Smoke on the water, fire in the sky

A column of bats slammed downward from the sky above, forcing everyone to clutch at their ears from the near deafening screeches of the tiny beasts as they swallowed up the Kryptonian werewolf in their flapping wings and engulphed him. The impact was so great, the fighting ring collapsed and rained debris everywhere. Flailing his arms to dispel the offending vermin, Karn’el roared as his claws passed through empty air, the thousands of bats weaving around his claws, riding the turbulence of his strikes every time, he swiped out with any of his four claws.

With his hands still outstretched, controlling the wills of hundreds of thousands of bats, Dracula raised his hands high over his head, and in doing so, the swarming, screaming cyclone of bats flew back up into the air and took Karn’el with them. Like a leaf caught in the wind, the krypto-wolf roared and snarled as he was lifted high into the air, the vast canopy of the world tree beneath him as he tumbled helplessly in their scratching, itching, biting grasp. They could not hurt him; his hide was far too tough for their tiny fangs to penetrate. But their screeching. Millions upon millions of high-pitched voices chirping and crying out all at once was chaos to his hearing. By the time he had reached the clouds, it was all too much.

“ENOUUUUUUUUUGH!”

Slapping his claws together, the thunderclap it generated stunned the millions of tiny animals in a wake of air pressure. The animals quickly dispersing and fleeing from the beast that spooked them. Darting his horned head wildly to see where he was and his enemy. Looking down, he could see the fighting ring where Dracula still stood, just as his keen vision allowed him to see the vampire crouch, then launch himself high into the air to meet him in the sky. Cocking a clawed fist back, ready to strike, Karn’el bellowed a war cry as put everything he had into the punch, meeting the vampire king with a strike so great it would have shattered a mountain. Instead, the red eyed krypto-wolf only saw a plume of green fog explode out where his fist barely met Dracula’s brow. His enemy gone from sight save for the green fog surrounding him, Karn’el waved his arms out to clear the mist out of his way, only for it to grew heavier.

“COWARD! WHERE ARE YOU?”

A cold sensation slashed up his back from behind, causing the krypto-wolf to turn and look for his attacker, just as another slashed at his arm. His eyes going wide, he was shocked to see his own blood stain his black fur, a thin red line carved into his flesh by an invisible blade just as another cut formed around his leg. More and more slashes and cuts formed, forcing the krypto wolf to fold in on himself, guarding his face after another slash formed between his left eye and snout.

“GET OFF ME!!!!”

Splaying out his injured arms and breathing out a cone of freezing breath and beams of heat vision from his eyes, Karn’el circled around him, blasting the clouds all around him with freezing cold and boiling heat all at once. Down on the streets of New Gotham, everyone looked up to see the maelstrom of red lights carve circles into the sky while it strangely began to snow. Thunderclaps echoed across the sky like sonic booms, bursting clouds apart while Karn’el’s roars of blind rage could be heard across the city. Stopping his onslaught, the krypto-wolf darted his eyes and snapped his attention to anything that moved, paranoid of the roiling clouds that began to gather and fill the night’s sky with storm clouds.

“IS THIS HOW YOU FACED THE WOLF KING? WITH TRICKS?” Snarled Karn’el, hearing thunder echo out in the pitch-dark clouds building up around him. “I AM THE GREATEST WOLF! GREATER THAN HIM!!!”

“You’ve yet to prove it.”

A gust of wind behind his back made his spines rattle anxiously, slowly turning his head to look over his shoulder as he felt the gust again. Hidden in the clouds, except with the flash of lighting buried in the thick mists, he could make out a shape. One that took up all he could see. Darker than the rest of the clouds with wings that kept it aloft, creating the storm winds of clouds that continued to darken the skies. Drawing closer to the wolf, Karn’el found himself looking up at a reptilian beast from ancient lore lower its horned head and glare down at him with narrow, burning red eyes.

It was a dragon! A dragon, who’s wings spanned two football fields in width, stared down at the small werewolf and growled a plume of black smoke from his flaring nostrils, a growl of contempt.

“You claim to be the strongest… And yet you cannot land a single strike.” The dragon hissed calmly, keeping itself up in the air with each flap of its wings. “You claim to be the mightiest, yet you cannot best a swarm of bats or a nimbus of fog. Power is an extension of one’s will, boy. Your will is nothing but noise and bluster. Here’s MINE!”

Widening his eyes in astonishment, Karn’el instinctively crossed his arms to protect his face as the black dragon opened his maw, and all the krypto-wolf could see was flame.

*

Down on the ground where hundreds huddled together in fear of the battle overhead and the krypto-wolves who hovered above them, everyone closed their eyes when the sky caught fire. In that brief horrifying moment, it was as if dawn broke at midnight. The sky lit up a sickly orange glow where ash rained down slowly from the black burning clouds.

Hiding under a car, Jimmy and Vincent took as many pictures as they could. Having huddled under their new hiding place after the fight first started. The greenhorn’s attention quickly turned to the Wolf King, who with aid of the red and white wolf queens propped him up on his feet. Looking up as she aided the wolves, Selina almost smirked to watch her husband cut loose overhead.

