Abkhazia, Gagra district, just outside of Voronja cave formation.
The computer readouts scrolled past his face, lines forming peaks and valleys in a dizzying zig zag. He licked his lips rubbing his forehead to stave off the headache he could already feel coming on.
He picked up the radio, prepared to shout himself hoarse again to the stubborn bastard on the other end. "George!"
"Yea what is it Don?" Came the voice from the other end soon after as George left the computer readings and walked towards the monitor getting the camera feeds attached to George's helmet.
"Get up here ya git. For the hundreth time these seismic readings are getting worse by the bloody hour!"
"For the hundredth and first time check your god-damned sensors again mate. There's nothing goin' on down here, the team and I have felt nothing that would give you a bloody seven point three.
"Eight point four now ya git!" The spotter yelled as he stood up and went to the computers again, hands flying over the keyboard. "And its not just the seismographs on the spike, its everything, Sonar, Ultrasound! Everything is givin me odd signs!"
"Then check your-"
"I've checked it four times now ya' fuckn' cunt!" He screamed, his throat itching again with familiar pain before he calmed himself down. "Now, you listen to me you...thrill seeking protestant jackass." He bit out the words through his teeth. "You get James, and you get Kelly and you get your waste of space selve's back up here, now!"
He heard a sigh through the radio. Then finally.
"You really want to do this Don?" George Asked, the tone of his voice showing that he'd finally relented. "We may not be able to get passes to get across the borders here next time."
"We'll get the goddamn passes eventually. If not this year, next year or the following one. But I cant bring my team back to life if you all die down there from a flash flood or a bloody earthquake."
"Alright, look, I'll tell you what, we'll head up first thing in the morning Don."
"You should head up now." The spotter protested.
"Me and Kel have been up and down these damned tunnels all day, we go now we'll be damn exhausted. You may not loose one of us to your magical flashflood or earthquake but through a stupid mistake brought on by no sleep. We'll head up first thing in the morning."
"First. Thing. George!" Don said almost spitting over the radio's mouthpiece.
"Right right." the diver replied before pointedly cutting off the line.
When John Stewart flew into the watchtower, the aura of his power ring allowing him to make his way straight from earth without the use of a Javelin, he couldn't help but stop for a good ten seconds outside the main hangar's airlock force field, staring, almost stupidly he would admit, at the fully armored and armed battalion of Amazonian women that were currently occupying it.
He decided to take the secondary hangar to enter.
Reaching the Watchtower's command center, though not without passing more than a few amazonian glares through the hallways in the process, he wasn't too surprised to see the entire team there, plus a few that he didn't recognize. Apparently Batman wasn't exactly being fussy about outsiders on the watchtowers this time...outsiders that...technically counted as civilians.
That told John one of two things.
Either Batman was in a marvelous mood.
Or whatever they were facing was big enough for him to warrant their presence.
He hopped for the former but knew that there was ah, ohh...90 percent probability that it was the latter.
Why could they never have a normal weekend?
Still, tightening his jaw and squaring his shoulders the Green Lantern walked forward, watching as J'hon and Batman clicked away at some keyboards.
"So what's the story?" He asked, and stepped back as Flash blurred right infront of his face.
"Ok, here's the thing. Remember Hades? Big, bad, ugly, with a rat face and big booming voice that yelled 'Nooooooo' all dramatically when we threw him back into the gates of hell?"
"Rings a bell." John answered.
"Well, Big and ugly is coming back, but this time he's got friends see and, Goldenrod over here" He pointed to one of the people John didn't recognize, with a gold helmet and blue clothes. "Is gonna make a ritual to send him back, this time for good. We're just waiting up here for the scanners to pick up some signals And the amazons are here to follow Dianna, who's gonna summon this Herald thing and kick Hades a-"
His voice stopped but his mouth kept moving for a moment until he realized he couldn't speak. His head snapped this way and that way, mouth moving frantically while his hands rubbed at his throat, all in silence as panic began to set in.
It would have been funny to John really, if not for the fact that he was a little unnerved by the bizarre spectacle himself.
"Your voice is irritating." The helmeted one said, sparing them barely a glance.
With everyone's attention directed at Flash no one noticed the frown that creased Superman's lips before he spoke. "Bruce, can I talk to you?"
"I'm busy Kent." He answered curtly.
"Now, Bruce!"
It was rare for Clark to grow a backbone to him infront of others, and the surprise showed well enough in the faces of those around them before the Dark Knight pushed himself away from the console and walked off with the Man of Steel.
When they were far enough away that he was certain none of the others would hear him Clark turned to his long time friend.
"They need to be told."
"No." Bruce answered simply.
"If this might be Diana's last day alive Bruce, then Lantern, Flash and J'hon have the right to say goodbye."
"You don't come to someone, hours away from a fight just to tell them that a friend of theirs has a low probability of surviving the battle."
"It isn't right and you know it Bruce!"
Jerking his head towards where they'd left the group, the billionaire's tone was steel. "Go on then; tell them. Tell them so that all of them can walk in there distracted. So that Flash has his wits so far in the clouds his feet wont touch the ground until his head's been cut off. Or so that John can go in there, frustrated and pissed. The only one who might be able to compartmentalize on this short notice is J'hon; if he hasn't read our minds already."
The Man of steel bit the inside of his cheek glaring at Bruce all the more because he was simply right.
But Bruce wouldn't stop here, not yet. The situation needed to be made clear for Clark, and it needed to be made clear now.
"Or maybe they'll all go to Diana like you want. They'll say their goodbyes, all tearful farewells and whatnot so that Diana can walk into that field resigned and ready for death. That sounds like a brilliant idea now that you mention it Clark. Maybe I should go and tell her I've made all the funeral arrangements as well and have her pick out the wood of her casket."
"Alright you've made your point." The Smallville raised alien said between his teeth, closing his eyes as he stopped Bruce before he really got started.
Message delivered, The Dark knight went to leave when the alarm sounded through the facility, ringing like a kalxon the two heroes quickly ran towards the operations chamber.
"What's happening?"
"Our sensors have picked something up. Gargra district of Georgia, north east of the black sea!" J'hon said, his hands flying over the keyboard as the images zoomed in, and a pulsing red dot appeared over a topographical map.
"Where the heck is that?"
