Chapter 25: Awakening

The first thing he felt was the pain. He felt like he had been hit by a bus that was carrying fifty overweight elephants, and had then gone a dozen rounds with Mike Tyson. All in all that meant that he was slow to open his eyes, that he was slow to realise that he could open his eyes.

But eventually things began to dawn on Snapper Carr. Eventually he saw that he wasn't where he had been the last time he had gazed on his surroundings. There wasn't a single Imperium in sight. In fact, he didn't even appear to be in their fortress any more. Though he had to squint, he was soon making out familiar shapes. Soon he was realising that he was back in the helicopter where he had been before the cloud had done...whatever it had done to him. The place was a mangled wreck and was safely on the ground now, but he was also safely back in it. He was safely back in Metropolis.

"Snapper! Hey, Snapper, you okay?"

It was the sound of his cameraman calling out to him. Snapper couldn't say for sure, but his best guess was that the other man had just awoken too. Believing that he had just dozed off and it had all been merely a bad nightmare would have been a tad beyond wishful thinking.

"Bet... Better than I...was," Snapper just about stammered. He clearly hadn't been out long enough to recover from the damage the Imperium had done to him during their 'talk'. He hadn't had a chance to begin to recover. But he was free. He was free, and he was too relieved to put the extent of that relief into words. He knew that he would have some very brave heroes to thank for that.

And it was that thought that made him realise how alone he and the helicopter crew were. Even Lois Lane wasn't in there with them any more, let alone whichever member of the Justice League it had been who had surely come to their rescue. That was what made him glance beyond the helicopter as much as he could, considering it hurt when he tried to move.

When he saw the outline of that energy cloud still looming menacingly over the city, he wished dearly that he hadn't bothered.

His concentration was firm. It had been ever since they had sent Batman back into the innards of that energy being. He had absolutely no idea what the current situation was regarding that cloud, nor how well Green Lantern, Superman and the rest were combating it. All Dr. Fate knew was that he had hundreds of people to return to their bodies, where they belonged.

And it was a process that was already under way.

On paper that should have proved an impossible feat to accomplish. All those people, coming practically all at once, needing to go into so many separate unidentified locations. It didn't matter how powerful the League magicians were, individually or combined. They needed help to pull it off. Thankfully they had some. Thankfully the equation on that paper had forgotten a key bit of the algebra.

There was a natural way to all things. Ultimately, in times of crises all anyone ever wants is to go home, to go back to the way things were before the bad times began. Even a separated mind was like that. Its natural desire was to find a way back into its body, to put the pieces that had been torn apart back together again. The only issue was that while it may be able to find the way on its own, it both could not start the journey nor end it, not without help. It needed the magicians to rip it from the cloud and then replace it in the body at the other end, ensuring not to lose it on the way. Even knowing where a separated mind wanted to go, there was no way of finding it again if it was ever lost. That was why Dr. Fate and the others had required such concentration for this long, but now the time was here.

Already he could feel the relief, the sense that balance was returning to those lives. Already he could detect people once broken beginning to awaken. They just had to finish the job.

But, as part of that, there was at least one mind that Dr. Fate was worried about. There was one person whom he feared may wake up a mere shell of what she had been, whom they may not have managed to pull clear in time.

Fate and all of the magicians had sensed the blaring heat engulfing her in the exact same second that they were withdrawing her from that place. They knew what it could signify; the Imperium had gotten too close to her. There was every chance that they had sealed her fate. There was every chance that because of that, she would never wake up.

As the last mind returned to its body, Dr. Fate dearly hoped that he hadn't seen the last of Shayera Hol.

"Hey, Shay! Come on! Your alarm went off five minutes ago! Wake up already!"

She snatched an arm up just in time to catch the slap that Flash was throwing at her face. She was certainly groggy, dizzy too, but she was awake. And for that Shayera was damned relieved.

She had made it, just in time.

"Flash, I'm here!" she growled out, both to calm him down and to make him stop. Literally trying to shake the thudding out of her skull, she heaved herself upwards. As she did so she opened her eyes.

She was in the Watchtower's medical bay, the doctors still scurrying around her. She was quick to shoo them away. Shayera hated appearing weak. Her head ached but she could handle it. She would handle it. As for why she was here in the first place, well that made her think, and made her head hurt even more. It had been GL who had been responsible for her body once she was in the cloud. The fact that he had sent her up here spoke a thousand confusing volumes. From what she could see, Batman hadn't been sent up here. They must have left him stationed with the magicians and the rest at the military's base camp. So why hadn't she been left there too? Did GL still care about her, or not? Was he finally getting past his months of awkward indecision, or was this just another step along that long and very winding road to nowhere?

