#23: Injustice Unbound! Pt. 3 (Walsh / Rimmer)

Previously, in Justice League...
...the super-criminal union hall called Injustice Unlimited had great success in providing master plans and special equipment to increase the capability of its members; as the League struggled to contain the situation over the last year, more and greater threats continued to distract them from the real plan behind the smokescreen: Angle Man and his partner, the mysterious Prometheus! Now though, the end-game is in full swing, the League stretched across the country as its home is penetrated by their unseen foes, and the only thing standing in their way are the wards they’ve taken under their wing: Gypsy, and the alien twins Zan and Jayna! With Elongated Man and Sue trapped in the Ghost Zone, a vault of advanced weaponry missing from the government and the remains of the Galactic Golem stolen from its resting place, what can possibly be the next phase of this master plan for revenge?

Find out in...

Justice League
Issue #23: “Injustice Unbound! Act III: Drawn and Quartered”

Written by Don Walsh
Cover by Jamie Rimmer
Edited by Mark Bowers[/center]

Gypsy wasn’t sure who the strange man was, but the way he arrogantly strode the halls of the satellite, and sneered at her presence, she held no doubts that the situation facing the Justice League had just gotten worse.

“You’re Angle Man’s prize, aren’t you? Tramp? Thief, was it?” he asked as he passed her dismissively, and headed deeper into the satellite.

“I’m called Gypsy,” she answered in her low but sharp voice. She balled up her fists and let her body shift in color, disappearing against the steel gray bulkheads, blinking lights and consoles. She made a point of dashing to the far side of the room before turning back into a leaping kick at the intruder.

Prometheus didn’t even permit himself to spare a backward glance or slow his march. The heads-up display in his visor could not be affected by mental tricks, and he spun the heavy, crackling baton in his grip and casually shoved it over his shoulder. Gypsy crashed into the thrust, and felt electricity course over her pale skin. With a cry of pain she was hurtled back onto the floor, and skidded down the hall.

Prometheus did pause when he heard the teen’s screams of pain, and glanced over his shoulder to look at her crumpled form. A satisfied smile crept across his face. “More like half-breed. Cynthia Reynolds. What sort of Romani name is that, poseur?” He turned and kicked her hard enough to roll her onto her back and drive the air from her lungs. “References you don’t even get. No challenge. Stay down, girl. Stay down and you’ll leave with me.”

He pivoted and stalked back down the hall, humming to himself, a song Gypsy didn’t recognize. She forced herself back up to her feet, and wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. She wanted to run again, her eyes glancing toward the teleporter tubes. The room spun mercilessly around her, but she stepped away from that retreat. She leaned against the wall, turned her skin gray once more, and headed for her original goal.

Prometheus entered the command module of the satellite, his humming abruptly ceased as his eyes focused on the controls. He tapped his ornate earpiece and a small silvery disc fell into his palm. He slipped the disc into a slot and let the program start up. It connected with the resident brain of the satellite, the Dharlu, and reset its artificial physiology. The cold awakened it now, and allowed its advanced organic operating system to work faster. Prometheus entered a series of numbers and nodded his head as the monitors displayed the results.

Gypsy reached the communications room and feverishly started an emergency transmission to all the League members. “There’s an intruder in the satellite, and the Hall is under attack,” she tried to relay, using what training she’d been given so far to try and break through the jamming she discovered. “Please! Someone! Zan and Jayna were hurting when I saw them, and the guy up here, he’s way too strong! Someone, please, hear me! Please answer!”

An ominous shadow fell over what appeared to anyone else to be an empty seat. To the man who owned the shadow, the chair was most definitely not empty. Prometheus could see the frightened young woman who struggled to the very end to alert her comrades to the true danger.

“The criminality of this Justice League is staggering,” Prometheus said in a voice oozing disgust. He hitched his baton to his belt and stepped up behind Gypsy. “You should never have been kept with them. You do them more credit than they do you.”

She leaped from the chair, shaking, breathing hard, heart pounding in her slim chest. She watched him crack his knuckles and step closer, the feral grin on his face chilling her skin.

“Out of respect,” he continued to say, peeling his gauntlets off, “I’ll do this bare-handed.”

The Ghost Zone
“Well, that’s got to be a good sign, right?” Elongated Man asked as he and his wife saw the odd structure floating in the endless expanse of white.