"The Kubera cave formation." Batman answered flash quickly. "Deepest cave in the world."
"Symbolism holds great meaning to the Gods." Fate said. "It was my failing to not have deduced this."
"No point in complaining about it now." John said before he began to fly towards the hangar, others following as they heard J'hon call to their retreating forms.
"I will program our satellites accordingly, then I will join you."
Bruce's features soured. If only they'd had a few more months, the Watchtower's weapon would be completed and they could bomb these people from orbit.
Flying down the hallway, Clark wasted no time directing everyone.
"Kara, Fate you're with me on Javelin one, Bruce go with Zatanna to Javelin two, Flash, Diana, you've got Javelin three, J'hon will take Javelin four. GL we need your Ring, you're transporting whatever Amazon's we cant fit on the Javelins!"
"How many would that be?" the former marine asked.
"Two hundred and seventy eight." Bruce answered quickly.
"Son of a-"
"They'll be in supply hold eight."
"Why the supply hold?"
"Big enough to hold all of them, and its one of the few places that can open straight into space without a void-shield in place.
"Right" Stewart said before swiftly turning down a hallway that would take him down to the hold the fastest.
"So Don want's us back up there in the morning?" Kelly asked again for what must have been the fifth time, half of her stuffed into a sleeping bag while the other half was still exposed to the damp air.
George shrugged, fiddling with some piece of machinery or other. The expression on his face showed just what he thought of Don's wishes too.
"That's bullshit!" The Irish girl said, loud enough for her voice to bounce off the walls. "We worked for eight months to get these permits and now he just wants to piss em away?"
"Don't yell at me." George said before she could really get started. "Yell at him when you get back up there."
Her arms fell limp at her side and she shook her head as she stared off to some point along the cave wall. "Bullshit." She repeated. "Jimmy, tell em' this is bullshit!" She yelled at their resident techie who was fiddling with the diving camera, perched on a nearby rock.
"Its bullshit." He said, though with little real enthusiasm. Likely he was more afraid that the red blooded Irish woman would hurt him if he didn't agree.
"Well aren't you a big help." She groused.
"What I'm here for." James answered smiling, though he never removed his eyes from his work.
George was about to sit down to make up his own sleeping bag when a sound ripples through the air. Once or twice at first, but then a constant chittering. Like hundreds of insects crawling around them.
"What in Christ is that?" Kelly asks. Not really expecting an answer.
George reached into his equipment pack, lighting up a massive flashlight that looked more like a box than anything hand held.
The shaft of light ripped through the darkness and the three cave divers peered into the gloom.
The Javelins punched through the atmosphere like comets, three blazing hot trails streaking through the night sky as jet engines whined with fiery output.
Bruce clicked away at keys and nobs, adjusting from the void flight to gravity subjected, in seconds as the engines increased their pitch and the metal floors vibrated beneath their feet.
Zatanna smiled as she watched the collection of thirty or fourty odd warrior women tense at the sensation, gripping at their weapons, shifting from foot to foot and muttering small sounds of distress.
She couldn't help it.
"Don't worry. He's a great pilot, he's only crashed twice while doing this, I promise."
Their distress was visible and audible now. One woman looked like she was actually going to be ill.
She chuckled, and her humor even survived Bruce's scalding glare from his place in the pilot seat.
She smiled. "What? I'm helping!" She said with mock indignity. "Between the Batplane and this thing, you have crashed more than twice. I didn't even mention your speeding tickets. Or that one parking violation they gave you once."
She almost started to guffaw at that particular memory.
The plane lurched forward in a burst of speed that had the women in the hold howling at anything and everything. And slammed her back into her seat with a laugh.
Waters sparkled like a sheet of diamonds on a black canvas, mountains rose like humpbacked giants in the distance as they neared closer and closer.
Zatanna felt it then, just there, at the edge of her witch sight, a scratch at her mind, scratching and scratching, more insistent.
The radio cracked and Superman's voice drifted through, laced with static.
"Batman, Fate says to touch down here."
"We're five miles from the cave formation."
This time, it was Fate's voice that spoke to them. Paused and measured, as though he was speaking while trying to retain focus on some other task. "No...here. Old magic...old wards...centuries ancient. Here is where we must make our stand."
He was right, she could feel it too. Old, powerful magic clung to this place like the scent of a rooms' resident clung to the room. Old magic, strong wards, powerful spells woven into the very fabric of the earth.
Someone had placed them here...someone had left these here for them...for now.
Dianna spoke up at that point. "GPS says that there is a village nearby on a high mountain-rise. It provides the most strategic position I can see anywhere near here."
Bruce looked as though he was going to argue some more when she placed her hand on his forearm, shaking her head. "Do as he says."
His lips thinned, but soon enough he fell into formation with the rest of the league Javelins and descended to the village.
Don woke to a wild shriek in the night, jerking out of bed in a tangle of blankets that left him sprawled, face down in the dirt.
He scrambled to his feet, fumbling, stumbling, reaching, grasping, his body slammed into the table holding the radio receivers where noises came out of the speakers, such strange, horrible noises they were chilling the blood in his veins.
"George! George!" He fiddled through their frequencies, barely screaming a word before switching to the other. "Kelly! Jimmy? George? Jimmy! Answer me dammit!"
But the line was dead, and rain began to fall outside the tent, peppering the plastic before he threw the mike on the table in frustration.
He threw on his coat, and with a zip the tent was opened and he was walking out into the sudden downpour.
He took two steps, before his feet were frozen to the ground.
The entrance to the cave, a gaping maw that dropped straight into the earth for miles was glowing.
Purple energies washed over the edges, like milk just a drop away from overflowing in a cup, fuschia and fiery red washed over his face, lighting up the night like the forth of July.
"Wha-"
Then, like a beast waking from a slumber he heard the rumble, felt the shake beneath his feet, and into his gaping mouth a drop of rain fell and he spat it out at the horrid taste, choking on bitter metal. He wiped it on his sleeve, harshly tugging the fabric away before his eyes found a splotch of black red on the bright green fabric.
'Is...is that?'
The ground split beneath his feet, as though God himself had thrust a fist down and shattered the earth in two. Don screamed, terror and adrenalin making his heart lurch in his chest before he lunged to one side, wet earth cradled his body with grit and bitter taste as he stumbled wildly back to his feet.
