Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten: Our Enemies, Our Destruction
NOTE: I do not own any major characters, but a few minor characters are my own. I am also not making any profit from this work of fiction. Also, this is my first fanfic ever, so please review and let me know what you think. Thanks!
Also, I need to apologize for not posting chapters frequently, life has been a rather hectic. But, I promise, I will finish this story!
"We often give our enemies the means to our own destruction." -Aesop
Across Metropolis, members of the Justice League fought hand-to-hand combat with the army of the dead who not only harassed the league, but the citizens of the city as well. The cadaver warriors were creating chaos to every man, woman, and child who called the urban area home. These walking skeletons with their flesh hanging off ivory bones continued to create havoc in the streets of the fair city and the horror that had exploded onto the streets of Metropolis less than thirty minutes prior was about to turn cenotaphic and become something the Justice League had never seen.
A few brave citizens, once realizing the Justice League had come to there rescue, became confident in themselves and began to take a stand against the monsters that were plaguing their city. A group of ten young men who were in college started approaching a regiment of skeletons who began to walk backwards as soon as they were confronted. Two of the undead, one a male skeleton that had scraps of flesh and muscle hanging off a tall skeletal frame and the other had once been a female with a severely distorted face lacking flesh around the checks and dressed in a Victoria era dress, both looked at each other and broke away from their comrades and approached two of the young men. Without warning, the two dead minions grabbed a hold of one of the students by the shoulders and quickly, but painfully, sucked the life out of them, recruiting two new members of the ever-growing army. These new recruits looked as if they had been deprived of sunlight and all their fat had been sucked out.
Once they had officially become soldiers, they turned towards their college buddies and started to drain the energy out of the closest man to them. At seeing this, the other members began to run for their lives, but found that they had rubbery legs and were unable to get away quickly and a few more of them became soldiers.
Standing at a second floor window of The Daily Planet, Jimmy Olson and Chloe Sullivan had just witnessed the creation of new undead soldiers and looked each other in the eyes, unable to speak, to form words, and to even really move though they both knew they had to get somewhere safe.
The two Daily Planet employees weren't the only ones to witness this stark revelation. Crouching behind an old, rusty red dumpster, Green Arrow's eyes widened at what he had just witnessed and knew instantly he needed to get in contact with rest of the league, especially those members on the ground.
The Amazon Princess retraced her steps around the farmhouse, but she found no trace of her com link. She had even looked in her car, but no sign of the device.
'Where could it be?" the princess murmured to herself.
With one final look around, Diana made her way back to the pasture and began to think ahead to what she was going to do if she didn't get her com link. The only thing left to do would be to try and make telepathic contact with Jonn, hoping he would be able to hear here over all the hustle and bustle that would be going on up at the Watch Tower.
There was still once more chance, she would look over in the area where Grey Ghost has nuzzled her ear, and maybe he did bump it out of her ear. If the com link wasn't there, she would have to make contact telepathically or fly Lois into Metropolis where the Justice League would be and make contact through one of them, but that seemed to risky and she didn't know is she, Princess of the Amazon, would be able to fly that far in her own condition and mentally scratched that idea from her mind.
After closing the gate behind her, Diana once again started scanning the grass for her comlink. As she began to sweep the grass with her eyes while she made her way towards the barn, she noticed something silver in the grass and a wave of relief overcame her body. She had found it.
With the grace of a member of royal birth, Diana kneeled down next to the comlink, grasping it with her left hand. All at once, the princess swore she had heard something move behind her and before she cold turn around, she felt something hit her hard on the head. From the moment of impact, the world went into slow motion with Diana falling towards her right side.
"Help," was the last thing she remembered thinking as she landed on the paddock's soft grass, her left hand still grasping the com link.
After hitting and sending his third dead corpse to the ground, Superman began to notice his hands were feeling a rather numb. He brought his hands towards his face and began to notice that they were shriveled like raisins. Was this some sort of allergic reaction?
"Green Arrow to the landing parties, what ever you do, don't come in bodily contact with these creatures or else you will become just like them. Repeat, don't come into contact with these things or else you will become just like them." Green Arrow's voice boomed from the com links in the ears of Superman and the rest of the landing party.
With those words, Batman noticed that his body was beginning to go numb and quickly pulled out his bat -grapple, fired it at a near by building, and swung himself away from the dead and landed next to Superman. Both superheroes looked around them, trying to come up with their next plan of action, though Superman used his eyes to keep the villains at bay with his laser beams and to provide cover for Captain Atom and Green Lantern to make their way towards them.