Thank heavens that there was still plenty of reasons for her not to have to think any more about such questions in that moment. She knew that they'd only make her angry at the seemingly apparent answers.

"Come on, Flash," Shayera muttered, pushing herself up further and relieved to find her mace left by her bedside. "Metropolis will still be in trouble, and there's now a whole lot more people who'll be waking up right in the heart of the danger zone."

"Then its a good job they just booked a ride on the Flash train," Wally returned. "Don't worry, Shay. I'll have T get it all programmed in by the time you get there. The race is on!"

Even with their combined strengths, this time the Justice League had been unable to hold the cloud off as completely as before. This time they had been unable to hold it out there over the waters. This time it had made it back above the city.

But thankfully it hadn't made it into the city. Thankfully the Justice League had been able to force it skywards, keeping it distant from the people down below. It was still lashing out, still flinging tentacles of pure, dark energy towards the buildings below and the people in them, but it was yet to hit again. But there were some remarkably near misses as the Leaguers could not stop those attacks entirely. Sometimes all they could do was to deflect them, to put a last ditch effort into ensuring those tentacles did not hit their targets. Luckily that had been enough. So far.

There was every chance that that would not last, particularly with the cloud now being above the city. It had opened its angle up to all of Metropolis. Not only did that put more people in its striking range, but it also meant that the Justice League had a far greater area that they had to protect. Simply put, there was just no way for enough of them to stop that thing if it were to attack the entire city all at once. They were somehow holding it off so far, but even the most heroic and noble of souls tired. There was just no way that this could be kept up for long. There was just no way that they could keep this cloud at bay for long.

But even that wasn't everything. Even up here, right at the heart of all of the chaos and the noise, Superman could hear as the citizens down below began to wake up. All of them, all who had been taken by that cloud during its first attack, all waking up at once. His friends had managed to pull that much off at least.

Right then, though, even Superman was struck by pessimism. All of those people had been left where they had fallen. There was no positive spin to put on it. It had just been decided that they were of minimal priority. There were still plenty of people in the city who the military had known had a chance of surviving. It had been them that General Mulligan and the rest had focussed on. There just hadn't been the manpower to protect the fallen as well as those still standing.

But now they were all standing. Now there would be scores of people, lost and confused, waking up in the middle of hell. Now there were people waking up in an area which would have been otherwise abandoned by that time. Now there were people waking up who were an easy target for the Imperium menace.

However, as long as he drew breath, Superman would not abandon them. Too many had died under the attacks of this cloud already.

But even Superman couldn't guarantee that more would not be following. The cloud was certainly trying hard to bring that about. An entire chunk of the city was still emptying. Superman could tell that all too well. Apparently the cloud could too. The tentacle of energy was lashing out that way rapidly. Thankfully it wasn't alone in that.

The Leaguers had seen it coming. They were already reacting. The light from Green Lantern's ring was already in place to act as a shield, Doctor Light assisting him similarly, Captain Atom already sending forth a stream of radiation to try and dispel as much of the tentacles energy as he could before that shield was struck.

It was just a shame that this cloud still had some tricks up its sleeves. The tentacle never even reached the Leagues blocking efforts. To Superman's horror the energy halted mid-air dashing back up into the main body of the cloud. Even as it was doing so, a new tentacle was issuing forth from it, this one even looking more deadly. Worse, it was coming from completely the other side of the city, well clear of the blocking efforts the League had just put in place. The real attack was coming in.

And it was heading straight for the Daily Planet building.

Superman knew that there were people in there. The place had been one of those hit when the cloud had absorbed a large chunk of the city's populous, meaning that it was one of the places that hadn't yet been evacuated. Of course, those people were now waking up. Perry, Jimmy, all of Superman's colleagues, his friends. All of them except Lois would still be in that place. And now they were all very much at risk.

This was exactly the sort of moment that made Superman eternally grateful he had his powers. He utilised as many as he could all at once, speeding across the cityscape, blasting the tentacle with everything that he had. He knew that the others were trying to do likewise, but he was so focused on the task that he couldn't see what they were doing. Everything was going in slow motion in those moments, almost as if Superman was able to slow time right down on top of all the rest that he could do. He watched as the branch of sparkling fury got closer to the globe-bearing structure. He saw every last line, saw as the energy got close enough to reflect in the already weakening windows...

All of his heat vision, ice breath and the rest stuck just fractions before the tentacle hit the buildings upper floors. If he didn't need to keep unleashing it against that menacing power, Superman would be waiting with baited breath. It wasn't enough to block the thing, but it was enough to deflect it. The tentacle that had been about to play the reaper was now sent spiralling downwards, into the void between buildings and a street that was thankfully empty down below. Superman was already starting to feel the traces of relieved success.