He stood in the eye of the storm, earth and sky, the very fabric of reality were being torn in two. Don looked left and right up and down, a wild panic seizing his body as he struggled to find out what he should do.
He looked to the light, the terrible, dark light at the cave and felt fear rising like bile in his throat. It rippled and moved, shifted and rose.
By the time he realized something was happening there was no more time.
Don did not even have the time to scream as the very fabric of reality was ripped open before his eyes.
Bruce looked to the heavens above. The sky rumbled with thunder, and the rain that was beginning to fall was bitter and stung his eyes like ash, there was a hellish hue seeping into the air around them, and he could almost swear that it was not merely rain falling over them now, but some unearthly fluid to herald what was coming.
"The doorway is opening." He heard Fate say behind him. "The veil between the dimensions is...thinning...torn in places, can you feel it?"
No. No he couldn't; not really. But he could see it well enough. He'd never seen the sky like this, it seemed as though the seams that made up the sky, that made up the atmosphere were being dissolved, and the energies of Hades realm dripped, oozed and flowed through the serrations.
He looked back to the village where the villagers were being forced into the Javelin fighters. Some struggled and cursed in their language, some even tried to resist, but all those that got too rowdy were quickly grabbed by Clark, who could take as many punches kicks as needed before tossing them into the cargo holds.
There were few of those so far though, most were terrified elderly and children, much too frightened to think of fleeing when nearly four hundred strong women in bronze armor and a plethora of world famous heroes dropped right in on them.
Some children pointed in wonder or recognition. Perhaps they'd serve to calm these people down. Perhaps they wouldn't.
He reached up, activating the communications. "J'hon, report."
"Our satellites are saying that the anomalous signals are spreading out from the point of origin, at a rate of forty miles per-hour in all directions." I will reach your location in three more minutes, the anomaly in twelve."
"How long before they hit any other population centers?"
"If it continues constant at their current rate they will reach the nearest city in approximately one hundred and twenty-five minutes. The villages between in less than an hour.
Bruce felt his lips tighten and thin. He did not like the sound of that at all.
The rain was hissing now, charged with stuff unaccustomed to the viscosity of the air, and the laws of gravity, mutant rain that lashed down onto the village where they would make their stand.
He turned looking over the village and the small overhead map that blinked to existence behind his cowl's helmet lens.
The village was almost like an overturned amphitheater. Huts and sheds made of clay and red earth, topped with sheets of tin or hay were tiered from the mountain's peak down below. Almost like an upside down cone. At the very top, a Church capped the mountain.
The village had one road for cars enter and leave, but he doubted that whatever these things were they'd just funnel themselves into it.
"Fate, Lantern, Zatanna." He barked.
The latter two come quickly, as does the former, albeit at a more sedate pace.
"Yea?" John asks.
"We need a wall." He says simply before gesturing around him. "A dead cow can walk into this place."
The marine nodded. "I hear ya. If I make this wall though around the village, there aint' gonna be much more I can do while holding it up. This will probably be like six hundred feet all around and they're gonna hit it with something I'll bet, so it'll take a lot of energy, and a lot of concentration.
Bruce didn't like that option very much. GL was a heavy hitter, his power ring could cause a lot of damage when they didn't have to worry about holding back.
It wasn't a good option but it was still an option.
"My magic will be used for the ritual." Fate intoned. "And nothing more. Hades cannot sense me until he is here, and the ritual is already underway. Otherwise everything here will be for nothing."
What they could see of his face must have been curled back in a sneer, displaying his thoughts. Useless.
It was up to Zatanna. "I think I might be able to do something...give me a sec."
She ran up the mountain, trailing off to their right where she reached the first "row" of houses.
The three men watched her, curious.
They heard her speak, the exact words caught in the wind before it reached their ears. She thrust her arms forward.
Spikes of twisted rock suddenly sprang from the earth, rumbling and snapping with teeth rattling force that shook Bruce's ribs in his chest. They jutted out like spear-points, tips of blades forming a jagged row of black barricades. Buttresses of obsidian stone that seemed razor sharp to the touch, small as a broom stick in one instance then as large as Athena's statue on Paradise island in the next
Zatanna didn't wait for confirmation rushing to the other side of the road and doing the same.
Bruce nodded. Still too little though.
He called her back with a wave of his hand, waiting for her to approach before speaking. "Good, do it all around the whole village, and bring it higher along the mountain, right under the first row of houses if you have to. Once you've surrounded the entire village spread out as much as you can. The more obstructions you put in their way the better." He thought for a moment, looking around his own feet. "In fact, block the road as well. Our job here is purely defensive in nature."
She mock saluted before turning to Green Lantern. "Mind giving me a ride? It beats running."
John nodded before wrapping her in a bubble and flying off to prepare the defenses.
Batman ignored Fate, pushing past him and towards where the Amazonians were gathered alongside Clark, Dianna, Kara and Flash.
Bruce wasted no time. "Head east, scout them out, tell us what we can expect and how many. Do not fight."
The scarlet speedster nodded. "Piece of cake." And then he was gone.
Batman looked to the holograph map set up on the floor, and was grateful that the Amazons werent poking and prodding at it, their minds was on the up coming battle.
With little preamble or askance he dove right into what he did best.
"Fate, where will your ritual be taking place?" He asked.
Fate pointed at the Church. "There. I sense...strong magics beneath the stone, in the foundations. It will serve well as a focus."
The Dark Knight nodded. "They're approaching from the east. "How many amazons do we have exactly." He asked and it was Artemis who answered.
"Four hundred, thirty and six."
He nodded. "Then I want your best two-hundred, on the eastern side of the village. Two hundred more on the north and south. The last thirty six will be spread thin along the western side if they mannage to surround us." He paused, thinking for another moment. GL and Kara will be on the west side in that case. Clark, Zatanna and J'hon when he arrives will take the eastern front. I'll take the north, Flash the south when he gets back.
They each nodded, and though some of the Amazonian commanders were wondering why it was he giving orders rather than Superman or their princess, they did not say anything.
There was silence between them for a moment before he spoke. "What are you all still standing around for?"
That got them moving and Bruce watched them all go, eyes following for a moment before finally settling on Dianna herself as she walked up to one of the higher houses on the hill.