Above their heads, dark thunderheads encircled the sky bringing sharp lightning and claps of thunder that shook the ground. The wind had picked up within the last twenty minutes and scattered rain showers came and went, drenching the team.
With a deep sigh, Batman began to regroup himself. He knew he was beginning to weaken, but as he closed his eyes, he focused all his energy around the aches, the pains, and the fatigue that radiated throughout his body. Using the meditation techniques where the warrior turned his pains into fuel to continue his battle, the Dark Knight felt his pains begin to fade and her energy level increasing. With one final cleansing exhale, Batman opened his eyes and looked around at his comrades.
"We have only one option, we need to distract these creatures while the citizens of Metropolis can get to safety," the blue boy scout told his posse as he used his eyes to keep the minions away from them. Quickly, Superman hit his comlink so he could get in contact with the rest of the landing parties. "Superman to all landing parties, Green Arrow is correct, do NOT get within 10 feet of these creatures. Now, I want each landing party to split into two groups, one group will distract the creatures while the other group leads the citizens to the outer parts of the cities towards designated rondeavue places. On the northern part of the city, take them to Siegel Memorial Park, on the east side take them to Bates Memorial Arboretum, the south side to Cane Riparian Picnic Area, and on the west side rondeavue at Marston Band Shell Park. Split up quickly and try to work with other landing parties. Superman out."
With that, Superman looked around at his colleagues and took the reins as the leader. "Green Lantern and I will cruise the skies looking for any citizens who may be still in a 10 block vicinity and get them hooked up with the nearest landing party heading towards a rondivue point. Captain Atom and Batman will provide the distractions. We will meet back here in half an hour. Lets go and be careful!"
The limp body of the Amazon Princess laid not twenty feet from the entrance to the Kent's barn. The wind continued to howl and her raven locks danced along with the grass that was moving in all directions.
There was another sound other than the howling of the wind, it was the deep breathing of a mad stallion. Goliath stood over the body of Mrs. Diana Prince-Wayne, hatred and revenge flickered in the depths of the animal's hazel eyes. With one swift movement, the stallion was up on his rear legs, aiming the front legs towards the human body before him. At that point, the stallion was balancing on the left rear hoof, emphasizing all of his colossal wait towards the front for the initial blow. From a distance, it was a breath taking sight to see the massive stallion pawing at the air and his true athletic ability to balance so brilliantly on just one hoof, but a closer look would have made anyone flinch and look away to avoid seeing what was about to happen with hooves and flesh came in contact with each other.
The stallion was deeply engulfed in his victim, he never saw the fury of the palomino mare come charging at full speed on his right side or he would have planted both rear hooves, instead of just the one in the firm ground. With all her power and mass, the mare slammed into the rearing stallion, causing the beast to teeter on his left hoof, creating so much pressure the snapping of bones could be heard and white spears jetted out of the midnight colored hide that engulfed his left leg. The creature fell to the ground, landing on a rock with the side of his head and more cracking of bones could be heard along with the loud thud as the body landed on the ground. Quickly, the head wound began to bleed out, drenching the area with blood. With one final heave, the stallion exhaled for the last time and went silent.
Ears folded back and nostrils flaring, the old broad mare stared at the lifeless form for a few minutes. As she stood there, she slowly regained her breath and lowered her defenses, allowing her ears to become erect again and to swivel in the direction where her beloved owner laid. Dazed, the mare turned her attention back to the human that laid on the ground, but was still breathing for her chest would rise and fall periodically.
The mare walked towards the woman who had shown so much love towards her, her foals, and her heard of sisters. Looking the human over, she draped her nostrils across the back of the princess' bronzed neck, taking in her perfume and softly nibbled on her checks with velvety lips. Gaea remembered when ever she would do this, her owner would start to giggle and laugh with glee, but this time nothing happened.
The corpse of the prized stallion laid in a pool of red, the dark eyes still open, but suddenly they blinked and then blinked again. With a great heave, the stallion got back to his feet, his wounds were still evident, his leg still broken and the way his neck was mutilated, it had been broken in several places from the fall along with the deep wound on the side of the head that had caved in from being smashed against a rock.
