Project S.T.A.T.I.C. Part 5: The Asylum

Jake, Beth, and Pam rose out of the shadows behind a rundown house. Their silhouettes took shape amidst the overgrown grass and weeds. There was an old chain length fence in the distance, a broken swing set, and a lone tree that was likely as old as the dirt surrounding it. The suburban outskirts had seen better days, but their downfall had begun years before the Brunswicks had taken over. The Ezra Oaks project had been shuttered by another development company after Jake’s survey team had discovered the area had been built over a swamp while the city was still in its infancy. The neighborhood had been abandoned shortly thereafter with only squatters and deviants daring to call the area home. 

“I always forget how depressing this place is,” Beth frowned, looking around the back yard Pam had transported them to, “It’s a shit hole, but it’s always been eerie being here during the day. Somehow it’s worse when the sun is up than at night.”

“It’s so….empty,” Pam said, scanning the area, “I read about this place. Wasn’t it supposed to be a haven for the middle class?”

“That was the plan,” Jake nodded, stepping forward, “I paid for the majority of the contractors that built these homes. We were trying to give people a place they could call home and feel safe. I was young and eager, and I gave the order before getting all the data back. It cost me a small fortune before it was all said and done. It ended up being a gigantic waste…”

“Well, not exactly,” Beth shrugged, clapping a hand on Jake’s shoulder, “Alexis was using this place as a base for a while. I don’t know how often she used it before Goth’s hostile take-over of the city, but it was quiet and out of the way. Not to mention that the MPD rarely sent patrols out this way, and neither of us had a reason to investigate out here. As usual with Alexis, there was a stroke of genius in that insanely dark and warped head of hers.”

“It’s still weird to me how you went from hating her to being best buds with her,” Jake shook his head.

“Coming from the dude who was dating her before things went to shit,” Beth countered.

“I gave it a shot because you told me it was a good idea!” Jake argued.

“Children, lower your voices,” Pam rolled her eyes, “I didn’t bring us here so that one of you could blunder like an idiot and bring down Eva or Ingrid’s security forces on us. It is also incredibly difficult for me to concentrate while you two are shouting.”

“Sorry,” Jake said, “I’m just saying that you flipped pretty quickly to being friendly with her.”

“We’ve been over this again and again,” Beth sighed, “When you caved and started acting as Goth’s lapdog, I was alone and desperate. I was freakin’ pissed at the world and looking for revenge after she sent me that tape. Lex showed up and offered to help me take her and the rest of her operation down. She gave me the intel I needed to get the job done, and she even risked her life to save me after you brought me into the dungeons.”

“Gave her life seems more appropriate,” Pam corrected, taking slow steps forward and scanning the area for any signs of life, “As overbearing as she can be, she saved Beth and was inadvertently a key player in us coming together. By extension, she’s somewhat responsible for the three of us becoming the team that we are today.”

“I’m not-” Jake sighed, shaking his head, “I’m not dumping on her. I was just making the comment about how we spent literal years fighting against her and getting tortured by her, and it took you like a week to get past all that.”

“She helped us more than once too, don’t forget that,” Beth pointed out calmly, “There were a handful of times where the enemy of our enemy was our friend, remember? It might not have been the most cohesive or logical alliance, but she still helped us back when we were still a rogue bird and cat duo.”

“True,” Jake admitted, “And I know she was trying to do better while we were together. I also haven’t forgotten about what she did for us back in Hell, or her part when we took back the city. If I had any problems, I wouldn’t be trying to bring her back into the fold.”

“He’s got a point, Kitten,” Pam remarked, holding up a hand and sending out an arcane pulse, “Especially with Rebecca now being part of our operation. Assuming that we find her, I’m sure that things will be rather tense back at Eclipse. Rebecca may be more human, but jealousy is something that is inherently human in nature. Mortals, myself included, are flawed.”

“I’m trying not to think about it,” Beth admitted, “Things are crazy enough without two super powered asshats trying to tear the place down. We just started to get the place in order. Alexis makes for a killer ally, but I’m not naive enough to think her personality isn’t…excessive.”

“Then there’s the matter of her little hench-woman, MIri,” Pam sighed, recalling the once stoic Miriam from Rebecca’s ranks, “She’s every bit as insane and, if we’re being completely honest, annoying as Alexis. Alexis, at least, has a filter to some extent.”

