|
|
Post by arcalian on Jun 30, 2009 23:25:05 GMT -5
Deus Ex Machina
Chapter Five: The Lonely God
Story: Chaltab
Cover Pencils: Yul Espinosa
Cover Colors: House Of Mystery
Edited by: Jay McIntyre |
|
|
|
Post by arcalian on Jun 30, 2009 23:28:35 GMT -5
Gotham City
The sun had not set for long when his feet first fell on the soft gray carpet of Wayne Manor. Tim Drake hadn’t been in the house in a long time, but he still knew his way around instinctively. The power grid to the mansion was down, so there was no light in the house. Still, it wasn’t hard to find the old grandfather clock.
Tim reached up and set the ancient timepiece to the minute of Thomas and Martha Wayne’s murder. The clock slid away and Tim slipped through the corridor behind it, taking his time traversing down the long stone staircase. He was tired, and a cold dull ache had wrapped itself around his whole body, clinging to his muscles with the intensity of one of Starfire’s hugs.
There was light—though not much warmth—down in the Cave. The Batcave had its own power supply, and the hum of the generator echoed up through the cavern. Other than that, the cave was eerily quiet.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs, the smell of cave water and bat waste washed over him, and Tim had the strangest sensation of coming home. Then a voice pierced the relative silence.
“Alfred?” called the voice of Batman. “Is that you?”
Tim didn’t say anything.
“Alfred, I thought I told you to stay out of Gotham. It’s dangerous to be near a large city.”
“I’m not Alfred,” Tim said, stepping into a lighted area by the giant penny. He could now see Bruce, his cape draped over his shoulders and his cowl hanging from the back of his neck, staring down from the chair in front of the massive Batcomputer.
"Tim.” Bruce said standing up. He walked down from the platform on which the computer sat. “What are you doing here?” he demanded curtly.
“You haven’t been seen in the superhero community for days. You’re not answering JLU communication channels or your mobile. Knowing you, that either meant you were dead, or you were hard at work on a lead, the latter being more likely since you did manage to pass on my message about the quantum oscillator.”
“That didn’t answer my question.” Bruce crossed his arms over his chest. Tim winced from his glare. Batman was still bitter. Four years ago, Tim went through a hell that only the mind of the Joker could have devised, and in the end he had paid the Joker back with a harpoon through the chest. The ordeal had cost Tim a year of his life, a year of his sanity, and when he was finally in his right mind again, Bruce had forbid him to be Robin.
For three years, Tim had flouted that order by continuing the fight—and not in the shadows like Bruce preferred, but openly, in the public eye as leader of the Teen Titans.
It came as no surprise to Tim that Bruce was furious. Lying would not help tame that anger.
“I want to help you,” he said. “If you haven’t figured out who we’re dealing with by now, then I must have surpassed you as the world’s greatest detective.”
“Out of the question,” Bruce said flatly. “It’s not up for debate. Ra’s is dangerous, Tim. Perhaps even more dangerous than the Joker.”
“Are you trying to scare me invoking that name?” Tim stepped forward and pointed a finger at Batman’s face. “Damn it, Bruce, it’s always been dangerous. It was dangerous the first time I went up against Two-Face. And you think fighting Slade wasn’t dangerous? Or how about Trigon the Terrible? What happened to me was never your fault to start with, and it's always been my choice to do this.”
Bruce grimaced. “I should never have let you make that choice. You were too young.”
“You let Batgirl make that choice.”
“Batgirl is different. She was trained to be a weapon since birth. In pure fighting prowess, she may be even better than I am.”
Batman turned, his cap billowing in the dank air.
“Tim, this discussion is over.”
A sudden, almost-imperceptible shift in Batman's tone piqued Tim's curiosity. He looked around the room, extending his senses away from the narrow field of his conversation with Bruce; he realized then that they were not alone, and he focused in on a nearly-invisible figure, hugging the shadows in a pitch-black corner of the cave.
Tim narrowed his eyes. “What is she doing here?”
The figure stepped into the light, confirming her identity.
“My father is close to destroying the Earth he claims to love so much,” Talia al Ghul said. “I'm helping your mentor find him and put an end to the slaughter.”
“And you trust her, Bruce?” Tim demanded, motioning to her with his hand. “You think her infatuation with you outweighs her loyalty to her father?”
“I think we're running out of time and running out of options,” Bruce said. “Go. Help people as best you can. Leave Ra's to me.”
|
|
|
|
Post by arcalian on Jun 30, 2009 23:43:22 GMT -5
Elsewhere
The Jeep rolled to a stop in front of a wrought iron gate at the base of a hill, and five superheroes piled out of the car. Traci 13 was the first to reach the gate, and she tapped it with her magic staff. An arc of blue light sparked from the tip of her staff to the gate, hissing and crackling, and she took a step back.
“This is definitely the place,” she said. “It feels like whatever's in that house up there is grating against the fabric of reality itself.”
Traci nodded toward an enormous gray mansion at the top of the hill, ancient and decaying, castle-like spires jutting up against the blood red sky.
Jaime Reyes stepped forward and a blue spot glowed on his back, erupting outward and covering him in the Blue Beetle armor. Behind him, Kid Devil, Empress, and Young Frankenstein all nodded their readies.
Young Frankenstein took a step forward and grabbed the iron gate at the top and bottom, ripping it off its hinges and hurling it over the stone fence. It rolled across the dusty yard, throwing up dirt, and fell against the hill.
