Chapter 20: It's Only Rock n' Roll
GOTHAM CENTRAL CONSTRUCTION SITE - FOUNDERS ISLAND
The lone silhouette of Wonder Woman carrying Batwoman across the Gotham City skyline would have given pause to anyone who looked. They descended upon the Gotham Central construction site as the bitter December wind picked up.
Provided they lived past this, Batwoman was gong to ask Wonder Woman how she dealt with the cold with her arms, back, and thighs exposed like that.
And here she was, being carried through the air in the sinewy arms of the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, and Batwoman couldn't even enjoy it.
Some lesbian I turned out to be…
As Wonder Woman began to touch down, Batwoman started softly singing to herself under her breath. As far as pre-game rituals went, this was the only one she had.
"Leave me, or I'll be just like others you will meet. They won't act as kindly if they see you on the street. And don't you scream or make a shout, there's nothing you can do about. It was there when you came out, it's a special lack of grace. I can see it in your face. I can see by what you carry that you come from Barrytown."
Wonder Woman softly landed, and gently set Batwoman down.
"My ears may be deceiving me," Wonder Woman said, "but I do believe I heard you singing."
It was too cold to blush.
"Barrytown," Batwoman said. "The Ben Folds Five cover of the Steely Dan original, anyway. It's one of my Dad's favorites. It's just… something I do to get my head in the game on big nights like this."
Wonder Woman nodded. "I'm a Rolling Stones fan, myself."
"Seriously?"
"I am a simple woman," Wonder Woman said. "I hear Jumpin' Jack Flash, and I embarrass myself attempting to sing in my living room."
Batwoman nodded. If the situation were not urgent, nor the air so cold, she might have even smiled.
"This is the small talk portion, isn't it?" Batwoman asked. "That thing we do to put off the other thing that needs doing."
"So it is," Wonder Woman said. "Shall we?"
"Let's."
The new Gotham Central itself was essentially some foundation work and a network of girders. But, over on the east side of the site, there was a tunnel covered in a broad white tarpaulin that housed a wooden ramp leading down.
At the end of the ramp stood a freight elevator. Wonder Woman and Batwoman got inside, and Batwman pressed the button that brought them down…
...down…
...down…
...Into another tunnel built into the very Earth itself, lit by LED lights plunged into the walls of dirt.
Down this corridor they walked until they came to a chamber lit by floor lights, at the center of which one human form stood.
Well, Batwoman thought, I say human...
She was in robes of an ancient make, freshly tattered. Over them She wore an open blue work shirt with a name tag on the right side that said "Michael." She was a beautiful woman who found Herself in the early stages of disrepair. Her once flawless skin was covered in a coat of grimy oil. Her long blonde curls had gone stringy and greasy.
And having only set eyes on Her just this once, Batwoman knew that those blazing green eyes did not belong in Her head.
In Her hand, she held a green stone.
"Hello," She said.
Wonder Woman narrowed her eyes. "Nemesis."
"You must be Diana of the Amazons," Nemesis said. "Athena's clay plaything. Sent into Patriarch's World to preach and speechify about the sanctity of sisterhood."
"I am," Wonder Woman said.
"And how well have you fared?"
Wonder Woman looked at Batwoman before looking back to Nemesis. "On the whole, I'd say it's gone rather well."
Nemesis smirked. "And you must be Kate Kane. The Batwoman. I believe the term the younger set uses for one such as you is 'Disaster Lesbian.'"
"I'm not gonna lie," Batwoman said. "That's actually pretty fair."
Nemesis looked back at Wonder Woman. "The desperation emanating from you is sickening. To come all this way and spend all this time attempting to elevate women only to fall for one who stole a man's symbol in order to find her calling defeats the entire purpose, doesn't it?"
Wonder Woman looked as though she was going to say something. And judging from the glint in her blue eyes, it wasn't going to be something nice, but Batwoman cut her off.
"At least I didn't steal a body," Batwoman said. "Looks like I win."
And they all fell silent.
Batwoman could feel it in the air. She'd felt it many times before. Some called it tension, but to her, it was peace turning like old mayonnaise.