“One that’s full of holes, but she’s not wrong,” Ashley mused, appearing in one of the broken swings, “Her little plaything grates on my nerves, so I can only imagine how quickly the two of them would irritate the witch. I’m inclined to agree with Beth that it would likely result in the shameful destruction of our new home.”

“We’ve got to find her first,” Jake said, looking around, “I don’t have high hopes that we’re going to find her here. Jason would have heard some sort of commotion from out this way while we were away.”

“Are you sure?” Pam asked, stopping in front of a section of the broken fence.

“I hate to say it, but he’s right,” Beth sighed, stepping through one of the broken pieces, “She could be careful and cautious, but with the level of crazy running through the city someone would have found her out here. You can only bottle things up for so long before the top eventually pops and snaps. The last thing that happened before we got sent to bizzaro-worlds was Jake getting eaten and then Zoey broadcasting the message about the Raven. She’s not exactly what anyone would call stable, and Jake was her damn lifeline. If she thought that he was gone for good then that might have very well been the last thread keeping her on the straight and narrow, so to speak.”

“If she snapped, wouldn’t Jason have heard something about that, though?” Pam asked, following behind Beth through the fenceline.

“There’s a reason that Footgirl was one of the most vicious and long-lasting enemies,” Jake frowned, scanning the area for any signs of life or movement, “She made a lot of noise in the news, but that wasn’t what made her dangerous. She was a master at making moves from the shadows and setting up the board for her big move. She had a real knack for riding waves of chaos and confusion while working an angle. With everything happening in the city between Eva, Voidfoot, Courtney, and everything else, it’s the perfect setting for her to work behind the scenes.”

“Can you sense anything, Mistress?” Beth asked, looking around.

“It’s been a while since I’ve heard you call her that in public,” Jake remarked, looking the opposite way.

“Hmm?” Beth hummed before she realized what she’d said, “Oh, fuck off.”

“Don’t be rude, either of you,” Pam said, pausing and sending out a wave of empathic energy out from her, “I don’t think that Jake meant that in any sort of patronizing way. Personally, I think it’s nice to hear a proper title out in the open again. In fact, I’d even go so far as to call it sweet, Kitten. In answer to your question, there’s nothing except us that I can sense. If there is anyone here, they’re masking impeccably well. I can’t…hold on a minute. There’s something over there, coming from one of the houses down the street.”

Neither Jake or Beth said a word as Pam pivoted to make her way towards an old rundown house on the edge of the culdesac. Pam moved with purpose, and both Jake and Beth continued scanning the streets for anything out of the ordinary. “Hold up a second,” Jake said, spotting something in one of the bushes.

“Make it quick,” Pam said, her eyes locked on a house on the corner.

“What is it?” Beth asked Pam while Jake moved to investigate, “I haven’t seen you move like this since we found that store with vintage vinyl a few months ago.”

“I’m not sure yet, but something is giving off an otherworldly aura from that house,” Pam frowned, pointing at the home, “It’s almost like someone tried to open a doorway to another dimension.”

“LIke Voidfoot?” Beth asked.

“No, this is different,” Pam shook her head, “It’s fragmented, for one, and Voidfoot’s powers feel different than this. Hers feel more all-consuming and almost scientific. This feels like some sort of ritualistic magic or spells.”

“What the hell does science feel like?” Beth asked.

“I don’t know, more complete and meticulous,” Pam rolled her eyes, “You’re missing the point, Kitten. A ritual relies on multiple components and steps. Each item has a connection, but each one also has a unique energy signature. They’re connected, but they’re not equal. When Voidfoot uses her interdimensional powers, it’s more like when either I or Rebecca casts a spell.”

Jake had stopped listening to his friends while he inspected the bushes. He knelt in front of the bush and sifted through the overgrown grass. There was a phone buried in the brush with a cracked screen. There were droplets of water that had seeped into cracks of the phone, but that wasn’t what had caught Jake’s eye. The phone was the exact brand that his company used to provide representatives out in the field; sales people, field operatives, and executives that traveled all used the same patented brand for company business. What was it doing out here?

Jake’s mind went back to Meg Myers, or rather Eva, when she was leading the Children of Darkness. One of the members of his board of directors had been a follower of that cult. While Jake had been working towards investigating his company, Ingrid’s antics had interrupted that process before he could finish it. Even so, Jake’s primary focus was on members of upper management. If he’d have had more time, maybe he’d have widened his search pool. Knowing the little bit of history between his family and Eva’s, he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn she was employing some of his old salespeople. The question of what they were doing out here was still there, and Jake couldn’t figure out a good answer. 

