Showdown at Slaughter Swamp

[newoutsiders]

Batgirl and Green Arrow have been riding for a few hours now, on their way to Slaughter Swamp: the last sighting of the mutated, truck driving zombie dubbed "Gingross." The red-tinged air pollution of Gotham fades behind you, giving way to the muted moonlight of a cloudy night sky. The swamp carries something of a supernatural reputation, as you're well aware- if the "hauntings" in Connor's building can be traced anywhere, Slaughter Swamp is as likely a point of origin as any.

Eventually, you run out of road and park the Batcycle. The nearest source of real light is coming through the window of a nearby, small wooden shack right on the edge of the swamp.

Comments

[newoutsiders]

With aim straight and true, Steph pulls out her kaboomerang... which is... already... flashing.

Crap.

Thinking fast, Connor turns around and shoots an arrow right at the batarang- rappelling it with extreme speed towards Steph's turret, with is blown to smithereens.

Steph briefly appreciates how nearly that was her. Connor briefly appreciates the power of an explosive arrow.

As for the three remaining turrets, the two on top hit some tall trees. One crashes on top of the base, sinking it slightly back into the swamp- but not to window level- and one crashes on the remains of Professor Bravo's shack.

Distracted by his trick shot, the laser trained on Connor finally catches up to him- but it's been streaming for a while now, and the power seems to be ebbing. It gives him a nasty second degree burn and knocks him from his feet.

***

Meanwhile, inside the Hall of Doom, Starfire hears a trio of moans approaching her- ones which do not sound too dissimilar to the police sergeant who melted in her arms.

[glowymeatshield]

Starfire realizes she's gotten a little too far ahead of the group, and falls back, deciding that facing "test subjects" alone is probably not the best idea. Time to regroup, and make sure she's there to take any further shots aimed at her teammates. That burn Connor's sporting should have been deflected by her.

[newoutsiders]

Starfire moves into a defensive position to attract the Hall of Doom's fire, giving Connor time to get his bearings and up off the marshy ground.

But what's STEPH doing? Let's watch.

[stephbrown]

"There's gotta be a way to disable those things," Steph says, digging in her belt until she finds a taserang. Hopefully it'll be enough of a shock to short the turret out. She takes aim and hopes for better results than last time.

[newoutsiders]

The taserang makes its mark on the turret which was previously aiming for Connor, but a rapid angle shift from the turret as it follows Starfire ricochets it far off course, leaving only a small scorch mark.

Now that she's actively trying to get their attention, all three turrets lock onto Starfire at once.

Steeling herself with a coat of starbolts, Starfire gets directly in front of Connor and Steph, arms locked in an X. The light from all three turrets focusing on a single target is brilliant- but nowhere close to what happens when they make contact with her mighty aura.

Each laser is perfectly deflected back to its source. After a magnificent series of explosions, the constant whir of the laser turrets is finally silent.

[glowymeatshield]

"I'm sorry, I should have done that earlier," Starfire says, calmly, after the turrets exploded. She picks a few stray pieces of one out of her hair.

"Now, I'm fairly certain there's some sort of gooey zombie mob on its way. We should probably prepare for that." She looks between her two comrades. "For the record, zombies mean I'm allowed to use lethal force if I have to, right?"

[not_easy_being_green]

"They're being controlled. They're not mindless," Connor replies.

He glances cautiously back at the fortress, trying to see whether they're planning on sending the "subjects" out or trying to lure them in. He rolls his shoulders gingerly, and is surprised by how little the burns hurt, which is either a very good or a very bad sign.

[newoutsiders]

Your debate on the relative nature of sentience is halted as the subjects in question make their appearance. Connor recognizes them as all three disappearance cases from his street. One- Sal- shuffles like a zombie, but squashing and stretching like an early cartoon character. One moves like a daddy longlegs, his spindly arms and legs extending ten feet away from a compacted head and torso. The third pours out of an open window like a flood of flesh, eyes, hair and teeth all buried somewhere in her mass.

[MODERATION: Here's the initiative order for this encounter:

1. Starfire
2. Longlegs
3. Connor
4. Steph
5. Fleshflood
6. Toon Zombie]

[glowymeatshield]

Koriand'r gives Green Arrow a sad look before turning back to the approaching grotesque horde. "I don't think these subjects survived the testing process," she says. "But I'll do my best to simply incapacitate them."

She doesn't sound like she has much hope that will work before she starts in on Longlegs with a flying double-starbolt-charged-fist attack to his front limbs to try and throw him off balance like an AT-AT.

[newoutsiders]

The heat and impact of her starbolts sear off Longlegs' front right leg, which collapses to the ground like so much taffy- but his front left grabs her by the arm, just before she makes contact, squeezing hard enough to keep hold of her.

Crying out shrilly, Longlegs' mouth expands into an impossibly large, dark maw. He sticks the arm holding Starfire right into his mouth and bites down, swallowing her along with the end of his arm- which immediately grows back.

Notably, the front right arm has not, as a stump of what was once its arm ends in a blackened scorch mark.

[not_easy_being_green]

Every now and again, Connor really starts to think he's gotten the hang of this whole "superheroing" gig. Coming off some mission or another, he will decide that this, finally, is the point at which his path is clear and he is comfortable with his life.

