The world had slowed to an incredible pace. It was as if everyone had stopped moving, though that wasn't the case as bullets continued to pour out of gun barrels, the sound of gunfire seeming to soften and deepen due to the relatively slow speed of sound.

Then again, everything short of light was slow for the Flash. In this stone-still world, the red-clad man raced towards the large army of ninjas, closing the distance between them before they could even think to raise a foot, much less notice him coming. Reaching one man, Flash buried a fist into the side of his face, ripples beginning to show on the side of the man's mask-covered cheek from where the blow landed. He then shot off to another ninja, doing the same to that man. Flash punched five more before the first ninja had even reacted to the hit, head slowly moving to the side as the man's body followed in suit.

"Whoa, 'cuse me, coming through," Flash jested as he suddenly ducked to a side, dodging a bullet in midair. Compared to the ninjas he had hit, the bullet was moving a hell of a lot faster, but nowhere near fast enough to hit the Fastest Man Alive. Avoiding the bullet by a mile, Flash then shot towards the man that had fired it and slammed his fist into the man's face. Almost immediately his head snapped back, body beginning to flip head over feet. Whoops, hit him too hard there, Flash.

Giving himself a microsecond's pause, the red-clad youth looked up to the sky, noticing Hawkgirl doing her thing as she prepared for another dive. Apparently he and the angel babe were the only ones interested in fighting off an army of assassins, which wasn't the plan. Either Wondy was too busy playing "Wondy Smash" on the helicopters and the magician babe was helping her, or they suddenly had their hands full. It was probably the first choice, or so he thought.

Still, on the off chance that they were otherwise occupied, it was best if Flash lent his very capable feet to their cause. Dashing away from his flipping ninja, the red-clad man knocked out a couple more ninjas with blows to the back of the head as he ran by, heading for the smashed remains of the helicopters.

That was when he was struck by a sudden spell of dizziness, which made him sick to his stomach. "Ugh, shouldn't have ate that hotdog on the way here," he groaned before he took cover behind a thoroughly destroyed heap of scrap metal. Miraculously, he felt a lot better after doing that.

Of course, the moment he stopped, the world around him sped right back up. The sound of several men hitting the ground were nearly drowned out by the very loud booms of gunfire. Hawkgirl's warcry echoed out from high above as she dropped through the air, ramming herself through a lot of bad guys, or so the speedster imagined.

Okay, thinking time now: what the heck was with the sudden pukey feeling? That didn't really happen to him, but practically out of nowhere—while he was running, he might add—he suddenly felt his insides churn and a feeling of "are my feet really on the ground?" overcame him. It was like that one party in high school he went to and got drunk off his ass and that made the room start spinning when he didn't want it to. Though that might explain what Flash felt right then, there was a slight problem: one, he wasn't drunk, which was a real shame, and two, well, he couldn't think of a two. So yeah, his only problem was feeling like crap without drinking.

The responsible thing for Flash to do was find out what the heck had caused that. It would've been the first thing he'd done too if a sudden blue light hadn't appeared over his hiding place, distracting him suddenly.

"Alright, I think we've hit a snag," Flash said mostly to himself. "Either these assassin guys suddenly got a lot tougher, or I think those Death guys showed themselves."

He was betting on the Death guys this time.

So what to do? Check out the sickening feeling he just felt or investigate the blue light. Decisions, decisions.

Well, Flash didn't like feeling sick and the light could only be so many things—he was going with the light. Once again, the world slowed around him as he dashed out from behind the scrapheap. A dust cloud rose up behind him as he made his way towards a couple more assassins, delivering punches that were meant to knock them flat on their ass and keep them down for the count.

Of course, the moment he hit the second one, Flash noticed a stark lack of gunfire. In fact, he couldn't help but notice how a lot of the ninjas seemed to be lowering their guns, coming to a stop.

Perhaps the reason why was because of a guy in a dark blue body suit, a hood covering his head and partially blocking his face from view. Cape hanging over his shoulders, the man stood facing in the Flash's direction, arms crossed over his chest.

Well, if that wasn't an invitation, then Flash didn't know what one was—Stacy Miller's invite to that kegger notwithstanding. Changing course, the red-clad man ran at this newcomer, coming to a stop mere feet away from him. A second later, a cloud of dust and dirt washed over his legs.

