Patchwork Part 5

"Huh," Kara muttered when the gang member that she'd been keeping an eye on as they walked down the street transformed into a metal blender of death and charged at the young hero wearing green that was protecting a civilian. "BRB!" she said as she ran toward the swirling blender of blades, the rest of the world slowing to a crawl as her perception sped up.

"Shit!" Vista cursed as Hookwolf transformed and jumped at her and Amy in a way that would let him miss the spatial field she'd set up to protect them from bullets and the idiots rushing her. She barely had enough time to process her incoming death before there was the ungodly sound of someone sticking a metal rod in a blender and Hookwolf was replaced with an unfamiliar blond haired woman in civilian clothes that was just hovering in place.

"Do you want the five on the left or the twelve on the right?" Diana asked thoughtfully as they headed toward the group of goons that had Nazis tattoos and were wearing Empire colors.

"Rebbur ekil stellub," Zatanna chanted, tossing a ward over the whole area that might keep the idiots alive when they tried killing the girls hiding behind the area of twisted space. "Let Kara deal with it, she needs to blow off steam."

"They're Nazis, do you know how long it's been since I've gotten to beat the shit out of them?" Diana asked as they walked toward the group, knowing Kara would protect the girls.

"Seventy years?" Zatanna asked.

"More like fifty, there was a group in Argentina after the war," Diana mused.

"To be fair, they're only imitation Nazis," Zatanna pointed out.

"Fine," Diana agreed, knowing Kara had to work through losing half of her friends and her city. 

"If the healer isn't going to heal everyone then we're taking her," one of the Empire goons declared as he pointed his gun at Amy.

"Do yourself a favor and surrender before my friend gets here," Kara suggested, fairly sure they'd end up with broken limbs if Diana got involved.

"Back off or I'll shoot the green bitch!" the goon said, pointing the gun at Vista.

"I bet you can't shoot straight!" Vista replied as she added a bit of height to the area that she'd warped. 

"You're insane, walk away before my sister gets here," Amy told them, knowing her sister would go on a rampage if someone kidnapped her which would probably end up with a lot of dead people, including her sister.

"Your sister is across town, we'll be gone by the time you get here," the goon replied smugly. 

"Hello?" Kara asked, not used to being ignored. "You're not getting out of this."

"If you charge me, I'll shoot her," the goon told Kara then focused on Amy. "If you come quietly we won't rape and murder your friends or maybe we'll just do it in that order."

"What the fuck is wrong with you Ralph?!" one of the other Empire goons demanded, having noticed that the flying woman didn't look the least bit concerned about the seventeen people with guns. "This was supposed to be a simple snatch and grab, don't make it weird."

"I'm just laying down the rules," Ralph replied with a smirk. "You have to let dem bitches know who's boss."

"No, this was just a simple job to get our people healed and then she'd walk. Fuck this, no, you're going to fuck something up and then we're going to have to deal with her family or the fucking Triumverate! Fuck that, and fuck you!" the other guy said then turned and walked away, not wanting to deal with the fallout of the idiot's plans.

Vista twisted space when Ralph turned his gun on his associate who seemed to have a small amount of common sense, making sure that anything sent his direction would be redirected back at the gang members.

Zatanna winced when the idiot opened fire on his associate, causing several people to collapse as bullets were redirected by the spatial field, hitting his associates like they were rubber bullets thanks to her spell. 'That's going to leave a mark.'

"That counts as defense of others, right?" Vista asked as the idiots turned their guns on her and Amy and opened fire, causing the bullets to hit the area of warped space she'd set up in front of her and Amy, twist around and slam into the goons. She stared at the goons in disbelief when they kept firing, obviously too stupid or shocked to realize that stopping was the better choice.

"Stand down!" Kara ordered as she flew over to check on the gang members that were still standing.

"I was expecting more blood," Vista admitted as she watched the groaning idiots drop their weapons and surrender.

"Yeah," Amy muttered, rather annoyed that the other heroes had saved the idiots.

"Sorry, I wanted to make sure the bullets didn't hit any civilians or you," Zatanna offered, glad that she'd managed to keep anyone from dying despite. "Besides, we're supposed to arrest villains, not kill them."

"I'm going to fuck you up!" Ralph snarled as from the ground.

"Kneecaps are a privilege, right?" Diana asked thoughtfully.

"Peels," Zatanna said as she gestured at the idiot, putting him to sleep before Diana broke his knees or did something else unpleasant. 

"I'm used to being able to arrest people in my world, what is the proper procedure here?" Kara asked, figuring it would be easier to just go with the flow until the League finished sorting things out with the government.

