Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Justice League characters in any form or fashion. They are owned by their rightful creators and Dc Comics. The character Max Colbern and Mendara Crystal are owned by me and will be appearing in a forthcoming sci-fi novel. Enjoy.
As the dust settled from the immense crash of bodies, only one man limped from the crater. Three of his friends, and teammates, stumbled towards the dust cloud lingering in the air. One man, carrying a broken right arm in a glowing green sling, waved his left hand in front of his face to try to clear some of the dust from this sight. His left hand, the white glove torn to pieces, was caked in dried and dirt clotted blood as it dripped from an open gash on his forearm. Cuts covered his body and his famed green, black and white uniform, known throughout the known cosmos as being that of a universal police force. He was just one of four officers from Earth. Next to him stood a tall statuesque raven haired woman; a body hugging uniform consisting of a unique variation to the Stars and Stripes of the American flag that had similar battle ware to her teammate. Her right eye was swollen shut as a gash bled from just above her eye, blood dripping down her almost perfect face. To see her face would make a man cry if they were to see such perfection bruised and bloodied. With an arm draped over her shoulders, their other teammate, her wings drooped down in exhaustion and fatigue, a woman with shoulder length dark brown hair growled towards the crate. In her right hand, an electrified mace hung from an exhausted arm. The mace was light when she carried it into battle and everywhere she went, but now it felt as if she were carrying a one ton weight with her.
"I can see someone," the man called out to his teammates. "This better not be him, I don't know how much more we can take."
"I'll keep fighting until my last dying breath," the winged woman growled, trying to stand by herself. Her left leg screamed out in furious pain as she tried to stand on broken bones. She tried not to show it, but the pain was almost too much for her to bare and she has seen battles that would make any war-hardened Earth soldier cry in fear.
"Let's hope that won't be any time soon, Shayera," a deep male voice said from within the dust cloud covered crate. Immediately, all three seemed to visibly relax at the voice of their fellow team member. "I don't think that monstrosity with ever work again."
Behind the tall man, dressed in his famous blue uniform with his well known red "S" on his chest, were cables and wiring and twisted metal that once was the monster that had torn through their team. The man held onto wiring and cables with his right hand. Those were connected to a mixture of what would be called a bio-organic war machine, now just a pile of scrap. The head, which the tall man pulled along, dwarfed all of them.
"Has anyone ever seen anything like this monster," the man with the "S" asked his team. "Hal, has the Corps ever seen or heard of such technology before?"
Hal Jordan, wiping dust from his eyes, did not know. "Ring, can you analyze this thing," On his right hand, a green ring in the shape of a lantern, the symbol for the Green Lantern Corp, sparked.
"Analyzing…" a voice from the ring said. "Analysis is complete. No know record of any confrontations with The Corp. Design and technology all unknown."
"There you have it Superman," Hal said with a cough. "I have never seen anything like this before. I have seen things that were bio-mechanical, but they all involved synthetics and compound much more sophisticated and easier to trace than this thing."
"And there are no records of any Thanagarian warrior ever encountering something like this either, Superman," Shayera said from Wonder Woman's right. "Though, that thing would be a prize to have in any civilization's command, if you ask me."
Suddenly, breaking the silence that surrounded them in the Mohave Desert, Hal's ring began screaming with an alarm.
"Danger! Danger!" the ring's voice called out to them. "Core fuel center in device is reaching critical. Naked singularity found!"
"A naked singularity," Hal called out in shock. "Ring, what is the distance that this thing with wind out taken out?"
"Size of naked singularity, inside fuel center, will destroy everything within ten spherical miles."
"How much time," Hal called out in terror.
"Singularity has already started to break down. Thirteen seconds till final explosion."
Hearing the horrid news, Superman, the fastest and most powerful man in the world, quickly dashed back to what was the main structure of the beast. Lifting the monstrosity up into the air in both hands, Superman heaved the mass skyward, hoping that the distance would be far enough away from the Earth's surface.
Nine seconds later, the sky above the majority of the Southwest had a second sun, for a whole four seconds.
"Talk about going out with a bang," a man said from Hal's left. He was dressed in a crimson uniform with a yellow lightning bolt on his chest.
"For being the fastest man alive, Flash, what took you so long to get here Wally," Hal asked his long time friend. "And you have to stop with the bad one-liners."
With a smirk on his face, Wally West shrugged his shoulders. "You guys knew it was my day off today. I was off with the family visiting the Grand Canyon when suddenly there was a second sun exploding into the sky."