“I suppose, depending on how loose we’re defining good,” Sue Dibny responded wryly. “Let’s see: trailing the money-man for a super-criminal union who turns out to be a hologram, and the rail then leads to an ambush phantom zone projector that dumps us near an antique house floating in...well...nothing.”

“So what are you saying, dear?”

“That your definition of good is very loose, hun,” she chided him. “Still, it’s our only lead.”

The pair slowly approached the three-story Colonial house, worn wood and grimy glass set into bent and crooked walls that bent over in different directions, as if weary from untold ages of lurking. “A crooked house? For a crooked man?” Ralph mused to his wife as he stretched his neck to look around.

Sue hugged herself and shivered as she looked up into the windows that looked back like vacant eyes. “Guess this means we go in,” she said. Sue rolled her shoulders back and smoothed out her shirt before she headed toward the front door.

Ralph followed, flattened and stretched out, his body curved around his wife, ready to wrap her up protectively. The couple stepped up tentatively onto the warped, decrepit porch and stared at the plain wooden door. Ralph watched his wife reach for the lockpicks in her purse, and then eyed the front door closely, his nose twitching with a sudden urgency. He abruptly wrapped his wife up into a bubble of his own elastic body as the door exploded into wicked shards, and bounced the couple down from porch.

Ralph collected himself as quick as he could, twisting his head back to see a man step out from the doorway now, adorned in an advanced exo-skeletal weapons platform and with a cruel gleam in his eye. “The Rubber Man? I’ve waited for our enemies to reach here and all I get to pit myself against is the Rubber Man?” He sneered and lashed out with a coil of bright blue energy, sweeping at Ralph as he warped his chest away from the attack.

“That’s Elongated Man, thank you very much,” Ralph retorted as his arm stretched out to punch the attacker in the face only to strike a shoulder-mounted plate that rolled into the way first. “And you’d be? Since we’re making with the introductions and all?” he then asked as he winced in pain.

“Xotar, and I’ve waited for all my life to see this day,” the bald-headed man answered as jump jets lifted him to where Ralph stood. He lifted his arm and fired gyro-jet ammunition from an over-sized gauntlet and into Ralph’s midsection. “One planet in all of this accursed realm, and it was a planet of peace and prosperity! For a man of war like myself, it’s been utter torment until Prometheus came along and saved me!”

The projectiles pressed into Ralph’s plastic chest, trying to push through until exploding. Ralph saw stars from the pain, but tried to keep his focus and reached his ten fingers out to try and tangle his foe up from behind. “Sounds like a terrible childhood. I weep for you, really. I’ll call Springer, see if we can’t get you a gig.”

“Laugh all you want, but you face the Weapons Master, and you’ll be the first of your League to fall,” Xotar laughed as Ralph’s fingers found shoulder blades whirling out from just that location at his back. Lined in mono-molecular wire, they sliced through even Ralph’s fingertips. “You’re barely a warm-up exercise, Elongated Man!”

Ralph recoiled from the man, his fingers aching and bloody; he then saw two cables fire out and slam into each of his shoulders, energy cascading down them and into him. His body felt as if it were melting and as he screamed in pain, he struggled to hold himself together.

Xotar watched as the Elongated Man became limp, his body pooling under the attack. It was then he looked around for the woman, only to find no one. “It appears your partner has run off. It doesn’t matter, in the Ghost Zone, there is nowhere for her to run. And if she ran into the house itself in hopes of a last minute rescue, I will hunt her down.” He started to coil Ralph up like a heap of cable as the hero’s distorted face tried to grow angry.

“Shu’ll shw ewe,” Ralph tried to say, but the words fell out of a numbed mouth and merely made Xotar laugh all the harder as he started back into the Crooked House.

Superior City
J’onn J’onzz felt pain as the surface of his body erupted into searing flames. The old fears melded with new agony as the woman named Volcana held her hands over him and laughed as the alien powerhouse crashed to his knees.

“I can’t believe even an alien is sexist, you little bastard!” she screamed at him as she narrowed her eyes and the orange flames darkened into blue. “‘Oh the poor little woman has been led astray by her heart, I have to save her!’ I wanted this, I wanted to be in on the money and the power, you ET half-wit!”

