Chapter 21: Get Yer Ya-Yas Out
FORDMAN'S DEPARTMENT STORE - MIAGANI ISLAND
Fordman's Department Store was a victim of it own expansion, and just plain picking the wrong island of Gotham on which to open.
It first opened its doors in the eighties, when families still lived on Miagani Island. By the late eighties, people were moving away, and by the early nineties, Miagani was slowly but surely becoming Gotham's entertainment destination, and the large blocky store clashed with the theatres and cineplexes that had begun popping up like mushrooms.
The corporate ownership tried to move the store somewhere else in the city, but the real estate prices were far too high. So it came to pass that Fordman's, with stores in thirty-eight states, no longer had a presence in Gotham.
Fordman's had, in fact, been closed since before Stephanie Brown had been born.
After she had parked her motorcycle in the middle of the vast, dilapidated parking lot, Spoiler began her lonely, long walk to the front entrance in the cold evening air beneath a cloudy, indifferent sky.
She reckoned that Damian Wayne was like a cat in a way.
She knew this because he left her a present.
A man was propped up next to the open glass door to the old store.
He was in his fifties.
He was homeless.
And he was dead. Both of his eyes had been carved out of his skull, and his throat had been slashed.
Spoiler shook her head, and went on in.
She was greeted by five more dead transients. Some with missing limbs. Some still kneeling, as though praying for a mercy that would never come. There was a trail of blood that connected the five bodies, forming a trail that began in the main foyer, and ended…
...in the old women's wear section.
Spoiler didn't know why Damian chose this as the showdown spot.
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the old mannequins were still there.
The feminine mannequins formed a circle around what had to be the bomb. It was housed in half of an old plastic suitcase, with wires and metal plates, in the center of which was a small tube of bright orange gel, and a red switch that must have turned the thing off.
The dead bodies were unpleasant, no question about that. But Spoiler thought the mannequins were just creepy . Weren't they property of the Fordman's corporation? Weren't they supposed to be picked up and put in other stores, instead of being left here like swords on old-timey battlefields? Did they have to still be here to be used as ornamentation for a Fifth Dimensional psychotic's little tabl-
"Hello, Stephanie…"
It came from all around her. From the walls, from the cavernous, vaulted ceiling.
"You've come," Damian said from wherever he was. "And… you've come alone. That, I did not expect."
Spoiler sighed. "Hello, Damian."
From right behind her: "You know my name."
Spoiler turned, and there Damian Wayne stood, minus the flames that marked his Two gimmick. His green eyes were accusatory. He was handsome… he was babyfaced…
...and he was short.
Stephanie thought that might be useful.
"How do you know my name?" Damian asked.
"Does it matter?" Spoiler asked.
Damian leered. "I suppose not."
Spoiler pointed back to the trail of dead homeless people. "Was that necessary?"
He ran a hand through his black hair. "Yes."
"They were people," Spoiler said. "You had no right."
"Yes, I did."
"How?"
Damian sighed. "You know I was once asked whether or not I could communicate with anyone without hurting them? I don't think I can. I wasn't built for it. Come to think of it, I don't particularly want to. I am superior, so why should I pretend otherwise? I am… of a great purpose."
Spoiler sneered behind her mask.
"I am a great many people in this one body," Damian said. "So many Damians, so many Grandsons of the Demon. So many Sons of Batman, and the vein that connects them all is destiny. The cowl. The Batman of this Earth may have escaped me for the time being, but I will take his head, take the cowl that he wears, and put his other profligate faux sons to the sword. Grayson. Drake. Even that newfangled Jason monstrosity that Harmonia reconstructed."
One thing lit up in Spoiler's mind.
Harmonia didn't tell him what she was planning. How could this guy be Batman if there was no Earth to be Batman on?
In addition to being both short, and apparently in love with the sound of his own voice, Damian Wayne gravitated toward power. Once he considered something greater than he, he asked no questions.
This… might also be useful.
"The cowl is mine," Damian said. "All I need to do is take it. It is one of two things in this place that truly do belong to me."
