Chapter 24: Some Girls
FOUNDERS ISLAND
Orphan and Oracle had to go through a police barricade and had to stop what Oracle called "The Speedster Buzzsaw" (which, to Orphan's understanding, was a whole bunch of people with Flash powers just running around the island) in order to get onto Founders Island.
Before Oracle revved up the engine on her motorcycle, she said "I've isolated Nightwing's signal. We're going to him."
Orphan smiled behind her mask.
Because of course they were.
Her mind boggled at what she saw as they made their way through the grid of streets, and down Conroy Avenue. Superheroes, half of whose names Orphan didn't even know, fighting these beige rock monsters.
And every once in a while, about every block or so, she'd see a superhero dead on a sidewalk, on a corner, in the street.
"Two blocks!" Oracle yelled over the engine and the wind. "You can break bricks, right?"
Orphan didn't know why she asked that question. Orphan could punch through plexiglass.
"Yeah!" Orphan yelled. She didn't like yelling. It hurt her throat.
"Feel like an ejection?"
Orphan removed her arm from around Oracle's waist and mover her hand in front of her where it could be seen.
It was giving a thumbs up.
"Then get ready!" Oracle yelled.
Orphan put her hands on Oracle's shoulders, and brought her self up so her feet were on the seat of the motorcycle behind Oracle's back, her whole body down in a crouching position.
Oracle started yelling again.
"Three… Two…"
Orphan's hands gripped tighter on Oracle's shoulders.
"One… NOW!"
The motorcycle's ejector seat launched Orphan high into the air. Orphan's jump with her legs at the apex launched her even higher.
Orphan sailed through the cold December air, the snow dotting her black costume. From this high up, she could recognize a few of the heroes fighting the Soldiers of Nemesis. Empress, Nightwing, Crush.
She began her descent, and kicked her feet out.
Orphan's boots pulverized the head of a Soldier of Nemesis once she made landfall.
As the Soldier crumbled into gravel, Orphan backflipped off its rapidly deteriorating shoulders and came down onto the snowy street on one knee and one fist, the way any self-respecting superhero should.
She gandered at the Soldiers of Nemesis in the violent scrum around her. They weren't human… but they moved like humans. Which meant that she could read how they moved, and anticipate what they would do next.
From there, Orphan liberated her three explosive shurikens from her yellow utility belt, and lined up her shots.
She threw the first one at a Soldier of Nemesis that Empress was fighting. She stopped her confounding short-range teleportation to give Orphan a thumbs up.
Orphan's eyes panned left, and she saw Bluebird doing battle with one of these rock monsters. Her taser pistols must have run out of ammo, as Bluebird was using two sets of knuckles that she had fashioned from steel hexagonal nuts welded together to punch these things into oblivion. One of them got the drop on her, but failed to do anything, as Orphan's explosive shuriken turned the Soldier's head into dust.
Then Orphan drew her eyes dead center. Troia and Arsenal had joined the fray. Troia was handling them well, but Arsenal was armed with a bow and explosive arrows, and to successfully utilize them, he needed room that was quickly running out.
One of the Soldiers jumped the disintegrating remains of another that Arsenal had just dispatched, and broke into a run toward him.
It was fast.
Orphan's shuriken was faster. The Soldier disintegrated into jagged chunks.
Arsenal tipped his red trucker hat to her, and yelled out "Thanks!"
Freshly out of explosives, Orphan cracked her knuckles.
When Oracle asked if she could break bricks, what Orphan neglected to mention was that she hadn't since she was a child.
She shouldn't have been susceptible to warm nostalgia for something like that, but nevertheless…
Orphan got a running start. Crush was on her knees, literally pummeling a Soldier of Nemesis into the street, and Orphan figured that that was a pretty good starting off point. Orphan jumped, rebounded off of Crush's back, and bounced over to drive her foot through the stone chest of the Soldier of Nemesis that was about to sneak up on Jinny Hex. Jinny tipped the cowboy hat that Cassandra Cain coveted with every fiber of her being, before she levelled her volt pistol on…
Oh, hey, there's Conner!