Martian Manhunter closed his eyes and turned his mind inward, desperate to regain focus. He forced himself to stand and cast aside the inferno that was his cloak. When he reopened his eyes, they saw only his tormentor and he took one very deliberate step in Volcana’s direction, hands clenched into thick fists. “Very well, I have made my mistake,” he growled through the pain and roar of the flames. “Let me...rectify...the mistake...and apologize...” He swung with a powerful blow that forced her back, blowing out the flaming field that absorbed most of the damage much to her shock.

“Yeah, apology accepted, Green-genes,” Dreadbolt said as he unleashed bolts of electricity at the alien’s back, tearing into those places eaten up by the flames. Again, J’onn was staggered and forced to his knees. “Get on over here, Claire, nearly time for us to bail!”

She gave an airy leap, flickering flames propelling her with ease to his side. “Time to roast this guy?” she asked him, a kiss on Dreadbolt’s cheek as her hands erupted into fire again and she prepared to attack J’onn once more. “I know I can make an ash of this guy, I got his green number now!”

J’onn stood once more and turned toward the two criminals, his eyes started to glow angrily, and beams of light shot forth, though Dreadbolt’s electrical field absorbed the blow at first.

“No! We don’t kill because we can, especially not these guys,” Dreadbolt replied as he gritted his teeth and increased the power of his defensive screen. “Just pisses you guys off, doesn’t it? Doesn’t make us any money, doesn’t let us stay in business. That’s what Spider’s taught me. Kill when we need to, not when we can.”

“It won’t matter, young ones,” J’onn answered with equal parts pain and determination. He closed with the criminal lovers and plunged his hands through the electrical field to grab Dreadbolt’s collar. “I’m taking you both in, whether you’ve shown restraint or not.”

“The other reason we’re not killing Spock here, is because he needs to get the message,” Dreadbolt said with a cocky grin as he wrapped his arms around the Martian Manhunter’s forearms. “Injustice Unlimited, we’re not the guys responsible for all this. We’ve been set up, don’t you get it? We got set up too, and now you’re all running around like chickens with your heads cut off catching up to us, and mean time, who’s minding the store? Whose babysitting the kids while the parents are out playing, huh, big guy?”

J’onn gave him a quizzical look and then Dreadbolt unleashed a blast of energy into where he hoped the shapeshifter’s nerves might be. It worked, for J’onn released the villain. “Now, babe, go all plasma!”

Volcana’s form shimmered, turned hazy and super-heated and then Dreadbolt exploded into a shower of sparks as he teleported himself and his lover away from the room. J’onn staggered back due to the wave of heat from the sudden disappearance as he absorbed what he’d been told and the state of the ruined room he stood in.

Then with a Martian curse, the Manhunter tore off into the skies.

The Sanbourne Institute
“Hey, Penny dear, let’s see if what I.Q. taught us will work,” Atomic Skull said with a mischievous tone in his voice. “See if that’ll help us teach Ghost Boy a lesson.”

Penny Dreadful merely chuckled and held her arms out as he struck her with waves of bio-electrical energy. Kid Eternity and Dawn Make Strong Move watched as she then began to rebound the energy from her, electricity flooding the air, filling the room. Crackling and sparking appeared throughout the office area, hair standing on end, computers crashing, metallic objects giving off sparks, glowing and heating.

“Okay, that’s enough of that,” Dawn said as she swung her arm downward, hard and fast. She summoned up her weapon and her costume with the motion, then turned her attention on Penny. A spinning leap brought Manitou Dawn to the red-tressed villain and the back of the tomahawk cracked against her forehead.

“Now then, Eternity Kid, let’s see if this works,” Atomic Skull said in a mocking voice, the grinning skull turning to Kit. Skull lashed out with a powerful punch that struck the crackling ghostly form and sent Kit crashing through a bookcase and to the floor on the other side, his sunglasses broken. “Heh, he was right. Just had ta...how’d he put it? Ionize the air. Somethin’ like that.” He unleashed a blast of energy which tore up the floor as Kit barely rolled out of the way in time. “I don’t wanna kill you, Kid. I don’t want to hurt any of you guys. I’m not the bad guy here, don’t you get that? It’s all Doc Electron’s fault.”

“That was a movie, Skull, a movie,” Dawn said as she turned toward the bruiser. “What part of that aren’t you getting?”