"So, I take it you're one of those big shot assassins," Flash spoke, hands on his hips as he stood confidently. "Mind if I get your name? For the mugshot, of course."

The man regarded him from beneath his hood, very quiet-like. For a moment Flash wondered if this guy was trying that stare down thing the Bat had used on him on the mountainside, you know, the one that made him feel incredibly small and a tad bit uncomfortable. If that was what this assassin dude was doing, he was doing a pretty poor job. Finally, the man answered him, "They call me Griffin, one of the Master's—"

"Yeah, yeah, Seven Men of Death; heard of ya already," Flash interrupted him.

The man was silent for a moment before replying, "I see my reputation precedes me."

"Well, I wouldn't say that. More like I was watching a movie and you popped up in the previews."

"I...see."

Flash began stretching his arms over his head, mostly out of boredom than anything. "So this is the part where we actually start to fight, right? I'm not used to having my bad guys waiting out in the open for me, so this is a new one."

Griffin gave him a nod. "If you wish, bring it on."

J'onn climbed higher into the air, cape pulled taut against his shoulders. Moving to his left, he deftly avoided a stream of fire as it shot past him. Moving to his right while give a short spin, he dodged another stream, the heat from the fire making him sweat.

With a glance down he saw the man, Firefly, giving chase, the barrel of his flamethrower pointed at the Martian. "Don't run away!" the man shouted after him, his voice filled with glee. "I'm feeling hungry and my stomach's cravin' for some alien barbeque!"

Somehow this man had gotten away from the Batman, either by incinerating him mere moments after the Martian had left him, or Firefly gave chase immediately. There was also the possibility that the Batman purposefully let the fire-user go and in all likelihood was what had happened. Either way, it did not change the fact that he was being hunted down by someone with a weapon that meant to do him harm.

Gritting his teeth, J'onn fired twin beams from his eyes, the beams racing down towards Firefly. In response, the armored man rolled to his right, dodging the attack and firing another blast of fire. Face becoming stricken with fear, J'onn was barely able to move out of the way, the flames licking at his heat-sensitive skin. A weak cry slipped out of his mouth, before he hardened his features. Immediately he stopped his flight, allowing Firefly to close the distance between them rapidly.

Manipulating the density of his body's mass, J'onn hardened his body into solid steel a moment before his foe crashed into him. With a shocked cry, Firefly bounced off of him, the clashing of two metals ringing out into the air. Stunned, the armored man seemed to float helplessly in midair before J'onn.

Returning to his normal state, the Martian raised a fist and drove it down onto Firefly's head, sending him careening towards the ground. Carefully, J'onn gave chase, waiting to see what the man's next move would be before he launched his next attack. Though he wished that blow had ended their conflict, it wasn't meant to be as Firefly seemed to regain his composure in time to gain control of his flight, leveling off mere feet above the ground and racing over it. With a frown, J'onn followed him, sure to keep a safe distance away in order to dodge any surprise attacks.

Suddenly, Firefly shot straight up into the air, heading skyward. Coming to a stop, J'onn just watched the growing trail of smoke as he reached higher and higher above him. Hardening his face, the Martian began focusing his mind on the armored man, reaching out to touch his thoughts and find out what he was up to.

Bet this alien can't take a firebomb.

Pulling back, J'onn noticed Firefly coming right back at him, something sticking right out of the barrel. "Hey Alien!" the man shouted as he drew near. "I got a little present for ya!" Taking aim, he fired a canister at him, J'onn immediately flying out of the way. Eyes following the canister, he saw it hit the ground and flames explode in all directions. Like liquid, the fire spread out over the dirt, reaching the stone foundation of the temples and clinging to them. Many of the Demon's Fang fled from the flames, doing their best to keep away from it. Right about then, J'onn felt that this fire was more than simple flames.

Pouring on more speed, he fled away from the burning inferno. As it so happened, that proved to be a wise move as a stream of fire passed by behind him; had he not moved as quickly as he had, he had no doubt that attack would've hit him right in the back and he would've had a new problem.

"Run, Alien, run!" Firefly shouted after him giddily. "Make me earn my kill!"

