Hey there^^ Next chapter is here.

Hope you will enjoy it.

Small A/N: I will change the POVin the next chapter, because the first person view is really difficult for me, for some reason or other.

Disc: Justice League is not mine. I whish it was. All that is min is my OC`s and a bit of the story.


I sat in the living room, brooding over a script the publishing company had sent to me for reading over, while the television was playing in the background. I worked as an editor or rather lector at a small company which solely worked with medicinal or veterinary texts and books. We were a small team of 7 editors and the pay was more than enough for just me alone. I got money for every book I finished editing and correcting. But the pay was varying, it had to do with the volume of pages and sometimes even the content of the texts. The more pages or difficult content, the more salary I owned. And all I had to fulfill was a quota of 4 texts a week, or 1 to 2 books. I was even able to save up some money in my bank account for emergencies, or for Christmas or big birthdays.

And even then some money was left, I couldn`t spend it all in one month. I really loved it, it allowed me my freedom to work at my own time and I had a staggering amount of free time. Thank the spirits that I was always a fast reader and good at languages. And soon I would have enough money to move out of my mother's house. In the last few years her behavior had changed drastically. The loving and caring woman was slowly mutating into some alcohol loving and rather aggressive hag. I was just thankful that my older sibling had already moved out and that I was the only child under her care.

Amber often asked me to come over and to sleep at her place, but the dorms at her university didn`t allow visitors more than once a week, and so I had to live with the monster my mother slowly became. I will not lie, on most days she was practically normal and took to ignoring me but on some days, when she went to her favorite pub or drank a bottle of alcohol, she tried to lay her hands on me. And I couldn`t always get away fast enough.

Ironically my power to heal wasn`t really working on myself. It was so much easier to heal others, even set bones and repair them, but all I could do on myself was that the bruises were gone faster, or I could close small cuts my mother would leave behind on my skin. Amber theorized once, that I took energy from myself and multiplying it with some effort to heal others, but on me the multiplying didn`t work. I just thought it cruel.

Even more cruel was the text in front of me. A really long and exhausting written essay of the workings in a bird's brain. I had read the same sentence at least 14 times before giving up. My head met the table with a low thunking sound and a moan escaped my lips.

"And I thought you would be working. Seems I was wrong." A soft voice chimed up behind me, causing me to roll my eyes and turn around.

"Amber. I thought you had to study." With long strides she walked up to me and sat down heavily on a chair. Her bag met the floor beside her and promptly keeled over. Her eye skimmed once over the paper in front of me and all the red marker on just the first page. The ghost of a smile sped over her lips before she refocused her attention on me.

"One of my lectures got cancelled. The doctor is ill with a bad case of flu, so we got free sooner than expected. And I thought that I could spend the rest of the day with you!" Her arms wrapped around me shoulders, squeezing me for a few seconds before letting go again. I tried my best not to wince as she had touched one of the bigger cuts on my shoulder, hidden under my heavy sweater.

"You are hurt." This time I winced loudly, that wasn`t a question.

"It is nothing. It will be gone in a few days. Don`t worry." I smiled at her, softly interlacing my left hand with her right. She didn't look as if she believed me. I was always a bad liar.

"We have to get you out of here. I have next week off from university. I will help you looking for an apartment. This can`t go on anymore. I am scared that I will come by one day and find you at the end of the stairs, or beaten to a pulp."

"Thank you, Amber. I just want to get away. Next week is a good idea. My mother will have to go on an inspection next week, so we a free to do as we please." Ambers head leant against me and I cuddled a bit closer, soaking up her warmth. I wanted to change the subject, but the still running television captured out attention.

It showed some kind of meeting, political VIP`s talking about weapons. But what really got our attention was when the doors opened and a big, muscular man in blue and red. He strode down the stairs to take over the microphone. His words were spoken in a velvety voice, speaking about protecting the world, not just Metropolis. And that the world should destroy the weapons of mass destruction, because with a hero like himself and the others, which were already known all around, there wasn`t any reason to keep this weapons.

After his speech I turned to Amber again, her eyes were glazed over as she still looked in the direction of the television.