“What you don’t get is, I thought he was nuts too, but my pumpkin, he’s right, he’s really out there,” Penny said as she drew the electricity back out of the air and blasted it at Dawn. The heroine barely avoided the worst of it, but the blast struck her leg and she felt it go numb as she crashed into a table.

“He turned me into this, and made me do bad things in order to keep my honey bunny from getting messed up next,” Skull explained as he picked up the bookcase and hurled it at Kit, sending it crashing onto the ghostly hero.

Kid Eternity dragged himself up out through the furniture and shook his head, unprepared for the physical brutality of the fight. “Gotta get out of here, get my powers back up,” he said to Dawn. “Call in reinforcements.”

“Can’t let that happen, pretty boy,” Penny said as she drew on Skull’s power again. Kit crashed into the wall, an electrical field coruscating across the surface and repelling him back into the room with a tired grunt.

“He’s not that pretty,” Skull snapped as he grabbed Kit by the back of the neck now and hefted him off the floor.

“Wait! Wait, what do you mean, you’ve found him? How could you find him?” Dawn asked in a desperate bid to distract Skull and Penny from Kit.

“Toyman, he found evidence, and the controllers for I.U., they found links that brought us here, that this Electron guy isn’t fiction. I always thought I was just a freak, but Skull...he insists I’m his true love and that the Doc did this to us, to screw us up,” Penny explained as she closed with Dawn, electricity crackling across her fingers. “Mind you, I like my powers, and I like the money it gets me, but you know what? I like having a guy who loves me even more. And if he says there’s a guy who messed us up, and he wants him...I’m gonna help him find Electron and fry him.”

Dawn stared at Penny and shivered at the intense emotions in the young woman. “I see. Kit, there’s nothing electrical in the floor,” she called to him. She pivoted and threw the tomahawk into Skull’s wrist.

The villain cried out in pain as sizzling, tainted blood fell from the wound. Kid Eternity slipped from Skull’s grip and took the hint. He dove through the floor and away from the fight. His heart fell when he heard the shriek of pain from Dawn, but he knew he had to find something to help him even the fight, and so he pushed himself into the warded basement of the institute.

“Sorry, sister,” Penny said as she kicked Dawn over onto her back. The two villains stood on either side of Manitou Dawn, who struggled to catch her breath, her eyes unfocused and her limbs numb from the electricity that coursed through her. “Pumpkin here, he really didn’t want this to go down bad, but we can’t give it up now. Not if there’s even a ghost of a chance we can finally make him all whole again.”

“Ghost of a chance? Good one, honey bunny.” Atomic Skull chuckled.

“Hee hee,” Penny giggled as she blasted Dawn again. “It’s the fighting, always brings out the best in me.”

The Batwing, hurtling across the U.S.
“Well, that confirms the idea of a coup,” the Question said as his blank face stared out of the viewer of the jet’s dash. “At least a split at the top. That’s something we can use.”

“It’s more than that,” Batman said as he stared out into the blue skies ahead. “Galactic Golem and a storehouse of powerful weapons have been stolen. Whatever Angle Man is planning, he’s gathering big, big, mobile weapons.”

“Superhumans of Mass Destruction, you could say,” Question said as he looked over his piles of information and maps. “You don’t suppose Chemo would be next, do you? That seems to fit the bill?”

“I’m going to meet Superman at the Golem’s vault, and see if I can uncover any clues we can use,” Batman said as he suppressed a shudder at Question’s suggestion. “Can you check out Chemo’s containment?”

“On my way,” Question said as he closed out the communication with Batman and established a new signal now. “Atom, this is Question. I’m in need of the scientist of the group over at Chemo’s containment facility, can you meet me there?”

“I’ll phone myself up there in the blink of an eye,” Atom’s voice responded as the Question closed down his headquarters and raced out of the building.

Ray Palmer clicked off his communicator and turned to the police lieutenant coordinating the crime scene. He watched as the strange pterodactyl man was led into the vault-like police van, and caught sight of Hawkman soaring away to meet up with Kendra. The psychic flash from J’onn had them both alarmed, and now Katar streaked away from Airstryke’s capture with all due haste. “You wouldn’t happen to have a cell phone? I need to make a call.”

“Um, yeah. Sure thing,” the officer replied, as he handed over the phone.

“Thanks, much appreciated,” Atom said and dialed up a number. He waited with the phone to his ear until the other end picked up and then handed it back to the cop. “Count to five, and then you can hang up, if you don’t mind.” The Atom leaped into the air and shrunk until he slipped into the mouthpiece and vanished from view.