And then things took a turn for the worse. Literally. At the last second, just before slamming into the clear asphalt, the cloud managed to redirect its tentacle. Instead of striking in a place of minimal damage, it hit in just about the worst place possible. All that power, all that energy plunged straight into the base of the structure of the Daily Planet building.

The noise was deafening as glass shattered and concrete crumbled. A large chunk of the bottom floors was literally smashed apart. Not only that, but it sounded almost as if the tentacle had turned upwards before it was done, crashing through the floors on its way before ripping through the walls on its way out.

The building was totally gutted. Superman had heard the screams as some people drew their last breaths.

The shock hit him hard, but he hadn't the time to let himself properly feel it. He knew that not everyone had been killed by that attack. There were still some people alive in there, particularly on the upper floors. But that was not going to be the case for long. With the damage to the superstructure, that building was not going to stay standing for too much longer. It was already creaking, already beginning to lean like a tree being hacked down by a lumberjack. Soon the whole building would fall, and it'd take all those people still alive in there with it...

Superman was instantly about to go and help, but the sight of the cloud still looming large above them all made him hesitate. It was going to attack again soon. Any second now, another building, another core of people were going to be put in every bit as much risk as those in the Planet building, and Superman was among the very best hopes that those people had too. He had a choice, a choice of who to save. It wasn't a choice that he enjoyed facing. Thankfully it turned out that he didn't have to make it.

"Superman, this is Arrow," the Leaguer's voice rang out of Superman's comm piece. He sounded distinctly urgent. "I'm in the Daily Planet with Q and Canary, trying to get the folks out. What the hell just happened? We just get to the top floor and then the whole place goes nuts around our ears!"

"Arrow, the buildings been hit!" Superman urgently responded. Even as he did so he was sending blasts of his heat vision against the cloud again, trying to keep it from attacking once again, at least for the moment. "I don't know how much longer its going to be standing! Get the people out of there now!"

"On it!" Arrow responded, the call quickly cutting off at that point. Everyone had too much work to do to hang around chatting.

And as the cloud looked ever more ready to strike at the city again, Superman knew exactly how true that was. Even being as worried for his friends as he was, it was impossible to miss.

They had only just gotten clear of the lift when the thunder struck. It had been a good job they had too, and a good job they had decided to work this place from top to bottom. The lift car was sent calamitously tumbling down to the bottom of the shaft by the carnage ripping through the building, but thankfully that seemed to be the only damage this high up the Daily Planet tower. The problem was that there had been a lot of damage down the bottom of the structure. Already the supports were groaning. This place wouldn't be standing for too much longer. They had to act fast. A lot of people may have already been killed by the energy cloud's latest blow, particularly on the lower levels, but there were still plenty in here left to save.

That was why they had split up. Green Arrow had taken command. He'd personally taken the top floor and would work down, despitching the others to go back from where they'd just come immediately. Question could handle the middle bunch of floors, leaving Black Canary to clear out the bottom floors. They would be the least stable ones, but they'd also be the ones far closer to an escape from this place. She hadn't liked it, but Green Arrow had used his command of the situation to ensure that that was where his pretty bird would have to go.

He could already hear the people screaming. The magicians' had gotten those mentally taken from the city before all woken up again. That was why Green Arrow and the other two had targeted the Daily Planet in the first place, knowing that there would be a lot of disoriented people awakening from their unwanted naps. Now those people would be scared and disoriented.

But even as Green Arrow ran around the corridors, helping everyone he came across to their feet and the emergency exit stairwells, he knew things were about to get worse. The cloud's tentacle may be out of the building, but it was still doing damage. His school physics days may be long behind him, but Green Arrow still remembered that a sudden burst of energy into matter certainly warmed things up a touch. Well right now things were getting warm already. In fact, the whole place was catching fire.

And it was already starting to come through the floors.

He only just managed to dive backwards in time as the floor collapsed in front of him, flames and smoke already rippling upwards. He could already begin to feel the warmth coming at him, which was a major problem. Up to this point Green Arrow had been able to simply instruct all the awaking people to get out of there. Now there was every chance that there was no way out for a lot of people, a lot of people that Green Arrow had to get out. Shame, then, that he couldn't fly.

But that didn't mean he couldn't get across. He was quickly grasping into his quiver, going for one of his trick arrows. At a rush he fired it across the crevice that led to the flames below, over to the other side. He wasn't pausing before hooking the other end of the line safely and securely in place on this side. He was pausing even less prior to swinging his way across the line.