Jaime had the Scarab's threat detectors working overtime as the five strode up to the mansion, and when they got to the top, the Scarab registered two blips directly ahead, standing on the front porch. The figures were a tall, broad-shouldered man with dark grey-ish skin and a small blonde girl in an orange dress.
“You've come to the wrong place,” called the large man, his tuxedo bulging with the girth of his muscles. “Turn around and leave, or you will regret it.”
“Don't be silly,” the little girl said. “If they came all this way to play with us, we should let them have their fun.”
“Look,” Jaime said, stepping forward (with a nudge from Traci), “We're not here to fight you. We have reason to believe that someone is being held prisoner here. We want you to let her go.”
Jaime wasn't sure what he had said, but the large man's eyes widened in surprise.
“You may not be looking for a fight, but you will have one if you do not leave,” he said. “Mortals such as yourselves cannot withstand the might of Kalibak.”
Jaime glanced to his side as Traci, Kid Devil, Young Frankenstein and Empress stepped up beside him.
“Either you let us in, or we're breaking in,” Traci said. She lifted her staff and a faint orange aura flared to life around it.
Kalibak smirked. “So be it.”
The man thundered forward, the wooden steps down from the porch of the mansion cracking under his weight. As he moved, his tuxedo stretched and ripped, his shaggy hair flaring and his skin turning golden.
No, not his skin—golden fur was sprouting all over his body, and when he finished transforming he looked like the fusion of a lion with a gorilla, an amber mane surrounding his feral face.
“Holy crap!” Kid Devil yelped.
“Does not frighten me,” Young Frankenstein growled, surging forward and meeting Kalibak's charge. His green hands met with Kalibak's paws and the two swiftly locked in a struggle of pure brute force.
A burst of automatic fire from the porch pulled Jaime's attention away from Kalibak and Young Frankenstein and he turned to see the little girl holding an uzi, blasting away at Empress and Traci. Empress teleported out of the way, but Traci ran forward, holding up her staff and shouting something in Latin. The bullets started bouncing off an invisible force field and soon Traci had reached the porch.
Jaime was distracted again, though, because suddenly an incredible weight slammed into him and he went careening backwards.
He righted himself with help from his armor and looked up to see Kalibak standing over them with one of Young Frankenstein's arms clutched in his right hand. Jaime glanced at the composite superhero and saw him cradling the bloody stump where his arm used to be, seething.
Jaime growled, forming a fusion cannon with his armor and blasting Kalibak backwards into the banister of the porch. Kid Devil ran up, dodging a punch from Kalibak and kicking the lion-man in the face. Kalibak growled, grabbing Kid Devil by the horns and hurling him away, over Jaime's shoulder. Jaime shouted again, mentally telling the scarab to turn up the power.
“Let's see how you like it at ten gigawatts!” he shouted, blasting away at Kalibak.
Target identified as a New God, the Scarab told him.
“What's a New God?” Jaime asked; Kalibak got up, shrugging of the ten jiggowatt fusion cannon like an annoyingly hot shower
The Scarab told him some things he didn't really understand that amounted to 'Superhero Planets At War' and then Kalibak ran at him, resisting the power of the fusion cannon. The bolts were just bouncing off of him.
“You caught me off guard before, boy!” Kalibak shouted, lunging at Jaime. The Blue Beetle dived out of the way, switching to his proton blasters and retaliating with a flurry of red-white bolts of energy.
Meanwhile Traci reached the top of the stairs, smacking the gun out of the little girl’s hand and sending it careening off the porch. The girl’s eyes narrowed with annoyance and she took a half step back, reaching into a pocket on the front of her dress and pulling out an impossibly long cat of nine tails. She lashed it at Traci; the young mage threw up a shield, then goggled in horror as the whip completely ignored it. The tails of the whip struck her, shards of metal and glass in the fabric digging into Traci’s flesh.
Traci grimaced as tears welled up in her eyes, using the biting pain as a focus for her magic and thrusting her hand forward.
“RETRIBUTION!” she shouted—and a black-tinged shockwave lashed out of her hand, slamming into the little girl and staggering her backwards. Just then, Empress teleported behind the girl, kicking her in the back.
She staggered forward, bending over on her hands and knees, her face twisting with rage. “You know, my name is Malice for a reason,” she said. “I deeply resent pain, especially when its inflicted by mortals.”
“I don’t care what they call you,” Empress said. “Pull a gun on me again and next time I’ll aim my kick for the back of your head.”
Malice grunted, snapping upright and snapping her hand up. “CHESSURE! Time to play!”
Traci and Empress both goggled, their attention immediately darting to their surroundings. In the black shadows of the first floor of the mansion, a huge sadistic grin appeared, suspended by nothing.
“Great, she has a familiar!” Traci barked.
Empress drew her sword from its cane. “I gathered.”
“Kill them,” Malice said.
Traci started to react, to defend herself, but before she could blink, a huge black claw erupted from the house, grabbing her about the waist and pulling her inside, closer to that big toothy mouth. She shoved her staff between herself and Chessure’s mouth and shouted.
“CLARUS LUX!”
A brilliant burst of light erupted from the tip of her staff, and Chessure snapped back, its eyes vanishing and its mouth twisting into a scowl of pain. Traci raised her staff higher, pouring more energy into the spell—but the light was so bright now that it was blinding her, and she didn’t see the shadow claw lash out. The claw slammed into the side of her staff and knocked it from her hands; the spell immediately ceased, and as she dived to reclaim her staff, another claw slammed into her, knocking her away—then coming for her throat. Traci reached up and drew a sigil in the air, shouting a word in Markovian that Ralph Dibny had taught her. A a small force pocket exploded to life around her hand, blocking the claw and giving her time to stand.