Gritting his teeth, J'onn began rising up into the air again, doing his best aerial maneuvers as he began dodging the flamethrower once more. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could do before he made a mistake. He obviously needed to bring this fight into closer quarters to stop the pyromaniac, but he doubted Firefly would let him use the same trick twice. Telepathy was another option, but it required some concentration on his part, which he couldn't afford at the moment. That didn't take into account his natural aversion to fire interfering with his more rational, calmer mind.

Pressing on, he continued digging for a new strategy, anything to turn the tables before it was too late.

Alright, the priests were safe from harm—objective one complete. Although it had been a bit disturbing to be thanked by men who seemed to have very little concern for their welfare, John was just glad those civilians were safe and now he and his companions could fight without having to worry about them.

As the Green Lantern flew back to the battlefield, he couldn't help but take note that a lot had changed since he had left. J'onn and Hawkgirl seemed to be having their hands' full with aerial battles and Flash was having a stare down with some guy in a dark hood. There was no sight of Wonder Woman or Zatanna, but he could see some damage to some of the temple roofs. Seemed like things hadn't gone to plan while he was gone.

That was when something caught his eye. On top of one of the taller buildings a light flickered. Frowning, John was about to ignore it when he saw it again and there were repeated flashes. It took him a moment to realize it was Morse code and that someone wanted him up on that roof. "Come...here...Lantern," he read out loud, eyes narrowing. Eyeing the other battles he saw, it came quickly to him that perhaps he wouldn't be able to help the others, not without putting a target on someone else's back. So, he gave into the message and flew to the building, landing on top of it.

There he met a brown-haired man, cut short in a military fashion. Perhaps what stuck out to John was the hexagon strap to his black spandex-covered torso. It was a light red in the center with blue around the edges, purple between them. The blue slide towards the middle as the red and purple vanished, green and yellow appearing as soon as the blue moved. It continued like this throughout, going up and down the color spectrum.

"You called," John stated as he stared the man down. Considering he wasn't dressed anything like the other Demon's Fang guys, he was guessing this guy was something different.

"I did," the man gruffly said, his gloved fingers flexing and relaxing. Eyeing the way the man held himself, John got the sense this guy was ex-military. "I'm rather glad you know Morse's code; makes meeting with you a whole lot easier."

"Let me guess: so we can fight each other without anyone else getting in the way."

The man nodded his head. "That's right."

"Well, you got it," John responded. "But let me tell you something, that fear gas isn't going to work on me again."

The man stared at the Lantern for a moment before he let out an audible snort. "You're talking about the Detective's little toy, aren't you? Believe me, that's the least of your worries; the same for the rest of your friends. As a Man of Death, I don't need to force fear down your throat—I can do that just fine on my own."

So, no countermeasures. That was one positive in John's book. One less thing to worry about and if the Men of Death were arrogant enough to not use sure-fire methods to take out seven powerful meta-humans, then their hubris was going to bite them in the ass hard.

"Well then, you wanted a fight; here it comes!" John threw his ring hand up, gathering his will and channeling it into his right hand. A green light briefly flashed over his ring before a green beam fired towards the man. The Green Lantern had expected his opponent to dodge the attack, which he would then fire a second beam that would catch the man in mid-dodge.

What actually happened was the man took the beam head on, allowing it to hit him. Much to John's surprise, nothing happened. In fact, his foe didn't look the least bit hurt from the attack, staring stoically at the dark-skinned man.

"You're going to have to do better than that," the man said unamused. He then raised a hand up, large, bulky gauntlets covering up his hand up to his mid-forearm. There was a white circle on the palm and it began glowing the moment John saw it.

An instant later, a white beam shot towards John, the man widening his eyes before diving to a side, the blast flying by harmlessly. Rolling over his back until he came back up on his feet, he aimed his ring at his opponent again and fired another energy beam, receiving the same result as last time.

Letting a warcry out, the man charged at John, drawing a fist back before throwing it down at the Lantern. Dodging to the left, John balled up his left fist and threw it, landing the blow on the man's face. His opponent's face snapped to a side, living it wide open for a follow-up punch that knocked him flat on his ass.

However, if John thought that was enough to knock out this tough guy, he was mistaken. The moment the man landed on the ground, he thrust up his hand and fired another white beam, this one hitting John right on his chest and pushing him back, a burning sensation causing him to hiss. That had actually hurt!

