11

The hacktivist collective known as the Movement was receiving digital footage for their online Channel M. An adherent was witnessing strange events in Coral City and recording them with a signature Channel M recorder mask. The mask literally recorded whatever the wearer faced and provided much needed anonymity. A literal lifesaver at the best of times.

Channel M's nameless and faceless supporters who wore the masks throughout the world had faces and names in Coral City. Vengeance Moth was live streaming the incoming footage and knew exactly which young hooker was standing on the street corner near the warehouse where costumed strangers were offloading a prisoner who strangely looked like Commissioner Barbara Gordon from Gotham City.

Coral City was the one metropolitan area that made Gotham seem to be a model of reform. James Gordon had pioneered battling corruption within his own police department. Maggie Sawyer had been too obsessed with the Batman to bother continuing those same pogroms and corruption had taken hold of the GCPD again.

Barbara followed in her father's footsteps and was gutting the force while rooting out cops on the take from criminal and political influences. A major factor in why Harvey Bullock seemed to be crusading alone in attempting to prove Barbara's innocence in her recent aberrant behavior involving a mass shooting within the GCPD's own halls.

Ven had never shared her real name with her Movement teammates. Drew Fisher was a recovering addict and didn't want to dwell on that painful past. Besides which, she was the niece of the original Killer Moth. Unlike her uncle, Vengeance Moth was a meta-human with psionic abilities to fly and levitate others. But she was also wheelchair bound by muscular dystrophy and physical exertion or mental gen factor depletion left her exhausted and helpless.

Ven was the Movement's premier computer expert and generally manned the systems while the others went out to combat corruption and injustice. The group operated out of the underground environs known as the Sweatshop. A literal clothing mill in the late 19th Century, a fire had destroyed the building and buried hundreds of immigrants.

Tremor's earth moving powers had excavated the site and provided hidden entrances. Roshanna Chatterji had been born and raised in India but she'd come to the United States to attend university. But drunken displays of her power had attracted ARGUS' attention. Co-opted into spying on the Movement, Tremor had blossomed into a true believer and now gave herself wholly to the Movement's cause.

Others had joined as well. A Thai immigrant now called Katharsis was a former GCPD officer who been accused of castrating a suspect accused of multiple rapes. Using a sword and mechanical wings, Kulap Vilaysack adopted her guise as Katharsis under Knightfall's tutelage. But Barbara Gordon's insistence on enforcing Gotham City and New Jersey's anti-vigilantism laws forced Katharsis to relocate to Coral City. And there she found a population in even greater need of her attention than Gotham.

Christopher had been called "Burden" by his parents since his birth. A meta-human capable of transforming into a demonic looking giant, Burden had taken the blame of his similarly gifted, angelic appearing older brother. The family lived in an austere religious enclave and Burden had been scourged on a daily basis to atone for crimes his brother committed. Until Burden ran away as a teenager and fully realized his "sins" included homosexuality. But he decided to own this last one.

Virtue was an empathic emotion rider that brought the group together. Virtue had assumed the false identity of Holly Ann Fields because officially she was dead and buried. But her heart wasn't dead or buried and had recently found true love with an escapee from NOWHERE. Sarah Rainmaker had set herself up as an elemental goddess in an abandoned coliseum. There she was worshiped and served by runaway male youths whom she had no sexual interest in. Rainmaker's heart solely belonged to Virtue with whom she'd shared her one-time unrequited infatuation with Caitlin Fairchild.

The Movement had claimed a poor section of Coral City known as the Tweens. Starling City had the Glades, Gotham had Crime Alley and the territory surrounding it, Metropolis had Suicide Slum, every city had its poor, downtrodden areas where lives were cheap and crime was rampant. And every example had exploiters who grew wealthy off of human misery.

Rainmaker had carved out her niche fiefdom in a remote section of the Tweens. Rainmaker had no interest in joining the Movement but she did retain allies in her area of influence. Virtue and Rainmaker spent many dates playfully debating their differing ideological methods.


Vengeance Moth knew Virtue had just gotten off work at the diner where she waitressed. She wanted Holly in on this. Although Virtue's demeanor indicated she wasn't alone.