Three Amazonian priestesses trailed behind her, the only three non combatants on this mission.
Fate stepped into the place of worship, footsteps falling onto dry granite. Grey dust billowed across his feet with the wind that flew in through the windows. Only hard, stone benches lined the interior, empty, the hollowed building giving eerie howls with the force of the wind.
"Yes..." He said to himself, eyes sweeping across the structure, his witchsight piercing earth, rock shadow and wards to what lay beneath.
With a wave of his hand, the roof was blown aside as though suddenly ripped away by a typhoon. Stone walls crumbled at the touch of his fingers and went rolling down the muddy mountain. The stone benches lifted themselves and were cast away, leaving only Fate standing on the stone floor, and the rain to fall onto his body as he placed himself in the center.
Flash zipped across the countryside, mountains, and hills zooming beneath his feet as he made a beeline eastward.
He was beginning to wonder just what the hell J'hon's satellites may have picked up when he finally climbed over the rise of another hill.
"Shit" he cursed, stopping dead and then turning right around to run in the other direction, scything talons and babbling screams trailing behind him. He looked back, running just fast enough to keep ahead of the horde and felt his skin crawling at the sight of them.
It was like someone had taken a mass of things chewed them up and then spat it back out.
They were hideous, short and squat in one second, with heads pressed down to their shoulders, and then tall and slender in the next. One hissed, running on all fours with a mouth so big it could have swallowed him whole. Another stumbled, slower than the rest, he caught only the look of raw muscle, as though his skin had been peeled right off his body before he was lost amidst the faster creatures.
Some had multiple limbs, or ones that didn't fit on their body, either too low on one side or one arm was too big while the other looked so delicate it wouldn't be able to pick up a piece of paper.
Weapons sprouted from some of them, bloody viscera lining the area where skin met rust crusted steel. Wounds were carved into their bodies, symbols made with bloody injuries that he couldn't recognize. Some seemed almost human, while others barely resembled anything that he could say looked remotely like anything that's come from earth.
Wally decided he'd seen enough, with a burst of speed, he put some temporary distance between himself and these things.
She stood on a raised part of the home, the three weapons held there infront of her by the silent sisters. Priestesses who were charged with carrying these three terrible artifacts until it was time for their use. Never speaking, never moving, they waited with outstretched arms for their Princesses' convenience.
Her hands were at her sides, her head held high, eyes closed delicately as her lips moved in quiet prayer. She'd been dressed in the ceremonial silks that befitted the role she was about to take upon herself. The Armor of Hephaestus was a different treasure to the Amazons, to be worn by their champion. Now she was the herald of Ares. A different role, a different power. Should she survive, she would take the armor again.
If. She. Survived.
The only thing that remained of her old armor was the lasso, coiled around her hip. It was the one thing she'd not wanted to part with.
The wind surged through the window, whipping her long black hair behind her. With a red flash of unnatural lightning she was deathly beautiful and with every word that escaped her lips power radiated from the objects, as though they knew their time drew nearer.
"You're loosing your touch." She finally said.
He stepped forward, a frown on his face as he slipped from the shadows. A bolt of red lightning forked across the sky and only somewhere distant did his mind note that as something decidedly abnormal. He had other thoughts more pressing at the moment.
The pieces of armor thrummed, as though each had its own heart, beating in unison with its twins.
She turned, looking over her shoulder at him and Bruce saw the ghost of her smile. "You know...I thought this was our last resort plan."
'It was.' he wanted to say. 'It was but we had no more time. It was but we had no other plan.'
No time, no alternatives, and too little knowledge to come up with some. They were down to this. To sacrificing her.
He stepped forward, getting closer as he marched up the small array of steps that led to what must have once been the cook room of this house, a stove made of stone with a furnace beneath and a spot to hold the pot over the fire.
A magic ritual to summon the power of Ares was taking place in the middle of some hut's kitchen.
The absurdity was not lost on him.
"Diana-"
"No Bruce." She interrupted. "You can't talk me out of this."
"You'll be fine." He said after a lengthy pause. "You'll do this. And you will be fine."
"Doesn't hurt to be optimistic." She said with another smile.
He raised his hand, bringing it to grip her shoulder when her own hand shot forward, grasping tightly at his wrist.
His eyes narrowed.
Her smile turned brittle.
"It doesn't hurt to know your friends care either." The small needle, no larger than a pin almost glimmered in the cast of the light, shining between his two middle fingers where it'd been poised to deliver its fast acting paralyzing agent.
With a lift and a toss, he was across the room, back slamming against the wall. His air left him, but still he managed to yell out her name as he picked himself off the floor. "Dianna!"
She donned the helmet of farsight as he stood, she flexed the fingers of her left hand within the gauntlet of blood as he rushed across the room, her right hand took hold of the Wailing doom by the time he knew he was too late!
Flash zoomed into the village, weaving and jumping over stones with a fleet foot that brought him to the center of the village in less than a second.
Almost as fast was Clark, and Kara. "Wha'd you see?" The younger Kryptonian asked, both trepidation and excitement could be seen in her.
She was loud though, so it wasn't long after the others joined them.
"How many are there?" Clark asked before he could answer the first question. "What kind of weaponry can we expect.
"A lot." He answered simply, his tone conveying just how many 'a lot' was. "As for weapons. Anything you can think of that can bludgeon, poke, prod, stab, strike, or cause general pain with blunt force trauma to the head, is most likely in there somewhere."
A Javelin zipped overhead and J'hon fell through the metal of the floors, his body loosing its consistency before re-solidifying. "Flash is correct. Whatever these creatures are, their weapons are primitive. But a sword works as well as a gun at killing once it is close enough. And their numbers are impossible to overcome.
"Just how many are there?" Zatanna asked the question this time, shifting from one foot to the other.
J'hon took a moment. "A lot."
Everyone started when suddenly, at the top of the village the Church was torn down, its ceiling of hay, and wood being ripped away as though it were a childs play thing, the walls crumbling as if the mortar between the stone had rotted and gone brittle.
With their attention on the revealed Fate, only Clark and Kara heard the approach behind them.
Clark paused, eyes narrowing in suspicion, but Kara turned, eyes alight with alien fire before twin beams of red heat were thrown across the night air.
