HOMEMADE DYNAMITE !
❝ REMATCH. ❞
GARFIELD LOGAN STEPPED FORWARDS AFTER A MOMENT OF SILENCE. He cleared his throat awkwardly as he edged forwards — someone had to, right? — and tried to ignore the way his skin was on fire under the gazes of the group around him. Not even Jess's (overly bright) encouraging smile could settle the pit rising in his stomach.
"Alright, kid," Noah nodded, watching as the boy walked towards the middle of the room, "Show us what you got."
He glanced over his shoulder, looking for Noah but catching Jess' eye, smiling as she stuck her two thumbs up beside her face with a grin.
"Preferably with minimum mauling!" Jess called out, garnering a nudge from Rachel beside her.
The boy smiled weakly, letting out a nervous laugh as he turned back around, wringing his hands before scratching the back of his head and turning around, "It's... it's kind of weird if all of you guys are — are watching?"
"You want us to... to look away?" Abby asked, eyebrows raised in disbelief.
"Yeah it's just... it's that's I tear through my clothes when I shift and, well, this is my favourite jacket," Garfield explained awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot. Great. Hadn't even started and he'd messed up.
Noah crossed his arms, "Good job this is only a show and tell then, if it wasn't—."
"—We'd be dead," Kory muttered, cutting Noah off without even realising.
Abby blew out a reluctant breath and moved to the console embedded in the wall, tapping a few keys and watching as a stack of crates rose from the floor. Teenagers. She gestured to it, with a silent that good enough? to which Gar responded with an enthusiastic nod of his head as he hurried behind it.
Dick turned to look at Abby, with an uncertain look before back towards the crates, "Gar? Any time tod—."
A loud roar interrupted his sentence, ripping through the air around them, echoing loudly and fiercely. The group jumped, Noah and Dick taking a few steps back in surprise, the latter stumbling backwards until he was positioned just behind Abigail's elbow. At his arrival she rolled her eyes and scoffed. Typical.
Slowly, around the side of the crate, a tiger appeared, deep green and pattered with black stripes. It growled and grumbled violently, pacing back and forth, eyeing up the group before him. The mammal snarled and snapped, before deciding to pounce up on the wooden boxes, making his way to the highest one before settling down. But the closer she looked, the less afraid Abby felt. His eyes, they were still Gar's. The wide smile on Jess' fac was enough to convince her.
"That... that's him?" Dick asked slowly, beginning to relax as he peered at the roger, "That's Gar?"
"No," Jess drawled sarcastically, "it's the other boy behind the wooden crates."
"Okay, pipe down, Tonks," Abby warned, tone self-explanatory.
"Tonks?" Kory repeated in confusion, eyes drifting to Abby for an explanation for the nickname.
Abby turned to her with a frown, "You never read Harry Potter? No? ... God, we are so gonna have to fix that."
At that moment, as Abby turned back around, her face immediately scrunched up in a peculiar combination of disgust, surprise and horror as she recoiled, shielding her eyes. It took Garfield a second to realise why the entire group had their hand clamped over the face — but a high pitches clothes! from Rachel was a big hint, and he quickly darted back behind the crates.
Dick turned to Kory, "Rachel said you can create heat... light, is that right?"
"I'm still trying to figure it out," Kory replied with a sigh after a while, brushing strands of hair behind her ear, "I'm not sure about my limits — I think I can absorb and redirect energy from the Sun... it would explain why I run dry at night."
Noah looked over in concern, "We can figure it out together," a mischievous smile appeared on his face as he looked to Abby, "besides, can't be as bad as the time Abby nearly activated a dormant volcano."
"It was one time!" Abby exclaimed with a huff, "I was aiming for the helicopter!"
"A volcano?" Kory asked, eyebrow raised in question.
Dick let out a laugh, before receiving an elbow to the ribs from Abby, and grinned, "We were trying to scope out this base on Santa Prisca, unfortunately the base was a tiny bit close to the volcano. "
"I was barely fifteen!" Abby reasoned with a groan as she faced Kory, ignoring the two boys' laughing, "Just try not to incinerate us like the last guy, okay?"