"And what's the other?"
"You," Damian said.
Spoiler found it impossible to suppress a shudder.
"Don't be like that," Damian said. "I forbid it. Why is it that everyone leads with emotions like concern and empathy? Why are so few worthy enough to communicate with me on a level that matters?"
Spoiler sighed. She pulled back her purple hood and took off her black mask.
She saw Damian regarding the bruises that Cassandra had given her that morning. He reacted with a glare. Not a concern that someone did this to someone for whom he had feelings, no. This was the irritated reception of someone who just got their car keyed.
"I dunno," Stephanie said. "Maybe… and I'm just speculating, here… it's because you're a cunt."
The glare on Damian's face disappeared into an angry nothing.
"Oh, that's right," Stephanie said. "You don't like it when girls swear, do you? Cunt-cunt-cunt-cunt- cunt!"
Stephanie wasn't the biggest fan of that word. He'd have had to interrogate her memory for the times she had even thought it before now. But she was under the impression that she needed all the help she could get.
Damian's eye started twitching. "None… have ever… dared!"
"Oh, none have ever dared, huh?" Stephanie asked. "How many Stephanie Browns have you met? Because if any of them had a nice thing to say about a sawed-off little spunk-bubble like you, then they don't deserve my name. See, I get that you're the son of multiple Batmans, and they might not have been the best fathers, but my dad was an abusive prick supervillain who locked me in a closet when he got angry. You don't have a fucking excuse! You're a piece of shit because you're happy being a piece of shit. There is no other reason."
She folded her arms. "You're gonna get a lot of talks over and over again in life. Women will ask you if it's in yet. Men will tell you you're four inches too short to get on the really good rollercoasters. But this talk you're only gonna get from me."
Stephanie took a step toward him.
"You… are not… special."
She let that sink in before she continued.
"You're a load, Damian! You're a pipsqueak who walks around talking about what people owe you. Because of who your fucking daddy is. Tools like that aren't particularly rare around here. They sell guys like you at the Save-Lots next to discounted rolls of Charmin."
"Hold your tongue, trollop," Damian said. "I defeated your Earth's Batman."
"You defeated Batman with poison," Stephanie said. "You didn't play your mastermind card. You played your bitch card. If that's how you think you're supposed to roll, then you don't have the height or the sack to hang with Baffler, let alone The Dark Knight."
Se took another step toward him. "You inflict pain because it makes you happy. You take, and the instant someone suggests you give, your asshole slams shut like the bedroom door in a haunted house movie. You'd make a great CEO. You might even be President one day. But you will never be Batman. Because… you are… a c-"
Damian's fist shot out, tagging her under the chin.
And the little fucker hit hard.
Stephanie almost flew out of her boots. She knocked two of the creepy mannequins over before she hit the ground.
And away we go, Stephanie thought. Don't fuck this up.
Stephanie got to her feet.
"You can't be the Son of Batman," she said. "Batman's tall. What happened? Did the Oompa Loompa your mom begged to fuck her just go out for cigarettes one night and not come back?"
Damian delivered a roundhouse kick to the stomach. Stephanie doubled over, the air exiting her lungs. It came back to her a second later in a ragged gasp, before she stood up.
"I… I should take that back," she said, breathing heavily. "Anything over five feet is okay in my book."
Stephanie looked him in the eye. "Because if I were stacking shit, I'd have stopped at four."
Another right, to the side of the face. Blood filled her mouth as she fell to the ground.
As the stars parted from her field of vision, Stephanie knew that she needed to hold on for her plan to work.
And she wondered if it was easier thought than done.
FOUNDERS ISLAND
The night air in Founders Island was alive with the sound of screaming. The Army of Nemesis spread like a plague.
They savaged shops, tore through movie theatre lobbies, sundered restaurants, destroyed art galleries.
There was a police presence on Founders Island, though. At Eighteenth and Hume, eight officers managed to set up an impromptu barricade.
These officers of the law found out too late, however, that bullets from service pistols were only minimally effective against the oncoming horde.