With a sound of screeching metal the lasers met Thanagarian steel. "Easy there girl, you'll hurt yourself."
John turned so fast Clark was certain he'd gotten whiplash, power green eyes wide as he sucked in an all too sharp breath. Clark could hear his heart stop for half a second before resuming its normal pace.
"Shay!" Wally was the first to react, stepping forward as the winged woman's feet touched down on the floor.
"No hugging." The red head snapped, as his intent became obvious. As a hurt puppy look met her stern frown, her face melted into a smile before she stepped forward and offered a very fast one armed hug.
"How are you here Shayera?" Clark asked, noting how Lantern went almost dead still at their side.
Shayera was about to answer when J'hon spoke up in her stead. "Fate called her here. He has been offering her sanctuary since her departure from the league."
"I thought you considered mind reading rude!"
"I do." J'hon said with a small smile. "But when Javelin sensors find you flying towards us when we're about to fight, my curiosity got the better of me."
"I'll forgive you this one time since it saved me the explanation."
Clark smiled he'd never wanted Shayera to leave, though he understood, and respected her reasons for doing so.
It was good to see her well. What's more, it was good to have her back, even if it might be for a short while.
Then, over the hills lining the horizon they surged like an ocean of black. Spilling over the rock and grass like an endless swarm of locusts. His eyes went wide, and behind them he heard the Amazonian captains shout out something in greek. With a resonating clang of spear shafts striking bronze shields Clark knew that this was most definitely going to happen.
The others now saw them too, faces grim and solemn as the Amazons struck their shields again, and again, and again, lined in perfectly rowed battle lines.
"Here they come."
"Alright, everyone get into position." He shouted, forcing himself to be heard over the beating of spear shafts, the hissing of rain and the suddenly too loud atmosphere. "Shay, you're a new addition, so just fly for a while and join whatever battle lines you think may need your help."
They all nodded, and within seconds each of them were going where they were supposed to.
Clark's ears twitched, a shout, so faint at this distance, it was nearly drowned out by the increasing roar of the thunderous footsteps and the rumbling storm over their head that whipped wind so fierce his heavy cape was sent flapping up to the wind.
"Diana!"
Clark recognized that voice, but he had no time to react. Not two seconds after he heard it, one of the higher homes erupted.
The light was blinding, soaring straight up into the night sky as bright as any lighthouse on the coast. Brighter even. Its luminescent body lit up the world like it was mid day. Clark clutched his eyes tight, damn near screaming with the shock of the stinging pain over his retinas as he heard the Amazon's roar out a battle cry.
He blinked, struggling to focus his sight for a moment before he could finally bring the world to its proper shade.
And felt his mouth fall open in shock.
It was tall, half again the size of a house, maybe even two full stories, its face was hidden by the helmet, a gilded plate of steel that glowed red hot as its body burned. Its very skin crackled with searing flame. Enchanted cloth covered its body, aflame but not burning, even as its footsteps left molten rock beneath its feet.
It stepped out of the rubble of the house, feet sinking into the soft earth of the mountain before it turned to face the approaching horde.
He heard its voice as he had at the temple of Ares on paradise island. An insidious whisper at the back of his mind, a roar at the edge of his conscious thought.
'I walk again. A god among the Immortals.'
The Amazonian warriors howled to the sky, screaming out their defiance, their acceptance, giving in to the frenzy.
The thing raised its left fist and Clark noticed it dripping with burning blood. It hissed where it struck the earth and smoked with steam wherever the rain came in contact with it.
Clark looked back, behind him, the horde had just reached the first of Zatanna's stone barricades and was beginning to climb over them.
And yet still the seething mass that was the body of this army from the underworld stretched on as far as the eye could see.
There was a teeth grinding snap up the mountain, and Clark's eyes turned again, only to see now the fiery beast had plunged its sword hilt deep into the ground.
An explosion bloomed behind Clark, the shockwave hitting him like a wave at a calm beach, the boom making his ears pop as grit wind, stinking of fire and brimstone washed over him. He flew up, deciding to get to where he himself was supposed to be before he turned fully, only to see that plumes of molten lava had blossomed across the slope of the mountain, burning the screeching, babbling creatures by the hundreds.
'Burn them...Burn them all!' He heard
Then Clark remembered, and in an instant his post was abandoned, rushing towards the broken house where his eyes fell onto Bruce and the three silent sisters, sprawled across what little remained of the hut.
"Bruce!" He heard himself say, swooping down and kneeling at his friend's side.
The Dark Knight groaned, clutching at his head as he began to sit up. "Diana."
The billionare suddenly stood, lurching to his feet before vaulting over an edge of a broken wall. Stopping where he landed as his eyes fell on the back of the fiery demon that now pulled out its burning sword from the earth.
Clark saw the man's fists clench at his sides, shaking where he stood.
"Batman." He said.
The dark knight swiveled, his upper lip curling back in a sneer. "Get back to the main line." He snapped before stalking off himself
They clambered and weaved between the rocks, emerging in trickles, two to a dozen at a time that did little more than impale themselves on amazonian spear-tips.
The women held the line with steely resolve, and dark blood began to mulch the ground at their feet.
At their back, was the Herald, standing there with the tip of his blade to the floor, its hands on the pommel guards as it watched the women battling with an air of detatched indifference.
The rain poured down harder now, and the wind grew so fierce Shayera had to land and keep her wings tucked close, to avoid being carried off in the gust.
The tide came, surged and pushed, but the line held, with spear, shield and sword the lines pushed back against the hordes that trickled in past the barricades in broken, uneven advances.
Corpses piled before the women, becoming a mound of impassable terrain in its own right. Hideously deformed corpses and nightmare creatures with gibbering mouths and drooling maws fell limply at their feet.
The league members still held back, conserving their strength, waiting for a breach in the line, a show of weakness in the warrior women for them to swoop in and seal the breach before the formation collapsed, all the while Fate's eerie voice drifted down from the mountain. A breath of power carried in the howls of the wind.
The storm above surged, clouds swirling in black and red. Lightning cut through the black sky and the clouds swirled in a cyclone. The cone of wind twisted and curved unnaturally, and like a black, mailed fist it suddenly smashed into the Amazonian line.
