not_easy_being_green

Timeline and reading order:

Context and scene-setting: It's been 31 days since the Justice League disappeared through a Boom Tube. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter received a distress call from Orion on New Genesis for a "fate of reality" deal, and off they went. No one has heard from them since. This is the story of those left behind. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/328.html

Connor Hawke, recently moved to Gotham and serving as the landlord of a low-rent building off the recently refurbished Amusement Mile, discovers the building in the next lot has a particularly interesting landlord in one Harley Quinn. While Quinn introduces herself, she reveals rumors that the building is "haunted", as many tenants have disappeared mysteriously before winding up dead, their bodies claimed by Gotham City. After several wi-fi related mishaps, Connor finds a list of the missing and the name of a current tenant, an amateur paranormal investigator who has rented a unit in order to investigate. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1150.html?thread=382#cmt382

Charlie Gage-Radcliffe meets up with Steph at the docks and reveals herself as the new Batgirl of Burnside, something she is trying in part because her teleportation abilities have been on the fritz. Shortly after Steph agrees to train Charlie, a mysterious orange truck is waved out of the harbor, with a cell-phone bomb poised to kill the man who let it pass. Steph goes to save the man; Charlie pursues the truck. Though Steph is able to save the dockworker from an untimely death, she is attacked by his coworkers, who believe her to have planted the bomb, and forced to retreat. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/875.html?thread=619#cmt619

Oracle receives a call from the League - a group of concerned Leaguers have noticed she's been overextending herself and have more or less relegated her to managing Gotham alone for the immediate future. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1670.html?thread=17542#cmt17542

Jason Todd holds a meeting of his lieutenants in order to address recent concerns with Two-Face. After being driven out of Gotham Harbor by Robin Damian Wayne two weeks prior, Two-Face has been expanding his operations, especially in the areas of racketeering, arms dealing, and most troublingly, drugs, releasing a new dual-compound drug with unpredictable effects - and pushing it in schools. Though Jason makes plans to address the issue, after the meeting, he is attacked by a former capo calling himself Cover Fire, a man with the ability to project fire from his left palm and force shields from his right. Cover Fire reveals that Two-Face is moving against the Red Hood, and has been hired to attack. Jason is able to escape with only minor burns, but is unable to prevent Cover Fire from leaving the scene. Once returned to his safehouse, Jason makes plans to interrogate the lieutenant whose capo had betrayed him. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1809.html?thread=22801#cmt22801

Starfire is flying over Gotham City in search of Dick Grayson when she receives a call from her agent, Rex Leech, seeking to rope her into hosting a new reality fashion show, Project Runway. However, the runaway truck from the docks interrupts her call, and while attempting to stop it, the truck bursts open, spilling a mysterious orange chemical into the street. When an officer is hit by the splash, he seems to collapse into rubber, in a way similar to Plastic Man. While Starfire seeks medical attention for the officer, the truck escapes. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1509.html?thread=10981#cmt10981

Oracle is made aware of the incident with Starfire. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1670.html?thread=32134#cmt32134

On his way back to his apartment building, Connor is surprised by the sudden appearance of Charlie, whose increasingly erratic teleportation has led her to overshoot and run into him. Recognizing him from the frequent Green Arrow videos that have been posted on the superhero-themed social media site CapeScape, Charlie, after some fangirling, recruits him into pursuing the truck making its way towards their location. While lying in wait for the truck, Connor discovers that someone has been impersonating him on CapeScape and uploading videos of his exploits, including some highly personal footage of him and his friend Kyle Rayner. Charlie vows to help him get to the bottom of it. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1150.html?thread=14462#cmt14462

When the truck arrives, Connor is able to leap into the cabin in order to stop the driver. Upon entry, he recognizes the driver as Sal Handy, one of the missing tenants supposed to have been killed as part of the "haunting" afflicting his apartment building. He quickly demonstrates grotesque stretching abilities. Though Connor proves unable to overpower him, his offer to help Sal allows him to stop the man long enough to bring the truck to a halt. Before anything else can be done, however, some external force seems to seize control of Sal and compel him to flee the scene. Unable to stop him, Connor regroups with Charlie and calls Oracle. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1150.html?thread=35454#cmt35454

During the call with Connor, Babs learns that Charlie is, once again, patrolling Gotham in a Batgirl outfit of her own making. She learns that the truck has stopped. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1670.html?thread=42374#cmt42374

Oracle calls Starfire to check in on the spill. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1509.html?thread=47845#cmt47845

Steph contacts Charlie to check the status of the truck, and decides to meet up with Charlie and Connor. While on her way to meet up with the others, Stephanie runs across Starfire, but continues past. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/875.html?thread=51307#cmt51307

Stephanie meets with Connor and Charlie. After deciding it best not to contact Starfire until she was done cleaning up the spill, they consider the best ways to track Sal. When Charlie is able to peg his location using CapeScape, they agree to tail him - but due to transportation limitations, only two of them can go. Connor and Steph elect to pursue Sal, leaving Misfit to cover Steph's patrol. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1150.html?thread=55422#cmt55422

Jason interrogates Donny, who denies all foreknowledge of his capo's - and nephew's - attack on Jason. Further investigation reveals that Cover Fire has been involved with Roulette's underground metahuman fight ring, Meta-Brawl, and was probably recruited through those channels. Jason elects to let Donny live, but sends him out of the country to prevent potential interference with the Cover Fire situation. After some cursory attempts at damage control, he ultimately gives up for the night and falls asleep. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1809.html?thread=56081#cmt56081

