#19: A Game Of Escalation, Pt. 3 (Walsh / Flinchum)

Previously, in Justice League...
...sales of alien weaponry brought extra-terrestrial arms merchant Bydar Rok, a Thanagarian criminal now calling himself Byth and known to Hawkman, to the attention of the Justice League and allies Black Lightning and Green Arrow; during the ensuing battle, it was revealed that Byth was working in concert with an organization of super-criminals called Injustice, Unlimited; that Byth got his name and shapeshifting powers from a drug he developed from a race of shapeshifters called Exorians; and that the Question was also on the case, convincing young Cynthia Reynolds, a.k.a. Gypsy, to abandon her Injustice sponsors; Hawkman and Kid Eternity were captured by Byth as the rest of the League divided up into two teams, one to pursue the I.U. and the other to hunt down Byth! Too bad the first team has instead run into Byth and his Exorian twin slave bodyguards, while the second team has collided with Byth’s master...the emotion-draining space vampire called Starbreaker! And now...

Justice League

Issue #19: “A Game of Escalation, Part Three”
Written by Don Walsh
Cover by Roy Flinchum
Edited by Mark Bowers[/center]

“You heard me right, fellows,” the Toyman announced over the video communicator. He was seated at his desk, staring into the camera, the three men in the conference room able to see parts of his cluttered workshop in the background. “There is no doubt. In each of the sample weapons you’ve had me take apart and examine, I have found a special circuit that emits a pulse keyed to the wavelengths of the human brain. In particular, it agitates the emotional centers of the brain, increasing irritation, frustration, impatience.”

Angle Man looked from the screen to his partners, Clock King and I.Q. None of the men were happy with this news. “Well, I have to say I’m not overly-surprised to find that Byth has an angle on all this beyond financial enrichment.”

“But what is the purpose behind this sort of circuit?” I.Q. asked, stroking his thin jaw.

“We can safely assume that each weapon Byth sells contains this circuit,” Clock King said as he took his clock-faced glasses off and wiped them idly with a cloth, “since Mr. Schott has found such a circuit in every weapon we’ve sent him. With the hundreds of weapons he’s sold by this time, it’s safe to say the agitator circuits cover the globe.”

“Doesn’t explain the why though,” Angle Man said as he drummed his fingers on the table. “You have any ideas, Toyman?”

“He wants violence to ratchet up? For increased sales? I have no idea what else he could be wanting, other than perhaps random planetary annihilation,” Toyman shrugged. “Anything else for now?”

“No, thanks,” I.Q. answered as he leaned forward. “You did well, Toyman. Thanks. You’ll get your usual retainer delivered straight to your account.”

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Toyman replied. “Hospital bills are pricey after all.” He smiled, though it seemed more like a programmed response than a genuine look and the screen switched off, leaving the three men to discuss the information.

Schott then turned to face a second screen, and the rumpled-looking blond man on the other end, busy piecing together some sort of pictorial code. “You heard all of that, Signalman?”

“Yeah, got it. Good work, Schott. Thanks for the info. I’ll make sure to pass the signal along to the higher-ups.” He looked up at Toyman and nodded to him. “The Society’s happy to have you on board.”

“Glad to be on board,” Toyman answered quickly. “Without them, I’d still be comatose in a hospital bed, instead of one of my animarionettes.”

Signalman nodded again and ended the communication, leaving the tinkerer to sit and muse in his workshop in silence. He turned in his chair and looked at the wall, and the three other life-like ‘Toymen’ constructs. He sighed, and struggled one more time to try and figure out if he really was Winslow Schott, saved from a coma in Metropolis...or an animarionette doing his creator’s contingent bidding.

And wondering if it really mattered either way.


Imprisoned somewhere...
...Katar Hol punched his clear prison wall once again in futile frustration. “There has to be a way out of this!” he growled angrily. “Why can’t I find it?”

“Wish I could tell you,” Kit replied from within his own metal box. “Are there any controls around? Do you see any?”

“Yes,” Hawkman answered as he leaned his arms against the wall and rested his head into his crossed forearms. “I can see them over on the far side of the room. It doesn’t help much if I can’t reach them.”

“Yeah, I know. But something’s occurred to me,” Kid Eternity explained as his muffled voice became more calm. “If my voice can pass the wall, then if I press myself up against one side, and focus my attention on the other side, and shout...Eternity!”