Kory didn't reply, a silent response as she moved forwards, moving so smoothly it was as though she was floating. Stood with her back to them, Kory closed her eyes, taking a second to gather her power, to pull the light inside of her to the surface. She felt it warm her skin and her eyes opened, fire raging beneath, eyes burning emeralds and hair liquid starlight, and thrust her hand forwards. Burn.
A column of fire erupted from her hand, bursting from her in fury and chaos, incinerating the crates Garfield had just been standing behind. Flames devoured the wood, spitting out ashes and embers. When the soot settled and the flames sizzled out, Kory straightened up, flicking her hair out of her eyes as she sauntered back towards the group.
Jessica stood with a moonstruck, awe-filled expression, stars possibly blinding her pupils as her chin dropped. "I don't have a comment. I have no words. Oh my fucking God!"
"And yet she continued to make, like, three comments," Rachel mused eyebrow lofting in amusement.
"Bite me, Rach," Jess retorted dazedly.
"Looks like you've got it figured out to me," Noah pointed out, a sly smile on his lips as Kory landed a (slightly scalding) high five to his open palm.
Kory grinned coyly at him, "What can I say?"
Dick blew out a long puff of breath, gesturing to Abby, "Abs can beat that. Easy."
Abby swivelled to face him, incredulous look on her face, "Grayson? Shut up."
"Five years and he's still the proud boyfriend cheering you on from the bleachers," Noah coughed, mocking a nostalgic pout.
A simultaneous exclamation of he's not my boyfriend and I'm not her boyfriend spouted from the mouths of the two, swarming the air like white noise.
"Just go blow up the mannequins, shaker-maker," Jess interrupted with an exhausted tone.
Abby flicked her middle finger up at the purple haired girl, smiling sweetly as she moved towards, flexing her fingers at her sides as she went in hopes of calming the anxiety conveniently demolishing her confidence, faith and will to live. She sucked in a deep breath, filling her lungs to the brim before she let it out slowly, concentrating. Her eyes fluttered shut.
She felt the air between her fingers, the particles moving, shaking, bouncing off of one another. She reached out into it, pulling with all her strength, gathering them towards her, willing them to move and speed up, feeling the room begin to tremble and quake at her whim. Under her control, the vibrations of the very molecules around her completely ready to follow her command.
A low but sharp humming began to grow, like inescapable white noise, began to fill the room, growing louder and louder until it was a high pitch whining bouncing off of every wall, out of every crevice and crook. Abby felt her fingers twitching, nerves drowning in power begging to be used, her fingertips practically electric.
She flicked her palms forwards, eyes snapping open. The humming stopped instantly, replaced by a louder screech, a louder cry. Sonic vibrations exploded from Abby's hands, tearing through the atoms and air before her, obliterating the mannequins before her, shattering the targets, cracking the stone statues, ripping concrete from the walls — destroying the metal bars protruding in a hatched formation from them.
She'd barely broke a sweat.
Silence fell again. When she turned around, she found the group stood behind her bearing wide grins, both Rachel and Jess offering enthusiastic thumbs up as Abby shook the tension from her muscles and sauntered back towards them. Noticing an almost unreadable look in Dick's eye. Okay, not unreadable. But something she hadn't seen in a long time, so long she was hardly sure if she knew it anymore.
Abby feigned brushing dust from her shoulders, a smile lighting up her features. "Still got it."
Noah landed a proud hand on her shoulder, squeezing her lightly. Abby couldn't help but let her mind wander despite it. Nora could've outdone all of them easily. Her thoughts were disrupted before the idea had even finished forming.
"It's times like these I realise how Dick survived so many years of vigilantism," Jess sighed cheerfully, "The idiot certainly didn't do it by himself."
"Hey," Dick reprimanded sternly, casting her a stern look, "I've saved her —."
"We know," Kory cut in, clearly unimpressed, "You tell is every time Abby saves you."
"Oh so he still does that?" Noah asked teasingly, barely concealing the glint in his eyes.
Dick opened his mouth to protest when red lights flooded the room, sirens beginning to wail as warnings blared out from screens descending from the ceiling. Instinctively, Dick's hand landed on her arm, but she quickly slipped from his grasp, rushing forwards to the screen. Shit.