“Hello? Hello, who’s there?” The soldier on the other end of the line looked frustrated at the handset and prepared to hang up when the Atom fell out of the receiver and bounded off the desk.

“Sorry about that, sir, but I had to get here quick,” Atom said as he looked up with a grin and a wave. “My partner the Question should be showing up soon, I hope. We have reason to believe that someone may be here to liberate and activate Chemo.”

The guard hung up the phone and pointed to the bank of monitors to his left. “Don’t think you have anything to worry about, Atom. We got the whole compound loaded up with security cameras, there’s not an inch of this place, especially around the subject, that we can’t keep a close watch on. No one’s getting close to it without being seen.”

Just then, one of the screens flickered and went black, followed soon by another, and then a third. “That’s strange,” the guard said as he looked over the controls. “What are the odds three cameras would just go on the fritz like that?”

“Pretty crazy,” Atom said as he jumped over and took note of what area the cameras were focused on. “Still think I’m off the mark?”

“Maybe not. Guess it’s good luck you were here then.”

“Bad luck. Good luck,” Atom muttered as he slapped his forehead. “Damn, that’s gotta be him. You put this place on alert, and I’m on my way. If someone with no face shows up, let him in immediately, got it?”

At the very secure chamber containing the twenty-five foot tall humanoid container that once housed the noxious stew that was Chemo, Doctor 7 had just guessed the pass code to enter. Once inside, he paced around and looked at the bizarre object. He whistled as his gaze took in all of the various pipes, tubes, dials and tanks that surrounded the transparent effigy. “This shouldn’t be very hard at all,” he muttered to himself as he paused before a computer console.

“Well, let’s up the challenge then,” Atom said as he sprang into action. He leaped up and drove into the side of the magician’s jaw, tearing a small cut and cracking into the bone and causing Dr. 7 to spin away and grunt in pain.

“Pesky little man,” he sneered. “Didn’t I already make you and your stretchable partner look foolish enough?”

“Guess I’m just a sucker for punishment. What’s your excuse?” Atom asked as he shot up in size and jammed his enlarging fists into the wizard’s sternum, driving him back again. “Not sounding so cocky now, are you, 7?”

Dr. 7 clutched his chest and gasped for breath. He staggered away and tried to make his way to the exit. “We’ll make do without Chemo then,” he grumbled, but before he could get far, he bounced off of the Question.

“Going somewhere?” the detective asked as he cracked his knuckles and closed up with the well-dressed villain.

“Just my luck,” Dr. 7 said, but he smiled instead and held his ground. As the Question threw a punch, the sorcerer muttered what sounded like a nonsense word. Then the world exploded into painful stars, and he stumbled into the Atom behind him.

The Atom felt the magician crash into him, and this would have been no big deal if it weren’t for the wrench on the ground that knocked him off-balance and sent him falling into the computer console. “Yes indeed, just my luck, thank you, dear Question.”

“Damn!” the Question snapped as he reached out and grabbed Dr. 7 by the collar and threw several more vicious blows. “Try using me now, bastard!” he snarled in fury as blood spilled out of a broken nose, but it didn’t really matter. The cocky smile remained and the Question knew why.

Atom watched as the controls locked on and the chemicals spilled out of the tanks and back into the container. He shrunk down and leaped into the computer, racing against time to gain control of the automated systems, but each short bypassed only led to others, until the might mite leaped back out of the console and banged his fists in frustration on the metal surface. “Time to get out of here,” he admitted in defeat as he clicked on his communicator to report the bad news. The gurgling sound alerted them to the awakening of the strange pile of accumulated chemical toxins, and they retreated with an unconscious Dr. 7.

The Hall of Justice
“The Starfall Protocol has been initiated, Angle Man,” Prometheus said as he appeared on the main viewer in the Hall’s monitor room. “Finish up on your end and get out of there.”

“Nearly done, just have to get my cats to stop playing with their mice.” Angelo Bend chuckled as he clicked off communication and turned to see Merlyn and Cheetah enter, each carrying one of the unconscious alien twins. “They gave you two a showing, I see,” he mused as he looked at the ragged appearance of the two killers.

“Whatever. They’re down,” Merlyn snapped. “We done here yet?”

