AN: oh god I'm doing this again... I'm writing things...
god help you all
Chapter 1:
23rd March 7:33pm- The Watchtower
No.
"NO!"
Someone had echoed his thoughts aloud, Conner presumably. He stood, silently waiting for the denial to kick in.
"There has to be something we can do!" The stubborn Kryptonian persisted.
There it is.
"After all we've done? After all Bart has done to make sure the Reach doesn't bring on the apocalypse, I don't bring on the apocalypse, dios mios," the tall Hispanic to his left was cursing, "Can't we do something?"
And apparently he was in denial too.
There were sobs from M'gann as Gar hugged her tight, his emerald eyes never leaving the screen. There were recordings from Gotham, London, Taipei, Paris and various other major towns across the globe. A continuous loop of tragic deaths, people's faces twisted in pain plastered on their dead bodies, silent screams of despair from the living.
"Turn. It. Off." Mal spoke up breaking the trance, he had taken off his golden Guardian helmet and held it under his arm, his dark brown eyes unblinking, under his other arm Karen was frozen but tears streamed down her cheeks, her hood had been pulled back to reveal her blotchy tear-stained face, her eyes remained fixed on the screen, like a car crash, no-one could look away.
"R-right," Barbara composed herself, but her terrified expression was still glued to her ghostly pale face. She reached out and tapped a little blue key on the computer. She was doing her best to hide it, but it was evident she was worried about Nightwing.
The images went black then the whole screen disappeared. Everything was silent for a bit. Deathly silent. No-one dared say anything. No-one could say anything. They were stood, uninfected, on the only safe place on the Earth.
Not really on the Earth but as close as they were going to get.
The Watchtower was high in the Earth's atmosphere; from here you couldn't see what was really going on. The end of the world.
"Are we just going to stand here?!" Wow, Kryptonians really don't ever let up.
"What are we going to do Conner?!" Robin hissed, "This isn't something you can force to leave!"
Conner looked set to separate the boy wonder's head from his shoulders. But M'gann got there first and stood between them, muttering a 'this isn't the time' speech. There was a quiet sniff from behind him.
Artemis.
No... Tigress.
"Hey, it's okay," he lied, slipping and arm around her shoulders.
It really wasn't.
This whole pandemonium had started about a week ago. People were just dropping dead. Perfectly healthy people: dying with no link; no explanation as to why; nothing strange about their bodies when autopsies were performed. The press loved it; this 'Phantom Virus'…
Cat Grant and her cronies couldn't get enough.
But then things got even worst when Green Arrow was hit with the disease, though due to the above average amount physical discipline the man puts his body through meant that he has now landed himself in a sterile hospital bed; in a medically induced coma: being tended to by an old British man whom Batman and Robin called Agent A. This prompted immediate league response and the team was zeta'd to the Watchtower. Blood tests and analysis followed until the Bat came to a conclusion.
The disease was an airborne virus that makes its way into a person's body and settles there for 3-4 days then attacks the heart. Killing the victim faster than a heart attack. The source? Unknown. The antidote? Also unknown. Meaning Batman was now, brooding somewhere in one of the Watchtower labs, his first son probably dead and his friend soon to join him. No-one had heard anything from Nightwing; therefore feared the worst.
Though one thing Bats had found was that the virus didn't seem to affect meta-humans, or the people the Reach had activated the gene inside of. Resulting in the fact the league was on Earth helping in hospitals and trying to get people to safe places. Though any powerless league members had been kept on the Watchtower - along with Superman, Martian Manhunter and any other leaguers that had previously come to Earth from a foreign planet.
Zatanna had been kept on the Watchtower due to her powers being magic based; Black Canary was in the infirmary by GA's side and every so often the zeta tubes would fire up, blurt out a name and a leaguer would appear only to be sent somewhere else back on Earth by Superman.
Another thing.
The virus wasn't affecting any children either.
"It's not okay and you know it," Artemis hiccupped, "Why did this have to happen Bart? This is so shit, Wally died saving this goddamn planet now this is it?" She gritted her teeth playing with the ring on the chain around her neck; her engagement ring. She had found it a couple months back when she was going through Wally's things, she had told them about it and hadn't taken it from around her neck ever since.
"It's not the end, Arty," Bart whispered, watching as she twiddled the thing around in her hand, "there is always hope! Wally wouldn't have wanted us to give up!"
She smiled down at him, and then walked off to where Zatanna was stood. Seconds later the two were holding each other close; each sobbing into the other's shoulder.
"How can you be so optimistic, ese?" Jaime was stood right next to him watching as M'gann joined the whimpering with Zatanna and Artemis, Bart looked up at him – he had his blue armour on but it stopped just under his chin, putting his streaked face on show.
"Well there are things that need to happen, in the future-" He stopped, Jaime was frowning at him, "What?"
"Well aren't you from a different future? You've changed everything, so won't the future be different now?"
Bart's eyebrows furrowed together, as he thought, there were still people that needed to walk into their lives: Damian Wayne, Red Hood, his Aunt and Dad, Milagro had to become Green Lantern, had the team even met Stephanie Brown yet? Would they not exist now?
"Anyway, it doesn't matter, there doesn't seem to be much of a planet left to save," Jaime sighed, as they stared out of the transparent glass at the earth.