Hawkman watched as an older man in turn-of-the-20^th-century clothing appeared in a brilliant flash of light. “Who...?”

“There’s someone there?” Kit asked in an anxious voice.

“Indeed, young sir,” the man replied in an aloof voice, as hands clutched the lapels of his suit coat. “What a fascinating locale, I must say.” He looked around the sterile room, eyes absorbing each detail.

“That’s great, Kid! Who is it?” Katar wondered as he watched the elder gentleman wander around the room.

“Was hoping that because my voice got past the inertron, it would let me summon someone outside,” Kit explained. “Hawkman, meet Jules Verne. Monsieur Verne, this is my friend, Hawkman.”

“A pleasure to meet your acquaintance, sir,” the father of science fiction replied with a polite nod of his head. “What can I do for you, lad of legends?”

“We need you to operate the controls to free us,” Kit replied quickly. “Do you think you can dope them out on your own? Hawk may be able to offer advice.”

“I can’t see the control panel well enough from here,” Hawkman muttered in frustration. “You sure this guy can do it on his own?”

“Young man, I daresay there is little in the realm of the fantastic I couldn’t eventually determine,” Jules replied as he walked over to the control panel and began to study it earnestly.

Katar wrinkled up the bridge of his nose and haughtily shook his head to mock the writer. “Who is this guy, Kid?”

“I’ll forgive you, being from another world, Hawk,” Kit said as he waited in his dark cube-shaped room, wondering how his gamble went. “Gotta admit, he was my second choice. It seems Tom Swift isn’t quite the huge hit he used to be, sadly.”

“Well, you’ll be happy to know that the basic functions of this panel are simple enough to discern, my dear boy,” Jules announced as he began to run his fingers over various touch pads and glowing dots in the reflective metal. “At least, I believe so.”

Hawkman stood in place, helpless to do more than watch and wait. “This isn’t going to--”

Suddenly, the cylinder shot up into the ceiling, releasing the Thanagarian. Quickly, he leaped from his former prison and dashed over to the control panel next to the man in the tweed suit. “Good work, Mr. Verne. Sorry I doubted you.”

“How could you not? Being from the late 1800s, who’d believe I could sort out such technological wizardry?” Verne gave an enigmatic smile and then looked back at the cube. “I can’t seem to find a control for the other prison though.”

“Doesn’t look like there is one,” Katar replied. “I’ll figure out how to get the Kid out, I guess.”

“Then my work is done here, my boy?” Jules asked Kit.

“Yeah. Thanks a lot, Mr. Verne. Eternity!”

As the flash swept up and removed Jules Verne from the scene, Katar Hol took over the controls, quickly locating his armor and wing harness. “Give me a second here, Kid, almost got it.”

“No problem, take your time. I’m going nowhere,” Kit replied with a sigh as he pushed against the solid metal again, watching small sparks flare against his fingers. “At least we got you out though, that’s a start.”

“And I think I’ve found my gear,” Hawkman added. “Just a few...more...minutes. Come on!” He growled and finally got the controls to respond, as a hatch slid open and revealed his equipment. “This is more like it. Feels good to have the helmet back on, I tell you. And I think I know how to get you out of that box, Kid.”

“Oh?”

With his harness on, Hawkman leaped up onto the top of the inertron cube and saw the inset hook the screens below had told him about. “There’s some sort of lifting mechanism, probably from the ceiling, that lifts the prison up off of the inertron platform it rests on. There’s no way I’ll be able to bypass enough security to operate that, though.”

Kit looked up to the ceiling in the direction of the voice. “That means...?”

“It means we rely on my wings,” Hawkman answered with a grim smile as he wrapped his hands around the hook, flexing his fingers against the cool, slick metal several times, testing himself in preparation. He closed his eyes, and took control of his breathing. Inhaling slowly, he felt the lungs expand in his chest before he exhaled, just as slow and deliberate. He didn’t have the strength to lift this, but the Nth metal did. He just had to let the harness do the work. He could do it. He could.

He would.

And then he started to lift up into the air. His shoulders strained as he felt the harness grow warm around his chest. He tried to remember old lessons and techniques he’d read about, letting the anti-gravity forces of the harness spread out around him. His arms shook, and he labored to keep his breathing under control, the wing harness straining as it tried to soar higher and higher. The cage was so very heavy, it felt like it actually fought Katar’s efforts, resisting at every opportunity.

