying all my robots, you pest! Granted, they’re not masterworks and it pained me to make them in such a hurry but, please, have some respect for my genius!”
Finally, Kara broke through one last door and into a wide open room. A white copy of Mr. Twister stood at the other end of the room. “So, you’ve arrived. I confess I’ll…”
Instead of waiting for the villain to monologue, Kara shot him with her shoulder gun. The laser hit its armor harmlessly. In one fluid motion, she grabbed for her larger weapon and lifted it up towards the robot. The thing seemed to recognize the treat of the gun and dodged aside while directing a wave of wind towards her.
She tanked the blast and continued to shot, but the robot was enveloped in a cyclone and controlling the wind to move its body around at unexpected angles. Finally, she managed to clip his arm and send it flying aside, but it only dented the armor. “What the hell?”
“Well, I doubt a brute like you can appreciate this, but what do you think of the new body I was building for my dear Red Tornado?” Morrow said, his voice coming from the robot. “While Red Tornado’s wind and programming are far superior, his casing is a little obsolete by today’s standards, I though he deserved an upgrade.”
Kara felt her feet sliding a few centimeters through the ground towards the robot as it drained all the air from the room, she didn’t know it could do that, and it could be dangerous if one of the archers had been here, but she wasn’t affected.
Another four shots hit the robot on the head, deforming its armor even further, but not causing much damage. Morrow protested. “How rude!”
“Fine, I guess we’re doing it the hard way.” Kara had wanted to keep as much of her capabilities as she could a secret, she didn’t know if Morrow was under the Light’s employ, or if there was anyone monitoring him, but this was starting to be annoying.
Dropping the gun, Kara grabbed at the turret on her shoulder and reconfigured it into the plasma blowtorch, it detached from her armor while she rushed the robot. The thing tried to shot her with more wind blades, but it wasn’t strong enough to push her back, and its cyclones couldn’t build up speed in such small room.
It tried to retreat, but she grabbed it and, while the metal managed to resist the amount of strength she was willing to reveal, it couldn’t get free. Kara pinned it to the ground and applied her blowtorch to its chest, after about two minutes, she had managed to expose its insides.
Her drones flooded inside the android, attaching to its cables and circuits until Kara could disable it. She did carry around stronger weapons, ones capable of overcoming even this android’s armor but, again, she didn’t want to reveal it if she didn’t have to.
And she could make use of anything she didn’t damage too badly. She was looking forward to having an army of robot minions.
“Well, that was unexpected.” Morrow’s voice came from some speakers in the room. “Still, it’s a good thing I took precautions. I’ll see you pests next time, if you survive, ta-ta!”
“Self destruct sequence starting in, 10…9…8…7…”
Rao be damned, he was gonna collapse the entire secret base. “No! My spare materials and androids!”
For the first time, Kara ran, driving her shoulder through the door and blowing right through it, she completely ignored the few surviving robots.
Bursting through the command center, she found Brom Stikk with his arms on the air, The Shade held T. O. Morrow’s android replica’s head in a hand, while his other was pointed at the human assistant, a drop of ink black darkness at his fingertip.
Ignoring the scene, Kara rushed towards the computers and started tipping. With direct access to the central computer, her hacking programs started working at an astonishing pace.
“4…3...2…” Her programs broke through the computer security and gave her access to the device. Kara tapped as fast as she could. “Self destruct sequence interrupted!”
“Was it really that dangerous?” The Shade dropped the head of Morrow’s replica on top of a table and asked in a conversational tone.
“Not really, most of the explosives were on the upper floors, I had already disabled them.” She said while releasing a deep breath. “But, as much as I dislike the guy, Prof. Morrow was a genius. I didn’t want to lose any of his work stored in the main server.”
A second door opened and Green Arrow walked in, he was limping, his bow was broken and his armor was dripping water everywhere but, behind him, Red Arrow and Arsenal dragged Red Torpedo’s disabled body, a dozen EMP arrows stuck in a single hole on his armor.
“Don’t get the computers wet.” Kara scolded.
“I’m fine too, thanks for asking.” Green Arrow said. His eyes then saw Prof. Morrow’s severed head. “Well, when I heard the self destruct sequence initiating, I just knew Morrow had lost his mind.”
Behind him, there was a loud smack sound as both his sidekicks facepalmed in shame.
A minute later, Kara found the signal blocker and disabled it, their communications started working again and Kara checked on Bobo to see he was perfectly fine. Sitting on top of a disabled android, he was reading a document while puffing on his pipe.
“Well, what now?” Arsenal asked.
“Now I check if we got our objectives.” Kara said and grabbed Morrow’s head, beside his decapitation, the robot wasn’t all that damaged, she connected his head to the central computer and used his own systems to bypass his protections. The information she recovered was… annoying. “Alright, there’s some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?”
“I’d like to know the location of my former partner.” The Shade asked, holding his cane with both hands. “I’d thought to trade a few words with him, and he wasn’t one to use fetches.”
“He’s not he-here.” It was Brom that answered The Shade, his voice trembling from fear.
“He’s alive them, else you wouldn’t fear for him.” The Shade lowered his glasses slightly and stared at the man. “Don’t fear. I’m not one to kill without provocation and, despite the situation; I merely wish to speak with him.”
Brom Stikk seemed incapable of making a decision, so Kara decided to push. “I didn’t find his location on record, but I know he’s sick. You’re not gonna be escaping here Brom, who’s gonna take care of him?”
Finally, the thin man realized his predicament, head lowered, he answered.
“He’s bedridden, I watch over him while he’s on life support.” He gulped and told them the address. Morrow was being taken care of in a small home in this same city.
“Alright, that’s taken care of, what’s the good news.” Red Arrow asked, losing patience with the cowardly man.
“Good news, we got everything we came here for, and more.” Kara told them, a smile on her face as she imagined the amount of things she could learn from Prof. Morrow’s notes in the intact main server. She had even gotten Firebrand’s activation code. “We got Prof. Morrow’s information, hundreds of spare androids and even Red Torpedo. Or should I say, Doctor Jim Lockhart. I doubt he’ll want anything to do with heroics when he wake up, but we still saved him.”
“And the bad news?” Asked Green Arrow, his voice already tired.
“Prof. Morrow’s android managed to make a copy of his memories and Red Torpedo’s into his newest creation. Red Volcano was still incomplete but, with Morrows memories and knowledge uploaded, he’ll probably be able to finish the job himself.” Kara leaned back and wanted to massage her eyes in frustration. “The Android also thought we were hired by professor Ivo to steal his research. He’s going after Prof. Morrow’s old rival in order to get revenge and a new base of operations.”
“That doesn’t seem like bad news to me.” Arsenal dismissed the news. “I’d say, let them fight.”
“The problem is: what happens when one of them wins? Red Volcano has all of Prof. Morrow’s knowledge and skill in his memory. Unless one of them gets completely destroyed, the winner will get access to the loser’s tech. I really don’t want to see what happens after that.”
Prepared as she was, there was almost nothing Prof. Morrow or his creations could do against her but, together with Ivo, they could achieve so much more.
Kara could already see it in her mind. With her luck, Red Volcano would win and she’d have to face the damn genocidal robot in Amazo’s body. Even if Prof. Ivo won, he’d have access to Morrow’s knowledge and be able to give Amazo an actual human level intellect, or even improve his tech, allowing the android to use all his abilities at once like in JL and JLU. That’d be just great wouldn’t it?