The women screamed, limbs shattered, bronze shields were cast into the air as spears snapped and bodies were thrown about like so many playthings.
It was then the Herald moved, its burning sword flashing into its hand as it charged through the breach in the line, and a million howling beasts poured through the rocky barricades towards the broken, center.
The incarnation of Ares fiery wrath roared, fire slashing through the air as the wind broke in the wake of its blade.
Then, peering through the blackness of night the lord of the underworld smiled, his ghostly body slipping away from the blade's edge.
The women drew their swords, a hundred plus blades emerging from leather scabbards as spears were cast aside. They rushed forward, ready to save what friends they could yet reach while others were beaten, or trampled to death by the advancing enemy.
With a word of magic, Zatanna placed her hand upon the earth and a dozen beasts in the shape of dogs, held together by magic with skin of stone and earth charged with them, growling and snarling as their paws bludgeoned and their jaws crushed breaking twisted bodies with unyielding stone.
Clark moved like a lance of blue and red, punching his way through the bulk of the horde. His fists punched through their bodies before casting them aside and his eyes flashed with heat rays that burned through flesh, blood and bone.
J'hon's eyes narrowed his body loosing its shape, twisting and changing before it found its intended form.
His tail lashed out like a whip damn near slicing one of the things in two with the tip before the others were battered aside as though they'd been hit by a train car.
Hissing like the snake form he'd taken, his fifty foot long body struck with lightning speed, armored scales buffeting the weapons they used to strike at him.
Between the three of them alone, hundreds were falling, but millions more surged forward in their place to mete out amazonian steel and skill with the sheer weight of number. More and more poured through the barricades, faster than they could be killed as what was once Diana finally engaged the form that was Hades.
The mountain stood, like an island about to be swallowed up by the tide as the mass of creatures surrounded it.
Above, at its peak power radiated from Fate's hands glowing a faint blue, like a holy aura. Its intensity grew, focused, condensed on a point just infront of his chest where it erupted into a brilliant ball of blue fire.
With a surge Fate's eyes snapped open beneath his helmet and the ball of energy flew through the air, blasting across the sky towards the eye of the storm.
The light hissed, cracked, scorching its way through the hell rain and black before it was swallowed whole by the spiraling clouds. For a moment it seemed as though it was lost.
A tremendous explosion sent a shockwave through the mountaintop shaking it like an earthquake, rocks were thrown loose, homes crushed beneath its weight, avalanches of loose stone and blood mulched earth fell through the village and down its crumbling sides.
A second sun of blast rings flew across the night sky rippling outwards from the eye of the storm.
In the flood of light Fate could see the scene around him and felt himself shiver. Surrounding his ritual ground on all side were oceans of corpses, like rocks in a river of bloody soil that tumbled down towards the valley.
No longer were their enemies mere cannon fodder however. The remaining Amazon warriors battled desperately against foes that flickered in and out of existence, surging towards the peak of the mountain where he stood seeking to stop him.
But there was the creature that was once Diana, towering over her sisters and locked in combat with none other than the Archtraitor himself.
The wailing doom flashed in its hands with unbelievable speed, slashing and cutting chunks out of Hades still unformed body while the Amazons pressed on to the last of them.
Then the light from his magic faded and the scenery was plunged into blackness again.
Fire and claws, blood and dirt, Flash slid to his knees just in time, skidding through the blood soaked earth as the attack passed over his head, without another moment of hesitation he rushed his enemy, flying across the battlefield, a broken spear shaft in hand, its steel tip plunging through flesh, sinew and bone before he pulled it out and slew the thing next to it.
But more came, climbing over their bloody dead as the Amazons charged into them, taking the opportunity provided by his opening.
Each Amazon was worth ten of these things, but there were so many more, millions upon millions against a mere few hundred crushing them beneath a tide of bodies. They trampled their injured underfoot as their gaping mouths moaned and they chittered like bugs. While the stronger ones now smashed against their tired warriors
Amazon spears and swords cut through the night with unerring precision, shocking deep into the mutated, calloused, chitinous flesh. Hundreds fell but more came closer and closer.
Flash spared a glanced behind him, nothing had yet broken through and Fate stood on the crest of the rise behind them, glowing in blue light as more blue fires burst from his body at increasingly regular intervals, and plunging into the eye of the storm.
And at the center of the village Flash saw Diana fighting their real enemy. Lightning ripped through the air between them where weapons met. And fire pushed back the darkness, the wailing doom shrieking across the sky.
Beside him any Amazons who could spare a glance felt fires grow in their soul, and the thirst for blood dousing their thoughts. He heard one woman scream out something, a sentence in greek he didn't understand.
But whatever it was, the call was returned by the rest of the warrior women.
But this was no distant response amidst a battle, the women rose the call from the depths of their beings as they fought chanting it out in tones high and low in rumbling harmony that fit the chaos of battle itself.
It wasn't long before Flash heard the words rise to a crescendo in the air as every remaining amazonian joined in the words, screaming them, singing them, crying them, all joined together as one. It reverberated around the entire cleft of the mountain, pounding its way through the rock itself, the earth moved beneath its power.
At the village center, a conduit for their chant The Avatar of Ares threw back its head and roared to the sky, repulsing the black power of Hades like dust in a storm, staggering the lord of the underworld in a moment of raw power.
Ares they cried
And the God smiled back at his precious children from his place on Olympus. For that's what they would always be. Toss away their platitudes to Athena, love of Aphrodite, and his mothers promises and they were his. Warriors. They would always be warriors.
They would always be his.
Flash caught a glimpse of movement to his left and ducked as a familiar winged woman swooped down from the black sky, roaring in the way she always did before her mace crushed one creature's skull, blood and viscera washed over his body as Shayera landed in the thick of the horde. Wings, as strong as a wooden bat smashed around her as her mace crushed bone and pulped flesh. She roared and screamed a hundred curses as she struck again and again and again. Flash rushed to her side, skewering another of these demons a half dozen times with sword and broken spear, before standing back to back with his one time comrade. They swung and hacked, the unfamiliar act of killing coming so easily it would haunt him years later.
Ares. They cried, and he felt it in his own being.
There was a flash of green at their side, and a hundred demons were sent plummeting down the mountainside, sundering themselves against rock and the bodies of others like them.
