ic And Countless Screaming Argonauts [IC]

[trollthumper]

"Just because someone's not striding the earth like a mighty colossus doesn't mean they're not active," said Medea. "The Dodekatheon may act less directly than in times past, but they still act behind the scenes of the world. They all have their agents... and it's not as if Hades is any different, even with that little sanction from Olympus. I'm certain you've seen his hound running amok." She paused, looking up to the ceiling as if she were studying the night sky. "But as of late, Hades has decided on something more... subtle. Someone who will earn the trust of those he wishes to subjugate. Someone who will deliver all their secrets to him. A hero."

She turned back towards Midnight and Edge, her voice taking on a tone like poisoned honey. "But as you can imagine, Tartarus is somewhat lacking for those. Those heroes who didn't ascend to the vaunted ranks, like Heracles, were at least beloved enough that they made their homes in the Elysian Fields - and those were wrested from his grasp after that recent fit of pique of his. But there's one hero... one champion whose deeds of renown were so blighted by his actions after that he earned the shame of the gods, and was consigned to the depths of Tartarus."

She locked eyes with Midnight. "His name is Jason. I believe you've heard of him."

[Gizmo]

Midnight met Medea's gaze impassively while inwardly his mind raced methodically over her claims, formulating possible responses and following through to each plan potential outcomes. Finally, the black clad detective raised one hand to rub the bridge of his nose through his featureless mask and let out a silent breath. It was, from the reserved young man, the equivalent of a weary expletive. If there was one thing more trying than magic, it was the magic of ostensibly supreme beings. If there was one thing more trying than that, it was being pulled into other people's relationship drama. "Fine," he intoned in a gravelly grate. "Plan to stop his resurrection?"

[trollthumper]

"Stop it?" Medea shook her head. "I'm afraid it's far, far too late for that. He's already walked among us for some time. He's had a good deal of time to establish an identity, earn some plaudits... and bedevil my every step." She looked Midnight right in the eyes; despite the penitent performance, there was still some fire burning behind her eyes. "Do you think I would turn to you if I had to? This man has shattered my base, robbed me of allies, and put those I trust in bondage. In fact, I believe you ran into him earlier this evening, when the last of my band were trying to obtain the means to drive him back to Tartarus."

[Gizmo]

The pieces had clicked into place in Midnight's mind the moment Medea revealed that Jason had already been resurrected. When she continued to explain that the captain of the Argo had had time to establish himself already, the flexible material of his gloves whispered a creak over clenching fists. "Milonakis." The black clad detective veritably seethed in his silent, stoney manner. His instincts had screamed warning at the unlikely appearance of the new 'hero' but he'd tempered his response with the benefit of the doubt. Idiot, he snapped at himself inwardly. It was right there in his codename. His teeth practically grated against each other as he verbalized, "Hades' Vanguard."

[Electra]

At that, Erin came swinging down from the flyrails, clinging to a counterweighted rope that deposited her neatly onto the stage. "Vanguard was a bad guy?" she asked in disgust. "Figures. We should've known, nobody gets to a crime scene that fast if they're not part of setting it up." She sent Medea a look of wary loathing, then looked to Midnight and Edge. "We turned those villains over to him. We'd better make sure they actually got to the police station like he said he would." Digging out her phone, she punched the number for the police, hoping that they weren't going to spend the rest of the night chasing down the villains once again.

[trollthumper]

"I imagine he's taken them elsewhere," Medea said. "While my... associates and I might have our differences, we at least have a kinship. If any of them had ended up in the dead kingdoms, I would have known about it by now. Jason may be planning something for them - perhaps serving them up as an offering to Hades. Given all that's happened, he wouldn't the sort to go for a clean kill."

"'All that's happened'?" Cannonade had dropped down to the floor of the theater along side Wander, landing with a muted impact. "That's one hell of a way to put it."

"If you think I'm proud of the things that happened then, you're sorely mistaken." Medea's voice took on a tone like burning ice. "Do you have any idea what I did for that man? I turned my back on my sacred duty. I abandoned my kingdom and my home. And when my brother would not stay his hand..." It looked like, for the first time in millennia, tears might work their ways to the sorceress's eyes, but she choked back the sorrow with her fury. "And in return for all I did to earn his devotion, what does he do? He tosses me aside at the first opportunity to marry into royalty. He earned the disfavor of the gods."