...another Soldier of Nemesis a few feet away that Wonder Girl reeled in with her lasso, vaporizing it. Above them all, Defacer (who was unfamiliar to Orphan) hovered in the air with her rocket boots, opting to chuck loose, individual bricks at the Soldiers on the ground in a tactic that proved surprisingly effective.
A few feet away, Robin was pinging the heads of four Soldiers of Nemesis with his bo staff, creating space before putting his shoulders into the individual blows that ended them. He saw Orphan, and called out to her.
"BEHIND YOU!"
He threw his staff to her, and Orphan put her strength into a side swipe that rendered the head of Soldier behind her to dust.
Orphan threw the staff back to Robin, gave him a thumbs up, and caught something out of the corner of her eye.
Oracle was lambasting three of the Soldiers of nemesis with the tonfa she used in fights.
And her gloves were glowing red.
Orphan knew what was coming.
Oracle cried out "HIT THE DECK!" and everyone who didn't have super strength who knew what was what dropped to their stomachs in the snowy street.
Her gloves were equipped with, for lack of a better term, "Hand Silencers," which absorbed sound and kinetic energy with every blow she struck that could be released once she slammed the insides of her wrists together.
And the time had come.
Oracle leapt to the trunk of a parked car, scrabbled to the roof, and leapt into the middle of the street…
...slamming her wrists together.
FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The blast of energy had a visible shockwave, and the five Soldiers of Nemesis in her vicinity crumbled to sand and blew away.
Crush was caught in the shockwave, and she was flung into the side of the Pietro Art Gallery so hard that when she unstuck herself, there was a Crush-shaped indent in the brick edifice.
She didn't seem to be hurt, though. She brushed a lock of her black mohawk-slash-undercut out of her red, raw, empty left eye socket, and smiled.
"Dope!" she yelled to Oracle, who took a bow.
Just then, a squad of ten Soldiers climbed over two overturned cars in the middle of the intersection, and came running for them.
Two superheroes met them in the middle of the street.
Orphan…
...and Strix.
Orphan had heard of this one. She was in the Secret Six. Strix was a deadly assassin who was covered in scars and was unable to speak.
Had they the faculties to talk, Orphan reckoned they'd have found they had a lot in common.
Strix unleashed her swords and started hewing her half of the Soldiers around her.
Orphan crushed the head of a Soldier with a thundering right, and another with a withering left. She took a run at another before bringing her feet underneath her, unleashing a devastating missile dropkick that drove her boots through the chest of one very unlucky Soldier.
She kipped up to her feet, and ran at the fourth, leaping and crushing its head to dust with a flying roundhouse.
Orphan sought out the fifth… only to find that Crush was already there. She had yanked off the Soldier's right arm, and used it to pelt a line-drive using its head as the baseball.
"Don't look at me like that," Crush said as the Soldier's arm disintegrated in her hands. "I got bored."
Orphan turned around to see Strix standing there, her Soldiers dispatched, and her tight black costume covered in dust. She imagined Strix's swords must have been sharp, because she'd been hacking away at these damned things for God knows how long now.
She looked Strix over, and held out her fist.
And Strix looked at this extended fist with a cocked head, before she reached out her own, and bumped it.
What? Orphan liked Strix's style.
From beyond those parked cars, there was a chaotic and infernal racket, like a fleet of cement mixers showing symptoms of whooping cough at the same time.
Orphan booked it for the cars, got on the roof of the one on the left, and…
...and…
...and Orphan didn't know just what the hell she was looking at.
The hundreds of superheroes that had come to save Gotham had successfully pushed the Soldiers of Nemesis into the middle of the island, which was at Nineteenth Street and Conroy Avenue, which just so happened to be the location of the Queen Consolidated building.
And all of these superheroes were standing there, or floating there, looking every bit as confused as Orphan did at that very moment.
Because the Soldiers of Nemesis… had turned on each other.