All eight of Gotham City's finest died screaming, their souls fodder for eight brand-spanking new Soldiers of Nemesis.
The island was so caught unawares, so unprepared for this kind of foe, that by the time Wonder Woman and Batwoman touched down near the Jitters on the end of MacClendon Avenue to do battle, only a token force of the Army stayed behind to fight them. The rest were on a rampage, killing innocents and in so doing, making more of themselves.
At that point, the numbers of the Army of Nemesis had grown to two-hundred-and-seven, with no signs of stopping...
A contingent of six Soldiers of Nemesis were eviscerating the well-to-do and impeccably dressed audience of the touring production of Avenue Q at the Pantages Theater when the first boom tube opened.
The six Soldiers stopped, staring with their featureless faces, at the circle of red light that had just appeared from nowhere.
And the first one out of the boom tube was Supergirl.
She erupted, faster than a speeding bullet, obliterating two of the six with her fists.
As the other four advanced on her, the second superhero to make landfall in Gotham, Beast Boy, leapt over her head. By the time he came back down to Earth, he had shapeshifted into a five hundred pound green gorilla. His impact on the street obliterated two of the Soldiers instantly, before he grabbed the other two by the heads and smashed them together, sending their rocky remains to the pavement.
And after that, and small platoon of Speedsters came out of the boom tube.
The Flash, Kid Flash, Impulse, Jay Garrick, Max Mercury, Jesse Quick. Rounding out their number was Avery Ho, who was The Flash of China.
The Flash and Impulse were on combat duty. Jay and Kid Flash immediately went to evacuate citizens to the mainland. The rest formed a perimeter around the edge of the island, acting as a Speedster buzzsaw that would prevent any Soldier of Nemesis from leaving.
What happened on Founders Island stayed on Founders Island.
They came by the hundreds.
They came by boom tubes. They came by magical portals. They came by Midnighter doors.
The Justice League.
And the Justice League Dark.
And the Justice Society of America, Young Justice, Teen Titans East, Teen Titans West, the Doom Patrol, The Others, Shadowpact, The Outsiders, the Birds of Prey, The Movement, The Challengers of the Unknown, Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters…
...and Gen 13, The Immortal Men, WildC.A.T.s, Planetary, StormWatch, The Inferior Five, The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, The Green Team, The Ravagers, The Terrifics, and The Unexpected.
And this wasn't an America Only occasion, either. In addition to The Flash of China Avery Ho, the New Super-Man of China Kong Kenan made his presence felt as well, alongside socialite-slash-vigilante Suzie Ming. Which was to say nothing of The Great Ten, which was the original Chinese Superteam, led by August General in Iron.
Even groups showed up that might uncharitably be described as consisting of supervillains. Out of The Gem Cities of Central and Keystone came The Rogues (consisting of Captain Cold, Golden Glider, Mirror Master, Heatwave, and Trickster), and from whatever shitty motel room in which they lived this week came the Secret Six (made up of Catman, Rag Doll, Scandal Savage, Porcelain, Jeanette, and Strix). Neither group wanted the Earth to end. It was, after all, the thing they lived on.
The Run-Offs showed up. They weren't really a superteam at all, but rather a support group made up of the ex-second bananas of supervillains. People like Defacer and Gorilla Grimm and Stallion.
Even the Gang of Harleys, the Brooklyn street gang formed by Harley Quinn herself, put in an appearance. No one was quite sure how. Or, for that matter, even why.
Which isn't to say that everyone was there.
Most conspicuous by his absence was Superman. He, along with Adam Strange, were on the planet Rann at present, overseeing diplomatic negotiations with the planet Thanagar. This also kept Hawkman and Hawkwoman off the board. The Guardians of the Universe had a vested interest in these negotiations, so they sent a strong showing from the Green Lantern Corps. So strong, in fact, that the only Green Lantern that was able toshow up to protect Gotham City on this frigid December evening was Jessica Cruz.
Doctor Fate no-showed because he was Doctor Fate. According to Wally West, the line between acting cryptically and just being a little bitch was a thin one, and Doctor Fate made it disappear.