“I’ve a few last minute adjustments. While I’m working on them, I’m relying on you two to keep the residents from interfering.” He turned back and flicked on the scanner. “The Winged Wonders are on their way here. Or are they the Feathered Furies these days?”

“Does it matter? Just means I’ve got some decent prey to bring down,” Cheetah purred as she licked at her claws.

“I hope so. These two won’t be pushovers like the children here,” Angle Man said as he jerked his head in the direction of Zan and Jayna. “I hope you can handle the Hawks. At least for the precious minutes I’ll need. Five...ten to be on the safe side.”

“You can’t talk to us like that, Bend,” Merlyn declared as he stepped up close to the man in green and yellow. “We’re not the loser, the joke of our little community. We’re the feared killers. You’re the guy who couldn’t keep out of the Suicide Squad. Just because you got yourself some freak buddy with good tech doesn’t mean you’re better than us.”

“No,” Angle Man replied in a cold voice, and glared at Merlyn. Suddenly, the point of his angler was pressed up under Merlyn’s jaw. “The fact that I could tear your throat out from another city is what makes me better. The fact that I have all the angles worked out to make the League sorry for treating me just the way you described is what makes me better than you. The fact that I helped you make a ton of cash and now I’m giving you your enemies on a platter to kill at will makes me better than you. The fact that I’m supposed to be dead, and instead, I’m directing the greatest attack on the League that’s ever been seen makes...me...” He shoved the point up and drew blood as he pressed against Merlyn, and an ugly, murderous rage crossed his normally placid, handsome face. “...better! When this day is done, no one’s making a joke out of Angle Man ever again! And if you want to be on the cheering end, then get out there and pluck those birds’ feathers before you find yourself on the bottom of the sea fighting Aquaman without an oxygen tank, if you get my drift!”

Merlyn stared down, refusing to be cowed, but he stepped back and unslung his bow. “Yeah, fine. You do your thing. Ten minutes, we can handle the Hawks for ten minutes, right, Cheetah?”

Cheetah was snickering and turned to dash out of the room. “Come on then, let’s get bloody.”

Hawkman and Hawkgirl swooped in from high above, diving toward the Hall of Justice, eyes focused, matching looks of determination on their faces. They had failed to receive any answers to their radio signals, and the brief telepathic alert from J’onn J’onzz following his failed assault on the Injustice, Unlimited base, had left them in no doubt that something had happened.

Kendra had the lead, streaking in as fast as she could, her skin cold with fear as she thought of a million terrible things that might have happened to her charges. So it was that Hawkman saw the danger to his partner first, and peeled off to the side to sweep away the arrow that hurtled out at her from under cover to one side.

“Ambush, Hawkgirl!” he snapped as he dove toward the source of the attack. Merlyn grinned as he watched the hero close with him.

“That’s it, c’mon, bird-man, c’mon,” he growled in anticipation. At the last minute, he tugged on a small handle at his quiver, the bottom portion lighting up into a rocket, and he streaked up into the sky above Hawkman. “How about we switch places, Hawk? Let’s try that on for size!” He fired a pair of arrows that sliced into the place where Katar’s wings joined with the armor.

Katar stumbled from the surprise maneuver, and the way the arrows threw off his flight pattern. His armor prevented the shafts from piercing his back just barely, but Katar still crashed into the ground, stunned.

“Think you’re so smart, do you?” Kendra yelled as she twisted around to close with Merlyn, but that’s when Cheetah leaped from the roof of the hall and crashed into Hawkgirl’s back, bearing her to the ground.

“Speaking of not so smart, chickadee,” Cheetah snarled in Kendra’s ear as the two women crashed into the ground. Hawkgirl kept enough presence of mind to bounce with the crash and roll around, forcing both of them to bear the brunt, and forcing the wind from both of them.

“Space armor or no, I’m gonna stick you like a pincushion,” Merlyn snapped as he shifted his shoulders in order to direct his flight, and then released another arrow, followed quickly by a second one. Katar felt the first shaft slide into his leg and force a screech of pain, but he pushed up into the air and avoided the second.