With kicks and flailing spikes, the Soldiers of Nemeses rent each other into jagged beige rocks as the superhero community looked on in stunned silence.
Orphan was joined on either side by Arsenal and Wonder Girl, who also looked confused.
She looked up at Arsenal, who shrugged, and said "Don't look at me, I don't know either."
They were joined by Nightwing, who took one look at the carnage, and immediately went pale.
He pointed out, and yelled "Look!"
Nightwing was pointing at the ground floor of the Queen Consolidated building, which was rapidly disintegrating, and floating toward the grand melee in the middle of the street. The street, the glass of the lobby, even the red and green Christmas lights were unraveling and swirling around the Soldiers of Nemesis.
Orphan was shocked at how quickly she put it together.
Whenever one of these things died, it reformed itself from its surroundings.
And now they were using it as an offensive tactic.
They were destroying each other, so they could take out the foundation of a ninety-eight story skyscraper.
"They're bringing the building down," Nightwing said in terror. Not even bothering with comms, he cupped his hands to his mouth and started yelling.
"THEY'RE BRINGING THE BUILDING DOWN! FALL BACK! EVERYBODY FALL BACK!"
Orphan stayed a second longer than she should have, just to see everyone else retreat, before she did the same.
Wonder Girl, Troia, and Defacer were flying above them. She was running next to Bluebird when Impulse appeared in a streak of lightning.
"You're with me, new girl!"
Impulse grabbed Bluebird by the hand, and one streak of lightning later, they were gone.
Orphan kept a tally of who was running with her, and flying above her… and found that there was someone missing.
As the Queen Consolidated building finally fell, resulting in the loudest noise Orphan had ever heard, she stopped, and looked behind her.
There was Superboy standing in the middle of the street as a wall of dust that reached to the heavens came careening down the street.
Superboy was Kryptonian. Half-Kryptonian, anyway, and he would no doubt be fine if the wall of dust and debris hit him.
But still, though.
Orphan reached out and yelled "CONNER!"
In another streak of Speed Force lightning, Impulse was standing next to him.
Superboy rose into the air as Impulse took his position in the street.
The wall of dust was about to overtake them when Impulse started whirling his arms around with such a speed that the wall of dust stopped… and began to recede.
The bottom half, anyway. Superboy and a powerful blast of his Ice Breath moved the top half back.
And at once, Orphan felt stupid for ever having been worried.
Orphan followed them as they moved the dust back. On the street to the right, she saw Supergirl and Kid Flash doing the same double act. On the street to the right, it was Power Girl in the air and Jay Garrick on the ground.
All three Speedsters and their attendant Kryptonians were moving the dust and debris east. Into the ocean.
From behind her, she could hear Nightwing talking.
"Please, someone tell me that building was empty," he said.
And Orphan, who had keyed into the comms with Oracle on the way to Founders Island, heard a reply from The Flash in her ear.
"It is," The Flash said. "It was one of the first places Jay and Wallace cleared out. Me, Strix, Mouse, and Crush gave it a once over after."
Nightwing sighed, and said "Thank God."
With the exception of the Speedster whirlwinds and Kryptonian breath, the talk among the superheroes was strangely muted.
All except Green Arrow a few blocks away, sensitive soul that he was, who took this opportunity to cry out "AWW, MY FUCKING BUILDING!" so loud that everyone could hear him.
The Speedsters and Kryptonians had pushed the dust back to its original location on the corner of Nineteenth and Conroy, and Orphan felt a small seed of relief take purchase within her chest.
In hindsight, this was foolish.
A column of beige stone emerged from the cloud, and swatted Power Girl out of the air with such force that she flew across the street and through the thirtieth story window of a luxury highrise across the street.
Orphan felt everyone's breath catch in their throat the same as hers. Even the Speedsters and the other two Kryptonians stopped what they were doing. And following this over-the-wall-and-into-the-parking-lot home run with one of their heavy hitters, a noise as loud and as terrifying as any Orphan had ever heard came from the cloud of dust.