"Normally the person working the console calls the police or sends agents if it's parahuman related, they should be on their way," Vista told them.

"Two minutes," Aegis assured her over the coms, having already passed on the message about Hookwolf and the goons. "What happened to Hookwolf?"

"What happened to Hookwolf?" Vista asked.

"I tossed him at the force field in the bay, they should be able to fish him out of the water," Kara replied as she worked on securing the goons with zip ties that she pulled out of her pocket.

"You tossed him over two and a half miles?" Vista asked in surprise.

"He looked like he was going to murder you and I wasn't sure I could contain him while dealing with the others so I removed him from the situation," Kara replied.

"I appreciate the help," Amy assured her. "I wasn't expecting them to attack us near the boardwalk."

"Lung fucked up some of our boys, it's going to take Othala weeks to fix them," one of the guys explained. 

"This would have been easy if the bitch healed everyone," one of Ralph's friends complained.

"Maybe you should have considered that before you murdered my aunt, go fuck yourself," Amy told them, wishing the other 'heroes' had just let the idiots die so they'd have sixteen less Nazis on the street.

"We know where you live," he said smugly.

Amy scowled at the asshole with a death wish. "You should have let them kill themselves."

Kara shook her head. "Heroes are supposed to be examples to live up to."

"The Empire doesn't have a problem killing heroes or anyone they can get away with, don't expect me to care if they kill themselves trying to kill me," Amy snapped, not looking forward to dealing with the nightmares or loss of sleep from worrying about idiots showing up at her house.

"She's not wrong," Diana pointed out as several police cars pulled up. "I suggest you exercise your right to remain silent," she told the goons.

"Go fuck yourself," the goon replied smugly.

"Peels," Zatanna chanted, putting the entire group of idiots to sleep before they said something that caused Diana to murder them. "Are they always this stupid?"

"The Empire has access to decent lawyers and some of the judges are sympathetic or willing to take bribes," Amy explained, tired of dealing with the entire system. "I doubt they'll spend two years in prison for trying to kill us."

"Lovely," Kara muttered, making a mental note to talk to J'onn about helping expose some of the corruption in the local system when they got back to the station.

0o0o0 Busted Flush Bar In Gotham 0o0o0

The Joker studied the twisted idiot with green hair and a purple jacket that was claiming to be The Joker. "Let me get this straight, you left Harley to die because you thought it would be funny?"

"And it was, the look on her face when she realized that I didn't care, truly priceless," the green haired man in his twenties replied with a smirk to his older counterpart. 

"That's cold," Harley complained as she walked over and flopped down next to her pudding. 

He glanced between the girl with pigtails wearing a jester's costume that reminded him of his former minion and the man in a stylish purple suit. "Say, I didn't catch your name."

The Joker smirked as he shot the man claiming his title with the gun he'd been hiding up his sleeve. "You're right, you didn't," he replied as he walked over and shot the knockoff on the floor in the head just to make sure he was dead, not seeing a reason to leave things to chance. After all, he himself had escaped certain death quite a few times.

The barkeep finished pouring the Jack and Coke for the teenage girl wearing a pair of black cat ears in addition to her jeans and a hello kitty sweatshirt then turned and looked at The Joker. "You know the rules."

"Rule one doesn't apply to killing your evil clones," The Joker replied as he pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket and tossed it to the barkeeper. "For the chair and the next round for everyone."

The barkeep pulled a counterfeit pen out of his pocket and started checking the bills rather than arguing the point, as he hadn’t liked the Dead villain either.

"Where's the trust?" The Joker teased, his grin going wider than should be possible.

The dark haired barkeep with an eyepatch gave The Joker a look that asked, 'Seriously?' then put the pen back in his pocket and quickly counted the money. "Drink up, the next round is on the one and only Clown Prince of Crime."

"Yes!" the Harley sitting at the bar with a half naked Poison Ivy exclaimed cheerfully.

The Joker walked over and flopped down next to his girl, wondering if the curse that made Gotham keep him alive was still in play, since he couldn't feel it. He glanced up when a rather tall and imposing man with dark hair walked over. "Let me guess, you're going to complain about me taking out the trash?"

Bruce glanced at the corpse that the bouncers were already hauling away then focused on the man sitting on the bench next to a rather busty and attractive blonde dressed like a jester that was grinning at him. "No, just because I wasn't going to kill him myself, doesn't mean I had to save him. Are you going to be a problem?"

"I'm just here to drink, it wouldn't be the same without my Bats," The Joker replied with a sigh, thinking about his old friend, knowing he’d miss him if he hadn’t been brought along with the others.