The Suicide Squad was being held back. For Amanda Waller, much like God, moved in mysterious ways.
The Omega Men and The Wanderers were still on their home planets.
Section Eight didn't show up because they were all dead. They tried to take over and operate a porno theater in Tijuana, and the Mexican Cartel killed them for it.
And The Legion of Superheroes, that team of superpowered teenagers from the thirty-first century, were also absent.
Because they were in the thirty-first century.
Which was their excuse for everything, really.
Zatanna was standing on the corner of Twenty-Third and Dillahunt, watching the carnage unfold.
Plastic Man tying himself to street lamps on opposite sides of the street and sling-shotting a Soldier of Nemesis into the side of a building.
Aquaman hewing Soldiers with his mighty trident while his wife Mera of Xebel, the Queen of Atlantis, busted open a fire hydrant, using her Hydromancy to form the water into spikes that ran even more Soldiers through.
Uncle Sam and August General in Iron catching sight of each other from across the street and giving each other just… just the dirtiest looks.
Up in the Watchtower, Martian Manhunter had them all on telepathic comms. The bass line to Zatanna's train of thought was throbbing with questions and answers being asked back and forth among hundreds.
She hated it. Hated the whole telepathy jazz. If it didn't come with magic words, she just felt weird.
Standing on this street corner, after having given herself a heating spell to withstand the cold, Zatanna's only backup was an alcoholic crime-solving chimpanzee wearing a deerstalker cap and holding a double-barreled shotgun.
As Detective Chimp took potshots, Zatanna noticed that as much ass as the hundreds of superheroes were kicking at the present moment, the number of the Soldiers of Nemesis didn't seem to be diminishing. They were reforming themselves from the pavement, from cars, from glass storefronts, from street lamps, leaving pits and cavities in everything with which they reassembled themselves.
So… She tried her opening spell.
"Seimene nrut otni srewolfnus."
Nothing happened.
Zatanna was stunned. There was precious damned little that her magic could not affect.
These soldiers weren't any base kind of magic.
They were steeped in divinity, and trying to use magic on something like that was like trying to use spitwads to knock down a brick shithouse.
Zatanna looked to her left and saw a newspaper machine that dispensed the Gotham Weekly Reader. It was free… Which was good. She didn't want to rip off a paper that cost anything for what she was about to do. Just because print journalism was dying didn't mean she had to help.
She opened the machine and took out all the papers, setting them down on the sidewalk. She yanked off the first two pages of the first issue, and crumpled them up into little balls.
Reloading his shotgun, Detective Chimp asked "What are you doing?"
"My magic doesn't work on these things," she said. "They're divine. I'm doing support for this one, and using materials like newspapers makes that a whole lot easier."
She looked at the wadded up newspaper in her left hand and said "Nrut otni dia-tsrif tik." Then she looked at the one in her right and said "Nrut otni stellub."
And the two pages of newspaper turned into a white plastic first-aid kit and a box of thirty-eight millimeter bullets.
"Nice," Detective Chimp said, and then he hoisted his shotgun. "Can you rustle up some shells? I only got the ones in my pockets."
The Flash (even publicly known as Wally West) had a problem.
Well, not a problem, really. More like a quirk.
Unlike his mentor, the late Barry Allen, and unlike any of the other speedsters he knew, he had difficulty vibrating through solid objects.
He could do it, sure, they just exploded afterwards.
But of course with beige rock monsters like the Soldiers of Nemesis, it was less a problem, less a quirk, and more of a benefit.
And as The Flash tore through this office building at ridiculous speeds, vibrating through the Soldiers of Nemesis and causing them to explode so violently that rocky chunks of them embedded into the walls and destroyed computers and desks, he reflected that he would normally feel guilty destroying so much property.
Thing was, though, this was the Queen Consolidated building.
Oliver had enough money. The only thing that would make this better was if this was Wayne Tower, but that was on the mainland.
The Flash ripped through the thirty-eighth floor, making his way through the eighth Soldier of Nemesis on this story alone, he came to a halt so violent outside the men's room that the carpet behind him blackened and started smoking.