“Damn, its like the apocalypse up there!” Worried Nightwing, seeing it rain ash as the two super beings clashed.

“Can you stand love?” Wincing as she heard Karn’el roar high above, the burning in the sky still went on as the shadow of a massive dragon breathing black flames could still be seen through the soot and ash, Aloe Vera looked to the pack of krypto-wolves still high in the air, watching them all with their red glowing eyes still locked on the populace on the ground. But even as chaos reigned over their horned heads, they did not join the battle, or react in any way. “What are they waiting for?”

“Commands…” Winced Bruce, regaining his strength to stand under his own power as the scorched wound in his chest quickly healed. “Look at their eyes, REALLY look at them, their body language, they aren’t in control of themselves.”

Giving the closest krypto-wolf a better look, Pamela found he was right. Their shoulders were slumped, their eyes drawn and exhausted looking. She had seen that behaviour before, in her own victims a lifetime so long ago for her.

“They’re being controlled!” Looking to each krypto-wolf guarding the city, each of them had the same tired and drawn look to them. Spotting one of the biggest of them floating just over a 5-story building, her blonde fur stood out to what Pam could recognise. Pointing out Power Girl in the pack, Aloe Vera turned to the others who had gathered around them. “We must get to Kara, see if we can free her, and stop this insanity.”

“Then let us stop it!” Flying towards the blonde Krypto-Wolf with a fist ready to strike, Starfire barreled towards Power Girl, barely registering her friends begging her to turn away just as she came within striking distance… And felt a massive, clawed hand wrap around her neck. Slowly craning her neck, Kara glared back at the struggling Tamaranian in her grasp. Her eyes hollow and snout expressionless as Kori punched and thrashed impotently against her arm.

“The… Alpha… Wants no… Interference…”

Kara’s eyes began to glow with more intensity, ready to use her heat vision to burn Starfire’s head clean off her shoulders and would have had she not been distracted again by a small twirling shuriken she caught between the fingers of one of her other hands, looking down at the item sleepily before it exploded in her face, surprising Kara enough to drop Kori to the ground.

“I gotcha!” Called out Dick as the women fell in his arms and Talia threw a handful of shuriken from her thigh pouch. “Let’s not start swinging at the indestructible, flying wolf woman, shall we?”

“Yes! A wise decision considering…”

The vampire gasped as a blur of blonde fur appeared in front of her and reeled her back with a claw around her throat, pinning her down next to Nightwing and Starfire who were coughing for air with Kara holding them down the same way. All around them the people screamed in panic at the sight of the massive she-wolf finally acting.

“No… Interference…”

“KARA!” Yelled out the Black Wolf, now fully healed and racing towards the massive krypto-wolf when a dark blur of force appeared between him and Power Girl, the largest of the Krypto-wolves so far… Superman.

“No… Interference…”

“No interference…” Echoed the other krypto-wolves, turning their attention to the attackers fighting back and gathering to surround the Wolf King and his associates. Faster than he could react, a black furred female krypto-wolf with purple eyes grabbed Bruce from behind, overpowering him and pinning him to the ground, while two others do the same with Pamela and Harley. The spiders were just as paralysed, unable to overpower the Kryptonian werewolves. “No interference…”

“Stop the wolves… From interfering…”

Her grip was like solid iron, every act Nightwing made to try and squirm free or budge her arm was completely useless. Looking up at the red, glowing yet tired eyes of Power Girl staring down at the three of them, Nightwing spotted something just over her shoulder, slithering its way unseen while the rest of the krypto-wolves were occupied. He needed to keep her attention on him and him alone, buy some time.

“Kara? Hey Kara!” Ponderously turning her head his direction, her claws tightened their grip around his neck and shoulders, making the man wince. “if you’re still in there, I just wanted to let you know… You had the best tits in the League.”

Her ears darting back, Kara’s eyes became sharp, her teeth bared as she growled under her breath.

“Grayson… Please explain yourself.” Talia whispered.

“Oh yeah, PERFECT tits! The guys always wondered how’ve they’ve stayed so firm… Since you never needed a bra, and BELIEVE ME… We could tell.”

Raising her free hand and brandishing her claws as if to strike, her look of rage reached its apex.

“And now you’ve got three pairs of’em! How DO you deal with all the attention?”

With a roar, Kara made to swipe his head off when something slithered around her arm and back around her body, constricting around her neck and shoulders and forcing the krypto-wolf to sit up and release her prisoners. Kara snarled as she struggled with Lamia binding her with her coils and would have pried her off easily until she found Lamia’s hands grab hold of her horns with both hands to steady herself and stare deep into Power Girl’s eyes.

Rubbing a hand at his sore throat, Dick looked up to see the Queen of wereserpents keep the blonde krypto-wolfess in check, the two motionless as they stared off, leaving Kara transfixed. “Thank you for the…”

“We’re not out of the woods yet!” Lamia called out; her voice full of trepidation. “Try to keep the others off me while I fix their alpha.”

Seeing the other Krypto-Wolves turn their attention to them, Nightwing suddenly felt VERY much out of his league.