Chapter 6-Princess, Green Lantern, Meet Everyone Else.
Arrow's heart stopped. Chloe Sullivan, the woman who had haunted his dreams for almost 5 years…
Hell she'd been haunting him longer than that.
Before their fateful target practice he had dreamed of green eyes and golden hair running through his fingers. The real Chloe had exceeded any of his dreams, and even during their short time together, whenever they were apart he was consumed with a need to be in her presence.
After the trade, he had been a wreck and despite coming to accept her death, he still was haunted by those green eyes that were currently looking back at him beneath brown fringe.
He moved forward needing to touch her, convince himself that she was real. He stopped short though, not wanting to face the possibility that she wasn't here.
Her eyes were locked with his, "Hey Hero."
That small smile, the nervous half quirk of her lips that she used whenever she was unsure.
"You're supposed to be dead." Clark was not far behind him, eyeing her suspiciously.
"When's that ever stopped me before? Come on Kal-El, it's the end of the world. I had to come back for that."
Chloe took a breath as she fixed a steady gaze on her childhood best friend. Internally praying that it was the right move to use his Kryptonian name.
It was a risk, but with strangers around, and her credibility being close to zero with her former team, she needed to prove it was her without revealing too much. This was not the way she wanted this conversation to go down. It was not the way she wanted to tell Clark she was safe.
It was not the way we she wanted to face Oliver. One look at his face and she wanted to pretend like nothing had changed. She wanted to rush into his arms and tell him everything and tell him to his face how much she loved him. She had never been able to tell him she loved him.
There wasn't time for that now though. This wasn't the place.
There was a pause as everyone held their breath.
Chloe blinked and in that second Bart was at her side, pulling her into a crushing hug.
She lost her breath, not sure if it was from the impact, the way he crushed her, or the emotions she was choking back.
"I missed you so much Bart." she whispered in his ear, voice catching in her throat.
The tension broke.
" Chloelicious, you have no idea…" Before they could share any more of a moment, Batman cleared his throat.
"Hate to break up the reunion, but like she said, The world is ending."
Bart grudgingly put Chloe down but did not move from her side. Chloe took a deep breath, avoiding eye contact with Oliver and Clark and instead seeking out Bruce behind his cowl.
"I assume you know what we're dealing with?" He questioned.
She'd never been so grateful for Batman, always straight to business, no time for emotions.
She flipped the switch and got down to business. He was right, they had a mission, and the mission came first.
"I don't know where they came from exactly, but in English they're known as The Invaders. They're a parasite race, going from planet-to-planet harvesting and feeding on it's organic resources until it can no longer sustain life, then they move on."
"And you know this how?" Green Lantern asked. "I've never encountered anything like this with the Corps."
"No, you haven't. Brainiac has." Chloe confessed, chancing a glance at Clark now.
"Chloe, what the hell…?"
"Oliver." Chloe stopped Arrow from finishing his thought. "I'll explain later, right now, what's important is the information we have on this now."
She looked at Clark now, hoping to appeal to his logical Kryptonian side.
"Thousands of years ago Kandorian scouts came across them in their explorations. They took out several colonies in the surrounding solar system."
"How'd they end up making their way to earth then?" Clark questioned. His brain felt like it was working overdrive and yet nothing was connecting. How was Chloe here talking to him about Kryptonian history.
"How'd you end up here?" She questioned, quirking an eyebrow in a very Chloe way.
"My guess is, after Krypton went nuclear and basically took out the solar system the invaders had to regroup and find a new food supply. They probably traveled through the same wormhole you did, but instead of ending up on earth made a pit stop. Lucky for us."
"I don't know what brought them here now, but as far as I can tell they've been here a while."
She pulled out her computer and looked to Cyborg, "Mind giving a girl a hand?"
Vic nodded coming to her side and plugging into her device, then displaying the screen out so the rest of their gathering could view it.
"I've been looking into the satellite hacks and some of them go back years. They have become more sophisticated and far more widespread in recent months, hence how you were able to detect them." Chloe motioned to Oliver acknowledging his red flag that put this on her radar.