The sound of movement drew the mare's attention away from her vigil over the ailing human and full focus was brought back to the stallion. At witnessing the stallion's rise from the dead, the mare perked her ears and her eyes widened at the sight. The horse that had just broken its leg, neck, and had suffered serious head trauma was once again back on his feet and moving towards her. As the beast made his way to the palomino, his distorted neck began to straighten out, his head began to inflate where the rock has crushed his skull, and this broken leg mended itself.
Drawing closer to the mare, the brute looked the mare in the eyes and her own eyes began to grow large with fear, with madness of what she had seen, and with regret that she hadn't wakened her owner. Her eyes reflected the brute lunging at her, his teeth were bared towards her and a humanlike voice came out of his mouth stating, "die bitch."
From the other side of the pasture, Mischief had started to break away from the band of broad mares and foals to locate her mother. The other mares began to follow the feisty filly and all of them came to a dead stop when a heart-stopping whine from a horse pierced the air and was suddenly silenced. The mares flicked their ears and took off towards the front of the barn. Once they came to the front of the barn, they all began to prance on their heels at the sight they looked upon. On the ground lay their beloved mistress who had taken care of them and shown them friendship.
Not far from the human lay Gaea, the wise broodmare who had been in charge of the group. Her golden coat was no more; it had turned into a dull yellow. Blood oozed out of her eye sockets, nostrils, and even her ears.
On shaky legs, Mischief walked towards her mother, sniffing cautiously at the creature that had given her life. As she approached her head, the filly looked into her mother's hazel eyes and jumped. Where before, when she would look into her mother's eyes she would see soft brown eyes that were caring and wise. This time, when she looked in the eyes, she saw horror and evils that no living creature should see. But, what was the most unnerving was the fact that when she looked into those deep brown eyes, she had expected to see a reflection, instead she saw a vast void and a shiver ran down her spine as if she had been hit with a low current of electricity.
In the neighboring paddock, Goliath was grazing and lazily looked up at the mares, twisting his ears around. As he munched on his grass, he shook his head and went back to grazing as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't noticed the sky turn black, as if he hadn't notice the temperature drop and the thick scent of blood in the air.
The half hour deadline came and went, but Superman and Green Lantern hadn't returned. Batman began to get the feeling that something was happening shortly after the other two leaguers had taken off. Without hesitation, Batman knew the league needed more reinforcements that would be already on the ground so he got in contact with the rest of his Batman Family including Nightwing, Batgirl, and Robin to get over to Metropolis as quickly as they could, situate themselves at one of the rondiveoe places and get things ready for the refugees. Along with those three, he also had Nightwing get in contact with Huntress so all 4 points would be covered with protection for the refugees.
As he made his contacts, his thoughts turned towards Diana and began to wonder how she was. But, he felt as though something may have happened, but her warrior training was her best defense and he knew she could take care of herself and hopefully she had stayed at the Kent's house and was protecting Lois at that very moment.
About forty-five minutes after they left, the search party came back and all four superheroes resumed their battling. It was clear all of them were becoming tired and weak, but they kept fighting anyway and were not about to give up. Every minute they continued to fight, they gave hope and a chance for the citizens to make it to the rondivuoe points. While Superman was in the air, he had requested landing parties be transported to the rondivuie points for added protection and for safety.
"We only came upon a few, but they all told the same story. There was an explosion and the creatures began to suck the souls from others while they watched." Green Lantern's voice boomed over the sound of the heroes defenses blowing the minions to pieces, but only having them return to their living undead forms with a few splitting off into two new minions while others resuming into just one. The same sounds continued to echoed as the fighting continued.
General Zechariah Davenport, who had taken over for General Wade Eiling after the mishap with the Captain Nazi serum, made his way towards the league, shooting the walking dead right between the eyes, making them drop like flies. The well decorated general shot with amazing accuracy and his presence had become noticed by the heroes.
"Aim between their eyes, I don't know why but we have come to discover that if you hit them between the eyes paralyzes them," the lifelong army man shouted to the heroes. Once they heard the advice, they all began to do what he had told them and their foes became paralyzed and fell to the ground.
Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, and Captain Atom made their way towards the General, continuing to aim right between the eyes. To all of their astonishments, it was working because once the creatures were hit between the eyes, the dropped and didn't reform. This was a new breakthrough and Superman made contact with the other landing parties to inform them about what they had discovered and to follow suite with what they had found out about hitting between the eyes.