"Just like that?" Bruce asked.

"This isn't my world. I'm not a pillar of creation, I'm just a guy enjoying the chaos and hopefully his retirement," The Joker explained. "Now if you'll excuse me, Harley was being naughty and needs a spanking."

"Yes!" Harley squealed as she flopped over Mister J's lap.

Bruce shook his head and headed to the bar to get a drink off the Joker's tab, fairly sure the man was nothing like his version of the Joker, if only because he actually seemed to have a sense of humor.

0o0o0

Moonbeam glanced over at where Taylor was doing push ups by the couch, rather proud of the fact that she'd managed to talk the shy girl into wearing her magical shorts so she could work on her physical fitness and strength. "How long have you been doing pushups?"

Taylor glanced over at the clock. "Twenty three minutes."

Moonbeam shook her head. "I'm surprised that your arms aren't noodles."

"It's probably the Regeneration," Taylor replied as she swapped from doing pushups to doing crunches. "Have you found a computer yet?"

"No," Moonbeam admitted. "I'm still trying to decide if I want to grab a Wayne Tech laptop or if I want to buy the parts I need to make a magitech version."

"Wouldn't you need a lab or at least a bunch of specialty tools for the magitech computer?" Taylor asked, fairly sure that trying to build a magitech computer from the ground up was going to be problematic with her magitech flaw.

"Technically, but I'm going to need a bunch of tools anyway and one of the Old Mexico shops has a really nice deal on a starter mad scientist kit," Moonbeam replied.

Taylor stopped doing crunches and looked at Moonbeam. "They're selling mad scientist kits?"

Moonbeam giggled. "They're technically mech kits, but yeah, basically. It comes with a large 3D printer and a bunch of programs and schematics along with tools for working on mechs."

"Is that even legal?" Taylor asked warily.

"They haven't made it illegal yet," Moonbeam replied cheerfully.

"How long would the delivery take?" Taylor asked.

"Twenty minutes or your order is ten percent off," Moonbeam replied smugly.

"Twenty minutes?" Taylor asked in surprise. "Do they have a teleporter on staff?"

"Scizotech, teleportation system," Moonbeam replied with a shrug.

"So, what's the problem?" Taylor asked, wondering if it was a scam.

"The starting kits are like three grand," Moonbeam admitted. "But it comes with everything I need to build a basic mech so it's not a bad deal."

"Three grand? As in three thousand for a mech?" Taylor asked in disbelief, wondering what the catch was.

"You have to print most of it yourself and source the aluminum but there should be a lot of cans around," Moonbeam assured her. "I should be able to improve the engine with a mana reactor which would make it cheaper to use."

Taylor got up and walked over so that she could look at the webpage that was advertising the kits. 'Mystery Shack?' She spent a couple of minutes looking over the site for the small company then ran a search on it and looked at the reviews, still finding it a bit weird how well everything had been stitched together. "It's your money and they have excellent reviews."

"Are we going to have enough space?" Moonbeam asked hopefully.

"We can clear out the shed or the basement," Taylor assured her, figuring the kit was more than worth the price as one of the devices ate metal scraps and turned it into wire that the printer could use.

"Cool," Moonbeam replied and quickly filled in the required information and pushed the bottom. "That should leave me enough for a decent laptop."

"What if you have to buy tools?" Taylor asked, not sure the kit would have everything they needed.

"I bet the gangs have a bunch of tools they're not using," Moonbeam suggested cheerfully.

"We're not…" Taylor trailed off as she heard a loud clap and a weird zorching noise come from the front porch like someone had clapped their hands loudly and hit something with an arc welder. "What the hell?"

Moonbeam smiled when the doorbell rang. "I've got it."

"I'm topless," Taylor grumbled as she grabbed a pillow off the couch and covered her breasts as Moonbeam excitedly opened the door, revealing a large box and a teenage boy with brown hair, shorts, and a t-shirt with a pine tree on it.

"Moonbeam?" the boy asked with a smile, not seeming the least bit phased about the fact that she was a pixie or that Taylor was covering herself with a pillow.

"That would be me," Moonbeam replied as she looked at the large cardboard box sitting on the porch.

"Great, sign here," he held the clipboard out. "We like to get signatures so that we have proof our product was delivered."

"Can I talk you into helping me move it around back?" Moonbeam asked hopefully.

"Do you have soda or pizza?" he asked thoughtfully, having been planning on taking his lunch break after the delivery anyway.

"I can order some if you show me how everything works," Moonbeam offered.

"Deal," he agreed.

"I'm getting changed," Taylor said as she headed for the stairs.