"Going through the old hacks I was able to trace an early break-in to a doctor with NASA who was focused on bio-molecular research and has since transferred to medical science. At the same time that the satellite hacks were taking place, several medical labs experienced thefts, break-ins, and in the case of last month, fires."
"They're feeding on the organic matter." Batman deduced.
Victor was eyeing the information closely, "I don't get it. You're tying break-ins at stem cell facilities to thefts at nuclear power plants, and if it's organic matter, why aren't we seeing a murder spree happening? Not to get dark here, but they're here to eat us, right?"
"Wait, really? Listen, I'm sweet and all but not the way I was planning on going out." Flash said leaving Chloe's side to stand in front of the group to emphasize his point.
"They're testing our resources." Batman stated, looking at Chloe for confirmation.
"That's my guess. These were scouts sent to check out the buffet and report back on the good stuff."
"Report back to who?" Arrow questioned trying his best to focus on the clear and present danger of an alien invasion. He could worry about his personal life when they finished saving the world.
Chloe shrugged, "Satellites are still being jammed. We know at least some of them have been here for years. They can change their appearance, I'm not sure to what extent their shifting works, but I read the coroner's report on Andrew Russell and despite him being dead as a door nail, he was caught on camera tampering with a satellite in New York."
"So they've infiltrated our society. However they got here, they came and took over identities of people that could be helpful to them." Green Lantern supplied.
"Okay, so we know who they are, we know they're trying to eat us and more might be coming. Just to sum everything up." Flash said looking at everyone for confirmation.
"What are they doing though?" Cyborg asked. He looked at the factory in the distance.
"They're going to eat us! Seriously, were you even listening." Flash rolled his eyes at his friend
Putting his arm around Diana's shoulders, "So, did I mention that you're gorgeous."
Diana raised her eyebrow at Flash before directing her attention back to Chloe.
Before anyone could say anything, there was a commotion from the meteor. They all turned their attention to see what appeared to be smoke stacks sprout from the top then an entire structure lifted from the rock.
"What the hell?" Cyborg said, activating his binocular vision to get a better look at the structure.
More giant white machines burst through the meteor rock. Large round tops that looked like cyclops heads and three spiked legs they teetered for a moment as they pulled themselves up.
Both Superman and Green Lantern rose into the air in preparation to attack, the the machines merely took up positions around the larger structure.
"Cyborg, can you get a read on what that thing is?" Chloe asked, but before he could respond a drill came down from the structure rocking the ground underneath them as it plunged into the asphalt.
"It's a factory." Batman said outline, having took out his own binoculars to asses the situation.
"We should make a high-low attack. Ground team can send the machines off balance and we can attack from the air." Green Lantern said, gearing up to approach.
"Wait. They're taking defensive positions. They're not planning to attack. Look." Diana pointed out.
"The spiders?" Flash asked, at the raised eyebrows around him he got slightly defensive, "The white machine thingies. They look like giant spiders."
"No, they don't." Arrow said.
"Spiders have eight legs, moron." Cyborg pointed out.
"I've been calling them walkers in my head." Chloe said
"Like Star Wars?" Superman asked.
"Wait, you've actually watched Star Wars?" Chloe asked shocked, "I tried getting you to watch those for years."
Before he could respond. Green Lantern interrupted, "End of the world, let's try to focus please."
"The princess is right. The Walkers don't seem to be interested in attacking us." Batman observed turning his back on the group to further observe their intergalactic guests.
"Did you miss the part where they shot us out of the air? They seemed pretty set on attacking us then." Arrow pointed out following Batman's gaze to the factory.
"Actually, Bats is on to something." Flash zipped around the group to get their attention.
"The ones in Italy only attacked when I got close to the factory and they never went after the civilians."
"They're not attackers. They're guards." Diana said, "We should take out those factories."
"We need to figure out what they're purpose is and what they're preparing for." Batman interjected.
"Can't we do both?" Chloe asked, bringing the attention of the group back to her.
"Listen, at this point here's what we know." She began, counting their knowledge off on her fingers.
"One, we're being invaded by an alien race that plans to suck the Earth of its natural resources i.e. organic matter."
"And then eat us. Let's not forget that part." Flash interrupted.