"I'm glad I found you. I just about lost a regiment of soldiers to these things and thanks to some sort of luck, me and few others survived. I ran into a few of your comrades and told my remaining men and women to go with them for assistance and I asked who was in charge of this and they pointed me in this direction." The general told the men as he continued to fire at the minions.
Within 15 minutes, the living corpses in the area were now piles of dust everywhere, with the sounds of more coming, but around one of the corners that lead to the downtown main street, a group of living soldiers came running towards the group and the general lowered his weapon and held up his hand to signal to the superheroes to lower their weapons as well. The general trotted towards them, talked with the squad commander and then motioned for the heroes to come towards them.
"It sounds like we have some undead stragglers a few blocks away, but they seemed to be split up from there group. I will go with these soldiers to get rid of these bastards. Captain Atom, want to come with us? We could use the extra man power?" The general asked the former solider who instantly came to attention.
"Sir, it would be an honor, but I already have my orders to …" Captain Atom started to answer, but was interrupted.
"Captain, go with these men for extra backup. The rest of us will continue to look around the crater and do some more evidence collecting. If we need you, we will let you know. Keep in contact with us and meet us back at the Javelin in . . . " the man of steel stopped dead in his sentence when he saw the Javelin stood in ruins and was in no shape to be taken up to the Watchtower. The rest of the team followed Superman's eyes and a few gasps were heard, but the heroes kept a level head and returned their attention to Superman.
"Just let us know when you have completed this assignment and let us know where you are and we will meet up with you." Superman finished his sentence and made his way towards the crater with Batman and Green Lantern behind him. Captain Atom walked along side General Davenport as they followed the troops.
"Sure, it is an honor to be working along side you." Captain Atom told the general as there gates quickened along with the troops. " I have read several of your papers and when I was in the Armed Forces, we always. . . "
"Kid, thanks for the flattery, but double time so we can get the show on the road and get rid of one more bump in the road to success." The general shot a smirk to the superheroes and then resumed his attention to the path ahead.
Diana's eyelids protested her efforts to open them, but the will of the Amazon won and she began to blink her eyes. Carefully, she began to raise her body and felt a tsunami of pain start at the back of her head and ripple towards the front. Wincing, she grabbed her head and suddenly felt the comlink come in contact with her flesh. At once, her eyes snapped open, she looked at the comlink and without hesitation, inserted the com into her ear. She had to make contact with Jonn; she needed to get Lois to the Watch Tower.
Mustering her strength, Diana rose to her full height and looked around noticing the mares and foals were huddled around something on the ground. Diana made her way towards the heard, but lost all feeling in her body and slowly crumpled to her knees at the sight she saw. Her beloved mare lay dead. How did this happen? What happened? She tried to think back to what happened before she got hit, but nothing was coming to mind other than Lois.
"Diana, this is Jonn, Please come in." The Martian Manhunter's voice crackled in her ear cannel.
Shaking away what she saw and realizing she couldn't do anything for her mare now, Diana stood up slowly, reached towards her com link that was now back where it belonged, and pivoted on her boots and made her way towards the barn.
"Jonn, I need you to teleport Lois and myself to the Watch Tower. Lois has gone into labor." The voice of Wonder Woman answered Jonn as she made her way towards the stairway to the basement of the barn.
"Where have you been Diana? I was worried about you." Jonn answered back as be began to get co ordinances for her location.
"I can't explain now, just transport us to the Watch Tower." Diana made her way down the stairs. Once she was off the stairs, she looked towards Lois, but the reporter was no longer sitting on the char, rather she was now down on the concrete on all fours panting vigorously. "Jonn, beam us right to med bay. Lois is in active and I mean active labor."
Without hesitation, the Martian locked on their signal and beamed the two women directly into med bay. Once he knew they were on board the Watch Tower, the slender alien turned towards the scarlet speedster who had been holding his breath while the Martian tried to make contact with the Amazon.
"Get in contact with Superman and Batman. Tell them their wives are here at the Watch Tower and inform Superman that Lois has gone into labor." Jonn relayed the directions to the young man who merely nodded and went to work getting in contact with the other members of the league.
Seeing that Wally was getting to work, the Martian elegantly turned towards the door and exited the monitoring area. "I will be in med bay if anyone needs me."
As Jonn Jones made his way towards med bay, he came across Shayera and stopped her. "Diana will need a friend right now. Go to the lounge and keep her company, I will be sending her there shortly. I get the feeling she has been through a rough day and will need to talk with someone. Don't mention anything about the attacks until we have all regrouped."
