The three ice-users — Mera, Caitlin, and Frost — each grabbed a mercenary and got to work experimenting with their water and ice control. As for the subjects' comfort — sorry, as long as no one died, anything was fair game. These men had shown up armed and uninvited at private property in the middle of the night. Hard to argue they were the victims.
Some heroines had an academic spirit about it — the cold trio, meticulously testing their powers side by side. Others were simply there to have fun — Livewire and Poison Ivy, both former villains in their original timelines, left their respective opponents in states that bordered on helpless.
Spread evenly, it worked out to roughly one mercenary per heroine, maybe a little more — hardly enough to satisfy. Most knocked their target down and stepped back. This was recreational. About as competitive as a company year-end raffle — participation was the point.
Cassandra, small and absolutely lethal in her focus, was the exception. She ran a precise circuit of the entire battlefield, methodically dropping every last mercenary before she finally stood down.
When he saw his entire strike force taken out like a punchline, Damien Darhk would have to be a special kind of oblivious not to recognize what he'd walked into. But wanting to escape and being permitted to escape were entirely different things — Raven had him locked down, and his magic against the princess of Trigon's bloodline was simply embarrassing.
Thea pulled Felicity aside for a quiet word. Felicity gave her an odd look — why is she standing there with both hands clasped behind her back like some kind of seasoned master? — but didn't overthink it. The former hacker called in a drone, its wide-angle camera lens sweeping across the assembled heroines. Spotting the camera, most of them immediately shifted into their best poses.
Blissfully unaware he'd become set dressing for a group photo op, Darhk kept fighting with desperate futility — until Raven's magic and Cassandra's fists together finally put him down.
The man who had spent a lifetime believing himself at the absolute ceiling of human potential — his sorcery formidable, his martial skill relentless — had been thoroughly and efficiently proven wrong. That realization was still settling into his skull when the lights went out.
"Everyone gather 'round!" Thea called out. She directed the heroines to stack Darhk and his crew into a tidy half-meter wall of bodies, then lined everyone up along the back of it.
The goons who were still conscious didn't dare twitch. They served as remarkably cooperative set dressing, even the ones only pretending to be out cold.
Click.
Twenty-nine official members, plus Stargirl — a self-invited plus-one who'd brought nothing but enthusiasm — thirty heroines total, frozen in a single frame. Solemn faces, ridiculous faces, everything in between. The Justice Girls' first official group activity, documented for posterity.
Deep night. The captives were trussed up where they lay and left to wait for morning pickup.
The heroines exchanged good nights and drifted back to their rooms.
Thea and Diana's room.
"Come on, untie me already... it feels really strange," Thea said, doing her best impression of a girl sweetly pleading.
The smile on Diana's face was threatening to overflow entirely. "Let's play a little game first. A role-playing game, I was thinking..."
[Five hundred words omitted.]