She rose, channeling some pure destructive force to her finger tips, even as the shadows regrouped in a corner and solidified into a hulking silhouette-body that might have been the shadow of a cougar, if cougars were twelve feet tall and had brilliant red glow-in-the-dark grins.
More claws—attached to writhing shadow tentacles—grew from Chessure’s back and flew at Traci, but before she could react, Empress teleported between them, slicing into the claws with her sword cane. The claws flew off to the side, severed from their limbs. They quickly evaporated when they hit the ground.
Empress stepped out of the way, the claws following her now as she deftly took them down with her weapon.
“Blast it now!” she shouted.
Traci felt strangely compelled—not that she was apt to put up much resistance—to obey the order, and reached out with glowing points of light on all ten fingers.
“CLARUS LUX!” she thundered, and ten brilliant beams of light lanced out of her fingers, slamming into Chessure and blasting it backward through the rotting walls of the old mansion into another room.
Empress and Traci ran after it, leaping through the hole in the wall and blasting twin magic fire attacks as they entered the room…
The fire tore through chairs and tables and set a book case ablaze, but Chessure was nowhere to be seen.
“Reverto!” Traci said, extending her hand towards her staff in the other room. It hovered off the ground and floated towards her. But just as it was inches from her fingers, a black shadow swiped it, knocking it from her grasp.
Chessure leapt from the shadows, striking Empress in the chest and face and knocking her across the room. It raised a massive shadowy paw and smacked at Traci. She took a step backwards, tripping over the debris of a chair and falling. Chessure snarled and pounced on her, pinning her arms down with two massive paws, its head hovering over her. Chessure’s enormous fanged grin dripped some liquid onto Traci’s shoulder, the foul-smelling concoction burning like acid where it touched.
Traci snarled, focusing the pain into anger and glaring where Chessure’s eyes should have been, where she felt a void of swirling energy vanishing into a pair of invisible singularities.
“Exquisitus lux!” she hissed, channeling all the power she could find from the nearest cities into her eyeballs. Beams tore out of her eyes and sliced into Chessure’s shadow flesh; acrid smoke rose from the wound and Chessure reared back.
“Yo, it didn’t like that,” Empress said. She slammed into the shadow creature with her shoulder, knocking it off of Traci; it vanished into the darkness.
Empress helped Traci up. “What did you do to it?”
“Its eyes are a weak point,” she said. “…But they’re hidden behind some kind of void. I had to dump a lot of power into that void to do any damage, and—”
A tentacle abruptly seized Traci by the mouth, jerking her neck back painfully, and another entangled itself in Traci’s arms and legs, holding her against the wall. At the same time, two more tentacles shot out of the shadows and slammed into Empress, knocking her back. Her purple armor cracked at the torso from the impact, and Empress landed on an old wooden chest in the corner. Chessure’s body formed again, this time going after Empress.
The girl teleported behind Chessure, goggling in surprise as she reappeared, clearly disoriented. Traci realized she hadn’t warped quite as far as she had intended.
“What! It cut me off mid-teleport!” Empress stammered, dodging another shadow claw and leaping over the beast. Her sword flashed and jabbed into Chessure’s side, but another claw swept Empress’ foot out and she fell backwards onto the chest again. Chessure rose up in a fluid motion, like a wave about to crash, and then plummeted towards Empress.
But Empress shot up too, chanting something in Patois as her shoulder slammed into Chesure’s chest. She grabbed him around the neck, a blue glow forming around her, somehow containing the shadow monster within her touch. Then she hurled herself off the chest, slamming into the floor in the middle of the room, breaking through and plunging into the basement below with a resounding crash.
The shadow tentacles that held Traci to the wall vanished and she tumbled to the ground. She ran to the edge of the hole, but couldn’t see anything, or hear anything in the chasm. After, quickly grabbing her staff from the other room, Traci lit it with another clarus lux and jumped into the hole after them.
Deeper into the shadows, where Chessure was king.
|
|
|
|
Post by arcalian on Jun 30, 2009 23:47:31 GMT -5
Elsewhere, in a less sinister set of shadows, Batman lay a series of five folders out on the table; attached to each of them was the photograph of one member of the Justice League.
“This is the team I want,” Batman said.
Talia leaned over the files, reaching for one, taking it up and opening it.
“Unconventional choices for a frontal assault, my Beloved,” she said as she thumbed through the file.
“Fire-- Beatriz Bonilla da Costa, and Ice, Tora Olafsdotter,” Batman said evenly. “Both are elemental manipulators of incredible power. They will be our brute force. They should be able to handle the OMACs easily enough, and will be able to at least hold their own if Ra’s deploys a god against us.”
Batman nodded to the next file.
“Mr. Terrific—Michael Holt. His genius and technology are remarkable in themselves, but the real reason I want him is because of his ability to make himself undetectable by machines. The Titans are machines and so are the OMACs, so Mr. Terrific is our ace up the sleeve.”
“J’onn J’onnz, the Martian Manhunter. He needs no defense. His strength is nearly on par with Superman, and his ability to shape shift and turn intangible will be useful. I also suspect he’ll be more desperate to win this battle than any of us. He’s already lost one home world. He won’t tolerate the loss of another.”