Green Arrow didn't look down as he went, but he felt the heat even more. Clearly there was something on the floor below that burnt hard and fast. Arrow only just cleared the gap in time before a column of flame shot up behind him, snapping his line in twain. Thankfully he was already in place to simply drop to the intact bit of flooring with feline style grace.

But he could hear the floor creaking as he did so. Just because this bit was still intact now, it didn't mean that that was going to last. He had to act fast. The screams for help coming from further ahead enforced that even more. Arrow surged forwards, recognising where he had to be first. Leaping over toppled desks, he made it into the office.

"Hey! Is anyone out there? Olsen? That you? Anybody! I'm stuck in here! Someone get me out!"

It was a man shouting, an older, more rotund man who was clearly used to being in control. Green Arrow was able to deduce that this guy must have been the Daily Planet's editor Perry White, but that didn't matter. Regardless of who it was, they needed his help.

The shout had been clear, but that didn't mean that it wasn't weak. Now that he was in the room, Green Arrow was able to reason why. There was blood, plenty of it, pooling from around the man's temples. When the cloud had taken him, White must have fallen, smashing his head against the corner of his desk on his way down. That would leave him very groggy, very weak. It would mean that he was hardly likely to be in a position to walk out of here, even if the building wasn't on fire and due to collapse at any moment.

"Don't worry fella, the cavalry's here," Green Arrow informed White as he rushed closer, bending down to hoist the guy up, draping the heavier guy over his shoulders as much as he could. Green Arrow could only hope there weren't more up here in White's condition. He hadn't the strength or the shoulder space to carry anyone else.

It was a shame that that was a completely moot point. There was a massive groan throughout the entire building. A second later, everything seemed to be falling. The entire place tilted, Green Arrow having to fight hard to maintain the balance of two at once. In that moment he was absolutely convinced that the entire place was going, that their time was up. He was incredibly relieved when the place seemed to catch itself a moment later, halting its slide at an angle not too steep for him to walk.

Yet the signal was clear. The Daily Planet building was going. There was no halting it. It was just a matter of time, especially with that big globe on top weighing everything down. They had to get out of there. Now.

Easier said than done. The building beginning to fall had done more than give the floors a slope. It had weakened the structures even more than they already had been. A crack had emerged in the floor of the office, right between Arrow, Perry and the door, a crack that was rapidly growing. A new crevice had just opened up, right in the path of their only way out of there. And it was more than just an obstacle. It was a passage for the flames below to shoot upwards. Plenty of flames.

"Err, buddy, is there any other way out of here?" Arrow quickly asked the man in his arms as he rapidly scanned the room. He needed a plan fast. Unfortunately he wasn't getting one. His other zipline arrows wouldn't help. He couldn't carry Perry swinging on one of them.

"This place wasn't exactly built with this in mind, my boy," White grimly informed him. There was a note of resignation in his voice. Arrow didn't like the sound of that. "Even the health and safety nuts didn't see this one coming."

But he still liked the sound of it more than the explosion. Already Green Arrow was having to fight to stop himself and White slipping into the firey pit before them. When even more of the floor went around them, there was no stopping it any more. The flames didn't take them directly, but they had done enough. They knocked Green Arrow clean off his feet, sending White flying too.

They were both sliding fast towards hell. Green Arrow desperately grabbed for any kind of handhold, anything that could save his life, but there wasn't one. There was nothing to grab onto. His eyes widened far as he stared into the fiery death that was about to take him...

Only it never came. Right at the last second, both Green Arrow and White were hauled from their slide to damnation, upwards into the air. It didn't stop there either. Both of them were immediately carried out of the building's already smashed windows, setting down seconds later several towers over. They were practically already there before Green Arrow realised who it was that had swooped in to save his life.

Shayera.

"You two both all right?" the Thanagarian was immediately asking. Despite the adventure she had just been through, she looked completely focussed as if it had just been all in a days work. Then again, for folks like them it probably was. There was no such thing as an ordinary day for their types, and this day certainly classed as out of the ordinary.

"I'm fine, but he could do with seeing a medic," Green Arrow responded for both of them, indicating Perry's head wound. Even as he was talking he was looking across the city once again, back to the easily recognisable Daily Planet. Now that it was leaning more than the Tower of Piza it was even easier to differentiate than ever before. Especially as that lean was getting even more enhanced by the second.

Even more, and then even more, and then a bit more on top of that...

Green Arrow watched to his horror as the foundations could hold it no longer. What had moments ago looked like a tree being felled suddenly became reminiscent of the losing move in a game of Jenga. The entire building, proud as it had once been, collapsed in on itself. Dust and smoke was thrown everywhere, along with huge chunks of rubble. It was a spine chilling thing to see.