Wander, meanwhile, had managed to get in contact with the FCPD. Strangely enough, the members of the Crime League taken into custody by Vanguard earlier that evening had yet to arrive for processing, either at any of the precincts or at Blackstone...

[Avenger Assembled]

"We need to find him, and fast, before something very bad happens," said Edge without hesitation. "I...I guess we need your help," he said to Medea, trying to look past the sorceress' pain to all the bad stuff she'd done over the years. Being a sucker for a pretty face, it wasn't an easy task for Mark. "Listen, this is a pretty serious crisis for all of us. Can you take us to Jason?" he asked her. "Or at least figure out where he'd take the Crime League if he does have them prisoner? There can't be that many places the Greek gods love around here, they've gotten their butts kicked too many times for them to get really attached...and the ones that are here, though, I'm willing to bet you know something about."

[Electra]

"The police don't have the League in custody," Wander reported tersely as she finished her phone call. "Vanguard should've been able to do it with time to spare by now. I don't trust the word of a liar and a murderer for anything," she added with another glare for Medea, "so it could just be another Crime League trap. He could easily be their ally and waiting to spring a trap on us with her as the bait. But I don't see as how we can avoid chasing them down again, we did put them in Vanguard's custody. Whether her kidnapped them or let them get away, they're still our problem." The disgust for this idea was ripe in her voice, but she was resigned.

[trollthumper]

Cannonade turned to Medea. "All right," he said, "guess we'd better get this over with, then."

"I'm not any more happy about this arrangement than you are, mor --" She cut the word off before it slipped out of her lips. "Spartan."

"Eh, that'll do. So. You knew this guy; where'd he be most likely to take the Crime League?"

"Hades is always hungry for soldiers. My compatriots have always been free agents of a sort, and would be reluctant to work for a god like that... at least until Thanatos breaks him on their wheel. But if Jason needs some sign to seal their covenant, delivering them to Hades would be a marker for it. And it would happen where his presence and influence on this world had been most recent and potent..."

---

The cavern stretched down into the bowels of the city. There had been a great feud here, between competing forces who wished to exert an iron grip on death. Neither had won, but the scars of their battle still stretched up.

"This would be it," Medea said. "Nearly two years ago, Hades fought one of the Ghede here for dominion over death. He carved a place for his power here; if he were to reach up from Tartarus, this would be the easiest place to do so."

[Avenger Assembled]

Edge had stopped quipping about the time the deception had been revealed, his eyes hardening at Medea's words. "I don't appreciate being lied to by bad guys, I don't appreciate being used by a fake hero, and I especially don't appreciate being used to bring sacrifices to the dark lord of Tartarus. Let's go," he said, his mouth set. "Medea, frankly, I don't trust you as far as I can throw you, and I'm sure as hell not going to leave you here where no one's watching you." He considered his words, and with an effort made sure to soften what he said next, trying to be persuasive. "Even if you are on our side, who's to say there aren't more bad guys out there hunting you today? You come with us so we can keep an eye on you. Meanwhile, we're going to stop Hades and Jason from hurting anyone else. Even really bad people." And with that, in a flash of his own overwhelming magical energy, the team disappeared and reappeared in the cavern indicated by Medea.

[trollthumper]

For a second, darkness was the only thing anyone could see. "I'll take care of this." Medea's voice cut through the shadow the second before a flare of light leapt from her outstretched hand, hanging suspended in mid-air. The cavern was large and empty, almost the size of an aircraft hanger. There was some debris left over from the fight between Hades and Baron Samedi - smudged veves, broken plinths, and cracked and charred braziers. At the far end of the cavern lay the unconscious bodies of the missing Crime League members, spread out like compass points in the middle of a drawn circle.

"Good," said Medea. "Jason has yet the seal the bargain with Hades."

"And hey, your friends are still alive, so there's that," said Cannonade.