"That would be the singularity fuel center that exploded from inside the monster we were fighting," Wonder Woman began as she helped Shayera over to Wally. "Superman finally got a hold of it where the thing could not reach and took him up and slammed him back down to Earth, creating that large crater." Wonder Woman point behind Superman as she finished.
"And the only thing that we have left is the thing's head," Superman said as he pulled the mass behind him. "I managed to X-ray the head and found a massive database inside. Maybe we can hack into it and find out who or what created this thing."
Wally stood in awe at the size of the thing's head. It towered over then by and easy twenty feet. He suddenly felt like he was the small fisherman who had found the giant Gulliver lying on the beach.
Then, without any warning, an ear-piercing siren erupted from the disembodied head.
"Systems in danger, ejection of corrupted processor power core in three seconds," a ghostly voice said in English. "Most save core data. Must save core data."
All of them stood in shock. There was no trace of any other power source. Superman did not see any and neither did Hal's ring.
From the side facing the heroes, a hatch roughly ten square feet in size, shot off and landed just beyond Wally. On the hatch was a device that looked similar to a fusion reactor, but shrunk down to the size of a man. There was no time for any of them to react. Before Superman, or even The Flash, could react, the generator was engulfed in a bright white glow. They were about to die, not by the hands of some super villain or by some Evil God or Rogue, they were to die in a simple fusion reactor explosion.
"Am I dead," Wally asked out loud a few seconds after the explosion. All he could see was a bright and searing white light. When he opened his eyes, his mind could not take in what he was seeing. "What the hell?!"
In front of 'The Fastest Man Alive" was what he really could not comprehend.
"This is not possible," he heard Hal's voice to his left. The Flash turned around and saw that all of his teammates were still there. They were all still in the desert. He took a few steps back and took in what his mind was trying to deny.
In front of the heroes, the explosion seemed to just stop inches from where Wally was standing. A low roar, like hearing a tornado from a distance, filled the air.
"It stopped," Wonder Woman said, dumbfounded. None of them could understand what just happened.
"An explosion just doesn't stop," Shayera said, confused.
"Well, this one did," Wally said as he pointed to it with his right thumb. Suddenly, without warning, the explosion, imploded, creating a shockwave that knocked the heroes to the ground.
Coughing and trying to sit up, every one of the heroes were stunned with the recent events.
"Warning, rupture to local space has created a tear." Hal's ring called out in its monotonous voice. Sure enough, in front of the group of heroes was a literal tear hanging in the air. Light seemed to bend, just a little, around the tear. As soon as they took in what they saw, the tear shrank and disappeared. "Local space has been restored. Tear no longer a threat."
"This is going to take a lot of explaining when we get back to the Watchtower," Hal said, shaking his head. "At least we have that thing for evidence," he looked over to the large head, now with a large hole on the side left by the hatch.
"I agree with you on that, Hal," Superman said as they stood back up. Wonder Woman helped Shayera stand. Lifting a finger to his ear, Superman spoke. "Superman to Watchtower, come in Watchtower."
"I read you loud and clear Superman," a low gruff voice said over the ear communicator. "This is Batman. Is everyone okay down there?"
"We're all worse for wear, but all breathing. We need you to get a fix on our location and beam what we have left of the monster into one of the larger storage bays. We need to get started on finding out how to access the thing's data storage."
"An android," Batman questioned over the comm. "From what our computer says, its no design that has ever been recorded. A new creation from Dr. Ivo maybe," he said, not as a questioned, but more as Batman thinking out loud. "I'll call up Steel and Oracle to start working on processing the thing."
"Good," Superman agreed. "Meanwhile, beam everyone to Med Bay 1. Shayera has a broken leg with multiple breaks and Hal has a dislocated right shoulder and multiple fractures up and down his right arm. Wonder Woman and I need several wounds cleaned and dressed as well."
"But why do I need," The Flash began to say as a bluish white light glowed around each team member. His voice cut off by the sudden teleportation of him and his teammates to the Watchtower.
Several minutes later, as the wind picked up dust in the Mohave Desert, a sudden explosion occurred with nothing around to cause one. In the air around where the tear had been, a searing white light tore into the surrounding area. When all was done, and the light gone, where the tear had now completely disappeared, a single man stood.
With a curse under his breath, tears began to flow down his face. The man studied his surroundings. From what little plant life there was, he figured out where he was. He was in the Mohave Desert. And the nearest city was a good fifty miles away. With another curse under his breath, he turned north and to the east and began his long trek.