THOOM…
...THOOM…
...THOOM…
The ground started to shake. Windows rattled, And Orphan, along with everyone else, started to slowly back up.
Something emerged from the dank, gray cloud.
One Soldier of Nemesis.
They did not destroy themselves just to take out the Queen Consolidated building, nor did they use the materials from the destroyed skyscraper to build more of themselves.
Rather, they used the materials to combine themselves into one, single, Soldier of Nemesis.
One that was seventy feet tall.
FORDMAN'S DEPARTMENT STORE - MIAGANI ISLAND
"Steph?"
Standing in the middle of the women's wear department of the old Fordman's on Miagani Island, Catwoman could have kicked Stephanie Brown's ass, if Stephanie may not have already been dead.
"Steph?"
She was kneeling over Stephanie, who was on the floor, looking like a mountain lion had just mauled her. There was blood everywhere, Steph's face looked like it had mushrooms growing underneath it, and there were five dead homeless people on the way in.
Catwoman had trained Stephanie Brown, but she did not train her to be this stupid.
"Steph, wake up!"
As if bade by her mentor's words, Stephanie jerked back into consciousness.
And she had apparently been having some rather bizarre dreams in her unconsciousness, because as her one good eye popped open she cried out "TINA FEY, NO!"
Catwoman's breath left her in relief.
"Oh, thank God."
Stephanie took a few breaths, before she said "Hey, boss."
"You look like you needed help, whatever you did," Catwoman said. "You couldn't get Alfred or Cullen on the radio?"
Stephanie shook her head a little bit, and said "Oracle didn't want us using comms. Radio waves might have set the bombs off.
To Catwoman, that… that made a lot of sense, actually.
"You mind telling me what happened here?" Catwoman asked.
"I fought the son of Batman," Stephanie said, her eye closing again and her mouth listing off into a one-sided smile. "And I kicked his ass…"
Catwoman folded her arms. "You kicked his ass, huh?"
"It was glorious," Stephanie said. "Losing my virginity has a lot to live up to."
"Okay," Catwoman said. "Then...where is he?"
Stephanie's eye popped back open. She tried to get into a sitting position, but abandoned that halfway through as she started moaning in pain.
"Let me help you," Catwoman said. She put her arms around Stephanie's shoulders, and brought her up, and Stephanie's moan of pain almost turned into a scream.
Stephanie scanned the floor of the women's wear department in confusion. Catwoman could see that her eye fell on a smear of blood that had started in a puddle next to one of the creepy-ass mannequins that Damian had put there for purposes of, well, crazy, before it turned into a smear that went a few feet into the dark.
As though whoever made it had tried to drag themselves away.
Maybe Stephanie did kick Damian's ass…
"Where did he go?" Stephanie asked.
Catwoman shook her head. "It doesn't matter. What matters is loading you into the Batmobile and getting you back to the Batcave so Alfred can take a look at you."
She brought Stephanie to her feet, and the poor girl shuddered and groaned as she got there.
"Okay," Catwoman said, "it'll be easier and shorter if you tell me what doesn't hurt right now."
"My hair," Stephanie said. "My hair's doing great."
And then Catwoman smiled, because that alone told her that Stephanie was going to be fine.
Just wait till you actually see your hair, Catwoman thought. There's so much blood in it that it's pink now.
"I'll tell you this much," Catwoman said. "If you did beat Damian…"
"Which I did."
"...then I'll lord it over Bruce forever."
"You will?"
"Shit yeah," Catwoman said. "My daughter smacked the piss out of his son."
"I'm not really your daughter though."
"And Damian's not really his son," Catwoman said. "Yet here we are."
"Ugh," Stephanie said. "Don't go soft on me. If Catwoman gets all sentimental, then the seventh seal will open and the world will end."
"Funny you should mention."
"What?"
"Never mind," Catwoman said. "If there's a later, I'll tell you then."
They made it a few steps toward the exit when Stephanie spoke again.
"The Batmobile's a two-seater," she said. "Where's Batman sitting?"