"Yes, but that's secondary."

"Of course it is."

"We need to --"

Thunder rang out through the chamber. Medea twisted, falling towards the ground, and Cannonade could feel something hot rushing right past his head. He ran down to inspect the sorceress - no visible wounds, but her eyes were flashing with hatred.

"It's been a while, dear." The man the Liberty League had known as Vanguard stepped out of the shadows, holding his rifle high. The high-tech helmet was gone, replaced with something approaching a hoplite's helm, and a bronze breastplate lay over his body armor. It was easy to see the hero of antiquity under the soldier's garb. "We never talk, do we?"

Medea rose like a serpent coiling, staring Jason down. "Jason," she said, voice like frozen poison. "It's amazing to find new depths for your ignominy to sink to. As if you couldn't just curl up in a pile of manure."

"I spent all those nights in bed with you, didn't I?" He looked to the Liberty League. "You have some company, you know? I'd try and explain that this isn't what it looks like..."

He reached for his tactical belt and cast his hand wide. The light from the orb above caught on several small white fragments that clattered against the floor of the cavern and sank in like drops of water.

"...but I'd waste my breath. This is exactly what it looks like."

The earth began to shake underneath the cavern, and the ground began to crack. From the fissures in the cavern rose soldiers with skin like bronze, clad in Greek armor and brandishing a gladius in one hand and a submachine gun in the other.

"And I have a bargain to cement, and would rather not have you get in the way..."

[Avenger Assembled]

This was an unexpected development, but not one Mark was unprepared to deal with. He'd paid attention in school to the tales of the heroes of legend almost as much as he had the heroes of Freedom City, and something about this case was rubbing him the wrong way. Not that he didn't believe in it, but it was just...disappointing.

"Listen, Jason. You've been dead, what, 2000 years? 3000? More?" he said, trying to reason with the Grecian madman as he kept Jason's attention on him rather than on the team. "And you're still doing the service of the Greek gods? One god in particular, in fact?" He shrugged, trying to stay sympatico with the bad guy. "I mean, here you are the legendary hero of song and story, and you're just...doing what Hades says? To get back at your ex-wife? I mean, don't get me wrong," he added hastily, "I can understand why you'd want revenge. Medea did something awful. But I mean, come on," he said with a grimace, waving his arms for emphasis.

"You couldn't sneak out and get revenge on your own? Or stir up a rebellion, seize the throne of Hades, and rise up with your own army of the dead? You have to just show up, taking someone else's orders and doing their dirty work? I mean come on now!" He shrugged, then added, "Well, I guess we're gonna have to kick your butt for it."

[trollthumper]

Jason laughed as he trained his rifle on the group. "And yet, you're the one putting limitations on my ambition," he said. "She's just the start. There's so much I can do up here... so much potential I can exercise. They'll see just how wrong they were..." A change came over Jason, like some slight fever had broken. "And quite honestly, none of that is your business."

The bullet tore through the cavern, biting into Wander's shoulder. At that sign, the Spartoi charged into the fray, diving onto the heroes. Wander and Cannonade were able to fend off their blows, but the others took a few swings. A blade grazed Medea's side, and her look towards her attacker was more venom than pain. "A new millennium, same old hubris," she said. "That's what you always wanted, Jason. Glory and validation, no matter who you had to break to get it. Whether it's the Fleece or a princess's bedchamber --"

"Can you two just save it for Springer?" Cannonade yelled as he blocked a Spartoi's blade with his arm. "Or get a goddamn counselor..."

[Electra]

Wander hissed as the bullet hit her shoulder, but didn't let the flash of pain slow her down. She was already more than a little annoyed about being lied to and played for a fool by the ancient warrior, and shooting her just pissed her off. She strode through the melee as the Spartoi descended, blocking blows almost absently with her raised forearms and cutting her way through to Jason. Her attack wasn't subtle or clever, she simply reached out and grabbed hold of the rifle, twisting it with her superhuman strength until he had no choice but to release it. "You don't get to come to Earth and use it for your stupid god fights anymore," she told him. "There are rules. And showing up to kill off a bunch of second-rate has-been villains and thinking it'll please your boss? You're wasting your time."