"The two of you will not leave this place alive," Nemesis said. "Such a fact should be made clear at the outset."
"It does not have to be this way," Wonder Woman said. "There are ways past this other than violence."
Nemesis laughed. "The famous Wonder Woman entreaty for a peaceful solution. When has that ever worked?"
"More times that I have feared," Wonder Woman said. "And less times than I've hoped."
"Hope truly is a funny thing," Nemesis said. "It brought you here… to die… with her… right now."
Nemesis raised Her left hand. Behind Her, the earthen walls started to distort and undulate, and from them emerged five human forms roughly six feet tall. Their faces were featureless, their chests barrel-like, and where their hands should have been, there were instead long and sharp spikes that reached all the way down to their knees.
"A trial run for the soldiers in my army," Nemesis said. "A taste of things to come."
She turned to the earthen soldiers She had summoned.
"Destroy them."
BURNSIDE - THE MAINLAND
Four motorcycles had lit out from the tunnel exit of the Batcave a half a mile away from Wayne Manor. Oracle, Bluebird, and Robin were on three.
Which meant that Orphan had had to hitch a ride with Spoiler.
The highway was nearly abandoned on this cold night. Orphan was aware that there were some things that spread telepathically between members of a community, no matter how large its size. The last connection between the planet and its people.
Everyone knew it was going to start snowing soon. And it was going to be bad.
The rendezvous point for the team was on top of the Levitt Savings & Loan on the mainland in scenic hipster Burnside. They were all supposed to park their bikes in various locations, and grapnel there.
They came to a stop next to a Burnside post office on another nearly abandoned street. Orphan immediately got off of the back of Spoiler's motorcycle, walked to the relatively tall building next to the post office, and got her grapnel gun off of her utility belt.
But then she stopped.
Spoiler was still on her motorcycle.
Her shoulders were bunched up beneath her purple cape in rigid tension. Orphan knew that she was thinking about something. And thinking about it hard.
Finally, Spoiler got off of her motorcycle and walked to Orphan, looking at her boots all the while. She came to a stop right in front of Orphan and sighed, her breath coming out in a thick fog from her black mask, before her head finally raised.
"I'm not going up there," Spoiler said.
Orphan blinked behind her mask. There was more to this, so she stayed quiet.
"The old Fordman's on Miagani," Spoiler said. "That's where Damian is, so that's where I'm going. Alone. I don't want you coming with me, and you have a dad to fight anyway, don't you?"
And Orphan… just went blank. She knew someone was going to have to deal with Damian, but she didn't think it was going to be Steph. If Orphan had to guess, maybe Oracle, because she had assumed Spoiler would be going with her to fight Cain.
Orphan had to fight David because… because…
Says who?
And there it was again. For a girl who could barely talk, Orphan's brain had started babbling at full speed last night, and hadn't stopped.
"He flowed around everything I had," Spoiler said. "He laughed at me. He almost killed Batman on my watch. So… So this is something I have to do."
The first thing that Orphan wanted to say was…
Says who?
...but Orphan didn't think Spoiler would respond well to it. But even that was better than her second response, which was…
You'll die.
Finally, Orphan just asked:
"Why?"
"Because… Because I need to prove I belong here," Spoiler said. "With all of you. In a way I don't think I have before."
And Orphan thought that that… was just stupid. Of course Stephanie Brown belonged with all of them. If she didn't, they would have kicked her out.
It was not lost on Orphan that she could try to stop Spoiler from leaving physically, but she knew it was a bad idea. There were nothing but worst case scenarios there, taking into account the fight that the two of them had in the Batcave evidence room that morning. The likeliest thing that would happen would be that Orphan would incapacitate Spoiler and they would be one down. The far less likely (though still depressingly possible, given how furious and unstoppable Stephanie seemed to be that morning) event was that Orphan and Spoiler would have incapaitated each other, and they'd be two down.
Orphan didn't get it. It was like Spoiler didn't get the level of game here. The fate of this world and worlds beyond hung in the balance, and Spoiler was going to throw it away on her pride.
Thing was, Orphan knew that she would have understood yesterday morning. Yesterday morning, she knew that she was born in a certain place, given a certain set of skills through fear and brutality, and destiny dictated where she ended up by the time she died, hopefully in service of others.