The Ram was replaced by a sickled whip, its tip like a razor blade as Stewart swept it over the lesser demons pressing against them, cutting a dozen or more of the things in half as the Amazons pressed against the tide.
Diana could see herself. See hands that were not hers move, feel wounds that were not on her flesh sting. Feel the weight resting in a strangers hand. It was all different, none of it was her.
Nothing but their voice. Their voice was the same and she heard herself shout as she swept her blade with ferocity, hacking into the increasingly solidifying body of the Dark God.
Ares They sang to her.
And the sword sang in the hand that wasn't hers, humming and glowing with a fiery life of its own. It cried for blood, demanded life. The wailing doom that shrieked as it cut through the air.
Every slash resonated through the dimensions, slicing through the very substance of space, cutting Hades on both sides of the breach.
Hades surged forward, roaring as he tackled a body that wasnt hers to the ground. Making her feel pain that should never have been. "Fool!" He screamed and the boom of his footsteps sent mulched ground and carcasses of crushed Daemon and Amazon alike tumbling down the mountainside.
His fury increased as the Wailing Doom cut into his barely corporeal flesh, ravaging his body even as it was being born into the world. Diana, the Herald, The Avatar, swung again and again, relentless in its assault feeling an ache in her bones that did not exist.
But still they sang, and still she swung to their cry.
Ares
The storm spiraled overhead, shuddering now in and out of the dimensions, forced into focus by Hades will and pulled right back out again as Fate's magic grew stronger.
The energy from the storm poured down down into Hades growing body, filling him with strength, with power and the black lord lashed out, raking claws, talons, swords and weapons that tore into her. Dianna screamed, hearing her voice and feeling the pain of wounds that had no place on her flesh. And blood that was not blood flowed, red hot. Molten rivers of fire poured from these wounds that she did not have.
She screamed defiance to the God, to all gods, stepping inside the flailing limbs of the black prince and driving the sword home where the beast's heart should be.
Above, at the summit, Fate unleashed another blast of blue flame into the heart of the storm, sweat marring his forehead beneath the helmet, his limbs growing heavy, desperate now to seal the breach before Diana failed and Hades was fully borne.
Before his own strength failed.
He saw more wounds rend the immaterial flesh off of Diana's body and Fate could only feel his desperation claw at him, desperation that transformed to black rage.
Fate roared with anger, with terror, focusing his emotions into a searing ball of bright white that rocketed down, not up and smashed directly into Hades body itself.
Distracted as the archtraitor had been it stumbled beneath the force of the blast, staggering down and loosing its footing as the Avatar moved forward, its blade a relentless blur.
Ares
Tendrils of energy darted out of Hades limbs, questing for purchase and lashing out in retaliation. Around it, clutches of rock stone, Demon and Amazon were vaporized in whips of dark fire as Diana pressed forward with all the burning fury of Ares, the God of War.
Fate clutched at the last vestiges of his arcane energies, screaming into the black sky as he focused all his force into his chest for the final blow.
The coruscating ball of blue fire pulsed in the air before him, eager to be loosed.
Now!
Then, agony lanced up his shoulder, hot blood flowering from vicious cuts that slashed through his clothing. The power faded to nothing, and Fate spun around, staggering as he clutched at the new injury that burned over his shoulder and back.
The creatures broke through, in the blink of an eye the lesser demons that had been pressing feebly against the Amazonian spears, shields and swords, at the thin, western line were replaced by vicious monsters, ten feet tall, horned and bloodied with rusted black blades that were covered with with viscera and sluiced with the dripping, oil slick rain.
He eyed a chained blade on the floor, coated red with his blood as one of the demons climbed its way up the mountainside to his ritual grounds, roaring through pointed teeth and a black mouth.
With an angry brush of his hand Fate sent a torrent of crackling lightning that smashed into the demon, ripping through him and striking a score of his fellows directly behind him. The beasts shrieked and howled, turning their own bodies inside out while others imploded into tiny tears in the fabric of reality to return to the underworld.
With a blur of White and Red, Kara stormed her way into the bulk of the horde, punching and crushing, fire blasting out of her eyes and ice from her lips as her fists grew slicker with blood.
"Fate!" Batman yelled slashing with an amazonian sword somewhere nearby. "We're being overwhelmed!" He yelled, driving the point of the sword into a demon's skull and tossing an explosive battarang into the chest of another. A blast of burning flesh and sundered entrails spilling over the ground.
Yes. The sorcerer thought. And yet still they sing.
The Dark Knight turned, pulling two large, bladed batarangs from his belt and activating the batteries that sent sparks of electricity dancing over its blades as he engaged yet another of the creatures.
It seemed to slip and slide around his strikes, as though it were not wholly solid. Bruce growled spinning with his blades, gouging deep slices over the flesh of two or three other lesser creatures that drew too close with every other strike, but the dancing half there half gone form seemed to evade his every move. It glowed like light behind a miasmic cloud making it shimmer and shudder with the rain drenched night.
It spat and hissed, its ghostly, near invisible claws nearly tearing Bruces skull in two if he hadn't seen it at the last moment.
Twin beams of red hot energy lashed through the thing and it shrieked like a banshee, howling to the moon as it burst with a plume of fire. It writhed and shuddered, spamming sporadically in its ghostly form beneath the flames. But too fast for Bruce to see, it spat something back at its attacker, Clark, who'd turned to face more of the endless enemies that assailed them from all sides.
It struck him like napalm, burning over his back and clothing with a cry of agony that was pried from the kryptonian's lips.
In an instant, Philipus and Artemis were at his sides, blades parting seams of flesh and blossoming fountains of dark red.
Artemis's swung her twin swords like extensions of her arms. They were more claws than weapons as she cut and sliced while Philipus' shield bludgeoned, blocked and pushed an aegis over the downed kryptonian.
Bruce surged forward, and with a thought, J'hon announced his impending interruption.
Bruce lunged at its naked legs sweeping the electric blades in a lateral arc, but the thing was too fast, springing into the air, bathed in fire. Then J'hon arived, with a punch against the things chest sending him rocketing back down to the swampy earth.
The thing went to stand when Bruce launched a batarang with expert accuracy and sending the black, bat shaped weapon straight through its exposed neck.