[Gizmo]

Midnight was not one given to emotional outbursts. Even against the truly vile, he approached combat with a veneer of distance, projecting nothing but cool, precise efficiency, as unstoppable as nightfall. If he were being completely honest with himself, however, in this case he found himself appreciably annoyed. Maybe it was because Jason had managed to temporarily fool him, wary suspicions aside. Maybe it was that the false hero had chosen to dress in the colours of the Hunter family legacy as part of his deception. Maybe it was as petty as loathing for someone who had placed ambition over his own children. Whatever the cause, the sounds that emerged from the cloud of stygian mist that enveloped one side of the battlefield went beyond mere disabling strikes. Jason's bronze soldiers crumpled before their unseen assailant in a flurry of percussive strikes and if the summoned Spartoi could feel pain, they certainly did.

[trollthumper]

Medea raised her hands high, and the ground began to shake - not enough to knock anyone off their feet, but enough to travel up to the brain and flag their sense of panic. As Midnight sent two more Spartoi clattering to the ground, the tremors gave way to an unearthly moan, radiating out from Medea's position. It sent two of the warriors of legend down to the ground, weeping with nameless grief, but Jason stood firm, barely flinching in the face of the psychic assault. "Woe's always been your weapon, hasn't it," he said. "And you don't care who it strikes. Not me, not Glauce, not even --"

The lament gave way to a cry of rage -- it didn't cause Jason to flinch, but it certainly made Cannonade leap right up. "Don't you dare say their names," said Medea. "You have no right. You did that, as soon as you took her as your bride --"

Cannonade decided the last place he wanted to be was between these two. Fortunately, the shortsword of one of the Spartoi was insistent upon getting into his helmet. He grabbed the arm clutching the blade, twisted it, and sent one of the Spartoi to the ground. He pivoted on the momentum of the blow and drove his fist into one of the other assailants, but felt it rebound off of their armor. At least these guys are keeping their mouths shut...

[Avenger Assembled]

When Mark smashed Jason off the roof and down against the floor, the air around the man rippling briefly as invisible hands lashed at him to toss him up and down, he didn't see the hero of song and story anymore. Just a man who had let his own ambitions cloud the humanity who had once been his, one who had fallen from his lofty heights to become somebody who played with other people, other lives, for his own agenda. "Listen, buddy, I don't care whose father you are!" Edge shouted, the air around him beginning to hum ever so slightly. "We're taking you down, and we're not going to let you wreck this world for your own twisted ambitions! This is Freedom City, where we stop people like you!"

[trollthumper]

Edge's show of force quickly rooted Jason from the cave floor and slammed him against the ceiling like a meteor. It said a lot that his descent back to the floor of the cavern was much softer. He grunted in pain as he pulled himself up from the earth, one arm hanging limply as if broken... but before Wander's eyes, it quickly knit up and grew straight. "It's been so long," he said as he jabbed his fist into Wander's side with enough force to break past her defenses. "Tartarus has a way of working itself into you. Especially when you go through what I did..."

He looked beyond to the field; many of his Spartoi were down, but others still stood the field. "Yes. This will be a good start. This world hasn't seem someone like me for some time..."

"Wow," Cannonade said as he fended off another spear blow. "You really don't get out much, do ya?"

[Electra]

"Mister, we see people like you once a month, unless things are busy," Wander told him. She'd flinched when his blow struck her shoulder, but focused past the pain and shook it off, just as he had shaken off her blow. Now they squared off warily, her with her bat, him with his fists. "Punks with a weird story and a few goons who think they're ready for Freedom City. We call you guys training fodder." Abruptly, she dropped to the ground as though her strings had been cut, rolling between her opponent's legs and coming up behind him for a wicked-line drive swing to the center of his back. The bat made a very satisfying hollow sound as it connected, but avoided breaking any ribs or vertebrae. It was quite well-designed, after all.