0o0o0

"Taylor?" Danny asked as he walked into the backyard, having followed the strange noises.

"Hey," Taylor replied as she turned and looked at her father. "I can explain."

Danny glanced at the lawn mower that Taylor had pulled out of the shed and tossed a tarp over then looked at the strange device that Moonbeam was feeding aluminum cans into. "Okay, I'm listening."

"Moonbeam bought a mech kit so that she could get started making magitech and we needed the space and I figured setting up the lab in the backyard would be safer than setting it up in the basement," Taylor explained.

"Mech kit?" Danny asked, having flashbacks to some of her more questionable projects when she was younger.

"It's basically a large 3D printer, an electric engine, a pair of non adjustable cutout aluminum wrenches that are prone to bending, a large battery pack, a USB drive with the schematics for various types of mechs and a smelter that turns scrap into wire that the printer can use," Taylor explained.

Danny walked over to look at the large device that looked like it probably cost more than his car. "Do I even want to know how much that cost or how you managed to afford it?"

Taylor gestured toward Moonbeam. "Apparently, there are a lot of crazy people that will pay to watch a pixie play video games or build a mech. It was expensive but it's probably not as much as you're thinking and it's all paid for."

"How much?" Danny asked.

Taylor sighed. "Three thousand but we can probably make it back if we start selling mechs."

"That's it?" Danny asked, surprised that she'd managed to get it that cheap. "Does the printer work?"

"That was the first thing I checked," Taylor replied with a grin. "I wouldn't want to run it twenty four seven or even more than a couple of hours at a time but it should be fine as long as we don't let it overheat or cool down in the middle of things, that tends to clog the nozzles from what the delivery guy said."

"That's pretty standard from what I understand," Danny offered. "Are you actually making the mech out of aluminum?"

"Nope," Moonbeam replied smugly. "I'm making it out of mithril."

"As in the fantasy metal from D&D?" Danny asked.

"Yep, it's lighter than aluminum and about three times as strong as the aluminum alloy that we're supposed to use for the frame," Moonbeam explained smugly.

"Assuming we can get the supplies we need to convert it," Taylor reminded her.

"We just need a large tub and some crystals to hold the mana, they shouldn't be hard to find," Moonbeam argued.

"How much do you think the mechs can lift?" Danny asked thoughtfully.

"A couple of tons," Taylor replied as she handed her father the card that listed the mech's basic capabilities, assuming someone halfway competent assembled it and didn't make any glaring mistakes. "Just ignore the weapons list, we're not in Old Mexico which means that installing most of the weapons would probably be illegal as hell."

Danny glanced over the list of weapons, most of which he didn't recognize. "Is the plasma torch for welding or cutting up mechs?" he asked, curious about the only 'weapon' that might not result in felony charges.

"No clue," Taylor admitted. "I haven't had a chance to look through all of the designs that came with the kit and there are a bunch more on their website that you can buy."

"Including luxury upgrades for better seats and displays," Moonbeam added, looking forward to pimping out her mech once she finished building it.

"Makes sense, they probably sell more engines and batteries, right?" Danny asked, wondering how cost effective it would be to replace some of their aging forklifts with mechs.

"Probably," Taylor agreed, making a mental note to double check the website once they got everything up and running. "From what the delivery guy said, the batteries the kit comes with generally only last a couple of years and are nearly five hundred dollars."

"That's better than I was expecting," Danny admitted, thinking about some of the electric cars that had batteries that barely lasted six months, just long enough to be out of warranty in most cases.

"To be fair, the kit is designed to get you started and they mentioned the battery life, they just expect people to upgrade," Taylor explained.

Moonbeam tossed the last aluminum can in her box into the 'smelter' then turned back to look at Danny. "I can probably replace the batteries with crystals, that should triple the running time and save us a couple of hundred dollars. I can probably replace the engine with a magitech version which should drop the price to something reasonable."

"Assuming it works," Taylor reminded her.

"Even losing a third of the engines shouldn't be that bad, since we can reuse the material," Moonbeam argued.

Danny glanced between Moonbeam and his daughter. "What do you need to get started?"

"On the engines or in general?" Moonbeam asked.

"Both," Danny replied.

"A soldering iron, a decent computer and a cad program for the engine and a couple of large tubs, containers or a horse trough so I can soak the aluminum pieces after we print them, some quartz crystals for the batteries and scrap metal, mostly aluminum but we'll need some titanium and tungsten as well as trace metals for making the alloys," Moonbeam told him.

"That should be easy enough, I know a guy," Danny replied with a grin.

"Fantastic," Taylor agreed, looking forward to seeing what Moonbeam could build once they got rolling.