Of course, there was still the chance that it was merely a discarded phone, but Jake’s gut was telling him that wasn’t the case. “This is the area that Alexis was using as a hideout, yes?” Ashley asked from behind, “Perhaps Eva was sending her lackeys here to hunt for her. She’s a wildcard that any woman worth her salt would want to have in her deck. It’s better to have her working alongside and for you than against you.”

“You’re thinking that they were sending people to try to recruit her,” Jake surmised, flipping the phone over and spotting droplets of dried blood on the back, “If that’s what they were doing, they found her by the look of things. They sent this one to their death…”

“This wasn’t the only one,” Ashley shook her head, taking a deep inhale, “The smell of death is heavy in the air here.”

Jake stopped and took a deep breath. He could smell it too. It was faint, and if it weren’t for Ashley heightening his senses he would have missed it. He still didn’t feel confident that they’d discover Alexis’ whereabouts, but he had a feeling they were going to stumble across some of her handiwork. He followed Ashley’s gaze to the house on the corner. Jake was willing to bet that was the house that Alexis had been using as her hideout. Judging by Pam’s stone-cold stare directed at that same house, he was almost certain that was where they were heading.

“Everything alright, Jake?” Beth asked.

“I’ve got a bad feeling we’re walking into something ugly,” Jake replied, getting back to his feet and nodding at Pam, “Whatever it is, we can’t stand around here in the open. Sorry for the hold up, let’s move.”

Jake slipped the phone into one of the pockets on his belt for later inspection later on. Pam nodded and resumed her lead towards the rundown house. A deafening silence stretched out and spread across the trio. “I haven’t been here in what feels like forever,” Beth said, walking across the yard behind Pam and Jake.

“This is the hold you were hiding in when you were hunting, eh?” Pam asked, smirking as she glanced behind her.

“Make all the jokes you want, none of you thought to check here,” Beth shrugged, “It’s not much to look at, but it’s a roof and four walls.”

“She’s done more with less,” Jake added, walking up to the front door, “Pam, are you sensing anything?”

“Nothing good,” Pam frowned, “The items giving off that arcane signals are here. Alexis was doing something here that wasn’t limited to just science.”

“Then let’s have a look,” Jake said, grabbing the doorknob and giving it a turn.

Jake frowned when he found the door stuck as though it were jammed. It shook as he pushed against it, but again it stopped after moving a couple of short inches. “Having trouble?” Beth asked, pushing her friend aside, “Lemme give it a shot.”

Jake didn’t argue and stepped aside to let Beth try. Jake wasn’t surprised when Beth met the same level of resistance. Again, the door moved a short bit before it stopped short again and slammed shut. Jake looked into the darkness of the crack each time Beth tried to push it open, but the smell was what caught his attention. He wasn’t sure if Beth and Pam could smell it too, but the stench of death and decay was slipping out with every attempt by his friend. Jake stared at the door as Beth took a step back and gave it a fierce kick to force it open. It opened with a loud crack, but there was a sickening squelch that filled the air alongside it. 

“What the hell?” Beth asked, taking a step back as blood ran out onto the cracked concrete.

There in front of the door, and what was likely blocking it, was a body with a skull that was now cracked and oozing. The corpse was bloated and had clearly been dead for a long while. The blood was more like sludge than blood based on the color and sick smell. Jake shook his head and stepped over the mutilated body and into Alexis’ hideout. His stomach turned and rolled as he took a few steps into the house. That foul stench was only getting stronger as he crossed the threshold. There were a couple more bodies near the door, but Jake had a feeling they were just scratching the surface. Again, Jake noticed that the bodies were bloated and decaying as though they’d been dead for a good long while.

It was dark as they walked into the entryway. “Pam, you want to give us a little light?” Jake asked.

“Hmm, let me see what I can do,” Pam nodded, flicking her wrist and sending out a wave of magic.