“It’ll take a little more than pinning some fake feathers to keep me down, archer,” Hawkman explained as he flew at Merlyn. He had no time to waste retrieving his mace. He brought his fist down hard on the archer’s jaw, and then brought his knee up into the ribcage, all the while, forcing them both down to the ground, Merlyn beneath him. “What did you hope to accomplish storming the hall?” He brought his forehead down into the bridge of Merlyn’s nose now, and momentarily blinded him with pain, but the archer refused to back down so easily. He reached over his shoulder, grabbed an arrow and jabbed the shaft with an overhead thrust, a jolt of electricity coursing over Hawkman.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Merlyn shot back as he struggled to clear his vision.

Cheetah had rolled herself up into a crouch, and as soon as she caught her breath, pounced on Hawkgirl. Claws slashed at Kendra, opening up bloody wounds on her bared midriff, but she merely grunted brought both of her taped fists into Cheetah’s sides, the knuckledusters wrapped into them driving into her short ribs. “What did you do to the kids, you mangy cat?” Kendra dropped onto her back, and pressed her legs up into Cheetah’s stomach, sending her hurtling over the heroine.

Cheetah proved quite cat-like indeed as she twisted around in mid-air to land on her feet, but one arm hugged the wounded ribs. “Well, the one girl ran off, but the aliens, they were tasty,” Cheetah snarled as she paced a circle around Hawkgirl.

From inside the Hall, Angle Man watched the battle intently, the unconscious twins behind him against the wall. He winced at many of the blows and shook his head. “Better than you, indeed. That’s why I’m in here, and not getting my ass beaten out there.” He turned back toward the Hall’s transmitters and hurriedly continued to work on them. “There we go. Now to switch on, and...” He stepped back and watched the signal beam out to the satellite, and nodded with a self-satisfied look. He took another glance toward the monitors and shrugged. “I guess it would be polite of me to warn my erstwhile colleagues I’m done, right?” he asked out loud, though to no one in particular as he began to weave his Angler. “Ah, but if they’re erstwhile, then there’s no need. Right. Okay, that makes sense,” he added with a laugh as he folded the space between the monitors and somewhere else.

Outside, the fight raged, with Hawkman shaking off the taser blast he’d sustained from Merlyn, who dropped from the stunned hero and used the last of his rocket pack to alight on the courtyard below. Cheetah had closed again with Hawkgirl, the two women a storm of kicks and punches, elbows and knees, blood dripping from torn lips and battered eyes as Cheetah attempted to clamp her teeth on Kendra’s collarbone.

“Damn it!” Merlyn shouted as he felt a buzzer go off on his forearm. “He left us, that little coward, he bolted, we gotta get out of here!” He turned to warn Cheetah, but instead ran into a stiff arm from Hawkman nearly taking his head off. “Idiot...get...get us out of here...quick...Angle Man’s run off, he’s finished here, we’re all finished here...” He coughed and choked as Hawkman grabbed him by the shoulders. When Merlyn pointed up into the sky, Hawkman spared a glance. There was too much actual fear in the assassin’s voice for it to be faked. He narrowed his eyes and tried to see what he could.

“Seven Heavens!”

Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota
“I understand that Chemo got activated,” Batman grumbled from the dark areas of the Air Force base. Superman faced him and nodded grimly. “Not good.”

“You can say that again,” Diana added as she walked up to the two heroes. “J’onn informed me that Injustice, Unlimited has been set up by one of its own, to keep us all distracted.”

“That fits in with what Black Spider told me,” Batman added. “And I think we can all agree that this sort of destruction is not what their organization is about.”

“Angle Man,” Superman muttered as he clenched his fists. “This is too big for him, isn’t it, Diana? Seriously, when did he get like this?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know how he’s alive. Steve told me he’d died while in government custody,” Wonder Woman answered with a shrug of her shoulders.

“The Suicide Squad,” Batman added as he hid under his cloak. How did Bruce always feel like he belonged talking to these two? They’re huge, Dick mused silently as he looked them both over, and used his cloak to hide how small he felt in comparison. It was foolish, he was Batman, and he needed to be here. “If I had time, I’d try to dig up the truth behind that death, but we just don’t right now.”

“Chemo is bad news, we’re going to need heavy hitters to go after him,” Superman said. “What concerns me is the missing weapons cache, and the Golem’s body. It’s useless unless someone can generate enough of a solar infusion to activate it, and I can’t imagine how they’d do that without our discovering it in time.”