Batman picked up the last file.
“Black Lightning—Jefferson Pierce. I picked him for two reasons—first, his powers levels are on par with Fire and Ice. And second, his dedication to the job is second to none. He’d die getting the job done, if he had to. I hope I can ask that level of dedication from everyone; I know I can ask it from Jeff.”
“As long as you’ve been incommunicado,” Talia began, “can you be certain that your team is still alive?”
Batman’s eyes narrowed. “I was trying to be optimistic.”
“You know what?” chimed in a new voice, causing Batman and Talia to turn and glance towards the entrance to the cave. “I think your little team is missing someone.”
“Booster!” Batman growled. “How did you get past the proximity sensors?”
The blue-and-yellow clad superhero from the future, Booster Gold hovered closer to Batman and Talia, his little security droid Skeets flying by his side. He landed by their table.
“Skeets here was manufactured by the same company that made your sensors. He found it easy enough to hack them.” Booster Gold grinned broadly. “Anyway, like I was saying, you need me on your team.”
Batman arched an eyebrow skeptically. “We do?”
“Yes. Because you don’t know where Cronus is, and I do, because I’m from the future and I’ve done a little reading up on the Near Apocalypse of 2009.”
“That’s what the future calls this?” Talia grimaced. “I despise the media more every day.”
“Cronus.” Batman said. “You’re referring to the mythological lord of the Titans, father of Zeus.”
“Yup,” Booster said. “Cronus is the chief Titan, and that’s the one that Ra’s is commanding the rest from. Right now it’s up in space, and in thirteen hours, it’s going to try and blow the Watchtower out of the sky. That’s when we’ll strike. We jump on board, take it down, and suddenly we’re the big damn heroes.”
“This isn’t a game, you imbecile!” Talia hissed. “You have information from the future and you didn’t share it with anyone before now? Just so you could play hero at a key moment?”
Booster grimaced. “Look, Mrs. Head, I’m not supposed to run around spoiling everything. I was contacted by Rip Hunter—the Time Master himself—and specifically told not to interfere before today. Anything I did to prepare the League for this would have only changed the attack patterns and made it harder for me to know when to turn the tide. Trust me, Rip has computers from the future that have run every possible scenario, and this is the best chance we have to save the most lives.”
Batman glanced at Talia. “As irritating as Booster can be, I’m afraid he’s right, Talia. We currently have no way of finding Ra’s without his help.”
Bruce turned, his cape billowing as he walked back towards the computer.
“Hey, where are you going?” Booster asked.
“To gather the strike team.”
“You’d be wasting your time,” Booster said, nodding to Skeets. The little android’s red light flickered, and then from the other side of the cave, in walked Fire, Ice, J’onn, Mr. Terrific, and Black Lightning.
Batman arched an eyebrow at Booster.
Booster smiled. “So, when do we blast off?”
|
|
|
|
Post by arcalian on Jun 30, 2009 23:49:13 GMT -5
Kyoto, Japan
Just Before Dawn
A column of pure light, comprised of an incalculable number of photons, slammed into Kimiyo Hoshi and sent her careening backwards. She threw up a force field as she smashed through the windows of an office building and continued on through the walls until she came to a stop in a broom closet.
Kimiyo—Dr. Light—snarled a curse and threw the mop and the half-melted mop bucket off of her and ran out of the closet, taking off through the holes she’d made and flying back into the fight. As she raced towards her foe, she felt a crackle of energy beside her and looked to her right to see a man in a cyan jumpsuit with a head fin, soaring through the air beside her.
“Ultimon,” she acknowledged. “I thought you were dead.”
“The former Ultimon died,” responded the hero. “That was Ultimon Alpha. I am Ultimon Beta, leader of the new Big Science Action.”
“Kimiyo Hoshi,” responded Dr. Light. “Leader of a small team of underpaid physicists… and part-time Justice-Leaguer.”
Ahead of them, looming over the city of Kyoto stood the Titanic goddess of the dawn, Eos. She extended her hands and light lanced out, blasting the giant robot piloted by the Super Young Team into the ocean; then Eos turned and flew towards Dr. Light and Ultimon. A field of familiar dwarf-star energy formed around her, and Eos shrank to the size of a normal person, then slammed into Ultimon at full speed.
The shockwave blasted Dr. Light back, and she jerked her head to see Eos and Ultimon slam into the top of a building—which exploded outward in a mass of glass and debris. Clouds of dust billowed from the wreckage, and seconds later Eos flew out of the cloud. Ultimon did not.
Dr. Light grimaced, blasting at Eos with laser beams and dodging return fire.
“Silly little girl,” Eos taunted as Kimiyo got closer. “You and your arrogant little nation. You call yourselves the land of the rising sun? I am the rising sun. Arrogance is unbecoming of humanity.”
“So you can talk?” Dr. Light hovered closer, forming a force field. She shot a furtive glance at the building below to see if Ultimon was going to come out of it.
Eos smiled, radiance pouring out of every inch of her body. “Our Master is synthesizing us new personalities. He grows weary having to direct us at every turn, so we’re learning to think for ourselves.”
Kimiyo felt anger burn inside her brain, like acid. “Now that you can think for yourself,” she said, “Why don’t you rebel? Why do you continue to attempt genocide?”
“When this is over, the humans will worship us again—the real gods. Not the false gods—the so-called saviors of the world—superheroes. I find the idea appealing. I want humanity to grovel at my feet.”