But today she knew that destiny was stupid, fate was bullshit, the Multiverse was vast, and we were all so, so small.
Cassandra Cain could not read, could not write, could barely talk, but these were truths that she knew now, down to the marrow in her bones.
So why didn't anyone else?
"I don't have a plan," Spoiler said. "I mean I do, but it's a shitty one. I have hope, though. And hope gets you through a lot."
Without warning, Spoiler put her arms around Orphan, and pulled her into a close, tight hug.
She spoke into Orphan's ear. Her voice was watery and thick.
"Be happy, Cassandra Cain," Spoiler said. "Whatever it takes. Take the Belly Buster Challenge. Enter the Kumite. Play Mortal Kombat. Grab hold of Conner Kent and don't let go. I don't give a shit. But when you go out, you go out smiling. Because if you can do it, then maybe the rest of us can too."
Spoiler broke the hug, and looked at Orphan. And Orphan would have paid to see what her eyes looked like.
"I practiced that in my head on the ride over here," Spoiler said after a while. "But I don't have an ending. So I'm just gonna bow…"
Spoiler gave an exaggerated bow.
"...and say that if there's a flip-side, I'll see you there."
Spoiler walked backwards to her motorcycle, putting off breaking eye contact with Orphan until the last possible instant, before she finally got on, turned over the engine, and tore off into the night.
And Orphan just stood there on that lonely sidewalk in front of a Burnside post office on a frigid night in Gotham City. Her thoughts tearing each other apart, failing to find an image or a through-line in her limited vocabulary with which to form a sentence, or even a word. There were tears behind her eyes, and her hands were shaking slightly.
Until finally, Orphan let out a watery sigh, got out her grapnel gun, and propelled herself upward.
GOTHAM CENTRAL CONSTRUCTION SITE - FOUNDERS ISLAND
The five earthen soldiers advanced on Wonder Woman, who already had her shield out.
Which left the painfully mortal Batwoman to deal with the Goddess of Grudges, Blood Feuds, and the Unjustly Slain.
Batwoman was caught in her usual fight reverie, and she hadn't fully grasped what she had done until after she had done it.
She came in low and fast, and planted an uppercut under Nemesis' jaw.
Batwoman just punched a Goddess in the face.
It was like hitting a pillow. Nemesis' head rolled with it, and She came away with a thoughtful look on Her face.
"Hmmmmm," Nemesis said, betraying no sign of pain whatsoever. "So that's what a punch feels like."
Batwoman's felt her pulse lower, and she just goggled at Her.
"Though I was frightfully curious, I'm going to make a bold statement," Nemesis drawled, "and say that I don't like them."
Nemesis raised Her hands, and the ground beneath Batwoman's feet rumbled, drowning out the sounds of Wonder Woman's exertions and the spikes clanging off of her ancient Greek shield.
Batwoman put her gymnastics training to use, and performed a back hand-spring just as a crater about three feet deep opened in the ground where she had just been standing.
Her weighted caped hit the back of her thighs as she came down, and her hands came up with two explosive Batarangs straight from her utility belt. She let them fly at Nemesis.
The explosive Batarangs came to a halt two feet in front of Nemesis, and they hovered in mid-air as the Goddess smiled. She let Her green eyes roam them as though they were exhibits at a museum for the quaint and the silly.
"Fascinating! " Nemesis said, broadly grinning. "You just throw them and they go… Boom."
The two Batarangs, packed with microscopic C-4 charges and rudimentary heat-seeking tech… exploded into pink flower petals.
Nemesis laughed and clapped Her hands. And Batwoman said the only thing that was appropriate under these circumstances.
"Oh, shit…"
While Nemesis was still laughing and clapping, four sets of chains appeared out of quite literally nowhere, and wrapped around Batwoman's wrists and ankles. She cried out as they pulled, suspending her in mid-air, completely helpless.
"Ohhhhhhh," Nemesis said, coming down from Her laugh. "I have to say I find this phenomenon of superheroes and supervillains quite fascinating. The costumes, the pageantry, the toys, the psychosis…"
As Wonder Woman continued her melee with the five earthen soldiers, Nemesis strolled leisurely around the bound and defenseless Batwoman.