Catwoman sighed, and said "Batman didn't get here in the car."
Batman saw Damian go out onto the Fordman's roof and step toward the edge overlooking the parking lot from the heat signature scans in the Batwing.
He decided to set the plane down.
Damian turned toward the Batwing as the plane hovered a few feet off the rooftop. The lower cockpit compartment slid back, and the seat lowered, allowing Batman to step on to the roof. He clicked a few buttons on his gauntlet that made the Batwing perform a circuit of Miagani Island. He didn't speak until the plane had lifted off again.
Until it was just the two of them.
They stared at each other. Either for a few brief seconds or a few dark and snowy epochs.
Damian looked like he just got hit by a car. His face was bruised and swollen. His closed mouth was in the telltale pucker that advertised missing teeth. Just from the smell in this darkness, Batman knew he was covered in blood. And his right arm was bent unnaturally, as though broken.
He and Catwoman knew Damian would be here, but the scan on the team revealed the sole presence of Stephanie Brown in this building.
If Spoiler did this to Damian, then she was capable of far more than he gave her credit for.
"Damian Wayne," Batman finally said.
Damian tilted his head. "How does everyone know my name?"
"Someone from the Fifth Dimension told us what all of you were up to," Batman said. This did not sound weird to him at all.
Damian sighed, and looked down.
"I was beaten by the least of you," he said.
Batman felt a quick frostiness within himself that had nothing to do with the weather. "With that attitude," he said, "it's no wonder."
Damian hocked a glob of blood onto the roof, and lapsed into sullen silence yet again.
"I've nowhere to go," Damian finally said. "I cannot go to Nanda Parbat. I cannot sit at the right side of my grandfather. If Ra's al Ghul finds that I share his blood with no apparent mother or father, he will assume that I am plotting his ouster from the League of Assassins, and he will put me to the sword. I am… powerless."
"It's life," Batman said. "You may not have as much experience with it."
"It is terrible."
"Yes," Batman said. "On occasion."
More silence. Until Damian looked at him with hooded eyes.
"What next?" Damian asked.
Batman sighed. "Prison. Or Arkham. Whichever one you need more."
"Rehabilitation?"
"Everyone deserves a shot."
"And there are no exceptions to be made for the son of Bruce Wayne?"
"No," Batman said. "And this is coming from the son of Thomas and Martha Wayne. My name isn't the only one that's been disgraced by your actions."
"And if I rehabilitate myself?" Damian asked, apparently deaf to what Batman had just said. "If I deign to acquiesce to your much cherished law and order, will I have a place by your side? Among the misfits you've gathered to yourself?"
"Yes," Batman said. He had among his ranks a reformed assassin and the daughter of a supervillain. For ten years he had waged war with the most accomplished thief the world had ever seen, and then he wound up marrying her. If Damian was genuinely penitent, then he had no right to turn him away.
"Are you so eager for fresh soldiers?" Damian asked.
Batman frowned.
"No matter what Earth you're from," Batman said, "you're my son. That's my blood on that face of yours. It's not the way I wanted it to happen, but it happened. I'm responsible for you."
"I'm not sure Grayson would be thrilled to hear you say that."
"I'm responsible for him, too."
Damian cocked his head. "And if I do well? If I rise through your ranks? As your son, will I inherit the cowl? Will I be Batman?"
Batman wasn't prepared for that. He instantly felt his stomach curdle.
He wanted to tell Damian that that wasn't how it worked. He didn't want anyone else to be Batman, because if he passed off the cowl, then that would mean he had failed. That the war and the mission weren't over yet.
Then he wanted to say that anything was possible, and the future was unwritten. If he wanted to be Batman, then it was up to Damian to show Bruce, through his actions, that he was the only choice he could make.
But those were just distractions. Just flies buzzing around the corpse of what Bruce Wayne was really thinking.
No.
Hell no, you will never, ever be Batman.
And Damian seemed to sense this.
And he started laughing.