One of the Soldiers of Nemesis hid been overrun and was slowly being devoured by what looked to be an army of mice.
The Flash's stomach started doing flips as the battalion of rodents ate the Soldier of Nemesis away to nothing. And he didn't notice the guy coming up behind him.
He was a teenage boy wearing a plush wine-colored Grandma coat with no shirt underneath. His hay-colored hair stuck out at greasy angles from beneath a black beanie.
And he reeked to high heaven.
"Hello," the teenager said, causing The Flash to jump.
"Hi," The Flash said. "You're, uh… You're Mouse, right? From The Movement?"
Which explained everything to The Flash. Mouse, according to his dossier in the Justice League database, could control rodents… but who the hell would even want that superpower?
"Uh-huh," Mouse said, and looked back at his handiwork. The mice spread across the carpet looking for their next victim. "Did you know mice can chew through concrete?"
"No," said The Flash. "No, I didn't."
"Well, ya do now," Mouse said. "That's a Mouse Fact."
Just then, The Flash heard muffled thumping and screaming from the floor above them…
...only to have his curiosity sated when a burly teenage girl with alabaster white skin, raven black hair, and gleaming red eyes tore through the ceiling, apparently in the middle of punching the Soldier of Nemesis she was straddling.
To The Flash, she looked like Lobo. Which meant that this was Crush, the half-Czarnian daughter of Lobo, and member of the Teen Titans East.
As she pummeled the Soldier's head into silt, another Soldier dropped down from the hole in the ceiling. Before she could turn around, another girl, a whirling dervish in a tight black bodysuit and a stylized bird mask came down right after it, and sliced it in two lengthwise.
For a nanosecond, The Flash confused this new entry for that Orphan girl that followed Bruce around, but it was actually Strix of the Secret Six.
Then the four regarded each other.
"Hello," Mouse said to Crush.
Crush opened her mouth to speak. Judging from the look that immediately spread across her face, The Flash figured that this meant that Crush now finally smelled Mouse.
"Oh, God," Crush said with her hand to her mouth. "You smell like the inside of The Shaggy Man's asshole."
Far from being insulted, Mouse just shrugged, and said "Yeah, that's fair."
Then he turned his attention to Strix.
"Hello," Mouse said.
Strix waved back.
"The tightness of your costume makes me want to be nice to you and ask how your day went," Mouse said.
And Strix, who was a technically-immortal former Talon for the Court of Owls (and had no ability to talk), just stared at him.
Billy Batson could only think one thing right now.
Gosh, Lady Blackhawk is pretty...
He and his adoptive sister Mary Bromfield were in the hangar bay of the Aerie One, which was the experimental jet used by the Birds of Prey. Lady Blackhawk was in the cockpit right now, but Billy remembered the warm smile she gave him when the Birds picked he and Mary up in Fawcett City.
Y'know, the kind of smile pretty girls gave to twelve-year-old boys like Billy. Or at least the well-behaved ones.
They weren't alone in this hangar bay. Black Canary was leaning against the wall. Huntress was pacing back and forth, and Misfit wasn't doing a little dance in the middle of the bay to music only she could hear.
Huntress and Black Canary had parachutes. Misfit didn't.
"Hey," Huntress said to Billy, bringing her purple hood down over her curly black hair. "You nice to your teachers?"
Billy paused.
Gosh, Huntress is pretty…
Then Billy nodded.
"Good," Huntress said. "Because if I hear you aren't…"
"Stop scaring the poor kid," Black Canary said, straightening her leather jacket. Then she turned to Billy. "Don't mind her. She's a lot less scary than she sounds."
Gosh, Black Canary is pretty…
Misfit piped up. She appeared to be about seventeen, and her costume looked upon a cursory inspection to be homemade. A winter coat over a t-shirt with an M on it. A short denim skirt over thick woolen black leggings.
"Where's Oracle?" Misfit asked, tucking a stray bit of red hair behind her ear.