"My kind and I have crossed into myth in the three thousand years since I died," Nemesis said. "But you? You have ventured into the realm of mythology as you still live and breathe. Your exploits have grown to legend. You are cursed in bitter invective and prayed for in hushed tones on the darkest of nights. All while your feeble mortal forms decay and sag, as you make mistakes and fumble toward a grace that shall ever evade you."
Nemesis was behind her now, and as She spoke, Batwoman could see Wonder Woman level the head of one of the earthen soldiers with her sword. The soldier collapsed into loose soil… as another soldier formed itself from the dirt in the wall to her right to replace it, ready to go.
"I have to say," Nemesis said, "I consider it a lost opportunity that I did not converse with The Joker while he was still alive. But if I had to pick a favorite among the living in your lot, I would have to say… Deathstroke."
She knew she was staring down death itself, but even now, Batwoman had to break from her fear to feel like she was about to throw up in her mouth.
Deathstroke? Really?
Nemesis made Her way around to Batwoman's front again. In Her left hand, She was holding a dull green rock.
The Stone of Nemesis.
"This stone," Nemesis said, "when awash in the blood of the unjustly slain, will assemble the real Soldiers of my unstoppable Army. And from there, they will slaughter every man, woman and child on this planet, each soul they harvest creating another in their number… But where, oh where, shall I find a murder victim at this time of night?"
Nemesis smiled a smile that was toothy, vile, unseemly, and altogether unnatural for the lips of the body of Harmonia in which She lived.
"Oh… I know."
She reached under the blood-spattered workshort She wore, and produced a dagger with a dull silver handle from the loose belt of her robes.
Batwoman didn't think that blade had a shot of piercing her armor…
...but she had just seen Nemesis turn two explosive Batarangs into flower petals.
Batwoman felt her heart squeeze inside her chest. She wondered if she could pick which parts of her life that would be flashing before her eyes right about now. She didn't want to hear her mom and sister die again. She didn't want to be expelled from West Point again. She didn't want to see Renee looking at her with disappointment again… and again… and again...
She wanted to swim in Lake James with her sister when she was eight. She wanted that night in the cab of Sophie Moore's pickup truck behind that barn in Virginia. She wanted to tell that joke about the two old ladies and the flowers to Renee again, the one that made her laugh so hard she squirted the grape juice she was drinking out of her nose.
And…
And…
And she wanted to see Diana. Away from all this. Across the water or across a table. In formal evening wear or superhero garb or sweatpants. If it was Diana, it didn't matter.
Nemesis raised the dagger above Her head in a grandiose fashion, still smiling that toothy smile.
"Goodbye, Kate."
Batwoman closed her eyes.
It came like thunder. A sound that almost made her deaf.
"NO!"
Batwoman heard flesh shear, ribs sunder. She felt something warm and wet spatter on her face.
She opened her eyes.
Wonder Woman's sword was sticking out of Nemesis' chest, staining the workshirt that belonged to some guy named Michael. Wonder Woman was standing behind Her.
Both the Stone and the dagger She was holding thumped to the ground after they slipped from Her fingers.
And it dawned on Batwoman that she had the blood of a Goddess on her face.
Nemesis was looking down at the blade, but slowly, Her head came up. She made eye contact with Batwoman.
It was a low sound she made, guttural. One might even call it a chuckle.
"Huh…"
Nemesis smiled. Not the smile She had on her face before, not that toothy monstrocity. This was a smile of genuine delight.
But then Her eyes rolled back in Her head. Green fog started spewing out of her mouth, out of Her eye sockets.
Batwoman felt herself being gently lowered to the ground as the Godly chains from nowhere slowly vanished. The five earthen soldiers that Wonder Woman had been fighting knelt to the ground in what looked like respect, before they dissolved into loose dirt.
Nemesis looked up at Wonder Woman, but She was different. There was blood spilling from her mouth. And her eyes were…
Her eyes were blue.
This wasn't Nemesis.
This was Harmonia.
"D...Diana?" Harmonia asked in a completely different voice.