As far as Jake knew, this entire subdivision was disconnected from the main power grid for Metropolis. Beth could remember the nights spent in this old, dilapidated house by candlelight. With the flick of Pam’s wrist, the candles scattered throughout the house sprang to life. The flames weren’t massive, but the light they gave off was more than enough. They were scattered throughout the home by the look of things. However, the shadows that were cast by the candles were unsettling and nerve-wracking. The light did more than create unnerving shadows that danced to and fro. They made it possible for them to see the state of Alexis’ home away from home.

It was jarring for Beth as she looked around. The place had been far from clean the last time she’d been here, but now it was something else entirely . The carpet was rough and there were new stains from dried blood. She walked close behind Jake and Beth and looked around as they came into the living room. The couch that Beth had spent more than a couple of nights on was flipped over and there filled with holes and burns on the upholstery. The tables that the candles were resting on had various jars and bottles of powders and strange things inside of them. Beth recognized one of the bottles as one of the pints that she’d split with Alexis what felt like an eternity ago. 

Beth took a few steps ahead of Jake and Pam to look around the house she’d called home. She looked around to see if the shrine that Alexis had built for Jake was still in the far hallway, but all that was left was a bust of Jake. The old, tattered remnants of Jake’s Birdboy costume was gone along with the other broken gadgets she’d collected. There were iron bowls and small cauldrons scattered around the house that reminded Beth of Goth’s castle. However, that was far from the oddest or most grotesque thing they found. Beth’s skin began to crawl as she spotted limbs and body parts scattered around the house. There weren’t too many, but then again even one was too many in her opinion. 

“What was she doing?” Beth asked, walking down the hall and pushing one of the doors open, “Oh my God, this can’t be real…”

Beth’s stomach turned as she looked into one of the bedrooms and found a pile of broken and mangled bodies. There were men and women scattered throughout the room, but some bodies were more mutilated than others with missing limbs, heads, or had strange symbols carved into the exposed flesh. Beth recognized some of the symbols from her time studying Pam’s tomes. The salts and powders in the bottles and jars suddenly made more sense. Pam had said that she had sensed ritualistic magic, but what had Alexis been working towards? Beth wondered as she stepped back and closed the door.

“What’s up?” Jake asked.

“Don’t open that door,” Beth shook her head, “She’s been busy.”

“How many?” Jake asked, closing his eyes and leaning his head back.

“What?” Beth asked.

“How many bodies, Beth?” Jake asked, his frustration breaking through.

“I-I don’t know,” Beth frowned, looking away, “I didn’t bother counting, Jake.”

Jake scowled and pushed past Beth to peek inside the room. He studied it for a long minute before slamming the door shut in frustration. He shot Beth an incredulous look, “Still think she’s turning over a new leaf?”

“Don’t try to turn this around on me, dude,” Beth snapped, refusing to back down despite Jake’s frustration and bias, “I’m not gonna stand here and defend what she’s done, but I’m guessing these people weren’t exactly innocent.”

“That’s your defense?” Jake scoffed, “These were likely bad people so they deserved to die, right?”

“First off, I said I’m not defending her, jackass,” Beth snapped, “Second, do you have any idea how many people I’ve taken out? It’s a hell of a lot more than what’s in that room.”

“And Alexis has a higher body count than you’ll ever have, good and bad,” Jake countered, “Let’s not forget all the people that died in her schemes over the years. I’m also pretty confident that you never mutilated any of the people that you killed the way she carved up the bodies in that room!”

“Enough!” Pam snapped before the argument could escalate further, “Whether Alexis snapped because of the news about Jake, or if she’s just gone off the deep end, it is irrelevant. Arguing about it, about her, is not going to solve anything. All this is doing is causing the divide between you two to grow and overlook the obvious.”

“The voice of reason, as always,” Ashley hummed, kneeling to inspect the carpet, “I love you, but you do tend to get sloppy when your emotions begin to run high.”

“Huh?” Jake asked, following Ashley’s gaze.

“You’re finally seeing it,” Pam sighed, “You used the word carving, Jake. I’m guessing that wasn’t a figure of speech, right?”

Beth frowned and looked down to notice the trail of blood leading to the room at the end of the hall. “No, it wasn’t,” she said, taking a couple of steps forward, “It looked like runes, or symbols, from some of the old books you used to have.”

“What are you thinking, Pam?” Jake asked, following Beth, “She’s been working some sort of spell here or something.”