Gosh, Misfit is pretty…
"Down on the ground," Huntress said. "Her and Stinky-Tits are tending to other business right now, and if it gets handled, they'll join us."
"How many times has she asked you to stop calling Cassandra that?" Black Canary asked.
"At least once too few," Huntress said, before she looked at Black Canary's legs. "No fishnets tonight?"
Black Canary looked down at her leather pants. "You know how cold it is out there?"
"That didn't stop you in Minsk."
"Minsk is Minsk. This is Gotham."
Lady Blackhawk's southern drawl came over the Aerie One's loudspeakers.
"Look lively, cats and kittens. We're gettin' to the drop point in three… two…"
The hangar bay doors opened, letting in an icy blast of cold December air.
Misfit ran for the open door. She yelled…
"DARRRRRRRRK VENGEAAAAAAAANCE!"
...and jumped out of the plane.
Billy was terrified. He looked back at Black Canary and yelled "She didn't have a parachute!"
Black Canary smiled, and made herself heard over the air. "Don't worry. She's a teleporter. She'll drop a couple of hundred feet, and then show up on the ground a second later. You're up."
Mary grabbed Billy's hand. "C'mon," she said. "You can enter puberty later."
They both jumped out into the open freezing air thousands of feet above Gotham City.
The fall was short (it always was), but also agonizingly long (because it was freezing).
After what seemed like a century of falling, Billy and Mary looked at each other. And that only meant one thing.
It was time to say The Magic Word.
"SHAZAM!"
Billy Batson and Mary Bromfield jumped out of Aerie One...
...but Shazam and Lady Shazam gently floated down to the corner of Sixth and Euclid on Founders Island. Each red and resplendent, with lightning bolts on the front of their costumes. Each older, yet ageless.
And sure enough, when they touched down, Shazam saw Misfit leaning against a news stand, perusing an issue of Entertainment Weekly.
She looked up and saw them.
"What took ya?"
A group of eight Soldiers of Nemesis were storming up from the Giordano Avenue subway station.
Supergirl was standing on the top of the stairs of the street entrance, waiting for them.
Her X-Ray Vision told her that there were no innocent bystanders inside.
She let her Heat Vision rip, and all eight Soldiers had been vaporized.
Supergirl started her trek down into the tunnel. She had taken one step down when she heard another one coming behind her.
The damned things were fast, but they weren't Kryptonian fast. She stepped back, avoiding a slash, and one blast of Heat Vision later, the Soldier was no more.
She turned to go down the stairs, but she felt a small twinge in her abdomen.
Supergirl looked down, and her eyes widened.
Blood was spreading across the midsection of her costume. That slash had connected after all. It wasn't particularly deep, she'd be fine, but it still hurt.
It was common knowledge among the Justice League that the only things that could take out a Kryptonian were Kryptonite and magic.
And these Soldiers of Nemesis appeared to be the latter.
Supergirl sighed.
"This… doesn't bode well."
Arsenal was in Star City when he got the call, so he hitched a ride through a Midnighter door with Team Arrow.
Red Arrow was off leading the Teen Titans West on another part of the island, but that still left himself, Green Arrow, Speedy, and a fresh-out-of-retirement-for-one-night-only Arrowette to fire explosive arrows at the Soldiers of Nemesis tear-assing around the remains of the Batburger.
The team was firing explosive arrows at these things, in between the intermittent telepathic entreaties to Zatanna to use her magical portals to send them fresh ammo.
This seemed to be where they had come from, and a whole squad of Soldiers was doing battle with stray superheroes on the corner. Elongated Man and Fairchild. Ghost Fox Killer and Metamorpho. Black Lightning and Dumb Bunny… though Dumb Bunny, true to her name, needed help.
In between shots, Arsenal saw... something … bounce back and forth between Soldiers of Nemesis, destroying them instantly. It was small, like a pin-prick of light.
It was only after five of these damned things went down that the pinprick rapidly grew to the size of a human being, standing next to a destroyed Toyota whose back end was sticking out of the front of a particularly extravagant clothing store.
It was The Atom. Real name Ryan Choi.
