A series of Justice Lords drabbles and ficlets, connected together, all set in the same timeline (which is roughly a year after the Justice Lords kill President Luthor.) This fic details the rebellion against the Justice Lords and its ultimate downfall, before the arrival of the Justice League as seen in the episode "A Better World". Contains spoilers for that episode. This fic is actually mostly small ficlets put together in a coherent form.
Contains references to frankly dozens of Justice League (or rather, Justice Lords,) characters, including the Big Seven. Title is taken from a quote from the anime series, RahXephon: "Any God that man can perceive isn't really a God."
"What are you supposed to do when you have the weight of the world on your shoulders?"
"Plant your feet."
Rex Steward, John Steward, Justice League Unlimited: The Once and Future Thing, Pt 2.
"This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we're given.
Use them and let's start trying.
To make it a place worth living in."
Disturbed, Land of Confusion.
West.
People (whoever they are, anyway. He's always wondered where that stuff really comes from and whether these "people" actually have names) say that you never hear the bullet that kills you.
Maybe it's true, but the Flash isn't worried. After all it's usual for him to not hear anything when he's travelling at super speed, and bullets can't keep up with him anyway. Usually.
But this one can.
It's also common for him to get dizzy from blood loss before he's even realised he's bleeding, but that doesn't happen this time. He's not dizzy. He's bleeding, but he's not dizzy at all. He's just not quite able to stand up. Something hit him and…
'…Flash? Flash!'
Okay. So looks like someone else will have to pull that really cute secretary out of the blaze in the Lexcorp Main Office building. Maybe Wonder Woman, since she's coming this way, or Hawkgirl since she's here now too, and…
And what the heck are they doing here, anyway?
And which of them is it that's yelling so loud?
'Diana, what the hell is going on?'
'I don't know, I… Flash? For Hera's sakes, Flash, look at me!'
He always knew someone would be there when he died. Or he'd always hoped someone would be, anyway. Because living a life like his and then ending it all by dying alone? Would totally suck.
A weird part his brain kind of expected it to be John –who would be there when he died, that is, but it's not. It's Wonder Woman, and she's holding his hand.
Seriously. Of all people. Wonder Woman is holding his hand and he's pretty sure he's lost too much blood here and also pretty sure he's an AB-negative and…
And it really would suck to die alone.
'Diana?'
'It-it's alright. I'm here, I… Hera, Flash, Don't—'
He can think of worse ways than this. There are better ways too, of course, but hey, Princess of the Amazons. A goddess in the Flesh. Literally. That's kind of cool, right?
'No. He's going to… he'll pay for this, I swear it, he's going to…'
That was Hawkgirl talking. Wally would shrug at her anger, if he could, but he really, really can't, so… No. 'Won't change what happened.'
'I don't care.'
Wow.
She really doesn't, does she?
Wally understands what's happening to him. What's happening because he chose to be this and do this and because he chose to be here right now, at the exact wrong moment in a life that's been way, way longer than anyone can ever imagine. His own self-reflection is creeping him out, and…
He wants to tell her his name. His real name, the way they do in old movies, but he can't talk anymore, and anyway she'll probably find out from someone else. Time goes slowly for the Fastest Man Alive. It feels like Diana's been here forever, gripping his hand and talking to her Goddess. Maybe she has.
And that's okay.
Wally can deal with that.
Steward.
It's like a freaking riot out here, and John's not sure where it started.
The Kids are out on the streets in their dozens. From high school, to middle, and even a few who look like they might be elementary age. Central City never had this many punks and lowlifes before, and if there's any organization behind it all, John doesn't have the faintest idea what it is. It's nothing more than child upon child, doing whatever damage they can to whatever happens to be in their path and be damned if John knows why half of them are doing it or where they're coming from.
Scratch that. He knows why, and it's only partly to do with what the Piper (or whatever that maniac with the flute calls himself) and the rest of the Rogues that're crawling out of the woodwork of every joint in town are up to. The where, as it happens, is everywhere.
The underbelly he never knew this particular city had is staging an uprising. They're angry. And some of them are probably happy, too. Not many, but some. The "bad guys" in particular.
'They've all been stopped by a Flash.'
And now there's no Flash.
Maybe the rest of the world can keep going after that fact, but Central City doesn't have a hope in hell. To the people here the Flash is a symbol, take that away and they'll just give up, like something out of the cinema.
'Unless we give them hope. Unless we help…'
John makes a promise which sits tight in his throat as he's gathering up the broken glass scattered around a scared woman. No other child is going to lose their hero. Not now, not ever. Especially not here.
Lane.
Back when she was in-training, Lois had worked for her college paper. Censorship had been everywhere in those days. There were so many things you supposedly couldn't say to young, impressionable teenagers.