"I understand, Ven. I'll be home straightaway," Virtue promised before disconnecting the line. As Vengeance Moth had guessed, Virtue was meeting someone. That particular someone wasn't Rainmaker as Ven had hoped but rather Captain Meers of the Coral City Police Department.

Despite Meers' public denunciations of the Movement, he was secretly their ally. Largely in part because of Virtue. Meers had killed Virtue's father in the line of duty after he'd learned of her nonexistent death. Virtue had convinced Meers of her own intentions and those of her friends as well as exposed the ambitions of several prominent politicians within Coral City's bureaucracy.

Now Meers was closer to Virtue than he was to his own estranged daughter. He protected her and the Movement to the best of his ability. He frequently ran interference between the ire of those in power and the intended destruction of the Movement.

"Ven sounds nervous," Virtue explained to the questioning Meers, "That rarely happens."

"She's pretty spunky despite what life had handed her," he opined.

Virtue shook her head, "Ven is spunky because of what life had handed her. Overcoming what she has proved to her she can overcome anything. Sometimes I think she's the strongest of us all even with her handicap. But I need to go."

"I'll check on you in a few days then," Meers promised, "Let me know if there's anything I can do to discreetly help."

"One day I will and you'll probably regret it," Virtue warned him.


Virtue accessed the Sweatshop through one of the two moving tunnels Tremor moved here and there randomly at varying intervals. Dozens of runaways lived with the Movement so the location of the tunnels at any one time would never be a secured secret. Virtue found Vengeance Moth had gathered Tremor, Katharsis, Mouse, and Burden.

Mouse had been born to privilege but his parents had rejected him because of his meta-human ability to communicate with rodents. So he ran away and delved into the sewers where his friends were most concentrated. Now he'd added human companions to his bevy of rapid reproducing comrades. And Mouse had been in the sewers since age five. Twelve years later, he was more rodent than human in behavior.

A dozen or more mask recorder wearers had converged in the warehouse complex where a convoy of dozens of high priced vehicles had surrounded the facility. The name on the camera mask was Alicia. Alicia was a hooker the Movement had liberated from her pimp, and her pimp from his teeth. She was working part time at a day care but moonlighted in the world's oldest profession because despite the risks it paid much better.

"Who's the woman in the prison jumpsuit?" Tremor asked.

"Barbara Gordon, Gotham City's own police commissioner. Word is she went postal a few weeks ago," Katharsis said with degust. Barbara had ordered Internal Affairs to investigate Kulap and assigned a special task force to arrest Katharsis. She'd been screwed either way so she up and relocated.

"Bluebird is looking for Gordon," Vengeance Moth announced, "Some strange group broke her out of Blackgate Prison."

"And they brought her here," Virtue considered it, "I wonder why"

"Who'd look for her here?" Mouse had to ask.

Everyone conceded he had a point. Virtue made the call, "Have Alicia man her corner but have everyone else pull back one block. And no masks unless things change."

Ven spread the word via the mask's transceivers.


Mayflower had joined her half-sister, Jade, in her search for their mutual brother, Obsidian. Mayflower had one question to ask, "How can you even know Todd is even in Los Angeles?"

"Todd and I share a psychic bond," Jennie-Lynn Haden explained, "It's how we originally found one another. And then we searched for dad."

Briar Rose shared a mother with Todd and Jennie-Lynn but she was the daughter of a British parish vicar and not Alan Scott, "It must be nice sharing something like that."

"It can be a colossal pain in the ass," Jade complained, "Especially at times like this when I know he's near and trying to stay hidden. Or when he's off his meds. Or both."

Mayflower understood Obsidian was schizophrenic and prone to ride off the medication reservation. A condition difficult enough but having meta-human abilities made it infinitely worse. Provoked by reality or not, Obsidian grew increasingly dangerous the longer he was unmedicated.

"I take it he isn't taking his medication now," Mayflower guessed.

"The impression I'm getting is he's homeless or the next best thing to it," Jade answered, "And I get waves of obligation coming from him."

""Too whom or what?" mayflower asked.

"I really have no idea," Jade admitted, "Obsidian has never been much of a joiner."