"Well, I don`t know what to think about it. I mean, it is nice of him to protect the world, even with other heroes. But isn`t that kind of a mammoth project? Can maybe 20 heroes protect all cities all over earth?" I murmured lowly, more to myself than to my friend and Amber hummed in agreement.

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6 months later

"Was it really necessary to buy all those things? I mean, yes, I may have needed some new clothes and yes, even some things for when I will finally leave home, but-" my best friend cut me off with a hefty wave of her hand.

"Don`t you dare! I promised to help you and by God, I will! The apartment market may be bad right now, but sometime in the future you will get a new place to live and till then we will place most of those things at my home, lest your mother finds it." Amber stared at me, her eyes alight with fury and twinkling like mad.

"But, why the fabrics and cloths? And the sewing machine? I can`t even sew!"

"Don`t be daft, the machine is for me. I want to sew a few things and I have the feeling that I will need it in the near future. I got this nagging feeling for a few days now." Her voice got quieter with every word and I turned my head slightly to look at her, while I drove us home in a rental car. We had been in an outlet shopping mall outside of Metropolis all day, from after breakfast till now, just an hour after sundown and the small car in which we sat was filled up with bags and even full rolls of cloths and fabrics in different colors.

"Nagging feeling?" That got my attention like nothing else. Every time Amber had a `feeling` it came true, in some way. Once, for example, she had a bad feeling one morning before she would go to University and she decided to stay at home. A few hours later she called me to tell me that her bus from university to home had been kidnapped by a bomber. I nearly squished her to death, I was so relieved!

"Yes. Like… Like something big will be happening soon. Like the feeling you get when you know that there will be a test and you didn`t learn hard enough. And it got better when I bought some of the things in the bags."

"Like the sewing machine? Or the frying pan made out of cast iron?" I tried to change the sudden mood she was in and I think she realized that, she even smiled a hollow smile at me.

"Yes, definitely the frying pan." She laughed loudly, it was so false, and I turned my head back to focus on the road we were on. A few minutes we drove on, humming and singing the songs the radio played loudly. All was well, the road was relatively empty and we made good time to get back into Metropolis. I was just about to ask her where we will eat or if she wanted to wait until we would be home as her hand shot in my direction and gripped the steering wheel hard, dragging it to the side, causing the car to swerve suddenly and me to stomp on the break.

"ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?" I screeched loudly, trying to be louder than my racing heart, that was beating as fast as a stampede in my chest. My eyes sprang to her face, noting her pale complexion and her shivering form. Her eyes were nearly falling out of her face as she leaned forwards, slowly looking into the heaven above us through the windshield. She didn't utter a single word, was just staring, her breathing heavy. Seconds later I could finally see what had my friend in such a state of panic. A humongous ball of fire hurled towards the city, bigger than a normal house and the flames trailing over and after it like some kind of demonic halo. A wailing sound like a horde of banshees accompanied the falling meteor.

"What the hell?" Amber nodded to my comment, not able to do more than that. The city around us had frozen, people were standing around, staring without making any sounds. Cars stopped in the middle of the streets and even dogs and cats were warily staring at the fireball as it came down.

Not 500 meters in front of us it finally came down. Had Amber not stopped me and the car, maybe we would have been in that spot and we would be a little more than jelly on the pavement. The huge ball of molten stone steamed as the flames died out. I opened my door, unbuckled and got out, my eyes never leaving the meteor. Somewhere in my gut, a knot tightened.

"Now I know what you mean with your feeling. Holy shit." The people around me started walking nearer to the meteor, murmuring loudly until another ball of flames flew over our heads, more to the center of Metropolis. Amber sniffled loudly and grabbed onto my arm, I hadn't even acknowledged that she had exited the car.

A sudden crack thundered through the air, catching out attention rather well. My eyes instantly fell onto the nearest fireballs landing place where a few cracks could be seen on the molten stone, cracks that were opening up more and more of the thing. Something grey and slimy looking showed for just a second before the top half of the burning stone popped off and slender, claw-like legs enfolded themselves, three to the count. On top of this legs, or whatever it should represent, was a structure like a mushroom, a rather squished one, but a mushroom. All around the silence got thicker, all eyes glued to the towering thing as it took its first few steps and then, it fired a dark red beam. Faster than a car the beam slammed into a skyscraper, burning a hole through its wall and causing the top of the scraper to fall. Screaming and wailing accompanied it. I could see people fall, see them slam down on the pavement and then the street looked too red, too slippery.