Kimiyo drew energy into her hands and prepared to fire. “I do not grovel.”
“Tell me, what do you call yourself?” Eos said.
“I am Dr. Light!” she shouted, blasting at the Titan. The photon bursts flew towards Eos and then vanished into an invisible field around her.
“Light? Ha!” Eos blasted forward at full speed, slugging Kimiyo in the face. Even through the force field, her head exploded with pain, and Dr. Light was driven back until she was right over the broken building where Ultimon fell…
But in the blink of an eye, Eos was gone, and Dr. Light immediately began whirling about, looking for the inevitable follow-up attack…
Her sixth sense pricked the edge of her consciousness, and Kimiyo looked up.
Eos’ kick came down with the force of an atomic bomb.
Kimiyo barely managed to throw up a shield; instead of being eviscerated by the kick, she was blasted straight down, into the building and through its twenty-seven stories, not coming to a stop until she slammed into the steel-and-concrete floor of the basement.
She sat up feeling as though she’d been dragged through hell; bones were broken, internal organs were bruised, and pain shot through her body with every movement. Debris and dust covered the ground and polluted the dark air around her, and Dr. Light wanted to simply lay down and die.
Then she saw the faint blue glow.
“Ultimon…” she whispered. “Is that you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “My flight circuit’s been damaged and my power-cells are leaking. I was hoping you’d show up.”
“What good can we do against something so powerful it shrugs off our attacks and knocks us around like protons in a particle collider?”
Ultimon seemed to smile under his mask. “The true heart of a hero does not give into such defeatism. Let me give you a charge.”
Ultimon extended a hand, pouring light energy out of his suit and into Kimiyo. Dr. Light absorbed it all, feeling slightly better as her own depleted energy reserves began to fill. The radiance coming from Ultimon’s hand subsided, and the legacy hero tumbled to the ground, his blue glow dimmed, almost completely out.
“Well, that’s all I had left. Make it count, Dr. Hoshi.”
She struggled to her feet, forming force fields inside her body to hold her broken bones together.
“I’ll find a way to stop her,” Kimiyo hissed, then blasted out of the wreckage of the building.
Eos wasn’t far away—she had become a brilliant spot of radiance by the sea, blasting columns of light out into the ocean to stop the Super Young Team’s robot from making its way back to the shore. Kimiyo flew that way, throwing up another force field and channeling blasting power into her fists. She landed not far from where Eos was standing, and heard the goddess laughing gleefully while blasting the robot.
Dr. Light fought through the pain in her broken leg and ribs and walked up until she was right behind Eos.
“I’ll get to you in a moment, little girl,” Eos said. “Right now, I’m having fun with the big metal toy.”
“There’s a villain also named Dr. Light,” Kimiyo said. “People wonder why I don’t change my name. ‘How can you associate yourself with that bastard, Kimiyo?’”
“Uh-huh, this is real interesting,” Eos said, continuing to ignore Dr. Light.
“They miss the point. What right does Arthur Light have to the code name? Why does he get to make the power of light something to fear? Light should be something we celebrate. Something that benefits everyone. That’s why I keep using this name.”
“Light will be something to fear once you metahumans are dead,” Eos said. The mad Titan stopped thrashing the robot for a moment and turned to regard Kimiyo. “I heard they got Hyperion and Helios with that quantum oscillator thing, you see. So now I’m the queen-bitch of radiance.”
Kimiyo snapped, blasting a column of energy into Eos’ face.
“Not on my watch!” she snapped, hovering off the ground again and blasting away at Eos. The Titan dodged some of the shots and deflected others, hurling the photon bursts back at Kimiyo. Dr. Light dodged as well, flying forward and slamming a massive invisible force field into Eos, halting her momentum long enough to form a blade of light energy. Kimiyo sliced down, cutting into Eos’ arm and severing it just above the wrist.
Eos snarled, then flickered and vanished, appearing 100 yards away. The dwarf-star energy flashed around her, and she tripled in size.
“Enough playing around,” Eos said. “Radiance is my forte, human.”
A cascading field of luminescence, reflecting and refracting through the air and distorting into all the colors of the rainbow, appeared around Eos, and Dr. Light felt heat pouring off of the goddess, driving her backward.
“I shall be feared for all eternity!” Eos bellowed. “Mortals shall shrink away in terror when the dawn arrives because they know that I am coming, and that I am a harsh mistress. And there’s nothing you or any mortal can do about it.”
Dr. Light raised a force field, but the heat pouring off of Eos was quickly draining it, and the more power she tried to use, the less power she felt she had. In the distance, the sun was beginning to rise—and all the power of the dawn would be poured into Eos’ body.
It was all going according to Dr. Light’s plan.
“I said it before—you don’t get to be the goddess of light. I won’t let you.” Kimiyo blasted forward, instead of resisting the cascading radiance of Eos field, she began warping it around her with her powers, drawing the light and heat away from her body and into a new field that centered around Kimiyo.
“I am Doctor Light!” she shouted, narrowing her eyes, pulling more and more of the power away from her. “I speak for humanity, and my message to you is this—.”
The first ray of sunshine appeared over the ocean, and Eos’ field doubled in size….
“IF YOU LIKE THE SUNRISE SO MUCH—”
And then the field collapsed, transforming from a vast dome of energy around Eos into a single column of light, shooting straight from the Titan and towards Dr. Light, entering the body of the superheroine and causing her to radiate the light back out, like she was threatening to burst at the seams.
“—GO TAKE A CLOSER LOOK!”