Scrambling to get back on his feet, the man went charging at John, trying to punch him again. Scowling John decided that he needed to take the lead on his fight and willed his ring to make to large boxing gloves, each one extending out from his arms by green light. With a swing of an arm, he sent one glove slamming into his foe's face, sending the man flying back across the roof this time, barely able to get his booted feet to touch the roof and slow him to a stop.

The Green Lantern didn't let up, sending his other boxing glove flying at the man. However, this time his opponent raised a hand up, catching the glove before it could make contact with him. What came next shocked John as he watched his construct break down before it seemed to be sucked right into the man's hand. In fact, he felt a pulling sensation on his arm when this happened and instinctively dropped his will, causing his other boxing glove to fade away and the sucking sensation to end.

What the hell happened?

"I see you're confused," the man said, "much like all of the people I fight. They don't really understand what's happening until it's far too late."

John frowned. This guy was certainly arrogant, that was for sure. It kinda reminded him of that Batman guy and that only made him scowl more. Still, he needed to think this through before going on the offensive again. Twice now he had used his ring, only for one to not work while the other was broken down. Or was that what really happened?

Now that he thought about it, the way the energy from his ring seemed to be sucked right into the gauntlet was telling. "Let me guess," he suddenly spoke up. "You absorb energy, is that it?"

The man seemed caught off-guard by that statement if his widened eyes were any indication, but he did nod his acknowledgement. "I see you realized what part of my suit does."

"And the other?"

The corner of his mouth twitched up. "Isn't that obvious? I use it." At this, he threw up his hand again and fired a much larger white blast on John, who threw his own hand up and focused his will to create a green shield in front of him. To his surprise, the force the white beam had was much stronger than the one that had hit him previously, the Lantern having to pour more of his will into his shield to hold it off. Grunting, he gritted his teeth until the attack ended, his shield still holding until he let it fade away.

Of course, that left his opponent smirking openly at him, still holding his hand up. "As you can see, it's quite effective. That has earned me the name Ricochet."

"Good for you," John grunted back. Holding his ring hand up, he clutched it tightly, the green glow of his ring growing brighter. "But right now you've earned yourself an ass-whooping and I'm gonna make sure that you get it.

"Ahhh!"

Superman's back slammed into a thick wooden post, a support beam holding up the floor of the temple above his head. Cracking his eyes open, he saw his large, bulky opponent right in front of him before he began drilling giant fist after giant gist into the Kryptonian's gut. The sickening effects of the Kryptonite drained him of his strength, leaving him helpless to the beating he was getting.

Shortly after being separated from J'onn and Batman, he had been assaulted by a man barely wearing anything at all. He had a sashes of red cloth running down over his shoulders and coming together and wrapping around his hips. There was a white cloth covering his nether regions, but other than that he was showing every muscle he had.

Once the man had pulled Superman through the wall, he took advantage of those Kryptonite gauntlets he wore, pummeling him until he decided to pick the Kryptonian up and slam him through the floor with enough force to break right through it. That just about covered everything up to this point.

Suddenly, a beefy forearm slammed into Superman's throat, causing him to croak and gag in response "Why do you not resist?" a harsh, whisper of a voice questioned him. "Where is your fight? You must have more than this."

A hand grabbed onto the front of the Man of Steel's costume, the forearm moving away from his neck, though that was only temporary as he found himself being thrown through the air, landing hard on the soft brown dirt. Cough hoarsely, Superman looked up at his opponent, glaring at him. "Try saying that...without the Kryptonite..."

The large man just stared at him from beneath the red cloth headgear he wore, one that only revealed his eyes as his face and had completely covered his head. Superman thought the guy would've snorted at the remark, but all he did was remain silent until he went charging at the Kryptonian, swinging a foot to kick him in the face.

Rolling to a side, Superman dodged the blow, forcing himself up off the ground and lunging, arms wrapping around the man as he attempted to tackle him. There was a gasp of air from the man as Superman poured as much strength as he could muster into his arms, squeezing as hard as he could. Even when exposed to Kryptonite, he had enough strength to rival a hundred strong men—at least he thought that was a fair comparison since he rarely fought like this. Obviously he was doing something to the man he held.

That was until an elbow slammed right down on on the back of his neck, sending a shooting pain through Superman as he cried out. That was when two arms wrapped around the dark-haired man's waist and he found himself being lifted right off the ground, being held upside down. His opponent gave a short hop, sticking his legs up and away from his body, which left the two of them falling to the dirt, Superman's head colliding with it hard.