"You… you can't even say it, can you?" Damian said, smiling a bloody, broken, hollow smile. "You can't find it in you to deny me even now, after all of the things I've done. I… I don't think you care whether or not you're the good guy, just as long as you're not the bad guy."
Damian started to laugh again, but stopped. His was a look of utter astonishment.
"No," Damian said. "No, that's not it at all. I am a culmination of multiple Damian Waynes, and I have trained at the feet of multiple Bruce Waynes, but you… you are unlike any I have ever encountered."
Damian's eyes scanned him. The more he did, the wider his bloody smile got.
"You're trying to be the best person you can possibly be aren't you? Even in a situation as unwinnable as this one, you value your soul."
Damian's smile reached its apex.
"You… are a good man, Bruce Wayne."
But that smile slowly faded. The look of mania in Damian's eyes intensified.
"And good men… are so easy to hurt."
Damian spread his arms wide.
Batman knew what was coming.
He cried out. "NO!" He broke into a run to catch him.
He was too late.
Damian Wayne had closed his eyes and fallen back, off the edge of the roof.
Batman made it to the roof's edge just in time to see the pool of blood around the destroyed corpse of Damian Wayne spread into the snow that covered the abandoned parking lot.
SLAUGHTER SWAMP
Four miles outside of Gotham City, on the southeastern edge of the unincorporated township of Somerset just west of the old Kane Manor, lie Slaughter Swamp.
People didn't like Slaughter Swamp.
When the state successfully lobbied to have Slaughter Swamp turned into a National Park to stop LexCorp oil drilling, people still didn't like Slaughter Swamp.
The park offered tours. The people on the tour groups and field trips definitely didn't like Slaughter Swamp.
And one particular tour group liked the place even less than the average when they happened upon the one person in all the civilized world who did like Slaughter Swamp.
Solomon Grundy.
The undead former Cyrus Gold unfortunately decided to resurrect himself in front of said tour group, and started smashing unlucky tourists into bloody chum and ripping their limbs off.
Needless to say, the park stopped offering tours after that. Since that day Slaughter Swamp has stood as an ugly, green, smelly middle finger to LexCorp, which has spent untold legal fees arguing in court that these wetlands held no endangered species about which to be concerned, and thus, should be open to drilling.
And on one small island in that swamp, about fifteen feet across and covered in snow on this moonlit night, a shimmering silver portal, like boiling mercury appeared.
And out stepped Batwoman, with the arm of a bloody and deathly pale Wonder Woman over her shoulder.
"Steady," Batwoman said as they lowered to their knees. "Steady."
Once they were down, Batwoman detached her cape and wrapped it around Wonder Woman's body.
"Here," Batwoman said. "It'll keep you warm."
Wonder Woman didn't say anything. If she did, Batwoman couldn't hear it. She had lost a lot of blood from that swipe from the Soldier of Nemesis, and Batwoman could tell that she was using most of her strength just to stay on her feet as long as she had.
Batwoman lowered Wonder Woman to the ground, bringing the cape snugly around her shoulders.
And with that, Batwoman stood up, and walked to the water.
"ALEC!" Batwoman cried out. "ALEC, I KNOW YOU'RE OUT HERE! I NEED YOUR HELP!"
It didn't happen instantly, but eventually the water began to bubble, and a mound of dirt and moss came up from the swamp. Higher and higher it rose, looking vaguely humanoid.
When Demeter had told her that the Stone of Nemesis could only be destroyed by a powerful divine force, she hadn't been specific. Batwoman had assumed another, more powerful God could do it.
But Batwoman hadn't considered the power of The Green. She hadn't considered the mystical elemental force that bound all plant life on the planet together.
And she hadn't considered its avatar.
If there was anyone that Batwoman knew that could destroy the Stone of Nemesis… it was Swamp Thing.
Demeter had mentioned him, asking if he was single. In hindsight, it sounded like an out-of-the-way hint.
Also in hindsight, if it was a hint, it was the most dickish way to relay the information.