"Why come to Los Angeles if only to avoid you?" Mayflower wanted to know.

"Todd's drawn to me because of our link and because I accept him unconditionally," Jade told her.

"What about Sentinel?" Mayflower asked.

"That's a really good question," Jade shared, "I wish I had an answer."

"Didn't Obsidian join the Justice League while you pretended to have lost your power?" Mayflower inquired.

"And he went nuts and took off for months on end and then tried to destroy his stepfather and Detroit with him," Jade grimaced.

"So we're just finding him and blindsiding him with our presence, welcomed or not?" Mayflower had to ask.

"Todd won't hurt me," Jade promised.

"But I'm a variable," Mayflower realized.

"It won't come to that," Jade asserted, "You have to trust me."

"I do trust you, sis," Mayflower readily shared, "It's brother dear whom I've never met before that has me worried."

Jade wished she didn't have reason to be.


Superman and Steve Trevor bought into what Red Robin and Ravager were saying about the Daemonite threat. Rick Flagg had before embarking in his presidentially mandated mission. So David Cain had the Injustice League stand down.

Entering the Dome, the combined forces found the United Nations Secretary-General had already absconded by means of a matter-energy conversion beam. Barda's Mother Box sought the transmission's destination point. Blue Beetle couldn't help but wisecrack.

"She totally 'beamed me up, Scotty'," he snickered.

"Mother Box can't trace the signal's destination. It seems to have been transmitted southwest of here," Barda reported.

"If you'll excuse us," Red Robin stated as Ravager contacted Jenny Quantum and had her open a gate to Stormwatch headquarters.

"We totally need to get one of those," Blue Beetle quipped before noticing Barda's glare, "No offense to boom tubes, really."

Trevor acknowledged Waller's signal and noted Gwen had contacted Flagg, "Debrief at the Hall of Justice?"

"Exactly," Flagg confirmed his orders, "Think of us as your poorer, psychotic cousins."

"I believe we should represent as well," Cain interjected.

"I already hate this," Trevor confessed.

"I'll get it cleared," Flagg offered.


The JLA, Suicide Squad, and Injustice League departed together. Superman paced about the empty halls, "We should handle this alone."

"This is a worldwide threat," Fire protested.

"Which makes it our responsibility alone," Superman snorted.

"These are alien invaders!" Fire nearly shouted.

"So are J'onn, Barda, Shayera, and myself," Superman scowled.

"Fine," Fire huffed, "We'll just beat on the bad aliens."

"And who establishes that?" Superman asked, "These are just pilgrims stranded on Earth. Do we kill them for their mishap?"

"They kill people!" Fire did shout that time.

"They destroy the mind's of their human hosts," Barda pointed out, "They consider it a survival tool but there are other ways to survive."

Superman looked hurt that Barda sided against his argument.

"We need to decide what we'll do about the Daemonites and swiftly," Ice urged.

"We stand down," Superman commanded, "We serve at the United Nations' behest. The UN serves the Daemonites. Until we find another authority to sanction our actions, we do nothing."

"Which is a helluva choice," Fire growled. Barda looked inclined to join her.

Ice interrupted, "These Daemonites are going forward with their plans so we need to hurry up and find our authority to answer to."

"Barda, can you get us back to headquarters?" Superman asked, "From there I can contact the other groups and pull them out of their situations."

"Easy enough," Barda said uneasily.


Scandal Savage was ready to skewer the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister's husband held the PM hostage. Knockout burst through a reinforced wall and totally unnerved the Daemonite hosts. The New God grinned at Scandal.

"Miss me?" Knockout asked.

"Terribly," Scandal was solely focused on her targets.

"We'll kill her," the husband declared.

"No great loss," Knockout shrugged.

The PM looked wounded while her husband countered, "You're bluffing."

"Try me," Knockout growled. Knockout advanced on the Daemonites and the Home Secretary fired on her with a pistol. Knockout giggled, "That tickles."

Scandal surged forward and impaled the Home Secretary and then slashed the throat of the PM's husband. She pulled the Prime Minister free of the corpse's grip. Then the Daemonites emerged from the host bodies. Knockout crushed the skull of the closest to her. Scandal used her Lamentation Blades to separate a Daemonite's head from its shoulders.

