Salute to the Fallen
AU. The heroes are gone. The Invasion is happening. And in the midst of a world crisis, the last stronghold finds their hope.
Just an idea I had while watching Cornered after watching the Packers forget how to play football. That game (against the 49ers) was just ugly. There's always next year, though…so long as they remember which ones are their players.
Just a note: This takes place in Mount Justice, and because it is AU, the Cave was not, repeat, NOT blown up. That's why it still exists.
| Mount Justice, Rhode Island
| 22 June 2025, 1856 Hours
As he stood in the command center of Mount Justice, Major Dan Schaeffer bowed his head. He was now the head of the last stronghold of resistance in the world.
He looked at the report one final time. It was something they, his superiors (who were all dead now; how did it come to this?) had designed. Each base had been wired with a self-destruct switch. Someone would activate it, putting the base in final countdown. A report would be sent to each of the other bases, to tell them that it had fallen. Then, the base would explode, taking anyone within a half-mile radius with it.
Schaeffer already had a stack of single-sheet papers just like the one in his hand. Every other base had fallen to the alien invasion.
It was absolutely ironic, because Schaeffer still remembered when the world turned on its protectors, the Justice League. Too many secrets, some claimed. Too many lies, from others. And through it all, they stood firm, believing that the people of Earth needed saving from the friendly, helpful aliens.
It was probably true.
"Sir?" Schaeffer turned to see Sergeant James Woyak looking at him. "Something wrong?"
Schaeffer looked at the crinkled paper in his hand. He hadn't realized he'd been crushing it. "When isn't there something wrong anymore?" he muttered, crumpling the page thoroughly and chucking it against the wall. It wasn't very satisfying. "We're the last base in the world, Sergeant. Last one. The email just came through. And I have no doubt that we should've been the first base to go, and now we're the last one."
Woyak bent to retrieve the ball, which had rolled to his feet. His young face hardened into something between grief and a blank mask. "Last humans. Free ones, anyway." Many of those who hadn't gone to a base, those who were too stubborn or too poor to make the decision, were now slaves to the Reach.
"Exactly. And I'm the last one in command, Sergeant. We're sitting ducks, but there's nothing we can do!" In rage, Schaeffer grabbed wildly for anything he could lay hands on. Pens, coffee mugs, even a few folders found their new homes on the floor as Schaeffer threw them every which way.
"There's no hope left, and we're supposed to fight them?" Schaeffer felt like crying. He hadn't cried since he was a small child and had gotten punched in the gut.
Woyak was silent, and Schaeffer glared at him.
"Major? We've found something that you should see." The voice over the intercom was unfamiliar to Schaeffer, and he fumbled on the console before he found the button to reply.
"I'll be right there. Where are you at?" He listened to the directions carefully, then walked away from the command center. The center of bad news.
Even after nearly a year in the mountain, he and his men were still learning new secrets about the League and their hidden team. They had found so many things in the living quarters that started to make them reconsider some of the things they thought about their heroes. They still weren't sure where everything went in the Cave.
"Major?" It was Woyak again, and his voice was hesitant. "What do we do now?"
Schaeffer laughed bitterly. "Well, we've got all of three options, Woyak. Either we surrender and all become slaves, fight when they come for us and all die, or blow ourselves up now and save them the trouble."
Schaeffer followed the twisting maze of hallways to where he had been told to meet one of the exploration teams. His friend and confidant Captain Jonah Mills waited for him.
"Follow me, sir," Mills said, turning and following the stairs. Schaeffer didn't hesitate, trusting his second-in-command not to lead him astray.
The stairs seemed to go on forever, and Schaeffer almost asked where he was being taken before he saw the faint glow of the flashlights. When they drew closer, he realized it wasn't flashlights; the glow was blue, not the tale-tell yellow of military-issue mag lights.
"What is this, Captain?" he asked, following Mills' lead and using formalities, when they were ten steps from the bottom. He could see water, which would account for some of the blue glow, but that was it.
Mills turned and opened his mouth, but closed it and shook his head. "You're gonna have to see for yourself, Dan," he said, dropping titles. Schaeffer followed the other man into a small grotto.
"What the hell is this place, Jonah?" he asked in a whisper. It seemed almost sanctimonious to speak in anything louder.
"We're not sure, but our best guess so far is some sort of shrine."
Shrine was putting it lightly. Holographic representations of familiar masked faces stared at him from around the room. There were at least twenty of them, ones that Schaeffer remembered falling even before the Reach appeared.
To the right of the stairs was the figure of a young woman. She was holding a bow and arrow in her hand, half-drawn. Schaeffer moved closer to read the inscription on the bottom.
"Artemis Crock; Artemis," he read aloud. There didn't seem to be any other way to read it than to the open air. "Died March 19, 2016. Died April 22, 2018." He turned to Mills. "Why does she have two death dates? And two names?"
"We're not sure on the death thing. But the names we think we know." Mills led him to the right, past the stairs, to another image. This one was a teenage boy, not much older than 14 or 15. On the inscription, it read: Jason Todd; Robin II. Died August 5, 2014. "Jason Todd was the second Robin. Remember? The one kept getting older, then all of a sudden there was a younger one. Stirred up a fuss in Gotham, let me tell you. I had a few friends there. The first one is the civilian identity, and the second is the hero identity."
Schaeffer knew. He went to each and every statue. Ted Kord, Blue Beetle I. Timothy Drake, Red Robin. Nathanial Adams, Captain Atom. Billy Batson, Captain Marvel. Bruce Wayne, Batman. Schaeffer could still see Batman's death; he'd been at the scene when the man, unmasked and defenseless, was pushed off the roof to the cement below. He remembered the deep-rooted terror that held him in place instead of rushing forward to try to save Gotham's protector.
Jaime Reyes, Blue Beetle II. Barbara Gordon, Batgirl. Connor Kent, Superboy. J'onn J'onzz, Martian Manhunter. Names and faces brought memories swimming across Schaeffer's mind, of flying men and swirling capes and harshly barked orders.
He stopped in front of the final image.
"Richard Grayson; Nightwing," he said, reading the inscription. Below, it simply had a question mark.
Schaeffer remembered Nightwing's death. It was the last death of the heroes, and he the last hero. Nightwing had worked to try and ease the taint of his so-called betrayal to the League, after it was finally revealed that he had faked Artemis' death and sent her to Aqualad to spy on the opposition. The League had made a press statement to denounce Nightwing, even though the man had continued to work as a hero. And after everything that happened to him, he kept fighting as the last hero. He'd gone down in a blazing firestorm fighting against incoming ships.
Much like what they were doing now, Schaeffer thought. And he knew exactly what they were going to do.
I hope you liked this. Feedback would be appreciated, especially if you'd maybe like to see more in this setting?