And then all that radiance exploded back out of Kimiyo’s hands; a massive pillar of radiance slammed into Eos and carried her towards the horizon, past the edges of the atmosphere and through the vacuum of space.
Ten minutes later, Eos would fall into the sun's corona and burn up.
But back on Earth, Kimiyo collapsed to her knees, radiating energy, the sand on the beach around her all fused into glass. She was vaguely aware of someone behind her whispering the word “Whoa”, but before she could register who it was, she had fallen unconscious.
|
|
|
|
Post by arcalian on Jun 30, 2009 23:49:59 GMT -5
Metropolis
“Target is dead ahead,” cracked Captain Atom’s voice over the intercom in Superman’s ear. Beside him, several dozen advanced Cadmus jet fighters as well as a cadre of superheroes that included Atomic Man and Firestorm flew in formation. Superman listened with his super hearing, making sure all of the fighters were in working order. Each of them was carrying a quantum oscillator-equipped missile.
“I wish we had some back up,” chimed Firestorm. “A couple Green Lanterns would be nice.”
Superman grimaced. They hadn’t heard anything of the Green Lantern corps since John Stewart’s emergency departure days earlier.
“Steady,” the Man of Steel warned. “We’re going to have to make do with what we have. Reports are coming in that the Titans seem to be developing personalities, so expect Prometheus to put up more of a resistance than the ones we’ve taken down so far.”
Up ahead, the massive form of Prometheus loomed over the remains of the LexCorp tower, thousands of human-sized blue figures hovering around it.
One of the fighter pilot’s voices buzzed in Superman’s ear. “I’m reading approximately three-thousand individual OMACs. Stay information until they attack.”
A few seconds of silence went by, the OMACs and Prometheus growing ever larger, and then the OMACs broke formation, surging towards the heroes and fighters. Beams of energy began erupting from their chests, and the battle was on. Superman broke formation first, dropping his altitude and protecting STRIPE from a burst of enemy fire and then whipping over to John Henry Irons and helping him take down a particularly large cluster. Explosions and debris started filling the air, and Superman winced as he heard a couple of the fighters explode. Only one of them managed to eject in time, and the one that did was quickly blasted out of the sky by more OMACs.
Prometheus began moving, his eyes flaring to life and hurling huge streams of fire into the fray. Superman did his best to put himself between the attacks and the other heroes, but he quickly found that even he couldn’t be in more than one place at a time. More fighters fell out of the sky, and Firestorm had a minor suit rupture and had to pull back. Superman plowed ahead, tearing into OMACs hoping to clear a path for the quantum oscillator bombs…
And then, he felt a strange tingling all over his body… He spectrum-shifted his vision and saw an invisible blue field of energy all around him, but before he could determine the source, a shock ripped through his body and his vision flashed white.
Then there was darkness. He smelled ozone, and he could hear heartbeats and breathing at a distance. Slowly, Superman opened his eyes to find himself in a vast dark cavern, a rock floor beneath him. A glowing orange-and-red circle was drawn on the ground around him, radiating a field of energy, a barrier of sorts, upward.
Superman looked beyond the field to the source of the breathing. “Clark!” The voice was all too familiar. The face was all too familiar, and Superman looked deep into the DNA and found it all too familiar as well.
He rasped, “M.. mother?”
Another voice. “Superman…”
He turned around to see Lois Lane, fifty yards away and in a similar circle. And not just her—others were imprisoned as well. Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, and his earthly father Jonathan Kent…
“Lois… Dad…What’s going on here?”
“Allow me to explain, Kal-El.” The voice was new, but the cadence was familiar, and Superman felt as though his stomach was full of ice. He turned to see a tall man with ash-gray skin and dark glasses, standing just outside the circle, his prison.
“You… It can’t be,” Superman protested, forcing his aching body to stand up.
“There are many things you don’t yet understand, Kal-El,” the man said. He walked closer, leaning on a cane, which he raised and used to poke the field projected by the circle. To Clark’s surprise, the cane went right through the field. “Many things.”
“Where am I?” Superman asked.
“Do you not recognize my home, Son of Krypton? We are on my world, the ruins of my planet. We are on Apokalips.”
“Darkseid!” Superman shouted, standing up and rushing towards the figure. But as he reached the edge of the circle, the man’s cane flashed and Superman was blasted back, slamming into the ground. Superman sat up. “It is you.”
“The field around you is not a force field,” Boss Dark Side said. “You are free to leave at any time. But if you choose to do so, everyone in this room will die. Tell me, Kal-El, what is greater? Your love of that pathetic planet, or your selfish love of those who care for you. Will you kill them to protect your new home?”
“Murderer!” Superman snarled. “This whole attack is your doing, isn’t it?”
“I am merely the architect. The contractors are doing their part of their own volition.” Dark Side smiled. “After my demise at the hands of Lex Luthor, my planet was razed and burned to the ground by the so-called ‘good’ warriors of New Genesis. And even now, I’m taking my revenge on them. The Green Lantern Corps has fallen as well. You have no allies left, Kal-El. Soon, no matter what choice you make, all will be mine.”
Superman shouted, the entire cavern rumbling from the force of his voice; and his fist lashed out at multiple times the speed of sound, slamming into Boss Dark Side’s face. Bone shattered and flesh tore, and blood ran down Superman’s hands.
And something simultaneously black and radiant poured out of the hole in Dark Side’s head. The human shell crumpled to the floor, leaving Superman alone with his loved ones.