“You did it!”

Hawkman opened his eyes and saw Kid Eternity flying from the prison and up level with himself. “Sweet skies,” he muttered as his throbbing fingers uncurled from the prison and let it slam back into the floor. “Ready to get out of here and find our friends?”

With a nod, Kit zipped toward the doorway, followed by Hawkman, who was still rubbing his shoulders.


Meanwhile, in the hangar of Starbreaker’s ship
Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl charged from their captured craft and toward the tall, gray-skinned humanoid that faced them. Black Lightning followed more cautiously, while Manitou Dawn stood in place, gripping the haft of her axe and struggled to resist the overwhelmingly angry passion that rippled from the alien.

“This world is under our protection, Starbreaker!” Diana, Queen of the Amazons, declared as she dashed up to her enemy, fist balled up tight. “Take your weapons and your minions and your hungers, and get out of here!” Her other hand gripped him by the clasp of his cloak and held him tight as he looked down at her with those glowing gold-and-red eyes.

“Stupid cattle,” Starbreaker responded. Beams of energy lanced out from his eyes, Wonder Woman too close and out of position to do anything but watch as the energy tore into her collar bone, the flesh sizzling as she cried out in pain. “Burn now.”

Starbreaker’s face snapped away from its target as Hawkgirl’s mace struck him as hard as she could swing. “You asked for it, pasty!” Kendra snapped in anger as she soared to his other side and brought her mace down again hard between his shoulders blades. Wonder Woman ignored the screaming pain in her chest and took the chance to land her own powerful blow against the villain’s face at the same time, to press their advantage.

Starbreaker’s cloak soaked up much of Hawkgirl’s second blow, however, and the shadowy-black material seemed to grab and twist the weapon from her grip. He lashed out with his arm and his palm smacked hard into Diana’s stomach, the force of the blow hurling her back across the hangar. She clutched her stomach and noticed that blood seeped from the hand-shaped mark he’d left where he struck her.

“I will pluck the limbs from your body, Thanagarian! Your effrontery will be the death knell of your world next!” Starbreaker said as he spun around to face the unarmed Hawkgirl, eyes blazing, and beams spat out at her, though she was able to just duck underneath.

“You’re already threatening my world, you idiot! It’s what I’m going to stop!” Kendra angrily answered as she twisted around as best she could and brought her knee into his face.

“You are human? How interesting. And irrelevant.” Starbreaker gripped her ankle and brought her down hard onto the metal deck, his fingers drawing weeping wounds from her flesh like he’d done to Wonder Woman. Then he felt forceful bolts of electricity tearing into his back, staggering him under the ferocity.

“Not so tough-talking with a hundred thousand volts rattling you, are ya?” Black Lightning taunted as he clutched his hands together and focused all of his power into as powerful a stroke of electricity as he could. He watched the shadow-black cloak recoil and cringe, then tear away into smoking pieces as Starbreaker struggled back to his feet under the assault.

“Such...delicious anger,” Starbreaker said with a smile as he pointed outstretched fingers at Jefferson Pierce, grabbed the piping hot emotion and grew straighter, taller, eyes flared with brilliance. They homed in on the hero, the world narrowed to just Black Lightning as he drew out more of the wellspring of anger inside of him.

So intent was he that Starbreaker failed to notice Wonder Woman’s renewed charge until her fists battered him, and he was hurled back and through the metal wall of the room.

“Are you alright, Lightning?” Wonder Woman asked Jefferson as she saw him sink to his knees, his body trembling and pale.

“Yeah, just...lost some focus. That monster...he’s for real. He’s unstoppable, isn’t he?”

“Sure seems like it,” Kendra said softly as she limped to the other two.

“Even if he is, we’ll go down fighting,” she said.

“Then go down you will!” Starbreaker snarled as he pulled himself out of the hole, beams of energy crackling and tearing into the three heroes. The force battered them, pounded them into the floor. “I will enjoy feeding off of you for a long, long time,” he continued to speak, and laughed at them as his attack started to make the hull buckle.

“I don’t think so,” Manitou Dawn declared. “Try this on for size!” She flung her weapon at him, spinning viciously through the air before it buried itself deep in Starbreaker’s chest. He cried out in shock and surprise as he pulled it from his body and flung it to the side. Dawn watched the emotional energy flow from his wound, as could the villain, who snarled and stared at her with fury in his face. No one else could see the way his wound bled, but the effect was obvious.