“Judging by the state of decay on the bodies we’ve seen, she gave up some time ago,” Pam began, asserting herself and taking the lead once again, “But yes, I think that’s exactly what she was doing. The blood of the fallen, salt of the ocean, sands from the planes of Hell, these are just a few of the things that I’ve seen scattered throughout this house. She knew about Lilith’s deal, and she knew that’s where your soul was going, Jake. Alexis might have been eccentric, to put it mildly, but she’s also one of the brightest women I’ve ever met. Hell’s libraries were, are, vast and filled with powerful spells, rituals, and black arts. She said it herself, she spent time studying while she was operating in the underworld.”

“She spent the majority of her free time in the archives when she wasn’t playing with new arrivals or visiting me,” Ashley added, “The symbols on those bodies were practice for a spell to break the barrier between worlds. The majority of those were carved with shaky hands by the look of it.”

Jake tripped over a pile of clothes as he followed behind his friends. He looked down and his frown deepened as he recognized them as suits of varying sizes and shapes. They were dirty and tattered, but he recognized a few of them. He didn’t need to look at the tag to know it was his company tailor that had made them. The bodies that were littering the room were people that had once worked for him. The phone from outside and the suits confirmed what he’d suspected. Eva had already started to sink her claws into his life long before she made her move outright. Still, he couldn’t help wondering if they’d come here willingly or if Alexis might have lured them here to their deaths. That was something that he wasn’t sure he’d ever get an answer to.

“You think she was trying to cross the veil,” Jake said, “Are bodies really a requirement for something like this?”

“There are ways around it,” Pam replied, slowing her pace and trying to disguise her nerves, “One can use their own blood as a substitute with proper modifications. Alexis having walked in both worlds would have had an easier time substituting blood, but if the spell failed she would have only had a select number of attempts before she risked succumbing to blood loss and fatigue. I won’t know for sure until…oh my…”

Pam stopped and trailed off as she pushed the door to the back room open. She hadn’t been expecting anything close to clean, but she was shocked at the state of the room. The floor was stained with burn marks, ash, and blood that spread outward from the center. There was a large mirror that had been mounted on the wall with specks of dried blood splattered along the surface. In the center of the room was a bronze bowl with emptied and overturned jars, candles that were nearly burned out, and herbs that were messily scattered around the center floor. All of these things were resting in the center of a smeared pentagram that was drawn on the ground. What was most disturbing was the copious body parts that were in the room.

Pam knew that spells like this, especially ones requiring human flesh, were ugly, but it had been a long time since she’d seen it in person. There were severed arms close to the bronze bowl in the center of the pentagram. Each arm had runes carved into the dried, rotting flesh. Pam could see trace amounts of magic radiating off of the runes. There were other limbs that were discarded haphazardly around the room; legs, arms, and torsos that looked to have been thrown out of frustration. It was a gruesome sight. The one and only saving grace was that there were no severed heads in the room. However, there was something equally unsettling and disturbing about seeing torsos missing heads and other limbs.

“What in the actual fuck?” Beth whispered behind Pam.

Pam reluctantly stepped into the room and held up her hand. She closed her eyes for a brief second and sent a flash of purple light out from her hand. A violet smoke blanketed the room for a moment before it began to fall and dissipate. The clouds of smoke clung to the bodies, the bowl, and the other ingredients used to enact the ritual. Pam suspected this much, but she was more interested in having her working theory confirmed. The mirror hanging from the wall was also coated in a thick cloud. That confirmed it for her; Alexis had been using the mirror as the medium for her spell, the doorway to the other world. 

“She was trying to create a door out of a window,” Pam sighed, lowering her hand and turning her back on the room.

“What do you mean?” Beth asked, following Pam and leaving Jake standing in the room.

“She was trying to utilize a locator spell, scrying, and open a dimension door,” Pam answered, gesturing to the tattered remains of Jake’s old costume, “I understand why she was doing it, and it could have worked if she were a more practiced witch or sorceress. However, blending spells is something that a novice is destined to struggle with. The bodies…the limbs were used for multiple attempts. They were spent time and again, but I don’t know if she managed to succeed or not. Let us hope that she simply gave up.”

“Why?” Jake asked, “Things like this are exactly why she ended up in Hell. Why should we hope that she’s still around?”

“Jake,” Beth said, looking back at her friend, “I know you’re upset, and I know how you feel about her, but is that really what you want? You know the kind of bullshit that happens down there. She’s helped us more than once over the last year, er, two years. Put your prejudice aside for a minute and think about what you’re saying.”