You couldn't scare them with talk of local gun crime, for example. You couldn't inform them about trends that were banned in class. You couldn't report formal protests. You couldn't spend an entire article talking about just one subject matter, but had to pack everything you could into a meagre five-hundred words with as little excess detail as possible.
It'd been a writer's nightmare. Definitely not Pulitzer material. Not to mention that the Editor? Hated her on sight.
Right now, it feels kind of like she's in college again. With her work crossed out and rewritten and edited until she can barely see herself in there anymore.
'It's for the best,' Perry tells her, but Lois knows he doesn't really believe it.
The world has to know what happened to their President. Lois isn't stupid. She knows the truth. She's pretty sure the public knows too but they need it confirming. They need it put to them in black and white, without dashes of red ink crossing out everything she wants to say, trying to tell her what's right, damn it.
But she needs her job and… She still trusts Superman, at first.
So Lois edits her articles. She doesn't want to, but she does. Because she doesn't have any choice. Because the very concept of free-speech seems to have gone right over the heads of their newfound overlords.
Yeah. Lois knows exactly what they are now, too.
She'd rant about it to Clark, if only…
If Clark still existed.
But he doesn't.
'Life's tough, Lane,' she tells herself. 'You know that. You've /i always known that. So either get with the program or get outta the isle.'
Oslen.
There have always been pictures on his walls. He got his first camera for his eighth birthday, and he's been taking photos ever since. He's always been right there for the important shots.
The 2000 Olympic Games. The Intergang invasion of the Metropolis Technology Convention. The picture of that really pretty teenager who turned out to be Supergirl. Superman and the Flash's Charity Race. Superman saving Metropolis from Doomsday, Livewire, Volcana and himself. Superman's funeral. Superman's return from the grave he never went into. Wonder Woman at the conference to accept Thymiscria as a recognized nation. That one, brief glimpse of the Batman caught somewhere at the edge of Blüdhaven. Lois's Michael Kelly award. The Justice League (back when they still called themselves a League) attending a World Peace ceremony in Africa.
The Flash's body broken against asphalt.
He'd gotten a meeting with Perry for that one.
The photos change as you go along his walls, reaching from the past into the present. Superman saving the Whitehouse from Luthor. Superman saving Metropolis from itself. Lois Lane's "resignation" from the Daily Planet. The death of the President of Kasnia. The queues at the Police Stations during the metahuman registration. The lobotomized mindless shapes of Batman's Rogues Gallery all locked up in a nice, clean, sterile Arkham. The cells in the labs for Metagenetic research. The photographs of Captain Atom and Amanda Waller, being taken into Custody. The breaking up of the pro-election's-now campaign. The outside images of Lois's "apartment" security systems.
Jimmy Oslen's walls are still covered in photographs.
He just doesn't like what he's seeing anymore.
El.
There is absolutely nothing the matter with Clark Joseph Kent.
He just doesn't exist, that's all. Not outside of a Smallville barn, or that quaint little kitchen on the farm. But he only comes out on holidays and pretty soon he won't show up there either. The sooner they get used to this, the sooner they can all get on with their new lives.
Sometimes Jimmy bites his own lip and Lois hides that one, single look she never uses for Superman. But still, Kal-El doesn't really miss him.
He just doesn't know what to tell ma and pa, yet.
Bertinelli, Lance, Queen.
There are times when Helena thinks about Superman's eyes burning into Luthor's skull. The pang she feels in her stomach during those times reminds her of things she doesn't want to remember. Like how she used to imagine the death of the man who killed (murdered, butchered) her parents.
She still can't believe the way things turned out. But then, nor had she ever believed in the necessity of a dictatorial state. Or the suspension of elections. Or a compulsory embargo and register of metahumans.
She hadn't wanted to believe that Superman killed the president.
But he did.
She heard he used his Heat Vision.
And now she's stood here, (in her bathrobe, damn it) and she doesn't want to believe that they're here. In her home, asking her back into the death trap.
'How did you get here, Canary?'
'Through the window.'
'Not what I meant.'
Black Canary looks at her. There's something on her face which isn't really a smile, so much as a bad impression of one. She's a metahuman. Unregistered, no doubt. She's… scared, but Helena knows her well enough already to know she won't let terror keep her down. 'I know. I'm just trying to build up to this, seeing as you might not like what we've got to say.'
We've? 'You're not making sense.'
'Then let us enlighten you, Huntress.'
That's when Helena feels a breeze tug her robe and notices the arrow sticking out of her coffee table. He's stood in the darkest corner of the room, skulking there like a freaking bat. 'We're going to take down the Justice Lords.'
As mentioned, reviews and concrit are appreciated.