A stillness settled on Wonder Woman. If one were looking closely, one could see her lip quiver. And Batwoman was indeed looking very closely.
"I am sorry, Harmonia," Wonder Woman said.
"I just wanted the whispers to stop," Harmonia said, pained, a slight gurgle in her throat. "I… I just…"
Harmonia's body slumped. Her head hung limp.
A dead Goddess on the end of an ancient sword.
BURNSIDE - THE MAINLAND
Orphan descended on the roof of Levitt Savings & Loan to see Robin and Bluebird standing to one side while Oracle stood all on her lonesome on the other. Oracle was stoop-shouldered with her hands in the pockets of her leather trench coat. Orphan had seen her in this stance before. She was putting up with a great annoyance, though Orphan knew not what. At least not until Bluebird opened her mouth.
"Oh, wipe that asshole off your face," Bluebird said. "You know how much money I'd pay in Vegas to have someone as hot as Catwoman yell at me?"
Oracle opened her mouth to say something, but caught Orphan out of the corner of her eye.
"Where's Spoiler?" Oracle asked.
"She's… fighting… Damian," Orphan said in reply.
"By herself?"
Orphan nodded.
"And you didn't stop her? And you didn't go with her?"
Orphan didn't even know how to respond to that, beyond what Spoiler had told her.
"It's something… she had… to do."
Jeez, just saying that tasted like the bullshit that Orphan thought it was.
Oracle didn't say anything. But Robin did.
"I respect that," Robin said. "Just like you have to fight your dad, right?"
Past the instinctive revulsion that always washed over her whenever someone referred to David Cain as her "dad," beyond the practiced sentiment at the fore of her brain that made her want to say "Yes, I do," something else, something deeper and all the more persuasive made itself known. And it was loud.
But do I?
Followed by that old familiar refrain of:
Says who?
There was… something. Something off.
So much had changed since yesterday, since she had discovered how big everything was. Yesterday she thought that, for good or ill, David Cain was responsible for how she turned out. From the training that honed her into a lethal weapon to even the seed of conscience, either discovered or inadvertently instilled at such a young age, that prevented her from taking any further life. David Cain started her and, because of that origin, David Cain would be the reason wherever she ended up by the time she took her final breath.
But as the Multiverse got bigger and bigger, the Cassandra Cain of Earth Eight-Oh-Three saw that she owed David Cain less and less.
And it was all stupid anyway, wasn't it? If she was going to fight David, if Robin was going to fight Jason, if Spoiler was going to fight Damian, then wouldn't David, Jason and Damian have anticipated all of this?
The three of them had spent the last few days making this personal, and if this was personal, then they were banking on predictability. The same kind of predictability that would, in all likelihood, get her best friend Stephanie killed.
And so many lives were on the line. In this city, on this Earth, on every Earth. The worst way to gamble was an easiness to read.
"Alright," Oracle said. "So you're taking on Jason?"
"Yeah," Robin said.
Orphan's hands started opening and closing.
"Bluebird, where are you gonna be?" Oracle asked.
"I'm going with him," Bluebird said.
Orphan's breath escaped her nose in an irritated hiss.
"I guess that settles it," Oracle said. "Orphan, I'm with-"
And finally, it was too much for Orphan to take. She hunched over and used all of her body to yell:
'NO!"
They all stared at her, statue-like.
Robin was the first one to speak.
"You, uh… You okay, there, Orphan?"
Orphan stood up straight, ripped off her mask, pointed at Robin, and yelled "BULLSHIT!"
Cassandra had never seen anyone in a superhero costume so surprised and hurt at the same time.
She walked up to him, dropping her mask on the tarpaper of the rooftop so that she could use her hands to sign.
"You. Don't. Have. To. Do. Anything."
Robin opened his mouth, but Cassandra reached up and put her hand over his lips.
"You… fight… Cain," Cassandra said. "I… fight Jason."
And there it was. There was the plea that took her away from destiny itself.
Cassandra Cain would never be the One-Who-Is-All.
Cassandra Cain would never learn from her father who her mother actually was.
Cassandra would never get whatever measure of closure there was to be gained by defeating David Cain in combat.