John and Shayera entered the room and Scandal dismissed them, "All yours, Green Lantern."

The JLers were stumped as they took over caring for the PM and explaining to her what seemed to be going on. Meanwhile, Zealot was gathering her force for an extraction by Jenny Quantum. The JLA and Task Force X were formerly allied with the Daemonite Hunters now. But the Injustice Rogues travelled to the Moon with Zealot's force.


Plastic Man was recalled to JLU headquarters in Connecticut. He declined to obey those summons. Instead he continued to bring the US President to the Hall of Justice. En route, Penny and Hula Hula joined in agreement with Plas' decision to return to the JLA.


Grifter called a truce between his group and Task Force X. Karin Grace listened to his intent for his visit to Moscow, "I understand the gravity of the situation but I can't allow you to kill a sitting prime minister of a foreign power."

"Putin wanted Medvedev in office when he left the presidency," Grifter reminded Karin, "Parliament pulled a fast one, arranged by the Daemonites, to appoint Kolonov prime minister. He's no longer even really alive. His mind has been erased to make room for an alien presence."

An explosion leveled the dacha and Grifter nodded in that direction, "Seems like it's a moot point anyway."

"I can't let you leave," Karin declared, "The Russian authorities will want to question you."

Grifter pulled a pistol and shot Karin's shoulder holster so swiftly she couldn't react, "You gonna hold me here?"

Karin glared at him while Sofia contacted Jenny Quantum and got the Daemonite Hunters extracted after Deathblow rejoined them. Grifter allowed Enigma and the Injustice Titans to come with. The Suicide Squad slipped out of the country the way they entered it despite the dragnet and sealed borders.


Gunslinger had a clear shot at the party chairman in China. Arsenal and Cheshire brought Wonder-Woman into submission. Cheshire assessed the situation.

"We're drawing an official reaction," Cheshire warned Arsenal.

"Maybe Gunslinger came through," Arsenal hoped.

"Or she probably got cold feet," Cheshire snarled.


Horus finally beat Super-Man into unconsciousness. But he felt fatigue despite Lord Satanus and Lady Blaze's promises. Horus cried Blaze's name and lightning descended to heal his wounds. Then Ahmed Tomaz briefly grieved over his sister's decision to abandon Isis' power.

Demons were just power brokers like other supernatural beings. Adrianna and Teth-Adam had done real good with the power granted them. And what fate lay in wait for Kahndaq now that the king and queen were mere mortals again?

Maul and Warblade operated on a frenzied level that Bat-Man systematically exploited to render them injured and harmless. Arsenal used traditionally tipped arrows when he put six of them in Bat-Man.

"And you call yourselves a 'Covert Action Team'," Cheshire sneered as Maul and Warblade recognized the fact that she and Arsenal had put down a dozen military police. Horus was mopping up an armored column.

"What about your teammate?" Warblade verbally accosted Cheshire, "Will she succeed?"

"Even if Gunslinger fails to pull the trigger, Deathstroke brought in help to insure we achieve our goal," Cheshire promised.


Patricia Trayce had begun as a patrol officer with the GCPD. She'd moved up in rank and experience until she qualified for her detective's shield. But Pat began to believe Batman was right all along and sidelined the police presence in several cases so she could deal as harshly with the perpetrator as she wanted to.

A chanced encounter with Slade Wilson had earned Pat several things. First was an on and off again sexual relationship. So defined because while it merited Pat some sense of obligation from Slade it was based on mutual respect rather than romance. Slade still pined away for his one and only wife, Adeline Kane despite her repeated attempts to kill him. Attempts that had only increased in frequency after Rose's existence had been revealed.

Second, Slade equipped Pat in the gear formerly used by the Vigilante. Adrian Chase had adopted the guise after Greg Saunders went into semiretirement. When Saunders came back to his cowboy persona he quickly hunted down the masked pretender and incarcerated Chase. So the Gunslinger identity was created to capitalize on the fear the second Vigilante had created amongst criminals without infringing on the original Vigilante's sensibilities.