“You I’ll peel like a fruit!” Starbreaker proclaimed as he took one deliberate step toward the heroine.

Then the League’s aircraft roared to life and the Atom waved from the cockpit before setting the autopilot and shrinking from sight. The vehicle streaked across the hangar and smashed into the villain, taking him through into the room beyond. Shrieking metal and showers of sparks buried the craft and Starbreaker as Dawn held her hand out and summoned her axe to her while she raced over to her team-mates.

“He’s sapping our anger for his powers,” Dawn explained as she pulled a small pouch from under her tunic and started to apply it to Kendra’s twisted, bleeding ankle after Diana silently insisted Dawn start there. “Feeding off it, and it’s not like we can’t be angry, no matter what all the movies and books say about ‘the power of love’.”

“A jet just smashed into him. That didn’t do it, did it?” Black Lightning asked as he stared toward the smoking wreckage, littered with small electrical fires.

“No,” Diana shook her head. “We can’t be providing him that much power, can we?”

“No. He’s getting it from somewhere else,” Dawn answered as she quickly finished simple healing to Hawkgirl’s foot.

The wreckage started to creak and groan again, then tore apart as Starbreaker stepped out of the twisted metal. “You gave it your best shot. Now it’s my turn.”


Down in Waymore, Nebraska
Gypsy watched as the Flash picked himself up off the ground where the powerful jolt had flung him. She saw his limbs shaking like jelly, but he tried to shake it off and rejoin the one-sided battle. The Elongated Man wrapped himself up around the alien ape-creature, his face torn up in pain as he was stretched like taffy in its hands. Green Arrow attempted to hit the beast with various arrows, but none of them had any affect on the thick wall of water that separated him from the others, eyes gazing out eerily from the blue-purple liquid. The Question, the cryptic no-faced man who had offered her a chance to escape her criminal, opportunistic (and sleazy) patrons, ducked and weaved as he tried to find a way to attack Byth, who was now a pillar of flame. Fiery fists raised ugly red burns on the vigilante, who staggered away to allow Flash a chance to race around Byth in a super-fast cyclone, trying to draw oxygen from his flaming form. Flash felt his own lungs burn from the super-heated air Byth exposed the hero to now, before shifting his body into a tachyonic form than enabled him to engage in fisticuffs with the the Fastest Man Alive.

And she watched all of this helplessly, hidden by her power to blend into the background. The Question had given her this chance to escape a life of crime, and the League had given her the strength to stand up to Exeter before this fight began, announcing her independence. But had she been wrong? Did she make the wrong choice? Those twins that fought with Byth; the one who was now a winged serpentine form that wrapped right back around Ralph, and successfully negated his constriction ability, and the other who was now a waterspout that poured over Green Arrow, while the archer struggled to keep from drowning in the rush of water; they fought against the League, but were no older than she was, as far as she could tell. Her blending power, her minor illusions, nothing was going to help the League against these shapeshifters.

“What’s that?” Gypsy murmured to herself as she crept closer to the alien twins. She narrowed her eyes and looked very closely. She could create minor illusions, her most common being altering the color of her skin and clothing to match into the environment for hiding. But it also meant that she could see though illusions, since it wouldn’t have helped her to be fooled by her own images, and she could see through the similar chameleon cloud that followed each twin.

“Guys, try hitting here!” Gypsy screamed out as loud as she could, a whisper against the roaring sounds of the battle. She held her hands up and let small bullseye targets appear in the air above each twin, pinpointing nothing to the other heroes.

Ralph didn’t waste a moment, and lanced a finger up while the strange, twisting wrestling that was going on between his pliable body and the alien’s snake-like body continued. His finger struck dead center and he felt something small and ceramic spin off from his attack. It wobbled and struggled to regain control, but not before it crashed into the ground and broke apart.

Green Arrow coughed and gasped as he barely heard the teen’s instruction. The force of the waterspout could prevent an arrow, so he just jumped up, and swung his bow as hard as he could, hearing something crack before he crashed back into the ground, passing out from lack of air.

Byth smiled, smug and cocky, but then he looked up from the battered speedster to see Zan and Jayna collapse down from their impressive forms into the bronze-skinned humanoids they normally were. They stared at each other and hugged, and slowly turned their stares in his direction.