For a horrible moment nothing happened, but with another fist, J'hon sent the things head flying from its shoulders, ichorous blood bursting from the stump of its neck.
Bruce's legs nearly left him at the sound of a crash that rumbled the earth beneath his feet, turning with a flourish of his cape, the Dark Knight had just enough time to see the fiery Avatar beset by Hades. Pinning the embodiment of Ares power on earth against the rock, with tendrils of dark energy lashing it down. What was once Dianna thrashed and twisted to get free, but Hades strength was growing, and his force was seen now as she was held down.
The sword lay on the ground where it had fallen, buried into the earth, gouging a dark hole into the rock face.
Another blast struck at Hades face, bolts of blue power triggering a terrible keening. And again, Diana, or what was once Diana capitalized on the opportunity. It bucked Hades off and and reached for the fallen weapon.
Hades turned, almost ponderously as its fathomless eyes seared over the Avatar held beneath it just before the Wailing doom, forged by Hephaestus himself rent into its unholy face with a tremendous burst of ancient magics.
Hades screamed, long and loud, roaring as it felt the blade slice, and shatter his skull in a million dimensions at once.
Ares!
The Avatar rose to its feet again, molten blood cascading down its skin and trailing down the mountain side.
With one last effort of will, the bloody handed incarnation of Ares power swung the sword in a blazing arc. The ancient blade wailed into the eye of the storm, heralding doom as it always had, and the Avatar let out a roar that summoned silence onto the mountain. Every eye turned to watch the terrible blow.
A stream of blazing energy was left in its wake. Its tip ripped into the body of the underworld king with the sound of reality being sundered. The blade plowed through the abdomen, spraying black corrosive energy and toxic liquids across the face of the mountain, slicing up through its neck, smashing into the base of its skull.
ARES!
Fate raised his arms to the sky, shaking with waning strength as he held a small, shimmering stone in his hand. He chanted in tongues, a babbled conglomeration of words that would have made no sense to any who would have heard it, not even Zatanna.
With one final surge, blue energy flew to the night, and with a blast that shook the earth and tore the sky apart, the whole world seemed to hold his breath before Hades screamed, roaring as its all too real body thrashed and struggled against bonds that pulled him back, back to his prison as the storm above began to dissipate as the entire mountain shook beneath their feet.
Fate collapsed, falling onto his hands and knees, panting as the Avatar fell, slumped against the mountain-face, its sword held limply in its grasp.
The demons cried and yelled, babbled, cursed and panicked, breaking against the all but shattered lines of amazonian warriors as they cried and tramped over their own to escape the blood and fire of Amazon steel. While others were simply swallowed back into the abyss from where they came, vanishing into the earth or tears in the air itself.
Bruce stumbled to his feet, dust and grit, kicking off of his body and cape with his movements.
One arm throbbed at the joint, his temples pounded as his ears rang with a high pitched whine.
A hazy, mist blanketed the area, the clouds overhead rippling out with traces of bloody red splashed across the black night sky.
His hearing returned slowly, first to the bellowed cries of the amazonians still standing, then, to fainter noises, the fading thunder overhead, the dirt beneath his feet, the moans of the wounded or dying all around.
He turned his head, fighting a vague sense of nausea at the wave of dizziness the movement caused.
The fiery body of the Herald glowed like a bonfire just under the cusp of the hill, with the flames growing dim as they burnt out.
Bruce rushed forward, cursing with a hiss as his ankle throbbed with a sharp agony beneath the shock of his weight. He ignored the pain, pushing himself past it as he maneuvered between the carcasses and the wounded to where the glow of the flames was dying away.
He passed just over the rise in time to see the fire die out with a whoosh as though all the air had been sucked out of the area in an instant.
And she lay there, in silks of black and red, her hair spilling out from the neck of the helmet in a dark curtain, one hand clad in gilded steel, whist the fingers of her other hand just barely caressed the pommel of her sword.
For a moment that lasted forever Bruce felt his heart stop. She wasn't breathing.
Then, he saw her chest rise, her lips quiver, and her fingers tremble. The hacking cough that shook her body must have been one of the most beautiful sounds he could ever remember hearing.
He walked closer, kneeling at her side as he placed his hand on her shoulder. "Diana?"
She opened her eyes, turning them onto him and smiling softly.
He may have smiled a little himself.
"Come on." He said, shifting down he held her head awkwardly as he pulled the helmet off, and released her hand from the gauntlet before moving to pick her up. "Lets get you somewh-"
He never got to finish. A backhand to the side of his cowl sent the taste of metal through his mouth and his eyes spinning as the world tilted over with his back hitting the floor.
He blinked, swallowing the blood, forcing himself out of his daze through sheer stubbornness alone as he got to his feet.
He never saw his face, only the hint of dark armor before he stepped through the tear he'd rent through the dimensions. Dianna being dragged right behind him.
"No!"
The air around the tear was like breathing a cloud of ammonia, cold and stinging with the sense of sickness. It made his eyes water beneath the cowl, as he grit his teeth, and pulled.
Only her arm remained outside of the portal, held fast by his own strength as he kept trying to drag her back to the world of the living.
Tendrils of fleshy potrusions, emerged from the sides of the tear like whips, lashing his limbs and body. The things were sharper than anything that size should have been, and cut through his body armor like it was little more than wet paper.
Blood flowed freely, but Bruce refused to release her hand.
They sliced into his shoulders, lashed at his sides, cut open his forearms and biceps. His strength began to ebb and he saw Dianna sink further.
He held on tighter.
He jerked to the side, at the last minute seeing one of those things going for his neck, managing instead to get a cut that went from his chest to his collarbone.
She sank a little deeper.
Bruce felt arms wrap around his waist pulling him back.
The slashes continued, hitting and cutting with more ferocity, as though vexed by his stubbornness.
"Let go! You'll kill yourself!" He heard the person behind him say.
He grasped so hard at Diana's wrist he must have left bruises.
It wasn't until the blood spattered over his gloves and her hand, turning it slick and impossible to grasp, that her arm was released and Bruce was dragged back from the closing portal.
"No!" He heard someone scream again. And only then realized that it'd been him.
Well here you go, there's been some delays on my end admitedly but hopefully the next chapter will come much quicker than this one.
Hope you all enjoyed it and are looking forward to the next. Read and review.