The last time he'd felt this way, life had thrown him against a literal dragon.

This, somehow, is actually worse.

Connor clamps down on his initial "panic" response, trusting Starfire to be durable enough to handle herself. Instead, he elects to get some distance, circling around in the vague direction of the shack behind them, and fires an experimental shot aimed at the stomach of the one with the longer legs.

[newoutsiders]

The arrow firmly lodges itself in the lumpy putty which is the Gingross's torso (thorax?), but it doesn't really seem to notice.

[stephbrown]

Steph shudders as she looks at the... she can't call them people anymore, but she feels bad calling them monsters. She decides her best bet is to go for the puddle-person, so she grabs a glue-arang and tosses it. Hopefully it'll gum things up, or maybe stick them to the floor.

[newoutsiders]

The gluearang collides with the surface of Fleshflood, splashing a sticky pace over most of her surface. With an annoyed growl, she stretches the affected area into a column of sticky flesh, and extrudes it to engulf Batgirl. Steph's limbs lock against her in a cascading tomb of dermal tissue, and air is running out fast.

With no other targets, Toon Zombie springs towards Connor on noodly legs- but they tangle up in each other, and he collides comically face first on the ground. A responsometer is visible on his back.

[glowymeatshield]

Starfire can survive in space. That doesn't mean being inside this thing is... pleasant, or isn't scaring the hell out of her.

Inside the dark, fleshy tomb of the inside of the zombie's mouth... stomach? Whatever it is, Starfire goes for a whole-body starbolt explosion.

She lets it build up in her for quite a bit before letting it finally go off, making it one of her stronger bursts, hoping it will burn and/or break through the thing trapping her inside it.

[newoutsiders]

It's super effective! The heat of your starbolts alone seemed to be irritating it, but the sheer force of the explosion releases you in a rain of goopy chunks of flesh. A now hollowed, open cavitied body with a startled human face stares back at you, struggling for its three legs to support it.

Longlegs scrunches up in concentration, attempting to regenerate- but instead, he crackles with electricity, sending a current through the swamp, as a flashing responsometer falls out of the open cavity and Longlegs collapses in a lifeless heap.

Toon Zombie spasms from the flow of electricity, as does Fleshflood, tensing up her hold on Steph. Connor gets a shock for the second time tonight, but stays on his feet.

[not_easy_being_green]

Sal...

Connor isn't really sure if those animated by the responsometers are "really" the people they were in life. But it's hard to watch Starfire just... demolish the man who he'd watched start crying over his family. Connor feels the urge to vomit, something not helped by another jolt of electricity, but he clamps down on it. Takes a brief breath to help him think.

He looks at the man next to him, still on the ground and disoriented by the blast of electricity. He recognizes it as Perry Veto, another of the missing tenants.

He could go for the responsometer on Perry now... what would that even do? If they can put it back, is it the same as killing him? Should he take the chance to take him out now and focus on getting Steph out?

Then again, given just what Starfire did to Sal, maybe it's the more merciful option.

Oh right. Starfire. Connor calls to get her attention, "Starfire! S-Batgirl's trapped! Can you get her out?"

He turns to Perry, and, making a decision, moves for his responsometer.

[newoutsiders]

The Responsometer is stuck on there good- but with a concentrated effort, you pluck it off him. Perry's body contracts to normal human proportions at your removal, and then goes completely limp. The responsometer in your hands starts blinking, as if in a panic- and shocks you again.

Now that one really hurt. It glows, as if amused with itself.

[stephbrown]

Steph forces herself not to panic, even when the thing contracts around her. She can get to her belt, but her arms won't move past that, so she has to go by feeling around. She opens a pouch and manages to pull out a cryorang. She remembers hearing that Plastic Man was pretty much screwed when it came to extreme temperatures; here's hoping these things have the same weakness.

She hits the button on the 'rang to start the countdown and braces herself for the cold.

[newoutsiders]

Making like Mr. Freeze, you feel the undulations of Fleshflood slow to a halt, mounds of flesh crystallizing before you. Her responsometer sends a shock through the ice- but your suit's insulation protects you from the current, and it only serves to shatter the already glue-hardened chunk of her grabbing you into pieces. You're free of her grip, and Fleshflood is on the ropes.

[glowymeatshield]

Starfire reaches for Batgirl, to pull her away from the remains of Fleshflood. Her movements are a little sluggish compared to earlier. Her solar batteries might just be running a bit low after that last blast.

"Are you alright? Is everyone alright?"

[stephbrown]

"Cold," Steph says. "And really, really happy for all of this nice oxygen. How are you?"

[not_easy_being_green]

"I'm... okay." He gestures vaguely at the remains of the captives. Or what's left of them. "What should we do about... them?"

[stephbrown]

"I don't know," Steph admits. "I mean, we can't just leave them here. They were people before all of this. They deserve to be buried, but... I don't really know how to go about doing that."

[glowymeatshield]

"I'm alright, though I'm fearing how much shampoo I'm going to go through later."

She frowns, looking at the remains. "Call in the authorities? Maybe Waynetech labs?" she suggests. "That's where I took the police officer who was exposed." A frown. "I imagine Oracle will be alerting Batman to what happened here as well. The Swamp isn't in Gotham, but it's close enough to be a concern for him." And Dick will be concerned, she knows that much.