“Oh,” Byth muttered as he watched the touching scene of liberation. “Oh, oh, ohhh, that’s...bad.”

“You want bad? Try this on for size,” Barry grumbled as he took advantage of the distraction. “Not sure I can make this work, but...” He leaped through the villain as fast as he could, eyes closed tight in concentration. He tried to use his own speed, and its source, to grab the superluminal properties of tachyons and draw them away. “...tachyons can’t exist slower-than-light. right? So if I take that away...” He crashed to the ground as his body shook and trembled from the sudden rush of energy, but his plan worked. Byth found himself forcefully reverted back to physical shape.

“I hate know-it-all scientists,” Byth growled as he turned to get revenge on the Flash, and instead spun into the Question’s haymaker as the vigilante stood protectively over his partner.

“Just. Shut. Up.”


Elsewhere...
...Hawkman and Kid Eternity flew down yet another corridor, and searched for some sign of exit from the facility, when they felt the place rattle from a far-off explosion.

“What was that?” Kit asked as he stopped for a moment and looked around. He then glanced at Hawkman for an answer.

Katar had landed by a doorway and peered inside through the jarred door, and looked back over at Kid Eternity. He quickly looked away, unable to face Kit eye-to-eye. Since the young hero had lost his sunglasses during his capture, the bottomless black pools that were his eyes were an eerie, unsettling reminder of Kit’s unliving state; one Katar didn’t care for at all. “An explosion of some kind. I think I found a command room. Come on.”

The pair entered the half-lit room, and with their presence registered, it flared to full brilliance. Consoles sprang to electronic life, and monitoring systems and computer screens flickered and displayed many different kinds of data.

“This is useful,” Kit said as he floated around the room and took in the various stations. “Right?”

“Yes it is,” Katar replied as he walked up to a large 3-D display of the Earth, many red dots scattered around the map, and a large blue avatar of a ship in orbit. Hawkman fiddled with some controls and then looked back at the map before he nodded. “I think I found us.”

“Where are we?” Kid Eternity asked as he found a bank of security cameras, and watched the Justice League dueling with some strange, powerful figure.

“This ship up here,” Hawkman replied as he pointed to the blue image on the display. Kit glanced over his shoulder and then back to the security monitors.

“Then I think I know what that was earlier.” He pointed to the battle, and the ruined wall and shattered League aircraft in the background. “We have to help them, this guy’s tearing them apart.”

“Just a minute,” Hawkman answered as he reached for his communicator. “Atom! Follow my signal, we need you here.” He waited a few moments, then repeated himself. “Come on, Ray. Where are you?” Kit couldn’t help but notice the concern in the warrior’s voice. He suppressed a knowing smile, believing only the other Winged Wonder on the team could actually make Katar drop his bravado.

“Sorry,” Atom’s voice responded as Ray leaped out from the communicator and grew to full size. He had a thick bruise on the side of his face, his tattered and burned costume indicators of the narrow escape from the aircraft before its crash. “Last minute shrinkings make it easier to survive some explosions, but they still take a lot out of you.”

“Understood, Atom. We have something you need to see,” Hawkman replied in that officious, rumbling voice of his, concern buried deep again now that he saw Ray was well. A strong hand turned Atom toward the display screen. “What do these readings mean?”

“Well, it means that there’s some sort of signal at work...” Atom stopped and turned back to Hawkman. “You’re here? I mean...you’re here! You guys are okay? What happened? Where have you been? Hawkgirl and Dawn, they’ve been worried sick about you guys.”

“Dawn’s been worried sick about me?” Kit asked as his face lit up.

Katar flashed a momentary grin as well before he focused again on the task at hand. “You know Wonder Woman, Atom. We’ll have all sorts of reports to fill out, and you can find out then. Right now, the display?”

“Right, right.” Atom nodded and turned his attention back to the screen. “I think you’ve stumbled onto something here, Hawk. Definitely”

“They looked like transmission signals, but I don’t recognize the frequencies. They’re like nothing I’ve seen before,” Katar admitted with a growl.

“It’s because they’re not the usual. Not radio, laser-comms, or anything like that,” Atom explained. “It’s brainwave frequencies. These are all the weapons that have been sold by Byth, and they’re all transmitting to a source here in the ship.”