[Gizmo]

Without the slightest warning, Midnight was suddenly behind Jason, flanking the immortal warrior with Wander as the cloud of midnight mist gradually dissipated to reveal fallen foot soldiers scattered about the ground. The only hint the black clad hero's target got was the crackle of current along the tips of twin stun batons before they drove hard into his sides, causing resurrected muscles to lock and spasm. "You're out of date," he informed the braggart coldly, letting Jason know just how badly he'd been outmaneuvered. "Archaic. Unprepared."

[trollthumper]

The blow caught Jason right in the side; while it mostly glanced off of his armor, it still delivered enough of a shock to make the "hero" convulse. He dodged out of the way of a second blow, but more slowly than he'd been dancing before. "Some bite," he said, smiling. "Good. I didn't think you'd offer --"

He was cut off by the sound of the sky falling. The ceiling of the cavern rumbled and split, and a rain of stalactites fell hard towards Jason with frightening accuracy. Despite the gigantic mass of debris, Medea had managed to aim it well enough to not risk hitting Midnight or any of her teammates. But it still offered enough room for Jason to dodge the worst of the assault, as some of the smaller stalactites bounced off of his helmet. "Not your best work," he called out. "I see you've gotten softer with age."

"Just wait, dear," she said with enough venom to kill an elephant. "Give me a knife and some salt, and we'll see how soft --"

"You mind focusing on aiming?" Cannonade said as he faced down the remaining Spartoi. He drove his fist for one soldier's head, but the soldier stepped aside just enough for the blow to glance off of his chestplate. "And goddamnit, what do they make these guys out of?"

"Dragon's teeth. What do they teach you?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"They teach us that you're a joke," said Edge fiercely in response to the immortal warrior's taunts, dodging the falling ceiling like so much falling raindrops. "You're just another old man trying to reshape the world in his own twisted image. And it's even worse than that, because you're a soldier!" he added, leaping over a blow from one of the Spartoi as if it had barely swiped at him. "Look at you! How many millennia have you fought this war and you can't even finish the job! I should be really mad at you, and I was earlier, because you were a faker and a liar who couldn't be trusted to keep his word, but now I'm just disappointed! I mean come on now, can't you do _anything_ right? Well, maybe," he looked around at the others. "You picked the best enemies to have in Freedom City; the Liberty League! C'mon, team, let's show this guy what a legacy of heroism is all about! And Medea, come on, show him you have a life outside your old relationship! Give him the old Greek fire!"

[Electra]

Wander grimaced at Jason's litany of baseless taunts. "Personally I hate Medea," she said conversationally to her opponent, "but right at this moment you're making me feel a tiny bit of sympathy towards her. And that pisses me off so much." With those words she was in the air, using the mythic figure's own shoulders as a springboard as she vaulted into an aerial somersault and came down to stand side-by-side with Midnight. Before Jason had a chance to turn around, she'd unleashed a flurry of blows from her shining silver bat, sending him off his feet and flying across the room in a helpless tumble. "So much."

[trollthumper]

The blow connected with enough force to lift the fallen hero off of his feet and send him careening into the far wall of the cavern. He hit hard, and soon slumped to the ground, near the unconscious bodies of the Crime League. He pushed himself up, struggled to his feet, and locked onto Wander with eyes full of hatred... but that was as far as his strength could take him. Those same eyes rolled into his head, and he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

"Good," said Medea. She stepped forward, her hands glowing with hideous crimson light. "I've waited millennia for this..."

Cannonade stepped in front of the sorceress, blocking the way. "No," he said. "This isn't your little vengeance party. We let you come along for this."

"Without me, you wouldn't even know where he was," the sorceress said. "And you may wish to rethink where you're standing."

[Electra]

In the space of an instant, Wander was standing next to Cannonade, still just slightly winded from the fight with Jason, but her eyes entirely flat and unimpressed. Some of her teammates would've probably had a speech to give on leaving things in the past and moving on, or at least about prudence in the face of long odds. Wander didn't bother, instead drawing back her arm and delivering a carefully modulated short-arm punch to Medea's chin that had the ancient villainess' eyes rolling back as she dropped to the cavern floor as well.

"I really don't like her," Wander commented as she sheathed her bat and looked around the cavern. "Think there's any way we can get her to stay in prison for any length of time this time?"