Arsenal lowered his bow, and looked over at Green Arrow, who had done the same with an angry look in his eye.
A month and a half ago, Black Canary had dumped Green Arrow and, in a fit of pique, had a fling with Ryan at the wedding of Bruce and Selina Wayne.
And this fling had been going on ever since.
Green Arrow looked at Arsenal, and groused.
"What's he got that I ain't got?"
When he was sixteen, Arsenal (real name Roy Harper) developed a heroin addiction. Rather than help him, Green Arrow (real name Oliver Queen, to whom Roy had been serving as the sidekick Speedy) fired him and kicked him out. Roy had gotten himself clean, and ever since, the relationship between Roy and Oliver had had its ups and downs.
Right now was a down period.
"I dunno," Arsenal said. "Have you tried not being a complete asshole? I hear that works wonders!"
Down the middle of Delmore Street, at the head of the Doom Patrol, marched Crazy Jane.
The thing about Crazy Jane (real name Kay Challis) was that she had sixty-four separate and district alternate personalities, each with their own superpower.
And the Alter in the driver's seat at present? Silvertongue.
Crazy Jane bellowed "GET BENT, YOU STONE FUCKS!"
The words "GET," "BENT," "YOU," "STONE" and "FUCKS" appeared in front of her mouth in letters made of solid steel, and flew off in five separate directions, obliterating the five Soldiers of Nemesis with which they came into contact.
As Crazy Jane swore and destroyed, the other four members of the Doom Patrol (Robotman, Negative Man, Elasti-Woman, and Coagula) just… walked. Crazy Jane was doing all the work and they didn't have to do anything, so they just took in the sights of Gotham City.
"I don't know what all the fuss is about," Negative Man said. "Guess I'm just not a Gotham City guy."
"Larry," Elasti-Woman said, "please don't shame me by revealing you have so little culture that you can't appreciate a place like Gotham."
"Culture means you have to live in a place that smells like pee?" Negative Man asked.
As Elasti-Woman glowered, Coagula looked at Robotman.
"There's a pho restaurant back there," Coagula said. "My girlfriend keeps trying to get me to have some, but I'm a little skittish. Is it any good?"
Robotman groaned. "I'm a brain in a robot body. I have no taste buds. Why? Why would I even know that?"
The GCPD, in the initial onslaught staged by the Army of Nemesis, found that bullets from their service pistols did little against the Soldiers.
But Vigilante had a pair of Colt Peacemakers on each hip. And they did him proper.
Standing on the street of the completely eviscerated Jitters on seventh, he thought his way into the telepathic comms that Martian Manhunter was maintaining form the Watchtower.
"Zatanna darlin'," Vigilante said. "If'n you could rustle me up a box of forty-four specials, I'd be as grateful as could be."
Zatanna's voice came into his brain with a slight echo. "You got it, cowpoke."
A shimmering silver portal, like boiling mercury, appeared right in front of him, through which the end of a box of cartridges appeared.
As he took the box, Vigilante tipped his white Stetson to a woman who wasn't even there and said "Much obliged, miss."
He opened the box as the portal disappeared, and a Soldier of Nemesis sliced its way through a parked Volvo on the corner of the street, hitting the gas tank and letting out flames, which the Soldier walked through as though it had acclimated to Hell itself.
Vigilante fired from the hip without so much as looking, turning the head of the Soldier of Nemesis to gravel.
Another one jumped off the roof right behind him, knocking him off his feet and spreading stray bullets from the box across the sidewalk.
Yet as soon as Vigilante got his bearings, a column of red light-Heat Vision-descended, turning the Soldier of Nemesis into vapor.
Vigilante looked up.
She was a vision. Muscular and, dare he think, buxom. She was wearing her superhero outfit: the blue boots, the red cape over the shoulder, the rather snug white one piece with the window in the chest that revealed… a lot.
Vigilante and Power Girl had met at a wedding not too long ago, and they'd hit it off after a period of slight trepidation.
He'd prided himself on not looking any further south than her chin, if he could help it.