Arms going limp, the Kryptonian dropped his grip around the man's waist before he was lifted up again, still upside down with his arms dangling above his head. This time he was simply dropped, landing again on his head, his body falling over until he lay still on the dirt. Stars were flashing before his eyes and they weren't doing anything to help the constant ill-feeling he felt.

A fist driving itself against the back of his head didn't help matters either as it was followed by another and another. With each blow, more stars and flashes exploded before his eyes.

And then, it stopped. For a moment, Superman wondered what was going on until he felt the warm breath of his foe by his ear. "You disappoint me," the man whispered to him. "Is this all you are? That you rely on your powers so much that you are merely ordinary when they are removed?"

Right then and there, Superman decided to call this guy Whisper because he got the feeling the man wasn't going to be giving out a name anytime soon. He largely ignored Whisper's words because they were just that, words. If anything, the man was trying to get him to act out of anger and go headfirst into another mistake, to which he would pay for.

Forcing his head up, he saw Whisper kneeling next to him, arms resting on his knees as he leaned over the Kryptonian. Seeing an opportunity, Superman called upon his heat vision, eyes going red before he fired the heated beams.

In response, Whisper leaped up into the air, over the beams as he flipped through the air. Deactivating his heat vision, Superman followed him with his eyes, pushing himself up so he could turn his head as well. This allowed him to see Whisper jump up again, this time twisting his body in the air as he angled himself to drop on top of Superman, an elbow held out and ready to drive into his body.

Instantly he rolled out of the way, his opponent landing hard on he ground a moment later. Finding himself still within range, Superman managed to get onto his knees, keeping them wide for balance as his torso leaned to a side, throwing a punch at his foe, which nailed him in the face. It was an awkward punch to be sure, but it had the satisfying sight of seeing Whisper's head snapping to a side.

However, Whisper used this sudden change and moved with it, rolling on the ground and putting distance between him and the Man of Steel. Getting back onto his hands and feet, he looked much like a bull ready to charge, though for some reason held back.

And thanks to Superman's hearing, he caught the man say, "Much better, but you need to do more."

Suddenly, he threw one of his hands up, swinging it up and across his body. Dirt went flying from his hand, heading right for Superman, causing him to bring an arm up to shield his eyes. That proved costly as Whisper lunged forward, tackling him and sending the two falling back onto the ground.

Unfortunately, Whisper landed on top of Superman and he took full advantage of it by pummeling the Man of Steel's head again. He tried to block the blows, but Whisper either overpowered his arms, or batted them to aside before landing another punch. Blood began to flow from a cut on his lip. He had to stop this somehow, someway.

Holding his breath, Superman allowed himself to get punched again before he blew all of the air out of his lungs through his mouth. Normally this was enough for his freezing breath to flash-freeze anything the cold air touched. However, due to the Kryptonite on Whisper's gauntlet, it reduced his breath to a powerful wind, one that stopped his foe in mid-punch and slowly began pushing him back.

Unfortunately, whatever reprieve he got from that ended the moment he ran out of air. Though surprised, the moment the wind died down Whisper lunged forward, bending his arm at the elbow and using gravity to drop him down on the Kryptonian. Not again, he thought before his sight exploded with stars once more.

And now for the last three Men of Death. Griffin is actually one of Flash's rouges. As you're going to see soon, he's a hodge-podge of odd powers. Not sure who made him or why they decided to make him as complex as they did, but he seemed to fit in right where I needed him, not to mention having the right power to make him somewhat of a challenge to Flash.

For Ricochet, he's an original character as far as I know. Made him myself and his gimmick is definitely going to make things difficult for Green Lantern.

And finally Whisper. He's actually one of the seven fighters used during Bruce Wayne's retraining with Shiva following the Knightfall arc. I believe it's called Knightsend, but I could be mistaken. Anyways, he's the last of seven apprentices seeking revenge against Bruce for the murder of their master—that was done by Shiva so she could use the apprentices to help retrain Bruce. Unfortunately, he never gave a name like the other apprentices, so I had to make one up. Considering his voice is extremely soft for his size, something that was caused by him having a metal plate implanted in his neck to remove it as a weak point, it provided the source of his name as he could barely speak above a whisper.