stands_for_hope | The Not Quite Justice League in... The Bee's Pleas!!!

"I'm flying with whichever one of you doesn't mind dropping me on a roof," Jim answered. "I want to take out these two." He pointed to the two he was figuring on. "I can get this one by hand, throw a grenade against the second. If Steve is dropped on the opposite corner, then there won't be danger of my grenade hitting him. It should take at most three minutes."

"Two if you throw me properly," Steve said with a wicked edge to his smile. Most of the hitting people had been taken on by others, and while Steve was many things (including sweet), the kind of business they'd dealt with today got his blood up and running hot, fingers itching to punch someone. Several someones.

"Diana, you take Steve," Clark said, since her aim was almost uncanny, "and I'll take Jim. Kara?"

"I'll fly solo. Sand's got his own transportation."

And that was when Jim decided to do something new. Clark had told him about his arm being able to project a beam. When better to give that a try than when he didn't care if it destroyed the surroundings or not? He pulled on his mask and goggles. "Let's go."

Steve ducked up against Diana's shoulder and Clark opened his arm for Jim. Kara slipped out the window to wait for them, watching with some curiosity and even a little amusement.

Jim stepped up, arms taking hold, but head not ducking - after all, he had protection. And he also had time. Time to close his eyes and take a slow breath, time to return to those familiar (and comfortable, and how he hated how comfortable it was) trains of thought. He had a goal. He knew what to do. Nothing would stand in his way on his way to his goal.

Objective set. Mission start.

Soon enough, Diana was floating out the window with Steve and Clark, clutching him carefully, was following along behind. Coordinates in mind, Clark led the way as they raced across the sky towards the military installation that held Lois. Gradually, the sky turned darker and darker as they crossed the ocean, the timelines, the harsh wind cutting through some of their armor. But they flew regardless, Clark buffering some of it with his cape as Kara moved in front of Diana to break the wind from hacking at Steve.

The stopped just below the clouds, the trip taking roughly ten minutes. Kara, an irritated scrunch of her nose already voicing her displeasure, pointed down.

"Sand was right about the lead. And the kryptonite. Everyone ready?"

"Drop me," Jim said, ready for the start of the fight. He was already mentally preparing for how to fall, how to shoot, how to stab-- he was ready for this.

Clark didn't question. He just did as Jim had said, tossing him pointedly towards one of the guns. Diana shifted Steve's position before launching him at full power towards the other, shield held out in front of him.

Steve, using the shield edge, sliced neatly through the gun, using the friction to slow his descent enough that he could roll off the rest of the force. Then it was just a matter of flinging his shield at the assembled guards (all of them wearing HYDRA black with the tell-tale sigil on the back of their necks).

The attack had started.

Just before Jim landed, he activated the force field from his arm, using it as his offensive force before he bent his intent just so and managed to call forth that energy beam that sliced through the gun emplacements in one swift move -- and that way, he kept his grenades for later use.

And he was silently amazed that he did it. Nothing like a threat to family to get things done.

Diana was already working on some of the ground troops with him, which gave Steve enough time in between punches to shout to the sky:

"Guns are down! Hit the wall!"

Which was when Clark and Kara, in a singular blur, smashed through the eastern wall.

But Diana had noticed something.

"Some of them have kryptonite weaponry-- watch yourselves!"

Jim didn't let himself think beyond the mission. If he did, he'd be compromised. No, he just moved. Acted. But he was outnumbered and just his appearance stirred up bad blood. He was their malfunctioning weapon. More of them focused on him and Steve than on Diana - at least for now.

He fought like he always did. If he died, so be it. At least he would die getting his niece out of captivity. His force field from his arm protected him from the worst, but it was inevitable that he had a few wounds.

Steve noticed, couldn't help but notice, and a shared look between him and Diana had the next one who was attempting to hit the Winter Soldier with a stun baton losing his head to an Amazon sword. Steve, on the other hand, was fighting with all his might but it wasn't as if he hadn't taken his fair share of injuries. Even Diana had a few lines of red across her skin.

But then the sand started moving and two massive giants made of sand started knocking HYDRA troops with his huge fists.