Arthur King stood in the grand hall of the mansion. Of Noah's home. Part of her wondered if he knew where he was, or if he was just a moron. Demolishing the Ghost and the Flash's home? Genius. She read his lips like he was stood inches in front of her. Come and play, little birdie.
"They're here!" Abby yelled. Her mind was racing. They couldn't fight — not like this. It was night, taking Kory our of the equation. Rachel was a loose canon, Jess and Gar could barely manage to walk in a straight line. This wasn't Noah's fight, and Dick? Well not even Dick Grayson and Abigail Lance could take them on alone and win.
Run. Abigail only needed to exchange a look with Kory before the latter was pulling the three teens towards the door, Dick on her heels.
Abby made to move after them.
"Hey." Noah's grip on her arm made her stop, she turned to him, and he pressed a fast code onto the console. "I have something you might like."
Abby's eyes moved to the emerging section of the wall. A smirk contorted her lips into something wicked as the object inside came into view.
NOAH REYES COULD NAVIGATE HIS HOME BLIND. No sweat. But doing it whilst leading a group of teenagers and attempting to evade fucking psychopaths made such navigations a tad less practical.
He kept their pace slow, him at the front to take the brunt of any blow which may befall them. Dick took up the back, the most likely to be able to hold them back if they came from the rear. The home was like a crypt, and the group making their way through its halls were little more than ghosts. Noah was no stranger to pressure nor life-and-death situations, but he had no clue what he was up against.
There was no way they'd make it to the front of the house, meaning their best bet of survival was Maya's garage: closer to the back yard than the front door, but still far enough into the house to be dangerous. Around them, Noah could hear weapons trailing the wooden floorboards, guns being loaded, the sound of bow strings being pulled taunt.
As they approached the kitchen, Noah reached under one of the cabinets lining the halls, pulling a pair of batons our from beneath the wooden frame. He caught Dick's eye, gesturing for him to do the same to a lamp beside him. Dick soon pulled five throwing stars out into the yellow haze of the lamp.
Slowly, the group made their way into the kitchen, the doorway to the garage practically in sight, just a little further than the other side of the room. The taste of hope was staining their tongues, heats pounding in chests louder than their breaths.
"Hi there."
The older, female voice caught the entire group by surprise, Rachel and Garfield opening their mouths to let screams as Jessica instinctively lunched for the kitchen knife abandoned on the work surface, and Kory's eyes flashed a deadly green.
"Darling! They're in the kitchen!" the mother called, polite smile remaining on her face all the while, "Kids!"
Soon the entire family was stood before them, eyes cruel and dark in contrast to their fake, friendly smiles. Noah noted, thank fuck, that Arthur wasn't amongst them. It didn't change the fact that they now seemed in immediate danger of being murdered.
"Sorry," Noah growled, "I think you've got the wrong house."
The mother's smile twitched, and she reached into her bag, pulling a large knife from it without blinking, and rushed forwards and Noah. The dark haired boy had little time to react, quickly ducking under the swing, rising instantly and blocking the knife's return with his baton as he used his foot to push the mom back, the two descending into a fight.
Like a rabid dog set free, the son charged at Dick, flaunting his same bat which cracked against his face with a sharp snap! as Dick stumbled back; he barely had time to regain his footing and block the next attack with a well aimed shuriken to his shoulder and hand.
Kory didn't hesitate to take the opportunity of throwing the first punch at the stepdad, the two of them throwing blows back and forth as the daughter swung her aim at Jess whilst Garfield grabbed onto Rachel to try and get her away from the fray. It didn't matter. They were losing.
Out of blades and arms already bruising from the brunt of two swings, Dick was being pushed further and further back by the teenage boy before him.
"Dick!"
Noah's voice reached him, drawing his gaze towards the source in time for Dick to catch his friend's second baton, and bring it up to block the arc of the bat.
Dick pushed desperately back against the force of the brother's bat, teeth ground so hard he felt one might crack. The brute force of the teen was beginning to dent the metal baton and he could hear the losing fight being battled by the others. Where was Abby?
A loud yell assaulted the kitchen, both teams ducking impulsively as Garfield's body crashed back through the room, crashing into the stove on the other side of the kitchen, knocking on the gas. Arthur seeped out from the shadows of the doorway, darkness incarnate, Rachel grasped tightly in his grip, but his eyes searching for something he couldn't see. For Abigail.