But if it saved lives, every life, then Cassandra Cain was more than happy with that.
She took her hand away from Robin's mouth. Whatever reply he had came with a delay, as she stared at her with his mouth open for a second.
"No," he said.
"Yes."
"You don't understand, " Robin said. "I have to fight Jason.
After so much time thinking it, Cassandra finally got to say it.
"Says who?"
Robin didn't seem to be prepared for that one.
"Says me," Robin said after a moment. "This is something that needs to be settled Robin to Robin. I wouldn't expect anyone to understand."
Cassandra sighed. She frantically rummaged through the words in her brain that would make her point for her, but it was slow in going.
As with many other aspects of her life, however, it was Barbara Gordon who came in when she needed her most.
"You know," Oracle said, "I think she's on to something. I was telling her the other day that going after her father was a bad idea because he baited her. He was prepared for her. Nice to see it's finally sinking in."
It wasn't. But apparently Catwoman had yelled at Oracle earlier in the evening, so Cassandra opted to let her think she got the win. She didn't have the words to explain herself anyway.
Robin shook his head. "For the past year and a half I've been chasing ghosts. I've been chasing Dick, I've been chasing Jason. I… I've been given something special, and I need to earn it. I need to make my mark. I need to prove that I'm the best Robin I can be."
There was a brief silence after this. Then Oracle spoke again.
"Didn't you, um… Didn't you do the detective work that linked that mob hit on Bleake Island to what was going down at the Sorrento Ballroom?"
"Yeah," Bluebird said. "And didn't you neutralize the Anti-Fear Toxin and save a hundred lives all by your damn self? Including mine?"
"Didn't you make the jump that Cain, Jason, and Damian were going after Muhammad bin Sayel?" Oracle asked. "You averted an international incident."
"Didn't you figure out where the Stone of Nemesis was?" Bluebird asked. "Wonder Woman and Batwoman haven't contacted us yet, so it must be there."
"Tim," Oracle said, "You have been killing it. And right now, you're gonna need a better reason to take on Jason than 'That's the way the story's supposed to end.' What more is it gonna take for you to realize you belong here?"
Robin, who had been turning red this whole time, yelled out "Beating Jason Todd in a fight!"
Cassandra, Oracle, and Bluebird regarded him gravely. He looked at his boots.
"Robin doesn't take stray shots in the face from henchmen," Robin said. He pointed at the bandages on his face. "Robin isn't supposed to get his nose broken by mass murdering psychos. The only clout you have in this life is how strong you are. How fast you are. How good you are in a fight. Because the way we live, that's how lives get saved."
Oracle folded her arms. Her green holographic mask was blank, but her voice was a poisonous monotone.
"I spent four years as Oracle," she said, "becoming the intelligence backbone for the entire superhero community. I joined the fucking Justice League in a wheelchair. No… it… isn't."
Cassandra didn't think that was really fair. She had been out of the wheelchair by the time she and Tim had first met. Robin threw up his hands the way he did when he was frustrated with himself after he had said something stupid, but he didn't say anything.
"Robin?"
It was Bluebird. In a stark contrast to Oracle, her face was sympathy itself. Her voice soft.
"The only person," Bluebird said, "who doesn't think you should be wearing that R is you."
Robin looked from her, to Cassandra, and then slowly to Oracle.
"Alright," Robin said. "I'll fight Cass' dad."
"Good," Oracle said, getting some of her geniality back.
"Tim," Cassandra said.
He looked at her. Cassandra walked up to him and gave him a hug. It was a hug that Robin only half-heartedly returned.
"You get the sweetheart deal," Robin said. "You know that, right? Jason's dangerous, but your dad is a top-tier assassin."
"You have me with you," Bluebird said. "Keep your boxers dry."
"He's not… prepared… for you," Cassandra said.
"And Jason?" Robin asked.
Cassandra picked her mask back up. Before she put it on, she smiled at him.
The smile was not altogether a warm one.
"Not… prepared… for me…"
GOTHAM CENTRAL CONSTRUCTION SITE - FOUNDERS ISLAND
"You killed her," Batwoman said.