Lastly, Deathstroke was frequently hired to destroy rival criminal gangs by other criminal cartels. Tattooed Man and Gunslinger joined the Titans in order to fulfill those contracts. And it seemed, to save the world on occasion.

Gunslinger knew the Daemonite in power was associated with the Party Chairman if not the chairman himself. She rested around the corner of the hallway leading to the chairman's office. Gunslinger hesitated because she didn't know the identity of the alien invader with any certainty. If she killed the chairman and he wasn't a Daemonite host, it would be pure, cold blooded murder.

And the guards represented a separate moral dilemma. She couldn't just kill them either. And their imperative would be to block any effort Gunslinger made to determine who the host was.

Gunslinger came around the corner and aimed her assault rifle at one guard and then another. The guards yelled instructions in Mandarin Chinese which Gunslinger didn't understand a word of it. She shot to wound the closest sentry but her wound was a fatal one.

She closed to grapple with the closest remaining guard. The other two held back to shoot her if she succeeded…or failed. And failure seemed imminent because each of the guard's was a highly ranked Kung Fu master.

But each of the other two guards were struck in the left eye with a black arrow in succession. It so unnerved the guard fighting Gunslinger, he backed away from her and she drew her revolver and killed him out of sheer panic.

Then she spun to face the mysterious archer. And she found Nyssa Raatko casually strolling towards her. Nyssa was clearly displeased.

"Slade warned me you would choke once you reached this pinnacle," Nyssa scowled, "You haven't embraced the simple truth that there are no innocents. And until you do you are a threat not only to yourself but your comrades in arms."

"You haven't won anything," the chairman warned them, "I have contacted Lord Daemonite and he will not be coming here."

Nyssa fired an arrow and killed the host. Gunslinger emptied her pistol into the revealed Daemonite when it solidified, "You might have a point."

"I believe an extraction is called for at this point," Nyssa suggested.

Gunslinger contacted Jenny Quantum and learned Cheshire had already pulled the others out. So Nyssa joined the others on the Moon and found her Injustice Rogues and Titans were already there. And she tracked down the Injustice League.


While the WildCATS declared a ceasefire against the JLU, it took J'onn longer to fully rein in the Suicide Squad's all out attack on the JLA. J'onn was startled as Nightshade called off her force and General Glory accepted their presence. And M'gann explained the presence of the three remaining free Teen Titans.

Inside the Chancellery, Black Canary and Cupid made their way through the sentries to the Chancellor's office. Projectionist joined them and unsealed the security locks. Inside, the Chancellor cowered behind her desk.

"This isn't right," Projectionist acknowledged.

Black Canary struck out at the body moving behind them. The Daemonite host laughed, "Stupid humans. We're everywhere and we'll inevitably conquer you and breed you to host our hatchlings."

"You're the race that opened the door for the White Martians to invade," Black Canary delved into the long held secret.

"Too true," the Daemonite chuckled, "They wanted water and we wanted the mammals infesting this world. It was a natural pairing. But that truth will never leave this chamber."

Cupid plunged a knife in the host body's chest. Then she sequentially fired six arrows into the manifested Daemonite. The Chancellor was totally unnerved.

"Mein Gott! What was that…?" she stammered.

"A monster playing at being a man," Black Canary answered, "Now if you could call off your security forces, we'll be on our way."


The JLU returned to Connecticut with the Teen Titans with them. The JLA and the Suicide Squad went to the hall of Justice in Brooklyn. Dinah, Cupid, Projectionist and the WildCATS reported to Stormwatch. And Weatherman arranged for them all to report to the Hall of Justice as well and coordinate with the ARGUS forces.

Deathstroke, Grifter, Lord Emp, Zealot, Black Canary, Nyssa, and Red Robin represented the Daemonite Hunters. Trevor and Flagg represented their respective agencies. Waller and Weatherman represented ARGUS and Stormwatch respectively. The assaults had prompted the Daemonites to hunker down and travel to their central locus, the starship that carried them to Earth to begin with. There they would make their final stand. And there, the assembled humans ad aliens would drive a stake into Lord Daemonite's heart and eradicate the entire infestation on Earth.