“I’m not prejudiced,” Jake rolled his eyes.

“Jaded then,” Beth countered, “Call it whatever you want, man, but don’t stand there and lie to me. We’ve been friends for years, Jake. You cannot bullshit me.”

“I’m not trying to bs anyone,” Jake said.

“Really?” Beth asked, “It’s funny because suddenly Goth is back from the fucking dead, and you’re willing to throw away any and all chances you were giving Alexis. It’s almost like you were using her, isn’t it.”

“Kitten,” Pam said, trying to stop things before they escalated again, “There is a time and a place for everything, but this is not-”

“No, Pam, don’t shelter her,” Jake frowned, “There’s no time like the present. If you want to talk about prejudice, let’s talk about how much you hate Rebecca, Beth.”

“The woman broke my fucking back, asshole!” Beth snapped, stepping forward, “She literally crippled me and put one of those fucking collars on me! You might have been willing to bow down and lick her boots, but I actually stood against her. You didn’t have to deal with those slithering…things slipping down your spine. So yeah, I have some pretty strong feelings for her, but she’s not exactly welcoming with me either. She talks down to me, insults me, and treats me like I’m less than human!”

Pam sighed and leaned back against the wall. This was something that she had been worried might happen. Beth’s friendship with Alexis was odd given their history, but Pam understood the value of someone when they were the only one standing beside you when nobody else would. She wasn’t surprised that her beloved pet was jumping to the madwoman’s defense. Pam knew that Beth was well aware of how horrific things were here. It wasn’t that her beloved condoned what they were seeing, but rather that she was condemning Jake’s attitude towards their old ally. While Pam knew part of the cause was indeed Rebecca’s return, she was admittedly surprised to see how quick he was to condemn Alexis.

She’d noticed Jake and Rebecca’s more awkward interactions with one another. His feelings were still there, as were Rebecca’s, but the trauma and pain were also still littering the fringes of his mind. Anytime the two of them were in the room it gave her a headache when they were interacting. Their emotions were all over the place; giddy, anxious, angry, depressed, and then back to giddy, it was enough to make her head spin. However, Pam didn’t entirely agree with Beth’s theory. Jake had been carrying feelings of failure and frustration since they’d returned to this world. Alexis just happened to be the latest in casualty in his ire and anger.

“I never said she was perfect!” Jake snapped, “You think I’ve forgiven her for everything she did to me?!”

“Sure as fuck looks like it, lover-boy,” Beth scoffed, crossing her arms.

“Beth,” Pam chided, her tone curt and short and fixed with a stern glare, “Some things are uncalled for.”

“Let her dig her own holes, Pam,” Jake said.

Pam narrowed her eyes at him and crossed her arms, “Do not presume to speak to me as though I am your enemy, Jake. We are friends, and I have done nothing to warrant this sort of treatment. Both of you need to shut your mouths and breathe, or to put it in terms you both might understand: shut the fuck up, take a step back, and breathe.”

Jake and Beth looked at one another for a moment before they both sighed. Beth crossed her arms and huffed, “It’s not like I haven’t been trying with her, and I know she’s been sort of trying with me. I’m not gonna stand here and say we’re friends, but I am trying to be civil because we’re on the same side. Maybe you could stand to be less of a dick to Alexis.”

“I was willing to bring her back in and work with her,” Jake shook his head, “Seeing this…I don’t know that I can just move past this, Beth.”

“Dude, we’ve got a fucking witch back at base that tortured and murdered more people than I can count,” Beth pointed out, “Again, I’m not saying that this shit is acceptable, but how is this where you draw the damn line? I’m pretty sure that Goth killed you and sent me the damn recording.”

Jake was about to respond when suddenly the walls and the ground started to shake. It stopped after a second, but Jake swore that it sounded almost like heavy footfalls pounding in the distance. “What was that?” he asked, looking around, “Pam, do you sense anything around us?”

“I didn’t when we got here,” she answered, her eyes flashing solid white as she scanned the area, “If there’s something there, it’s faint at best.”

“You can’t track it?” Jake asked.

“When there are emotions running high and in close proximity, it makes my passive abilities more difficult to use,” she frowned, “Yet another reason that I was trying to get the both of you to stop your bickering.”

