Darkest Before The Dawn [Invited]

[Batman]

At least they had kept his mask on.

Every cultist ever who had kidnapped Batman had always kept the mask on. Dick had a few theories why. The most prevalent one was that they wanted to sustain the mythos. The ideal that Batman was untouchable, unstoppable and immortal. It was a surprising mythos to sustain if you actually thought you were capable of kidnapping him. It was an even harder mythos to sustain if you kidnapped. Yet every single time Batman managed to escape. This normally meant that the cultist were able to continue their belief that Batman was unstoppable due to failing their mission. It was an interesting paradox to say the least. Yet it wasn’t the paradox Dick was worrying about. It was the fact that he had failed to escape and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the black magic. Maybe it was because they had caught him unawares. Maybe it was because he hadn’t found the right opportunity yet.

At this point Dick was bordering on desperate. He was banking on a rescue team or him managing to pull a trick out of his sleeve at the last minute. Unfortunately logic and utility belts didn’t work well against black magic. They rarely did. At the back of his mind Dick wished that Zatanna were here. He’d have to deal with her attitude but she’d be able to get him free at the very least. As Dick was bound in black magical ropes on a funeral pyre he forced himself to lay still. If he was going to die he’d at least pretend he was ok with it. Even if he wasn’t. Dick very much wanted to stay alive. If he somehow managed to pull that off he’d definitely make a stop in Russia and put an end to this cult. He didn’t want to get blinded by bearded homeless mystics ever again.

As Dick stared into the fierce man’s brown eyes he watched him murmur something low in Russian before he swung his blade down at Dick’s chest. Just before the weapon would have sunk into his heart green stun blasts scattered across the room. His would-be killer was knocked to the ground along with a good six or seven other men. Then Dick was encased in a green energy shield and he was safe for the time being. He released air that he hadn’t realized he was holding. “About time you showed up.” He said with a cocky grin that he didn’t quite fully feel. At the back of his mind he wondered where Damian was. Just as this thought crossed his head the dark-haired scowling apprentice of his showed up brandishing a knife. “You are clearly not worthy of the mantle. When I am Batman I won’t be caught by worm-ridden foreigners.” Dick sat up and grabbed Damian by the front of his shirt.

“Right.” He said with a smirk as he jerked Damian out of the way of a ray of purple flame that would have most definitely killed him.

[Black Canary]

John's ring would keep Batman out of immediate danger, but that didn't mean they were out of this just yet. They were still clearly outnumbered, and they would be down a man (figuratively speaking) once Robin was preoccupied with getting Dick to safety. Dinah didn't doubt her and John's ability to take down the cultists, but she wasn't foolish enough to believe that it would be a walk through the park. These guys were serious and they weren't going to be very happy about having their ritual interrupted.

Dinah did have to admit, though, that she always enjoyed encounters with other serious martial artists. There was always something to be learned from other fighters, and while studying their moves wasn't her main concern here, doing so was second nature by now not only for defensive purposes but so that she could perhaps imitate them later on. The more she studied an opponent's technique, the better she could counter it. At the moment, however, Dinah was focused less on studying their moves and more on using that brief moment of surprise to her advantage.

John had knocked back several of the cultists, and Dinah rushed forward to finish taking them down. They were going to be dead set on keeping Dick from escaping, which meant that she and John had to do everything they could to prevent any of the cultists from going after the latest incarnation of Batman and Robin. Time to play defense. One of the cultists was back on his feet and rushing after Dick and Damian, and Dinah ran to cut him off. He cursed at her - she didn't speak much Russian but she knew when she was getting cussed out - and launched his fist at her face with speed most people wouldn't expect from a man his size. Typical Russian, going straight for a punch. Russian fist-fighters were nothing to scoff at, but they hadn't been trained by Ted Grant.

Dinah bobbed to the side to avoid the punch, then swore herself as she only narrowly avoided what appeared to be some sort of energy blast that extended from the cultist's fist. She really hated this magic crap, at least when it was being used by the enemy. At least his reliance on the magic and strong punches meant he wasn't focusing on protecting his core. Rookie mistake. That was why she didn't like to use her Canary Cry all the time; when martial artists began to rely less on their trained skills and more on unnatural ability, they often became sloppy. Her hands shifted from fists so that her fingers were extended, and Dinah delivered several swift strikes to the man's abdomen, attacking his vital organs and the nerve clusters scattered throughout his torso. He attempted to fire off another blast at her, but he quickly became preoccupied with vomiting all over the ground around him.

[Batman]

Dick leapt off of the altar and landed onto the ground. He had been strapped onto that thing for a better part of the evening and was more than anxious to move. Yet him being still for so long had temporarily robbed his legs of their normal spryness. That was coupled with the five yard drop from the altar resulted in Dick stumbling as he hit the ground. Yet he compensated well enough and made it look like a move. As he stumbled to his knees he quickly rolled forward and pushed himself into a front flip with his arms. Even as he engaged his first opponent he heard Damian snort. Apparently that hasty move hadn’t fooled everyone. “In America, Batman finds you!” He lashed out with one fist and broke his opponent’s nose with a single blow.