My own scream or more like a plea for help mixed with the outbursts around me. The formerly frozen people rushed into action, grabbing the nearest people and run. Run as fast as they could, but my legs wouldn't move, it was as if I was glued to the place, as if the asphalt itself was holding me here. The mushroom -alien -thing took a few more steps, turned in the direction of Metropolis center and stalked on, ignoring the rushing cars and humans under the sharp looking legs. Amber tugged at me, hauling me right behind her to our car, which was against all physics unscratched and pushed me into the driver seat.

"Drive!" she screeched into my ear, ripping me out of my stupor and I pressed my foot down on the pedal. The car shot forwards.

"Where to?" I almost didn`t know it was my voice, it was so meek and small.

"Home. Let us first go home. The aliens will not get there till in a few days." I chanced a look over to her, seeing her glazed over eyes. The knot in my stomach loosened a bit.

"And then what?"

"We help."

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I stared at Amber, her eyes were twinkling again at me and the knot in my stomach formed anew. If that goes on I will burn a hole into my stomach just from stress! I could feel my eyebrow tick, not a nice feeling by the way. She brandished the piece of cloths in her hands again, lifting first the left hand and then her right one.

"Come again?" I had to clear my throat or else no word would have left my lips. But what Amber had just told me or commanded me to do, was just some kind of fairytale.

"I said, we should go out there and help the people get away. We can help them. We can find shelter or at least seek out safe locations and deposit some things there, like blankets, food and water and maybe some torchlight."

"We are no heroes, Amber! We feel bullets if they hit us. We can get injured, we can get hurt! We can die! We never did some amazing things like Superman or the Flash!" My voice climbed higher and higher as I pace the living room of Amber's apartment. I could feel the cold sweat running down my skin, causing my clothes to cling to me like a leech.

"I know that. But we can help! We have powers, too! Maybe they aren`t as good as that of the real heroes, but we are not defenseless! We don`t even need to go somewhere where we could be harmed! I CAN see what will happen in the next few hours, and believe me, if we will not help the survivors out there, there will be more blood. Do you really want this to happen? Let people suffer?" she walked into my path, blocking my way and stopping my pacing. Her hands were warm and comforting on my shoulders, her eyes focused only on me.

"Amber... You are a seer, I am a healer and can see into a more than gray world that somehow exists besides our own and I don`t even know what happens with this gray, only that I can somehow see fragments of souls of dead people. And that is not a nice feeling, I can tell you that! We sound like a support team!"

"Then let us be the best support ever!" she hugged me. She was so warm. I could only nod, you can`t deny a seer and you will never deny your best friend.

"Then there is just one thing left to do. I foresaw many problems if the people or the aliens would get to know who we are, so we have to protect our identities. We have to shield our faces for the days of the invasion and after that we need something more substantial." Amber released me while she talked and nearly jumped to one of the many bags in one corner. She pulled two large piles of cloth out, one gray and the other orange, but slightly darker. Without much ado, she wrapped the orange cloth around her head like a hood, so that the shadows covered her face and the cloth dangled around the height of her breasts. Amber secured it with some middle age-looking pins. And before I could even so much as think to protest, she did the same with me, only with the gray cloth.

I sighed loudly and grabbed one of the larger leather backpacks we had purchased. It was already filled with water, can food and some other things. Amber had knew all along that I would cave. My backpack had even a big first aid part clipped on, more like a second bag just filled to the brim with medication and everything I would need.

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Many hours of hard working, stealthily walking or crawling, listening to injured or just pissed of humans and scavenging all we could get our greedy hands on, we were finally in our last safe haven. This one, a maintenance area below a shopping mall, had more room than we anticipated and there was still enough space to house more survivors. That is when Amber and I would leave a safe place. Again, to look for more people or food and water. This maintenance area was our fifth place, all others already filled with people and enough supplies to last them a few days without starving or dehydration.