Her green eyes never straying from the caring face of the Manhunter, Mrs. Stewart nodded her head and took off to go pick up Rex in the nursery and wait in the lounge as she had been instructed.
Batman was kneeling down and began to collect soil samples, Green Lantern was illuminating his ring around the crater to try to pickup footsteps, while Superman began to sift through the ashes of the undead soldiers. All three men had their backs toward a dark alleyway where a young law school intern stood, staring at one hero in particular who had a large red cape. Slowly, the young man began to make his way towards the over grown boy scout, fumbling through his case to a lead plated knife case that held a knife carved purely out of Kryptonite. As his fingers made contact with the case, the wind began to pick up and mini dirt devils formed above several ash piles of the minions that called Hades their master.
At the sight of the undead coming back to a semi-living state, the law student, jumped back into the shadows of another near by alley and watched with interest, but he was the one who wanted to kill the man of steel. He was the one who wanted to watch as the strongest man in the universe took in his final breath. Hades was not going to be the one to take this away from Lex Luthor.
"Watch out," Lex shouted in his disguise and all three heroes snapped their heads in the direction of the voice and saw the resurrection of the undead once more.
"For Pete's sakes, don't these things know when to be dead." Lantern grumbled as he hit one of the creatures right between the eyes. This time, the creature simply stopped in its tracks, licked the tip of the rotting teeth with the decomposing tongue that still occupied the head. The creature had a gleam in the rotting eyes and the beam of light had no effect on it, no matter if the Lantern shot between the eyes, the chest, or even in the eyes. The creatures had become immune to this.
Batman's eyes became huge as saucers that Alfred used to serve afternoon tea on. This couldn't be happening, they had destroyed them, but yet here the undead were, coming back to a zombie state and heading towards them. With lighting fast reflexes, Batman through a bat-a-rang at one and as soon as it made contact, the bat-a-rang exploded, but once the smoke cleared the soulless creatures still stood there.
Suddenly, more creatures began to form from the piles and several more regimes came around corners and began to go towards the superheroes like a magnet to a refrigerator. Without warning, the creatures ran at full speed towards the heroes and began to do hand to hand combat with the heroes once they got close enough.
Still in the form of the law student, Lex saw this and began to retreat more into the alleyway, but the undead paid him no mind as they walked towards the action. Lex needed to talk with a certain Greek god as soon as possible. He balled his hands into a fist and punched a garbage can that tipped over and dumped all of its contents into the alleyway, but any biologist would have seen this, they would have noticed that there were no flies, no rats, or other stray animals going after the spoiled prime rib that had fallen out of the can.
Back at the fight, the battle was resuming all over again and the heroes knew they weren't as fresh as they had been when they landed over an hour ago. As they tried desperately to keep their distances from the creatures, the com links in their ears went off.
"Superman, buddy, you like need to get back up here ASAP!." The youthful voice of The Flash echoed in their ear cannels.
"Flash, I am a little busy right now." Superman blasted a group of undead soldiers, causing them to be flung backwards hitting the buildings behind them hard, but not even putting a dent in even the rags they called clothes.
"What, according to the other landing parties, these guys are on the run. Anyway, it is Lois, she's in labor. Diana got in contact with Jonn and they are in med bay right now."
The Kansas native lost his concentration with his laser beam eyes and the beams disappeared. Why now? He was in the middle of one of the most drooling battles he had ever taken part in, his friends needed him, the league needed him, and so did the citizens of Metropolis. Now, his wife needed him just as much.
"Superman," Batman's voice boomed behind him. "You need to go, you need to go now. We can handle this."
Green Lantern, who was hovering 10 feet above them, had created a loader bucket and was scooping the undead into it and dropping them onto the roves of near by buildings. "trust me on this one," the former Marine instructed, "this is one moment you don't want to miss in your life and if you do miss it, Lois will hunt you down."
With one look around at the two, Superman smiled. "Thank you, you don't know what this means." With that, he leaped into the air and took off with a sonic boom towards the heavens, towards his wife, and more importantly, towards his family.
Once he was gone, Lantern engulfed the dark night in a green bubble and the two men were soon standing next to each other in mid-air looking around below them. Batman quickly got on his comlink to request that Captain Atom come back and assist them. Right now, not only the two of them, but the rest of landing parties needed all the help they could get and combining forces with other landing parties would be the only way to go.