“I’m not entirely sure if I got that reference right.” He admitted as the man stumbled backwards. The mystic lowered his hands from his nose and growled. <You Americans are so arrogant but you have already lost. Rasputin will return and when he does he will return Soviet Russia to the glorious nation it is meant to be!> The man raised his hands to fire an energy blast and Dick quickly ducked under his perceived radius of the energy blast. He moved swiftly towards the man and in a second closed the distance. He struck him in the kidney hard enough to render permanent damage to the organ. The man would survive but it’d be safe to say his days of causing trouble for Americans were over. “Right.”

He stepped away as the man stumbled forward and then hit the ground. Somewhere else in the cavern he heard vomiting. He was guessing that he and Dinah were of the same mind. The woman was far more analytical than Dick was when she fought. Instead of being a jack’of’all trades she was a pure martial artist. Dick considered martial arts to be a skill employed in his attempts to fight crime. Dinah viewed it as her super power. “Batman!” Dick directed his gaze towards Robin. His young apprentice was currently slashing and stabbing his way through a throng of mystics. Dick turned to see who the throng was protecting. He glanced forward and noted that a bearded man wearing an amulet was gesturing at the altar and was murmuring rapidly under his breath.

Whatever he was saying, it couldn’t be good. Dick began to sprint towards him but was tackled by a larger mystic. Dick crashed to the ground and felt the air squeezed out of his lungs by a powerful bear hug. This man definitely seemed more interested in grappling than magic. “At least buy me dinner first…” He wheezed as he worked his right arm free. As he did so the mystic in the far end of the sanctuary raised his hands and clapped them once. The sound vibrated through the room and Dick winced. He felt as if a hammer was ringing against his skull. The altar soon became alight with flame and the mystic wearing the amulet dropped to the ground. Then every other mystic became consumed with energy and after a moment turned into ash. Dick blinked as he suddenly found himself covered in the stuff.

He stood to his feet and noticed a man standing on the altar. In one hand he held a broad sword and in the other he seemed to hold a handful of flames. His nose was mashed against his face as if it had been broken many times. An unchecked beard tumbled past his belt and he wore modest yet intimidating robes. He drew in a breath and began to speak. “I am Rasputin. I am here to return Russia to its former glory and if you seek to stop me…you will die.” Dick stood to his feet and sighed. This wasn’t the Rasputin of history. This was the Rasputin that the mystics wanted to believe in. A powerful man who could wield a blade and generate flame. According to his report from Tim Rasputin could do neither. Which meant this Rasputin wasn’t necessarily human. He was probably some sort of avatar or illusion. Which meant Batman didn’t have to hold back.

Rasputin’s eyes swept the sanctuary and then he turned towards Green Lantern and unleashed blue flames at the man, seeking to overwhelm his defenses. Dick reached into his utility belt and pulled out three bat-a-rangs. Then he attacked.

[John Stewart]

And the party was started. John's initial move provided them exactly what they needed, a distraction and time to setup the save of Batman. Now it was time to keep the wall up and keep the young vigilante covered while he saved his mentor. Easy enough plan for the two Justice leaguers to handle? right? Sure they were up against dark magic powered Russian martial artists that had formed this cult for some odd reason, it usually ended up being really odd. He never really understood why people would rather give up on reason and pray to something that will 'save' them from their sad reality. A little willpower and resolve could get people through anything.

"I would of been here had our GPS been working," the Green Lantern dryly replied back to his Teammate. Releasing the shield so that Robin could do his thing, John swung around in the air to pick up the ones cult members Black Canary was not. Now that they were on the defensive to allow Dynamic Duo time to escape the strategy was different. Creating a giant whip like construct from his ring he began to whip and lash several of the cultists that he had just stunned moments ago. "Hey, clean up your mouth. There is a lady present," he stated as he turned in a circle slowly while changing his construct into a large cylinder launching it toward a big cultist that was cussing in his native tongue, which the Green Lantern Ring was translating. The man turned just in time to get hit in the face down to the stomach by one end of the cylinder driving him backward into the wall. He slid down the wall slowly as the construct dissipated.

The Green Lantern knew his basic job was to help cover Batman and Robin, but he also needed to create back end support for Black Canary. She was one tough girl that could hold her own with anyone; Man, woman, child, mystic, alien, god, goddess, immortal, etc. But holding one's own and winning was two different things. The trouble with something like dark magic was that it was unpredictable how much they knew or to what end their power levels could reach. Magic usually worked in the same way anything else did, the more experience one had the more powerful they were. She was making quick work of the more martial arts based ones, simply because their skills with dark magic were subpar almost like they were just using it because they had it instead of using it to enhance their attacks. Whereas the few standing to the back throwing fireballs relied too much on their new powers and not enough on their martial arts training. He would take them out next, that would give the team enough cover to make a conscious decision on what to do with these fools.