He sat there, breathing heavily, fighting back rage and despair.
“Go, Clark.” Superman looked towards the source of the voice to see Lois staring at him. “Do what you have to. Are our lives worth all the lives you could save on Earth?”
The rest of his family and friends nodded their assent.
But Superman clenched his teeth and looked at the ground and fought back a bitter sob.
“They are to me,” he whispered. “I have to trust the rest of Earth’s heroes to finish this without me. I have faith in them..and… I can’t bear to lose another family.”
It was then that Lois realized how profoundly lonely the life of Superman was.
|
|
|
|
Post by arcalian on Jun 30, 2009 23:51:47 GMT -5
Tartarus
The Point of No Return
It had taken a bit too long for her tastes, but Wonder Girl had finally assembled a team of superheroes who were willing to go to the ends of the Earth and beyond to help put an end to the rampaging gods. It was either fate or a strange coincidence that all of them happened to be under the legal drinking age in their respective countries.
The dank cavern’s of Tartarus opened up into a vast chamber full of light, with a huge sign above the entrance labeled with the word λήθη, Oblivion.
“Doesn't quite have the punch of 'ABANDON ALL HOPE',” Superboy said, landing in front of the entrance.
Beside him, Kid Eternity shook his head. “Sounds plenty punchy to me.”
In the middle of an expanse of white that seemed to consume the mind, an inky dark blur with a single massive eye in the middle rested, crying out a horrible piercing wail that the gods could hear from the height of Olympus.
“So that’s Chaos?” Arrowette asked. “How do we fight it?”
“The only way you can!” Secret chirped happily. “Shoot arrows at it.”
Wonder Girl smirked, drawing herself, Secret, Arrowette, Miss Martian, Superboy, and Kid Eternity into a huddle. “First things first,” she said. “We need a name for this network of ours.”
“You mean this isn’t a branch of the Teen Titans?” Kid Eternity asked.
“No, screw the Teen Titans.” Wonder Girl pulled her goggles down. “We need something with more punch to it. More kick.”
“I’ve got it! We’ll be the Young Justice League!” Superboy beamed.
“Ooh, I like it,” Miss Martian said. “It is very punchy and kicky!”
“Lose the league and we have a deal,” Wonder Girl said. She turned, pulling her lasso from her belt and facing Chaos. “Alright, Young Justice—ATTACK!”
|
|
|
|
Post by arcalian on Jun 30, 2009 23:53:18 GMT -5
In the mansion where Death was held captive and where the five heroes of Blue Beetle’s company did battle with Kalibak and Malice, an ivory figure shaped like Chaos fell off Dark Side’s chessboard, crumbling to dust as it hit the floor.
Superman was in Check, but the Boss wasn’t there to make his move.
|
|
|
|
Post by arcalian on Jun 30, 2009 23:53:56 GMT -5
Mount Olympus
“Chaos is distracted!” Demeter cried. “The whole of Earth cries out in relief.”
“Quickly!” Athena turned to Hermes. “Go, swift messenger. Those who share your abilities have a mission, one that only they can accomplish.”
“I’m on it, Pallas Athena.” Hermes strapped on his winged sandals, picked up his staff, and rushed forth from Mount Olympus for the first time in days.
|
|
|
|
Post by arcalian on Jun 30, 2009 23:56:48 GMT -5
Earth Orbit
“My gosh, Bea… it looks like the whole atmosphere is on fire.”
Ice tapped her fingers nervously against the side of the Javelin as it arced through space towards the Watchtower.
“We’ll fix everything,” Fire assured her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. She couldn’t see Ice’s shoulder, or her own hand for that matter, but the physical sensation was still there. J’onn had used a Mother Box that Booster Gold had given them to interface with the Javelin and extend the field of his invisibility powers to cover the entire ship.
Talia, Batman, his hand-picked team, and Booster Gold all stared out across the blackness of space, Earth and its red-tinged atmosphere below and nothing but the heavens above. In front of them loomed the Watchtower, and it was finally coming into focus. To Ice, it wasn’t instantly clear why the Watchtower would be a target this late in the game—the space station had been abandoned except for a skeleton crew, since increasing interference in the atmosphere had made communications difficult and teleportation impossible. Most of the lights in the station were dimmed, and one could only assume that life support had been shut off except where needed.
As the Javelin drew near, the others heard J’onn grind his teeth, and the invisibility field shuddered with the strain of his mental exertion.
“Something’s out there,” J’onn said. “It’s a young mind, but one of incredible power.”
“That wouldn’t be one of the Titans then, would it?” Bea asked. “They’d have very old minds.”
“No,” Talia said. “My father destroyed their minds when he first recovered the Gorgon’s Head.” She was referring to the weapon the gods had forged to bring down the Titans many centuries earlier.
“And now he’s giving them new ones,” Booster said. “I’ve heard reports from all over that Titans are getting smarter. They’re able to think for themselves now instead of Ra’s thinking for them. After Superman went missing, the rest of the strike force barely survived their assault on Prometheus.”
Ice grimaced, and assumed the rest of the strike force must have been doing the same. Superman’s disappearance was still a worrisome question mark that had demoralized resistance forces the world over.
They let a silence hang in the air for a moment; it was finally broken by J’onn.
“It’s happening,” the Martian said.