But Power Girl was hovering over him while he was on his keister in the street. He couldn't help it.
And tarnation…
Vigilante doffed his Stetson and said "Hey there, little lady."
Power Girl smiled a mischievous smile that was worth more than most lottery payouts, and said "Howdy, pardner."
Jessica Cruz was a brave woman in spite of herself.
She was a Green Lantern, tasked with safeguarding Galactic Sector 2814 from harm.
But Jessica Cruz suffered from crippling anxiety.
Some days she could do battle with the Manhunters with little trouble, and some day some schmo in a costume that was a little too bright could set off a panic attack.
Like the one she was having right now.
She was running down Jattimer Boulevard, a Soldier of Nemesis not far behind. And her ring was talking to her.
WILLPOWER DEPLETING
Jessica frowned as she ducked through the open door of the Chez Laurent restaurant, and yelled "Yeah, I know!"
The place had been untouched by the carnage outside. Jessica weaved through the tables set with white linen tablecloths and gleaming flatware when a voice came in through Martian Manhunter's telepathic comms.
"Jessica? I can feel your thoughts through the comms. What is wrong?"
It was Princess Koriand'r of Tamaran.
Starfire.
And Jessica Cruz's girlfriend.
They'd been going out for a couple of months now, and things had been going…
...things had been going great. It was Starfire. Come on.
Jessica struggled to breathe as she ducked under a table. The Soldier of Nemesis destroyed the door of the restaurant coming in.
Barely above a whisper, Jessica said "I'm… in a bad… place… right now…"
Starfire's sigh spread throughout Jessica's brain.
"Do not speak," Starfire said. "I have something to tell you, Jessica. It is very important."
As the Soldier stalked the interior of the restaurant, Starfire's breathy voice filled the gaps and contours of Jessica's brain.
"Te amo…"
Jessica's eyes widened. Her heart rate slowed.
WILLPOWER SPIKING
Jessica stood, launching the table off of her and sending the silverware clattering to the tiles of the floor.
And the Soldier saw her.
Jessica raised her right hand and screamed.
The green energy construct of a giant cartoon mallet (which was the only thing she could think of right now) formed instantly from her green Power Ring, taking out a chunk of the ceiling before she brought it down, crushing the Soldier of Nemesis into dust.
As Jessica willed the mallet away, she let her breath out, and Starfire's voice filled her head again.
"Do you feel better, Jessica?"
Jessica got a stray strand of hair out of her eye. "You, uh… You never told me that before."
"Oh, no," Starfire said. "I have had difficulty in the past expressing sentiments to humans before they are ready, and-"
"No-no-no," Jessica said. "It's okay. I, uh… I love you too."
In ground battle operations such as these, leadership fell to either Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman.
Superman was off-planet.
Batman, according to Oracle, was comatose.
And Wonder Woman was deep in the shit with Batwoman right now.
Which meant that leadership duties… fell to Nightwing.
He was solo at present, giving all of the Soldiers of Nemesis on Twenty-First next to that new bougie-ass bakery that used to be a laundromat what for with his escrima sticks.
The sticks were made of a carbon monofilament, and they came with a fifty-thousand volt electric charge at the head. They proved surprisingly effective.
But the number of Soldiers was growing.
Nightwing tapped into the telepathic comms.
"I'm gonna need some backup here on Twenty-First," he said. "Someone bring the party to me."
The response was instant.
It was Donna Troy.
Troia…
"If you're throwing a party," she said in Nightwing's brain, "I know a few gentlemen who might like to join us."
The comms cut out. Nightwing readied his sticks and backed up.
He felt a rush of air behind him, and he didn't even need to look to know who had come by way of superspeed. Who flew here. Who jumped here. And who hitched a ride with one of the above.
The Soldiers of Nemesis on Twenty-First Street sought to do battle with Nightwing, The Flash, Troia, Arsenal, and Tempest.
Who, the record should state, were the original Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Speedy, and Aqualad.
The Soldiers barreled toward them.
But all Nightwing did was smile.
"Titans together," he said.
And then they charged.