“J’onn said he was warned about the kids,” Batman mused as he stroked his jaw thoughtfully. “Spider said we needed to be away from the Hall. The Golem needs a big nuclear reaction to kick-start it.” Dick’s eyes grew wide, allowing surprise to cross his face, which unnerved Superman and Wonder Woman. It was an expression they’d not seen much from the Batman before. “Look up. Superman, look up, right now, find the satellite!”

Superman furrowed his brow, but turned his gaze skyward, telescopic vision reaching up into the heavens, and the confused look turned into one of shock and horror. “Great Scott! Wonder Woman, get me help!” With that, he was gone in a blur of red and blue, scalloped cloak and raven hair pulled up in the rush of wind.

Wonder Woman wasted no time. “I’m activating all reserves, as of now! Green Lantern, Firestorm, report to Superman’s location above the Hall of Justice, immediately! All other members to the Hall for evacuation procedures. Alpha Emergency! Alpha Emergency!”

Superman screamed through the air, reaching the edge of space where he intercepted the Justice League satellite just beginning to break into the atmosphere. His face was a stony mask as he opened his arms wide and collided with the mass of steel. It pressed against him, as he struggled to slow its descent. He pressed all of his might into it, and felt its speed slowing, but he also began to feel fatigue, began to feel the heat and the pain involved in the attempt to stop the massive structure.

“What’s wrong, Big Blue?” Green Lantern Hal Jordan said with that cocky grin of his. Green energy lashed out to form a net for him to grab onto, and he exerted his will. He hovered in the wake of the satellite, and gripped his ring-bearing arm and pulled back with all his might. “You’re looking a bit peaked. Everything okay?”

“No,” Superman admitted as the plummet into the atmosphere started to have its effect. The metal heated, external circuitry and stabilizing engines exploding into fire, pieces peeling away slowly. “Tiring...don’t know why...something’s wrong!”

“Well, let me see if I can’t lighten the load for you guys,” Firestorm said as he soared up next to Superman. “Let’s see...um, something lighter than the metals in use,” he muttered and projected yellow energy that started to slide over the surface of the satellite. “Could take a while, this isn’t easy. Whoever decided to make self-sealing space structures needs a kick in the pants.”

“I’m trying to steer the satellite away to the ocean, but it’s not working, Superman,” Hal grumbled as he started to sweat and push and pull on the falling object. “Flames are turning yellow...that’s...not fair!”

Superman turned his vision onto the surface of the satellite as he struggled with it. “The radiation absorption screens...they’ve been turned into emitters.”

“Emitting red sun radiation, right?” Hal grumbled some more. “You can’t do any more good here, Supes, get out, you’ll just get yourself hurt!”

“Let me see what I can do to help,” the Martian Manhunter said now as he flew up next to Superman and pressed his massive green back into the plummeting satellite.

“Not giving up, Hal!” Superman said as he renewed his efforts, despite the flagging strength, the heat burning into his weakening invulnerability. “Why can’t we turn this? What’s wrong?”

“The Dharlu!” J’onn said suddenly. “A telepathic flash, it’s fighting us!”

“Explains the emitters and the yellow flames, and the way the hull seems to be fighting my transmutation,” Firestorm said. “I’m trying something different now. Gonna dissipate the pieces that come off, and I’ll try to turn the internal oxygen into something inert. I can at least limit the explosion, right?”

“Slow this down...all we can do...slow it down!” Superman screamed in pain as his hands turned red from burns.

Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter nodded silently, Hal’s head aching, his wrist felt like it was going to rip off of his body; J’onn’s wounds reopened, the fire tearing at his flesh and weakening him. But the four heroes refused to surrender as the terrible meteor raced to the ground.

On the ground, the Justice League raced against time. Flash, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Wonder Woman, Batman, the Question and Atom, all did everything they could to clear people away from Hob’s Bay before the crash, evacuating as wide an area as they could.

GET CLEAR! J’onn J’onzz telepathically screamed as the fireball appeared in the sky and the League could now only get as far as they could, with the refugees they’d pulled from ground zero, and watched as their satellite, the pride of the heroic community, the melding of multiple cultures’ technology, the pinnacle of humanity’s entrance into space, tore into the Hall of Justice. The ground shook, the sky lit up in a blazing ball of fire and fury, and not a breath was taken as they watched the devastation take place.

In the center of the radiant burst, a dark, humanoid figure took shape, sitting up, growing in size, rising to stand as the Galactic Golem lived again.

To be continued!


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