Or not. "What the heck?" John questioned rhetorically aloud as he looked around to the other two and a half heroes present. Lowering himself down about five yards from Black Canary he kept his body encased in green energy, because it was not every day that he fought with a cult one minute and then in the next they were all simultaneously turned into dust. Then again, this was a typical weird occurrence when it came to magic. Nothing with magic ever made sense to him, even though the likes of Zatanna, Dr Fate, or even Captain Marvel claimed that there was rules to magic it would seem that the rules of magic were just so unreal that unless someone was a 'homo magi' then it was almost like trying to understand another language with no training in lingual education.

"Oh come on," John muttered as he turned to face the new person that had appeared. "You're going to have to do better than that," he stated as he morphed his body energy into a bubble shield to thwart the blue fire that encompassed his whole surroundings. An immediate counter attack would have to wait, he had to figure out how to get out of this bubble, because he knew this blue flame was infused with dark magic which meant it probably had a special burn rate or could spread quickly. He was just going to have to push back.

Remembering where the Attack had been spawned from John focused on that point in the shield. Pushing that one spot outward in a spear form while maintaining the rest of the bubble shield was going to require his best concentration in a while, but he did not have time to complain. Then in one swift motion he thrust forward with his ring have launching the spear as an extension from his shield consumed with blue dark magic flames right back at Rasputin. The man countered his attack by lifting his hand with the blue fire in it to absorb it back and then create a wall of fire to repel the Green Lantern and Batman's attacks.

"Nice trick. I don't remember reading about Rasputin having a dark magic cult following or even magic being one of his hobbies. Unless I read the wrong history books?" John asked over to the others without looking away from the man. They went from fighting a bunch of poozers to fighting a being that was using a well known name of a historical figure as a front to do it's evil behind. The name Rasputin brought a certain reputation with it, adding dark magic to a being that knew how to use it? then this situation was about to get a whole lot worse.

[Black Canary]

A cluster of downed cultists was left in her wake as Dinah moved on to two more who approached simultaneously. Both were as brawny as the rest, though one slightly less so. He lingered slightly behind the other; unconsciously, he marked himself as the weak one. Dinah broke back into a run as she headed toward them; the larger one had fire encasing his fists and the other carried a sword. She stopped when she stood between the two men, then dropped down as they each struck out at her. The weaker one went down, crying out as the smell of burnt flesh radiated from him. The stronger one stumbled back, the slash across his chest visible but not enough to keep him down. He threw another punch at Dinah, who stepped to the side to avoid it but still managed to get caught with his arm swinging backward toward her and was subsequently knocked to the ground. The heat was intense, and between the smell of the other man's burns, the vomit, and that of the sewer, it was almost enough to make her lose her lunch herself.

The blonde scrambled back to her feet in time to grab the cultist's wrist as he attacked again, then brought her knee down into his elbow, forcing it to break and bend in the opposite direction. The cultist let out an angry roar, then snarled something at her in Russian. As apparently the only one there who wasn't fluent in Russian (or who didn't have the most powerful weapon in the universe translating for her), his words were lost on her. "Look, buddy, my Russian is pretty much limited to ordering a beer, so if you're going to try to threaten me, you might as well do it in a language I can understand," Dinah grumbled, reaching up to wipe a glob of mud from her face. "I kill you, you stupid - " The cultist unleashed another furious cry as Dinah drove her elbow into the slash on his chest, then brought her foot around to link it behind his leg while he was distracted with the pain. A forearm was brought up to his throat, then forced him harshly to the ground.

A second later, she cringed as the whole room around her seemed to shake, starting in her head. Was that what her Canary Cry felt like? Dinah straightened and stepped away from the cultist she had just taken down and toward Batman, Robin, and John. The three of them had taken care of the cultists she couldn't, and now all of their attention was on the robed man standing on the altar. Awesome. More magic. With both a sword in his hand and some serious magical juju in the other, she was going to need to try to attack from a distance. Dinah frowned as she looked up at the room they were in. In a place like this, everything echoed. Her Canary Cry, at its loudest volume, would be even more potent. It would likely take everything out of her, but her martial arts abilities would most likely be pretty useless right at that moment. Overwhelming Rasputin with sound waves was a better bet. "John!" Dinah yelled to him, running closer until they were within speaking distance. "I need you create a buffer between you three and Freaky Beard Guy. I'm going try to blow his ears out." Normally Dinah had perfect control over her vocal chords, but in here, she was going to have to completely unleash her Cry for it to echo enough and get the maximum impact. If nothing else, it would likely disorient Rasputin enough to give the others a chance to attack without having to deal with his mystical defenses.