The immense and mossy form of Swamp Thing walked onto the island, and fixed Batwoman with his forbidding red eyes.
"Batwoman…" Swamp Thing said. "Kate Kane… Do you need assistance?"
"Yes," Batwoman said. She got the glowing Stone of Nemesis out of her utility belt. She had relieved it from the pouch on Wonder Woman's waist before they left the Barnes & Noble on Founders Island.
Batwoman told him everything. About the Soldiers of Nemesis, and how they could only be stopped if he destroyed the Stone.
"So," Batwoman said, "I really need you to do this."
Swamp Thing regarded the glowing stone in her hand, before looking into her again with his glowing red eyes.
"I… will not help you."
Batwoman just blinked.
For the past few days, she had been watching herself like a hawk, trying and succeeding in her attempts not to swear around Wonder Woman.
Well… that passed.
Batwoman yanked off her mask and wig, chucked them in the snow at her feet, and yelled out "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!"
FOUNDERS ISLAND
What could only be called "The Colossus of Nemesis" stepped through the remainder of the cloud that the destruction of the Queen Consolidated building had wrought, and was met with immediate resistance.
Anyone who could fly was in its face. Supergirl, Superboy, and Power Girl (who had shaken off her trip through the highrise window but was still flying a little funny) were laying into it with Heat Vision. Starfire was pelting it with her starbolts. Blue Beetle was firing energy blasts from the Scarab on his back. Shazam was bringing the lightning. Sentinel was laying in green energy. Jessica Cruz was wailing away at its head with an energy construct baseball bat. And the two Steels (John Henry Irons and his niece Natasha Irons) were floating around its shoulders, laying into them with hammers.
Speaking of lightning, electricity seemed to be somewhat effective, so people with electric powers were on the ground, firing volts into the Colossus' legs. Black Lightning, and Thunderbolt, and Crazy Jane under her "Suzie Fugue" alter.
But even Orphan could see the problem on the ground. For every chunk they took out of the Colossus of Nemesis, streams of building materials from the streets and the surrounding buildings liberated themselves from their tangible bonds and seeped into the wounds. The other Soldiers were small enough that they could just rebuild themselves, but this Colossus was big enough that it could heal itself as it went along.
If they kept fighting this thing, they'd level the entire island without actually meaning to.
The biggest danger on the ground to the Colossus at the present moment was Mera. She was using her Hydromancy on Nineteenth Street to pluck the snow out of the air. A sphere of water was soon in front of her, and that water had begun to boil.
But the Colossus seemed to sense this. It ignored everyone in the air and on the ground, and just focused on her.
It brought up its immense right foot, and brought it down in a thundering crash, shattering every window in every building for two whole blocks.
The foot missed Mera.
But the street upon which she stood crumbled and gave way beneath her, and Mera of Xebel, Queen of Atlantis, fell into the sewers beneath Gotham City in a cloud of steam, the water she had summoned from the snow in the air falling in a large splash with her.
Orphan heard Nightwing talking. Maybe to someone on the radio. Maybe to himself.
"We need an idea," Nightwing said. "We need one now."
And then, is if an answer to his request in the most terrifying way possible, a familiar noise sounded a few blocks behind them.
THOOM…
...THOOM…
...THOOM…
Everyone on the street upon which Orphan stood froze and went pale.
"Oh, Jesus," Arsenal said. "There's another one?"
A voice came over the radio.
It was Black Canary.
"No," Black Canary said. "It's not another one. It's… It's someone doing something very stupid right now!"
Three more immense footsteps sounded, and the new player revealed itself from behind the GothCorp building.
It wasn't another Colossus of Nemesis.
It was The Atom.
Professor Ryan Choi had reversed the generation feed on his Bio-Belt, and instead of shrinking, he had grown to a height of seventy feet.
Impulse, who was standing on the sidewalk a few feet away from Orphan, looked at The Atom.
Then he looked at the Colossus of Nemesis.
Then he stared off into the middle distance, the eyes behind his yellow goggles glistening with tears of joy. His lips curled into a dazed smile as the snow fell upon his freckled cheeks.