Kara, punching the wall down beside Clark, smiled.

He had already left his share in the sand, some stabbed through by a sunstone blade, others shot in the head, and still others dead from impact trauma and broken bones. He wasn't being gentle.

It was when he heard something - a quiet, increasing whine, like something charging up - that he turned, found a truck mounted gun emplacement. One that received two quickly thrown grenades to blow it to parts before it could fire.

And that was an explosion he threw one man into without a hint of remorse.

Steve took a look at the sand giants, at the seemingly endless stream of troops, and finally down towards the demolished wall. Then he made a decision.

"Firebrand! Go with Superman and Powergirl and head in. Find Lois! We'll hold them off out here."

Diana, meanwhile, had sheathed her sword and was now laying waste to large swaths of them with a massive steel beam from the wreckage with a ferocity that was hard to watch.

But they needed to get Lois out. That was the objective. And Steve had a feeling there'd be anti-Kryptonian measures that Jim would have to handle once they got closer to her cell.

"Ya budu vesti," he shouted, sprinting the few yards between him and the breached wall, firing off a few shots in cover and bringing down a couple more Hydra personnel on his way. And then he was into the hallway and figuring out the path he'd decided on on the way. He didn't doubt that both of the Kryptonians following him were strong enough to take care of themselves, but he had the shield. He could keep them from getting struck.

Clark glanced at Kara to make sure she understood and was glad when she nodded, the two of them walking behind him as they started into the compound.

The place seemed to have emptied itself out to deal with the frontal assault, but there were a few security measures none-the-less. As Jim stepped forward into one hallway, a number of green beams shot out from several angles down the hallway. It looked like the typical security web... except that the energy was definitely aimed to cause trouble for his two companions.

He was surrounded, in less than a moment, by his shield. "I will find the source."

It shouldn't be too hard. He wasn't vulnerable to Kryptonite. It was just a matter of finding the right mirror to take out, to take out the grid. Or, he decided steps into the hall, he could just put a bullet into each one.

He was going to need more ammo after this.

Careful observation would provide him with a hallway full of the tiniest apertures, each one individually projecting a single beam that took care of each section through the use of three or four mirrors nearby. Clark and Kara floated back and Clark gestured to Jim.

A laser system - just with kryptonite-- but that begged the question of what was fueling the beams. How the kryptonite was being projected to be so perfectly beamed.

He saw the gesture out of the corner of his eye as he was lifting his gun to aim and halted himself, stepping back.

"I'm looking through the wall. I think there are charges in there that might cause us trouble if we do something as simple as shooting them," Clark said gently.

"Even the mirrors?" If the mirrors were taken out, then at least some of the beams would be eliminated. But he could see that this puzzle awsn't one for brute force - even if taking out a few mirrors... Well. It was a possibility. Maybe.

"Nothing behind the mirrors," Kara said then, looking around, "and we might be able to go around this, but we risk opening you to fire."

Clark glanced at Jim, then Kara, and finally at the hallway.

"Jim, can you walk through the light beams? They don't look like they're strong enough to cause harm to a human. It might be easiest to split up for a few moments; we can rejoin you on the other side by tracking your heartbeat."

"I've got my shield if I need to," he said, "but I can get this undone."

Now that he had more of a clue anyway.

"Can't be harder to crosswire this thing than it would be to get into some of the places I've gone."

And with that said, he started walking through, unflinching. This wasn't meant to keep him out. It was meant to keep Clark out.

To him, the beams were harmless light but Clark waited until he'd seen that the light wouldn't hurt him before he and Kara punched through the wall outside, then punched back through on the opposite side.

The relative ease of things was immediately destroyed, however, as the doors down the hallway opened to see a troop of men with glowing green guns and HYDRA gear.

They could've waited and he would've shut down the system and they could've crossed through.

But no, now they had an even bigger problem, and Jim--

All Jim could do was act. He reached out to grab both Kryptonians, and shut a tight shield around all three of them - though mostly around them. "Wrecking ball," he muttered, knowing that they could hear him even if nobody else could.

With the shield from his arm, they could push through the armed horde like bowling through pins. Just... harder.

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