"Right, that too." Chloe rolled her eyes but continued her list, "Two, they sent scouts ahead to infiltrate our satellites so we wouldn't know they were coming. "
"It's also safe to assume they've infiltrated our defenses as well. They're clearly aware that Superman is Kryptonian. Having faced them before, they were able to take him out." Batman added.
"They didn't take me out." Superman defended. Batman raised his eyebrow, "They didn't" Superman grumbled.
"What happened in New York?" Batman asked.
Superman rubbed the back of his neck, "There's a noise and flashes of light and images in my head. I don't know how to describe it but it..."
"That's why you fell from the sky?" Diana asked, unaware of the annoyed look from Clark or the smugness from Batman.
Chloe continued, "Okay, so we'll need to figure out how they're doing whatever it is they're doing to Superman."
"I've got it." Clark responded irritated. Chloe ignored him, "Here's where we get into guess work. I think they're waiting for something. The satellites are still down, so we're blind to anything else coming from the sky. If they're only focus is on guarding the factories, then clearly those are doing something important. I also have some concerns over the fact that they have crash landed in countries that do not have nuclear weapons as of this month. There's a strategy here. They've done their homework.
"Clearly, considering they've had scouts here. You say you can trace the satellite interference back a few years, but what if they've been here since Superman landed. Who knows what they've infiltrated or how far reaching their power and knowledge goes." Leave it to Batman to bring down a mood. Everyone in their gathering was somber contemplating this information.
"What's the plan?" Lantern asked Chloe. Regardless of who was here, who was attacking them, or whether her name was Sally, Chloe, Watchtower or the queen of Sheba, John Stewart knew that when there was a problem, the 5' 2" spitfire in front of him knew how to fix it.
Everyone's attention was on Chloe, who's last Brainiac brain blast was still having her thoughts race. She took a steadying breath. "Cyborg, I need a map. All the crash sites please." He nodded, and quickly typed in the request into his arm before a world map displayed in front of them.
As they gathered around the projection Chloe went into planning mode. This was where she thrived, shaking off any uncertainty and doubts she focused on what she did best. Giving her heroes all the information to succeed.
"There are four machines around the world. Rome, Dubai, Sydney, and Metropolis. Considering we don't know how much time we have left. I say we split into teams to take them out."
"We need more information about their weaknesses, and what's coming next." Batman interrupted. "We can start taking out factories, but we need those satellites back online, we need to know what we're dealing with."
"I can plug into the Queen mainframe. Once I figure out how they're jamming the signal I should be able to reverse engineer the problem and get us our eyes in the sky back." Cyborg said.
Batman nodded before turning to Chloe, "Can you…"
"Figure out where they come from, what they're doing, their weaknesses and come up with a strategy to take them all out. Sure, piece of cake." she said with a shrug.
Batman didn't even bat-an-eye at the snark. Despite the tone, he was fully confident that Chloe would do just that.
"The rest of us will split up to take out the factories." Lantern said crossing his arms over his chest. He was a military man afterall, he liked a good plan of attack.
Chloe nodded, "Leave the Metropolis one for last. At this point they're not attacking anything so no one is in immediate danger, and Cyborg and I can monitor it and intervene if something changes."
Superman looked like he was going to protest but Batman cut him off. "Agreed." and his tone left no room for argument.
As Chloe looked around the assembled group she was caught in Oliver's stare, the intensity almost knocked her off balance.
He nodded his acceptance for the plan but is stare never wavered. Chloe knew that when this was all over she was going to have to face the music and have a conversation and it wasn't going to be the homecoming that she had fantasized about the whole time she was on the run. It was going to be painful and it was going to be ugly and the more she thought about it, her happy ever after dream scenario was not a possibility. It was 1 year, 6 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days too late for that.
She was shook from her thoughts once again by Flash who in a very Bart like manner said, "So, splitting up. Dibs on the Amazon!" Flash called.
Author's Note: Thanks for sticking with me so far. While writing this chapter I realized that I had messed up the timeline which messes with not only the story continuity, but also plans I have for a sequel. If you read previous chapters before the edit, don't worry you don't miss anything plot wise, I just cleaned up those inconsistencies and a few spelling and grammar errors I missed in my initial post. Any questions or clarifications you need, please ask in your comments.
Thanks!
~Intrepid Reporter