“What are they transmitting?” Katar asked.

“Anger, right? Rage and hate?” Kit asked as he continued to watch the Justice League’s stand against Starbreaker, wincing when he saw Hawkgirl caught and thrown into the wreckage behind the villain, and beams of energy slicing across Black Lightning’s thigh. And as he watched the battle, Kit could see Starbreaker grow larger and more menacing. Kid Eternity’s power called on inspiration; he had some sense of emotions and their power.

“Yeah. You got it, Kit. Starbreaker feeds off anger, and he’s feeding off all these conflicts on Earth,” Atom answered as he fiddled with other controls, and read the ensuing information. “Lord knows, we got enough of them to feed an army of Starbreakers.”

“Can we do something about this?” Katar clenched his fists and fumed, wanting to enter the fight himself now.

“I think I can, now,” Atom said with a mischievous grin. He quickly punched up a second holographic map. “This is where we are, this is where the battle is. You guys get going and keep beating on Starbreaker, I’ll work on things down here. I think I’m finding something that can be of great help.”

Hawkman soared off immediately as Kit floated over to Atom. “What did you find?”

“Well...if I’m reading this right,” Atom said slowly as he adjusted various controls, “there are a second set of signals, from this room to those weapons.”

“Second set?”

“Yeah. Seems our buddy Byth doesn’t trust his consumers. Smart man in a way. Unless someone smarter comes along.” Atom worked faster now, fingers flew over the touchpad controls as he furrowed his brow. “See, he really doesn’t want his own weapons being used on him, not that I blame him. So he set a self-destruct mechanism into each weapon he sold. With a little judicious re-routing...”

“...you can piggy-back that self-destruct signal back down over the continuous feed?” Kit finished the statement as he watched the scientist at work.

“Yup. And with a flick of a switch, we stop Starbreaker’s all-you-can-eat buffet,” Atom said as he slid his finger over a last, lit section of the console. “Switches are so much more dramatic, but touch pads still get the job done.”

The global display registered the hundreds of red dots flashing and then disappearing from sight as the numerous frequency readings went flat. Atom leaned back and folded his arms in satisfaction.

“Jules Verne and Tom Swift would be proud of you, Atom,” Kit declared with a nod of his head.


Back in Waymore, Nebraska
< “You murderer!”> Jayna screamed in fury as she and her brother clutched each other’s hands. Energy discharged between them and her body morphed into a large bird of prey that lifted high into the air. A slender, strong tail reached out to grip her brother, who had turned into a long, barbed two-headed spear of ice. < “You killed our family! Our people! Turned them into a source of narcotics and enslaved us!”>

She flung her brother at Byth, who’d struggled back to his feet after the powerful blow from the Question. The spear let out a war cry as the icy tines bit deep into Byth’s lower back and drove the criminal back to the ground.

< “You’re going to be so sorry you lost control of us!”> Zan swore as he bit deeper into Byth’s back, tearing at blood and flesh as his sister swooped down and raked the back of Byth’s head. He was driven into the dirt, tattered and torn by the furious alien twins.

“What are they saying?” Ralph asked as he pulled himself back into shape, his elastic body aching.

“Beats me. I don’t speak...whatever,” the Question replied as he stepped over to Gypsy. “Nice catch. Good work.”

She beamed shyly and folded her hands behind her back as she faded back into the environment. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, good work, girl,” Ollie said as he stumbled over to Question. He coughed and tried to spit out the water that still clung to him. “I guess the kids were controlled? They don’t seem too happy about it now. Such a shame too, looks like they’re going to kill the creep.” Ollie shrugged and offered very little sympathy.

“Genocide or not, we can’t let the kids become killers,” Ralph said as he started to move toward the battle.

“Can’t let them sink to his level?” The Question also shrugged, but followed Ralph. “Isn’t that kind of a stretch, if he really committed genocide?”

“If they’re kids like Gypsy, do you really want them to have blood on their hands this early?” Ralph replied.

Flash had already raced Byth’s unconscious body from the rampaging twins, and tried to staunch the bleeding as best he could.

“Stand out of the way!” Jayna demanded as the twins returned to humanoid form and marched up to the pair. “He has to pay!”

“Yeah, pay,” Zan cracked his knuckles, and backed his sister’s words up, though he seemed less interested now that Byth lay unconscious.