Wonder Woman lowered Harmonia's body to the floor. "I know," she said.
She pulled her sword out of Harmonia's back. And there she was, the corpse of the Goddess of Harmony and Concord, still and cooling in an ever-spreading pool of her own blood.
Wonder Woman looked at Batwoman. Her face was a mask of sorrow. Batwoman tried to find something to say.
She settled on "Batman has a rule. I follow it. I live by it. But unlike him, I know exceptions sometimes have to be made. I'm a soldier, and war costs."
They held eye contact. It was enough.
"But still," Wonder Woman said. "There is-"
"Wait," said Batwoman.
Her eyes had fallen on the dagger that Nemesis had used in the attempt to kill her. She didn't notice something wrong in the heat of the moment, but now the moment was cold.
What would a Goddess need with a dagger?
Batwoman bent down, picked it up, and immediately knew something was off. She flicked the blade with her finger, and a hollow thump sounded.
"This is a toy knife," Batwoman said.
Wonder Woman's brow furrowed.
Batwoman looked to the left of Harmonia's body, and saw the Stone of Nemesis. She picked it up. It almost looked like…
"This is soap," Batwoman said.
"What?"
Batwoman sniffed it. "Yeah, this is Irish Spring. My dad uses this." She closed her hand tightly around it, and the nugget of Irish Spring collapsed into pale green chunks.
Wonder Woman folded her arms. "Then where is… the…"
She trailed off. She was looking down. Batwoman's eyes went down as well.
There were green shafts of light coming from Harmonia's chest, illuminating the pool of blood in which she lay.
Wonder Woman knelt down and turned Harmonia's body over. Whatever it was that was causing this had now cast the entire underground chamber in a vivid green pall.
And it was coming from the right breast pocket of the work shirt that Harmonia was wearing. The one that had belonged to someone named Michael.
Wonder Woman reached inside, and with blood-stained fingers, she pulled out what had to be the real Stone of Nemesis.
Batwoman's train of thought jumped three tracks.
Nemesis wasn't trying to kill either of them.
Judging from Wonder Woman's body, and how little pain she herself was in, Nemesis wasn't even particularly attempting to hurt them.
Which meant that Nemesis… was Unjustly Slain.
"This doesn't make any sense," Batwoman said. "Nemesis gets us to kill Harmonia, and the Army of Nemesis rises and she doesn't live to see it?"
"Nemesis gets me to kill Harmonia," Wonder Woman said, "and the Army of Nemesis rises. They kill all life on Earth. Which means the Olympian Pantheon, with no worshippers, dies off as well. All of the other Harmonias on all of the other Earths stay trapped in their madness while the Gods and Goddesses that sentenced her to death also meet their end."
Wonder Woman looked from the activated Stone to Batwoman.
"Nemesis was the Goddess of Grudges and Blood Feuds," she said. "If you ask me whether or not She would sacrifice Herself to bring the entire Olympic Pantheon down with Her, I would say She very much would."
Batwoman felt a chill from inside her. And she saw something she hoped she would never see. Something she didn't even know was possible.
Wonder Woman was terrified.
Her shaking hands opened the leather pouch at her waist and stuffed the bloody Stone inside. She reached into the pouch and pulled out a small communication device about the size of a tube of ChapStick. She spoke into it.
"Wonder Woman to League," she said. "Founders Island in Gotham City. Six-Gee-Dash-Seven-One-Oh. Condition: Keter. I repeat, Condition: Keter."
She dropped the comm device back into the pouch. As she closed it, she began to walk back the way they came.
"We need to go."
"Where?" Batwoman asked.
Wonder Woman's voice was a grave monotone.
"Toward the sound of screaming."
BATBURGER - FOUNDERS ISLAND
In the center of Founders Island, as a sort of respite from the investment banks, high-end boutiques, art galleries, and corporate skyscrapers, a small core of stores and eateries lay. They were indicative of the tacky, gaudy, cheap, and otherwise grotesque Disney-fication that once claimed the life of New York City.
Tourists liked them.
They were the only ones.