"Where is she?!" Arthur yelled, rage spewing from him like venom.
"Right here, asshole."
His head turned, landing on a figure emerging from the another of the kitchen's entrances. The brunette emerged in different clothes to what he'd last seen her in, this time clad in a black suit, yellow lines and stripes following the curves of her frame; gauntlets adorned her wrists and hands, silver mechanics to help focus her powers. Despite the odds, despite the situation or all the years, Dick felt a smile spread across his face at the sight of Tremor.
Abigail smirked at Arthur, raising an eyebrow and lifting her hande, "Rematch?"
King released Rachel, drawing an arrow and letting it loose towards Abby with a wrathful battle cry, who easily disintegrate with with a flick of her wrist. The two barrelled into one another, ducking and swinging and kicking, landing elbows and knuckles and knees wherever, whenever, they could.
The brief distraction of Abby's arrival bought Noah all the time he needed. He forced the upperhand, smashing the mother's face off of the corner of the breakfast bar before throwing her body into her new husband's, knocking him successfully away from Kory. He grabbed onto the closest teen to him, Rachel, pulling her after him as her rushed to the garage door, unlocking it as fast as he could.
His voice carried back into the kitchen, "Everyone in the car!"
The team to beginning making their way towards the door, all but Abby. Kory rushed to Dick, pulling the brother back and taking him on, her help giving Dick a chance to straighten himself. He glanced to the garage, then to Kory, before over to Abby.
"Abby, we need to leave!" he yelled, taking a step toward her.
"Go!" Abby shouted back, spitting blood as she did, blocking a punch from Arthur.
Dick set his jaw, "Not without you."
He strode forwards, landing a roundhouse kick fo Arthur before smashing his baton across his face, as the man fell to his knee, cradling his nose, Dick grabbed Abby's hand. Ignoring her protests, he began pulling her towards the garage, not listening to her yells to let her help.
She frowned. Something rotten and dangerous filled her nose. Abby felt panic set into her stomach as she watched Jess, Gar and Kory begin to make their way towards the csr Abby was hanging out the open door of. She smelt sulphur.
Kory's eyes illuminated green, the woman clear at about to give one last burst of fire to hold back the nuclear family long enough for them to escape — sulphur meant gas.
"KORY NO!" Abby screamed. Too late.
The flames burst free from the magenta haired woman's hands, flames which all to greedily gulped in the gas leaking from the stove which Garfield had accidentally ignited. The explosion seemed slow, silent, as Abby shut the black door of the car to shield herself, obstructing her view, but the heat still forced its way through the metal, searing her skin.
Noah pressed down on the accelerator on instinct, the car tearing our of the garage, away from the fire, the explosion. They're were desperately trying to outrace the scarlet blast chasing them. All she could picture, all she could see, was the look on Kory, Garfield and Jess's faces as the door swung shut and the explosion started.
As the car tore down the road, Abby watched the house burn behind them. Watched the smoke rise and rise as the auburn flames licked the sapphire sky. She felt hollow, empty as though someone had reached in and carved her out. Her bones were draped in ice. Ashes to ashes.
"I'm sorry, Noah," she whispered softly, leaning forwards to place a hand on his shoulder.
He pulled his gaze from his home, disappearing in his reach view mirror, nodding silently to her, the lump in his throat making words feel impossible, foreign and unrecognisable. The car felt like a graveyard. Cold and silent and full of death. But a ringtone erupted into the void, and Abby's phone lit up. No Caller ID.
She could hear her own breath as she lifted the phone to her ear, chest burning like the house they had just abandoned as she waited. A familiar voice spoke.
"I hear my house just burnt down. I think it's time we talk."
NOTE!
yes, we're straying largely from canon now — but i like where it's going!! don't you?? aren't y'all excited?? things are getting good now!!
anyway yeah, this might get a little AU (i'm not changing the plot, just a healthy bit of canon divergence to keep the excitement going) but are we okay with that?? i've got a lot of ocs to accommodated so things will obviously be different.
no, neither gar, kory or jess are dead. don't worry. i'm just dramatic. what did we think of this chapter?