The tower had fallen. If anyone had still been inside it, they were dead. If anyone had been too close, they were dead. Green Arrow couldn't help but feel scared. Scores of people had been in there, Question had been in there. Black Canary had been in there...

It was a good job that the Flash's uniform was such a vivid red. If not then Green Arrow didn't know how long it would have taken him to realise the truth. It was as he stared, as he watched that dust cloud expand that he spotted them. Like Shayera, the Scarlet Speedster had been freed from the cloud's innards, and had come to help them try to save the day. He, too, had made it just in time. Just as Shayera had been able to get Green Arrow and White clear, so had Flash managed to get Canary, Q and every one else he could out before the whole place came down around their ears. What was more, at his speed he had gotten them all more than just out, he had gotten them clear of the carnage too.

But still, Green Arrow had no way of knowing how many people even the Flash hadn't been quick enough to save. Regardless of how relieved he was to see so many – and admittedly one in particular – safely out of there, he still felt the immediate grief of knowing that there wasn't as many as there could – and perhaps should – have been.

Today was a very bad day.

"I'll get him to help," Shayera broke the silence that had fallen upon them as the Daily Planet had imploded. It was abundantly clear that time was playing on her mind, that she was forcing things to happen, even if she didn't particularly feel ready for them too. She was doing what they had to do. What they all needed to do. "You start getting this building cleared too. Batman and Diana are working on ending that thing, but we have to buy them time."

"On it," Green Arrow immediately concurred. Every word she said was right. Watching the smoke still issuing from the rubble confirmed that all the more. "Get back here as soon as you can, though. Even if there's only seconds left in that thing, I get the feeling we're still going to need as much help as we can get down here. Otherwise this city is going to burn, and all its folks'll go down with it."

It didn't really matter how many people had been in that tower, or how many had been evacuated before the whole thing fell. The point was that it had happened. The point was that all of those people could have been so easily killed by it. That could not be allowed to happen again. This thing had to be stopped. At all costs, it had to be stopped.

That was why General Mulligan was so glad that the call started coming in before the dust had even begun to settle across the city.

"General Mulligan, it's Colonel Anderson, Sir, Major Breckman's commander" a fresh voice was ringing forth into Mulligan's earpiece. "Sir, the engineers report that the missile is ready to launch. But, Sir, we're hearing that that energy cloud has managed to position itself over the city again. I know what you ordered the Major, but given the circumstances and what will–"

"Stop right there, son!" Mulligan was soon barking down the comm. He had heard enough. His orders should have been enough the last time. Now they were just wasting seconds a lot of people may not have. "I know exactly what will happen. I saw those people die the last time. But many more will die if we don't launch that missile, right now! So, Colonel, fire the damn rocket!"

"Aye, Sir," Anderson's voice issued back over the comm line. It then went silent for a few moments, before Mulligan was convinced he heard a familiar sound in the distance from the other end. The sound of jets firing. Then the Colonel was talking again, confirming what Mulligan had already managed to ascertain. "The missile is away. It won't be long until it hits the target. But for the record Sir, I don't like this."

"Don't worry, son. I won't forget," Mulligan was growling back before silencing his comm. He respected his subordinates stand for the people who may get in the way when the missile tore that cloud apart as Superman and Captain Atom refused to do, but he loathed the other man's time wasting, his ineptitude for the tough calls. He would make sure all the higher ups knew of that.

But for now there were more important things to deal with. Looking back across the city through the dust, he could still see the cloud looming large, the Justice League doing absolutely everything that they could to keep it at bay. It just re-affirmed his decision. It was time for that thing to die. Better to lose one city to stop it than a hundred, or perhaps even the whole world.

Yet he still had his teams out there in that city, trying to get as many people clear of the danger as they possibly could. Right now, that included themselves. The missile would not take long to arrive. It was time to get everyone out of there that had the chance to make it.

Mulligan stepped across the base camp until he was looming over one of the radio officers issuing instructions and receiving feedback from all the teams that were in the city. He paused only slightly before giving the command.

"Lieutenant, order everyone to pull out. They're to bring with them everyone that they can carry but I want every soldier out from under that cloud's shadow. Now. A payload is about to be dropped on it that will take out that bloody thing and everything else that gets in its way. I want that to be as few of our boys and girls as possible, but we're not waiting around. We're about to end this thing, once and for all."

A/N:

Time for those reviews again. Throw them my way like there's no tomorrow, please!

Stay tuned for the next installment and all. Bats and Wondy are going to be getting back in on the action. Didn't think I'd forgotten about them did you?