Outside the Javelin, space and time distorted and the massive form of Cronus, lord of the Titans, emerged from the warp. It was gargantuan—at least three times as big as any of the Titans the force had previously seen, and nearly as big as the Watchtower itself. It was arrayed in golden armor that jutted and curved into spectacular spires and sharp points, and the whole machine was surrounded by an ethereal golden aura. The stars seemed dimmer in the light of its radiance.
“Right on schedule,” Skeets chimed.
“We’re going in,” said Batman, taking the controls of the Javelin. “Michael, arm the quantum oscillator torpedo.”
“Torpedo?” asked Mr. Terrific. “Singular?”
Batman nodded. “We’re only going to have one shot at this. If we miss the first time, Cronus will likely destroy us.”
The Javelin arced forward, and Mr. Terrific brought up the targeting computer—he couldn’t see the screen, but he was feeling his way through the controls with his machine empathy.
Black Lightning slipped into the cockpit between Batman and Mr. Terrific. “Guys,” he said. “I know neither of you two are much for prayer, but…”
He left his thought unfinished as Mr. Terrific let the torpedo fly.
|
|
|
|
Post by arcalian on Jun 30, 2009 23:59:53 GMT -5
The Pacific Ocean
Bart slowly pulled himself out of his makeshift bed and sat up. Three days since the explosion… Three days trapped on an island in the middle of nowhere.
He walked down to the beach where Wally sat hard at work beside a palm tree.
“What’s for breakfast?” Bart asked, already knowing the answer.
“What do you think?” Wally sighed. “Coconuts.”
Bart blinked, then fell down into a sitting position next to Wally. “We’re going to die here, aren’t we?”
“Of course not,” the Scarlet Speedster replied, his voice testy with the frustration inherent in opening a coconut without the proper tools. “We just have to wait a while longer. They’ll rescue us soon enough.”
Bart barely heard him, though. He was no longer paying attention to Wally, but to a tiny light on the horizon that was getting larger and larger in a big hurry. Several possibilities, none of them good, raced through Bart’s mind, until he finally settled on this conclusion: Zoom was coming to kill them both.
“Wally, look!”
Wally looked, and immediately dropped his coconut and ran closer to the shore, staring out at the approaching point of light.
“If that’s who I think it is, we’re boned,” Wally said.
And then the light arrived, and it wasn’t who Wally thought it was. In fact, of all the people Wally and Bart might have expected to show up, this particular person was completely off their radar.
“Its… Jay Garrick in a toga!” Bart exclaimed.
Wally’s face twisted into an expression of pure befuddlement at Bart’s guess.
“Not quite,” the figure said. “The name is Hermes, the original super-speedster.”
“Whoa! I... I mean...Wonder Woman told me about you,” Wally said. “It’s… like, an honor to meet a god!” He blinked. “Wait, why aren’t you trying to kill us like the rest of the gods?”
“We sent one of Zeus’ kids to take care of the being that’s driving the gods crazy,” Hermes said with a smirk, extending a hand. “Incidentally, it’s nice to meet the both of you. I’ve watched your careers with a bit of a vested interest, after all. What pray tell are you two doing marooned on this island?”
Before Wally could explain, Bart burst out with a rapid-fire explanation. “We were fighting Zoom and Inertia on the water and it was really cool and then I figured out how to steal his speed but before we could get to safety there was this huge explosion that sent us careening and we woke up on this island and our powers are gone!”
“Gotcha,” Hermes said. “Okay, well, I’ve got a mission for you. See, the Thunder that powers Captain Marvel was let loose in the Etherverse when the gods destroyed the Rock of Eternity, and it’s moving so fast that only someone with super human speed could catch it. Now, I’d go get it myself, but if I touch it, it will sap my powers since I’m one of the six gods that the Big Red Cheese borrows his abilities from.”
“Didn’t you hear him?” Wally said, incredulous. “Our powers are gone, our connection with the Speed Force was severed.”
“Right, right,” Hermes said. “Way ahead of you.”
The god reached out a hand and massive sphere of energy formed, a shelf and dozens of chemical containers spilling out and arranging themselves in a familiar pattern.
Then Hermes reached into his travel bag and pulled out a thunderbolt. “Something I swiped from the Big Z’s store room,” he explained.
Wally and Bart stood in front of the chemical shelf, while Hermes hovered above them. Then he hurled the bolt of lightning, a resounding KRAKOOM echoing across the tiny island.
The Speed Force crackled through the two heroes, and both of them felt suddenly rejuvenated.
Wally pulled his cowl over his head and adjusted the earpieces. “So, what’s so important about this thunderbolt?” he asked.
“Well, funny you should mention that,” Hermes said. “If you catch the lightning, then you can take it to Billy Batson in Fawcett City and he can become Captain Marvel. Meanwhile, in New York City, you’ll be saving all the people left there from…”
|
|
|
|
Post by arcalian on Jul 1, 2009 0:00:59 GMT -5
Zeus. The king of heaven, lord of Olympus. Puppet of Ra’s al Ghul.
Chaos’ cries had waned, but still an inexpressible rage drove Zeus on. He would not stop until the world burned, until every mortal writhed in the pit of Hades or cowed from his wrath in caves. A tiny portion of the god’s consciousness knew something was wrong, that he wasn’t thinking clearly, that he was making a mistake. But that small portion was overwhelmed by pure animal emotion.
The lord of the gods had gone utterly, completely mad with anger.
|
|
|
|
Post by arcalian on Jul 1, 2009 0:01:33 GMT -5
To Be Continued!
Please take a moment and follow this link to tell us what you thought of this issue! [/b] |
|