One such establishment, Batburger, was here at its second location after the first had been destroyed by angry rioters a year and a half ago, when The Undying held sway. It was a Batman theme restaurant that sold Batburgers, Night-Wings, and even Orphan-Os, which were just Spaghetti-Os kept under a heat lamp. They also sold various souvenirs like Spoiler t-shirts, and black baseball caps with bat ears up top and vivid red wig-fringes sewn in the back to mimic Batwoman's cowl.
This skidmark in the tightey-whiteys of Gotham City had gotten its liquor license two months ago. Good for them. Bad for City Sanitation, who now had to clean up gallons of tourist puke on this street a week.
At a table on the southern end of the restaurant, against the wall with the large, ugly, blown-up mugshot of The Joker, Darrel Estes of Voldosta, Georgia sat with his wife Milla, and his two sons Jacob and Eli.
Jacob and Eli were kicking each other under the table with a never-ending tennis match of "Stop." "You stop." "Stop." "You stop."
The ever-indecisive Milla was still perusing the menu, wasting everyone's Goddamned time before she would finally settle on the Batburger equivalent of the chicken tenders, which she ate everywhere the family went.
And Darrel just sipped his pint of Miller Genuine Draft, trying to empty his mind of all thought and all noise.
Mister Estes was the first person to realize something was wrong. The top of his glass of beer was rippling, like those two plastic cups of water in Jurassic Park.
A second later, every last one of the patrons of this filled-to-the-brim Batburger fell into silence as they all realized that the floor was shaking.
Little granules of wood from the floor, of formica from the tabletops, of glass from display cases and framed posters, of steel from silverware, of carpet fabric and eventually the concrete beneath all started floating away, pitting those things from whence they came, toward five points in the southern end of the restaurant.
All present simply gawked silently. Or got their phones out to record.
And these materials, leaving the things they comprised seemingly of their own accord, assembled five beige humanoid figures with featureless faces, broad chests, and long sharp spikes where their hands should have been.
And one of them turned its head… and looked at Darrel Estes.
Darrel was silent for a moment, before he lifted his beer and said "Uhhh… Hey."
And this figure reared back, and jammed its right spike into Darrel Estes' eye. It came out the back of his head in a shower of blood, brain, and bone.
Everyone screamed. They bolted, leaving behind purses, souvenirs, and unfinished meals.
But while Darrel Estes' life met a most peculiar end, it was nothing compared to what happened to his soul.
It did not go where souls go after death. But rather it stayed, invisible and suspended, while bits of material from its surroundings formed a sixth deadly figure around it.
Eight people were either slaughtered or trampled to death before they could leave the restaurant. Which meant that the six figures that had come to life in this place now numbered fourteen.
And so, in this lowly, shitty Batburger, the gravest existential threat that Gotham City-that the world -had ever faced made its initial presence felt.
The Army of Nemesis had risen.
MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE…
In the rear of the Hall of Justice on the first floor, beyond the museum and the gift shoppe (yes, spelled with the superfluous P and E), there was Central Control.
It was a large room, with the left and the right walls consisting of almost nothing but computer servers, and the front wall made up of a large screen that connected with the Watchtower up in space.
Someone, twenty-four hours a day, every day, had to be in this room to monitor incoming transmissions.
And tonight, the shift belonged to Victor Stone. AKA "Cyborg."
On the vast screen in front of him was J'onn J'onzz-The Martian Manhunter-from his station on the Watchtower.
And from the speakers…
"Wonder Woman to League. Founders Island in Gotham City. Six-Gee-Dash-Seven-One-Oh. Condition: Keter. I repeat, Condition: Keter."
Cyborg's one natural eye widened.
"Keter?" he asked. "That's…"
"World-threatening," Martian Manhunter said, his red eyes narrowing, making his green face seem bigger.
"Think Diana might have made a mistake?"
"She gave her access code," Martian Manhunter said. "And Diana is, well, Diana. If she said the threat is real, the threat is real."
Cyborg sighed. He interfaced with the Central Control mainframe. Cyborg being Cyborg, he just had to think it, and it was done. He hadn't used a keyboard in years.
"I'm putting the word out," Cyborg said. "All Justice League members and League-adjacent entities and individuals. Boots on the ground, we're going to Gotham City."