“No. He’ll face justice, he’ll pay for his crimes,” Flash replied as he looked up at the twins, the Question and Green Arrow flanking the Scarlet Speedster. “I promise you, he will be punished. But we’re not letting you kill him.”

“Who’re you to say we can’t have revenge? Can’t put him down like a mad dog for what he did to our people?” Jayna demanded to know as Zan tried to calm her, putting his hands on her shoulders.

“The Justice League,” Ralph answered as he stretched up behind the twins. “It’s what we do. Would you like to learn more? Sounds like you could use a place to crash and get some of this grief and pain out of the way.”

Jayna looked over her head at Ralph Dibny, and then back to the rest of the League. She fumed, clenched her fists, but a look from Zan got her to exhale slowly.

“You’re offering us membership in this League of yours?” Zan asked, curious and looking at the assembled heroes. “How do you know we’d fit in?”

“Well...maybe not membership,” Flash replied. “But we have a couple of other people in similar places in life like you two. We can help you adjust to this world, to help you fit in, let you meet others like the young lady who helped figure out how to free you.” He pointed to Gypsy, who waved at them.

“It’s...something,” Jayna replied reluctantly. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, thanks a lot. It’s nice to not be lost, at least for a while,” Zan added.

“Speaking of lost, any clue where the rest of the League has ended up?” Green Arrow asked. “I’ve been trying to raise them on the communicators, but no go.”


Meanwhile, up in orbit
Wonder Woman stood her ground, unleashing blow after blow against the stellar vampire, despite the ache in her stomach and the fatigue in her muscles. She focused her assault on his chest, on or around the wound Dawn had managed to inflict. He finally swept her aside with a powerful backhand, and hurtled her hard to the side, leaving her stunned as he lanced out with powerful beams of energy from his eyes again.

They collided against a new burst of lightning from Jefferson Pierce, force against force as they faced off until the now-twelve-foot-tall villain reached up into the ceiling and tore down a large section of it to crash onto the hero, driving him into the floor unmoving.

“Anyone else?” he challenged the League with a predatory grin as the members tried to pull themselves back to their feet, exhausted emotionally and battered physically. Manitou Dawn stared him down now, her axe clutched in both hands, and tried to come up with some way to stop him. “Is there anybody left to challenge me?”

“Yes!” Hawman cried out as he streaked into the room, and rammed his shoulder into his midsection. Katar’s momentum carried them both into a bulkhead that cracked under the force, and the hero brought his helmeted head down hard onto the villain, the beak biting into Starbreaker’s mouth and snapping, and the helm left cracked even as the villain was staggered.

“Katar?” Kendra smiled and stood unsteadily, blood racing again. “I knew you’d be okay, you pig-headed, macho, alpha male lug!” She whooped and soared across the space between them. She flew up to his side and began to pummel Starbreaker alongside Katar.

“Is it me, or is he shrinking?” Black Lightning grunted as he crawled out from beneath the broken ceiling and limped to Dawn’s side.

“It’s not you. Whatever he was feeding off, it’s stopped.” Dawn weighed her axe in one hand and felt her knees tremble nervously. She knew how her weapon worked, but had never actually attempted something like this. She took a deep, steadying breath and then a cry to the spirits above as she threw the axe one more time.

“Dawn! The Hawks are in the way!” Diana cried out in horror as she watched the shaman release her weapon and call up on her spirits to guide her aim. She ignored Wonder Woman’s alarm, desperate to ignore that fact, determined to abide by the faith in her weapon and her role.

Jefferson and Diana watched the axe tumble end over end, as if in slow motion while Katar and Kendra remained oblivious, their renewed assault on Starbreaker having found surprising success. He staggered under the attack, and lashed out with counter-attacks, each weaker than the last. The axe spun through the Hawks, harmlessly gliding through them, but Dawn could see the emotions the warriors shared cleave to the blade. Then the weapon buried itself dead center of Starbreaker’s chest.

The vampire roared in agony, clutched the new wound and clawed at it, tearing the axe away quickly, his stature further diminished, his power weakened, his mind clouded in agony. He exploded into a cloud of starry black vapor and dispersed into each and every crack he could find, to escape the heroes who had done what had never happened to him before.

Hurt him.

Stopped him.