Beth drew her pistols and looked around the hall. “We need to move back to the living room,” she said, “We’re sitting ducks here. If there is something, or someone, out here we’ll be easier to pick off here.”

“Agreed,” Jake nodded, taking the lead to head back down the dirty hallway.

Beth nodded at Pam for her to follow behind Jake while she brought up the rear. Beth kept her guns readied while they backtracked through the house. She moved slower than the others, slowing further when she heard the sounds of something massive running. It reminded her of one of the rhinos she’d seen at the zoo when she was little, but that couldn’t have been right. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up seconds before the wall to Alexis’ hallway practically exploded. Beth ducked and rolled away from the debris, and she raised her guns to prepare to open fire on whatever had decided to intrude.

Beth saw the outline of a hulking figure in the cloud of smoke and opened fire. A hail of gunfire ripped forth from her guns and dug into the body of whatever had decided to bust through the wall. She could hear the bullets digging into flesh, but whatever it was remained standing. Beth paused after ten rounds cut through the smoke but the creature didn’t respond. After only a few brief seconds, Beth saw a massive fist cutting through the smoke and coming for her. The fist was bigger than Beth’s head, and the arm it was attached to was almost the size of an oak tree trunk. The last time Beth had seen arms that big had been when she’d fought beside Havoc, but she’d seen Havoc die during the battle for Metropolis with Goth.

Beth was pulled backwards by an unseen force just before the fist could connect with her face. Beth landed on her backside and stared up at the hulking figure as the smoke cleared. It was a woman that must have been over seven and a half feet tall and was almost as wide as she was tall. She wore a tight, black, leather dress that came down midthigh and stopped just below her shoulders. Her hair was tied back in braids and looked white as snow. However, it was her eyes that were perhaps the most unsettling. On top of having one of the most imposing figures that Beth had seen in a long while, her eyes were milky white and missing pupils and irises. The expression on her face was calculated and hateful as she stared down at Beth and the others.

“What the hell is that?” Beth asked, noticing the bullet holes in her arm.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it,” Jake said, pulling a birdarang from his belt and flicking it at the mystery woman.

Much to their surprise, the woman’s hand shot out and snatched Jake's birdarang out of the air. Her titanic fist clenched around it as it exploded in her hand. Jake's eyes widened as the mysterious behemoth seemed virtually unphased by his explosive. The gray skinned monstrosity of a woman started to charge them. Jake and Beth flipped backwards as her colossal feet pounded the ground around them. The floors shook as her boots thundered. across the floor. Another vicious, yet wild, swing came crashing down into the floor. The bloody carpeted floor was upheaved from the force of her missed attack, but she recovered quickly. Those haunting, milky white eyes were trained on them as she lunged at them.

The duo dove to opposite sides to avoid getting grabbed by the monster. To their surprise, she suddenly froze in place. “Run!” Pam barked at them as she held up both hands and channeled her power.

Jake and Beth exchanged a worried look for a second. Years of working alongside one another had given them an almost telepathic link in tense situations. Neither of them wanted to run. Whoever or whatever this woman was was sure to be a problem down the line. It would be better to deal with her now if at all possible. However, as they had their silent exchange, they noticed that she was already beginning to break through Pam’s hold. “Shit,” Beth breathed.

“What are you waiting for?!” Pam snapped, her voice strained as she struggled to hold the stranger back, “Run, you idiots! I can’t hold her back for long!”

Jake nodded and he and Beth took off in a sprint. Retreat wasn’t ideal, but they’d learned that it was often a necessity in recent weeks. They passed Pam and the second they did Pam flung a black orb down the hallway. It was dangerous to teleport blindly like this, but she was getting better at working under pressure. Both heroes knew the drill by this point, and they charged into the void without a second thought. 

The second they made it inside, Pam dropped her concentration spell and followed behind them. She didn’t turn around as the thunderous footfalls followed behind her. Her heart was beating out of her chest as she dove into the darkness. She felt cold fingers grab hold of the back of her shirt as she entered the void and slammed the door shut.Pam closed her eyes and focused on catching the rest of her group and getting them home. She tried not to think about the fact that whatever that thing had been had nearly pulled her out of the void. It’s hand was still clutching onto her dress, and she telepathically removed it to hold it. Revolting as it was, perhaps they could ascertain what she was by studying it back at base. For now, they needed to get home and discuss what they’d found. Hopefully, the rest of their group had had a better afternoon.