Connor and Steph track Sal to a shack in Slaughter Swamp. Though none of the gingold zombies are in the shack, they do find Doctor Bravo, an old enemy of the Metal Men being forced to work for Solomon Grundy. Throughout the course of the conversation with him, they discover he has been building "responsometers" for Grundy, the technology that gives the Metal Men and Bravo's Plastic Perils life. Though designed to work in fluid substances, Grundy and Bravo have discovered that bodies exposed to gingold juice can be animated with the responsometers, maintaining at least some semblance of their personality from life. It is revealed that Grundy's ultimate design is to be implanted with a responsometer himself in a bid to retain his living personality in all incarnations, rather than the frequent faculty loss he experiences now. After finding out that the experimentees are being kept in a nearby dome meant to keep out the Justice League, they wisely elect to call for backup. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/2260.html?thread=69076#cmt69076

Savant arrives back at the Clocktower. After some much-needed timekeeping courtesy of Oracle, he heads out to Roulette's Meta-Brawl ring, where he has been working undercover. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1670.html?thread=74886#cmt74886

Shortly after, Barbara receives Steph's message, and after a much-needed debriefing, Stephanie requests backup. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1670.html?thread=91782#cmt91782

Oracle calls Starfire to send her to back up Stephanie and Connor. Starfire agrees. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1509.html?thread=95973#cmt95973

With the help of Jean-Paul Valley, the former Azrael, Cassandra reveals what she has been up to these past few weeks - preparing herself to take over as Batman. Debuting with a splash, Cassandra intends to break up a Batman-less month celebration by mobsters at the bar Pearl's, but the presence of Savant indicates something much deeper at play. Despite an encounter with an Intergang weapon that shuts down the technology in her suit, Cassandra's message is clear. Weapon confiscated, she returns to investigate, setting her sights on Intergang. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/2373.html#comments

Savant radios Oracle for further instructions. Barbara wonders why no one coordinates things with her anymore. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1670.html?thread=101254#cmt101254

Starfire, Connor and Steph siege Grundy's base. Professor Bravo is killed in the crossfire. They are attacked by three Gingold zombies, and manage to defeat all of them. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/2260.html?thread=107476#cmt107476

Cassandra hears news of goings-on in Slaughter Swamp and heads over there. At the same time, she realizes that Azrael is hiding something, but does not press the issue. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/2373.html?thread=116037#cmt116037

The Hall of Doom begins to fly away on rocket thrusters. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/2260.html?thread=126420#cmt126420

Cassandra arrives at Slaughter Swamp just as the entire Base itself makes a failed escape attempt. The arrivals are confused by the new Batman, who Steph quickly identified as Cass. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/2260.html#cmt126420

The new group enters and defeats a group of toy soldiers, but their strange red laser weapons are able to incapacitate Starfire. They find Grundy inside the base, as well as a fourth kidnappee, one of Connor's tenants, in the midst of a sensometer transfer experiment. Though Grundy initially appears to be incapable of fighting back, he quickly reveals that, through Doctor Bravo's efforts, he is in control of a liquid metal body, and attacks. In desperate straits, after most of th e team has been injured and proven unable to harm Grundy, Connor applies the sensometer he had held on to, and the combined forces are able to eject the helpless Grundy from his armor. With all four sensometer experiments now in possession of metal bodies, they go their separate ways, two resolving to be heroes, one a villain, and one just trying to get his life back. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/2260.html?thread=140500#cmt140500

Jason is woken by a phone call from his undercover dock worker, Rusty, who confesses that he had taken a large diamond bull statue off of Aaron, the dock worker who had waved the gingold shipment out only to be nearly killed by an exploding cell phone. Jason tells him to bring it in, but before Rusty can arrive, he is killed in a hit-and-run. Arriving at the scene to investigate, Jason determines it to be the work of The Riddler. Jason initially misinterpret Riddler's clue to refer to Donny, to that end calling up one of his contacts and brother of frequent Riddler henchman, Charlie, to get more information. After going to the Docks himself to investigate, Jason realizes his mistake when he sees the arrival of cargo ship The Dickory, a liner bound for Gorilla City, scheduled to depart in the afternoon. Jason plants some listening devices before going to the hospital to interrogate Aaron directly, where he finds out that one of Grundy's regular henchman, Pallbearer, has been double crossed his boss. In exchange for his information, Jason offers Aaron protection - and a job. http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1809.html#cmt120849

Steph returns to Babs to report in. *ongoing* http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1670.html?thread=183430#cmt183430

Barbara receives a distress call from Leaguers John Stewart and - Dinah? Suspiciously, Dinah shows no knowledge of Babs's earlier benching from the League, leading Babs to suspect that someone has gotten to Red Tornado. After dispatching Donna Troy and Ryan Choi to aid the others, Babs determines to get to the bottom of this. *ongoing* http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1670.html#cmt164742

Cassandra returns to her base after the Grundy mission... only to find dead acolytes scattered about. *ongoing* http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/2373.html?thread=192325#cmt192325

An hour and a half before the Hickory is scheduled to leave, Jason goes to investigate the ship. Finding the guards ready for intruders, Jason observes from a distance and is able to identify Pallbearer, Grundy's former second-in-command and an aspiring crime boss of his own. Jason manages to slip a tracer onto Pallbearer's car. *ongoing* http://thenewoutsiders.dreamwidth.org/1809.html?thread=187409#cmt187409