Dawn smiled as she called her weapon back to hand, and everyone stared at her. “My weapon can not harm a just person. With it I can heal imbalance, and there was a serious imbalance in that monster. All rage and hate and hunger. Remember what I said earlier, about the power of love and all that, Wonder Woman?”

The Amazon queen nodded as she walked up and patted Dawn’s shoulder in congratulations. “Guess I was wrong about that.” She smiled and then winked at Katar and Kendra.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Atom’s voice announced over the communicators. “Kit and I are down in the command room of the ship. Wouldn’t you know it, it’s one of those kinds of bases.”

“Those kind?” Katar asked curiously.

“You know, the kind rigged to fall apart when the evil overlord dies,” Black Lightning explained. “I really hate those.”

“I’m bringing the ship down as safe as I can, Wonder Woman, but if anyone is able to get out of the ship and down to Earth on their own power, now’s a good time to do it. I can’t guarantee anything.” Atom frowned as he hunched over the controls, feverish in his efforts to pilot the rapidly destructing vessel to the Earth.

No one left the ship. Some of the Leaguers could escape, but no one would leave their team-mates. Instead the stood fast and waited as Atom directed the shuddering, shaking vessel down through the atmosphere as sweat dripped down his brow, and his heart pounded. The surface of the Earth drew closer as he struggled to pilot the ship, pieces peeling away and burning up in the atmosphere, and left a stunning trail through the blue skies.

“Brace yourselves! We’re going to...well, land’s a strong word for it,” Atom warned everyone and brought the ship screaming into the waters of the bay near where the Hall of Justice stood waiting for its heroes. It cleaved through the water, and tore itself apart in the process as Wonder Woman, Hawkman and Hawkgirl grabbed up team-mates and flew them into the air away from the destruction. Slowly, the pieces of the ship sank into the blue waters as the Justice League slowly pulled itself together on dry land.

“Hey there, what took you guys so long?” Ralph Dibny called out as he stretched himself out from the interior of the League’s home, a grin stretched wide across his face. “We got the grill all fired up. Anyone interested in some steaks?”

As everyone looked up at the jaunty caricature of a face, soon joined by the other heroes and two new younger faces, they could see the concern hidden behind the flippancy.

“Steak? Steak? We just crashed into the harbor in a starship that carried a space vampire that was planning to eat the human race, and you ask if we want steaks?” Jefferson Pierce exclaimed as he stalked up to Ralph.

“Yeah?”

Jefferson smiled in return and nodded. “I like mine extra-bloody.”


Epilogue
It was evening, and the smells of food filled the courtyard of the world’s greatest heroes. Tales were told, introductions made, and offers of home (to Gypsy, Zan and Jayna) and membership (to Black Lightning and reactivated for Green Arrow) had been accepted or turned down. Now knots of heroes broke off to catch up on life, or to learn more about the newcomers to the Hall of Justice.

“Hey, has anyone seen No-Face?” Green Arrow asked as he looked around from chatting with Jeff, Ralph and Barry. He could see Dawn with Kendra and Diana, Kit standing just behind her. He saw Atom and Katar chatting, something about a wedding and standing at Ray’s side, which gave Ollie a chuckle. The youngsters were off in a corner by themselves, trying to get to know each other, eyeing the assembled heroes nervously.

“Nope,” Barry replied. “Now that you mention it, I didn’t even notice him take off.”

“Great, here I thought we were done with that kind of thing. You know,” Ralph said with an attempt to be funny that wasn’t working. “With Batman...”

“Inactive?” Green Arrow suggested with a wry grin. “Bad enough when Bats did it. Now we got this guy doing it? Glad you guys have to deal with it, not me.”

“So, Kendra, we’ve picked up a few new faces,” Diana said as she glanced over at the teens. “Along with Dawn, we have a younger contingent. We’re not set up for that kind of thing. So I was kind of hoping that I could rely on you to help them. Mentor them, train them, help them fit in. Think you can handle it?”

“Me?”

“Sounds like a good choice to me,” Dawn said with a hand on Kendra’s shoulder. “You’re doing good in my book.”

“Time to step up, Kendra,” Kit added with a thumbs up. “You’ll do fine.”

“Okay...well, sure. I guess. Yeah. I’m ready then. I won’t let you down, Diana,” Kendra said.

“No one here has yet,” Wonder Woman said as she looked at the League around her. “No one has yet.”

The End!


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