I just lay there, on a small crumbled bed, the small figure of a young boy firmly tucked against myself. He was breathing again and his lungs were working good. When our group had found him, he was stuck underneath different parts of some walls, his whole left side crushed and his breathing restricted, his one visibly eye was glazed over in pain, but the poor boy hadn`t even enough energy left to scream. We got him out as fast as we could and Amber had nearly thrown the child in my arms, screeching at me to help him. As soon as my arms wrapped around the fragile form, my powers jump started. Pale glowing tendrils in soft green and blue colors had started to cocoon the boy, sending along impulses of light. The beads of light traveled down the tendrils and vanished in the body in my arms.

Every bead of light sapped some of the strength in my body, sending shivers down my spine. And the boy and I, we were on the bed since we came down here. And now it hurt, it hurt so much. Every beat of my heart felt like a giant was working on my ribcage with a hammer, or maybe even two. And the pounding in my head was even worse. Cold sweat lined my eyebrows as the cocoon worked on. I could just feel, don`t see it, because my eyes were firmly shut, it made it easier to handle the headache.

The whole day long I had a headache, nothing big, just felt like some fluttering in my head, like a small and newly hatched butterfly. But since a few hours ago, the fluttering had become more intense. It evolved from a butterfly over a flock of sparrows into a full grown horde of ponies, which were playing fetch with some wolves in my cranial body part. I couldn`t stop the flinch as my cocoon broke and released the boy and with it I gained most of the still lingering pain from the poor boy. This pain ruptured my mental shields and as they fell the horde of ponies morphed into pictures, pictures that were going so fast through my mind that it felt like a film. The roving pack of wolves, which were howling and growling before, were now a deep voice with a cultured voice print. I could hear him, and it was most definitely a him, could hear him call for attention, not just from me.

The boy didn`t need my whole attention anymore so I focused inwards, where I could feel the strange voice. He was calling for reinforcements for someone else, showed pictures of locations I never saw before. Faintly I could feel acknowledgment from a few other sources, but I held back. The call was for help with fighting. I am and never will be a fighter, so I would not be of any help. So I denied.

Instantly the voices focus was on me, lighting my presence up like a beacon so he could home in on me. Something like a presence, a mental blanket of warmth and security enveloped me, drawing me further in. The beings warmth seeped into me, searching around, softly and with great care, poking at my mind. And then he left, the warmth gone in an instant. And with it the powerful headache. I sighed loudly as the pain left.

"What happened?" Amber's voice was soft. And it was much nearer as I had anticipated! I nearly jumped from the bed, clutching the boy even more firmly against myself.

"Hell! Amber, don`t scare me shirtless like that!"

"I am sorry. But I tried to speak with you for a few minutes and you didn`t even twitch with a finger. I was worried about you." Her warm hand traveled over my skin lightly.

"There was someone calling me. And when I followed his voice, he connected with me, or I would at least call it that. It felt so weird... I think he wanted to know why I woudn`t help him. But... I couldn`t even tell him anything! And then it felt like he just came into my mind and searched around... But it didin`t feel bad... Does anything make sense?" Even to me my voice sounded high and unsure, it even cracked at the end.

"There was a man who you couldn`t help and he wanted to know why. But instead of calling on a phone, he did it mentally. It makes sense, don`t worry. And I can`t see something bad happen because of it." I sighed again. My left hand let go of the sleeping child in my arms and entangled itself with Amber's hand.

The instant we touched and my finger rested against her pulse point, she froze. She turned her head slowly, her glazed over eyes focusing on me, shining in a bright white light from within.

"The blue cross will meet a bat with the heart of a man. A bright light will shine upon the meeting, and it will take away the pain. Bad it may seem at the beginning. But the bad will start a new beginning." Her eyes lost the light slowly and her stiff posture relaxed slightly. My hand fell down, my heart beating faster again. The silence was overbearing around us, stopped us from moving or talking for a few minutes.

"Well... You couldn`t possibly be any more cryptic?" I tried to loosen the mood.

She hit me.

Hard.