Impulse raised his hand in triumph and cried to the heavens in great elation:
"KAIJU FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!"
As the seventy-foot Atom trod the street, Orphan heard Nightwing get on the radio.
"Fall back as far as you can!" he said. "That includes everyone in the air! Give the man some room!"
Orphan just stared up helplessly as The Atom's immense boot came down in the street about six yards from her location. A few feet away from her, Robin and Bluebird were talking.
"You know if The Atom gets punched in the face, then, like, gallons of blood are gonna rain down, right?" Bluebird asked.
Robin sighed. "I know, Bluebird…. I know."
The Atom's gait lengthened, and the falling footsteps sounded like an earthquake as he started running toward the Colossus of Nemesis. It's featureless stone face finally caught sight of him as The Atom tackled it into the side of the Gotham Stock Exchange.
Glass from the building's windows rained down into the street as the Colossus was driven deeper and deeper into the now ruined complex.
But the Colossus of Nemesis shrugged him off. Once it was in a standing position, it decked The Atom in the side of the face with its left spike, and gallons of Ryan Choi's blood from his busted nose did indeed fall onto the street below.
The Atom fell on his ass, destroying a three story parking garage in the process. He tried to get on his feet, but the Colossus of Nemesis already had its right spike up.
Orphan's stomach fell to her feet as she realized with a bone-deep certainty that she was about to watch a seventy-foot tall man die.
But this logy and ghastly reverie was cut short when she noticed something.
Someone had stood on the rooftop's edge of the now ruined Gotham Stock Exchange, ninety stories up, and jumped.
And in the relative quiet that had settled in among the superheroes assembled, waiting for the gruesome spectacle of The Atom's impending death, Orphan and everyone else could hear what the person who jumped was screaming on the way down.
"DARRRRRRRRRK VENGEAAAAAAAAAAAANCE!"
Oracle yanked off her mask.
"Oh, dear God," Barbara Gordon said. "MISFIT, NO!"
It was Charlotte "Misfit" Gage-Radcliffe who had leapt from the edge of the ninety story roof.
And much like she had when she leapt from the Aerie One before Billy Batson and the now sadly departed Mary Bromfield, Misfit teleported in a puff of pink smoke from a height that would have killed her to the closest surface she could find.
That surface being the top of the head of the Colossus of Nemesis.
Misfit took a moment to get her bearings before, in another puff of pink smoke, she teleported… somewhere else.
And she took the Colossus of Nemesis with her.
All that was left was a column of pink smoke in the shape of a giant rock monster that, until a moment ago, had just been occupying that space.
Four… long… seconds… passed.
They passed in silence and they passed in shock as everyone assembled tried to reckon with what had just happened.
At the end of those four interminable seconds, Misfit teleported back. Just a few feet away from where Orphan was standing.
And she was in bad shape.
Misfit's costume was covered in a layer of frost, She was coughing like mad. And there was blood coming from her eye-sockets.
Orphan had been briefed on Misfit's abilities before the sparring session the two had had some months back. The one that had ended with one punch when Misfit tried to teleport behind her.
Misfit could heal if she teleported. Or rather, she could heal most of her injuries if she teleported. Each teleportation improved her health further and further.
Which begged a question: If Misfit was in this rough a condition after a teleport, then where the hell did she just get back from?
Barbara was the first to make it to the prone and coughing Misfit. She knelt down, and put her hand on the back of her frosty cape.
"Jesus," Barbara said. "What happened? Wh-Where did you take that thing?"
And Misfit, still coughing pointed up.
"On top of the building?"
Misfit shook her head, and pointed again.
The enormous column of pink, ozone-smelling smoke parted, and everyone could see what Misfit was really pointing at.
Orphan thought it was impossible. It just had to be. She hoped no one would say what she was thinking, because that would make it real.
But it was Crush who said what Orphan was thinking. With awe in her one remaining eye, Crush pointed to where Misfit was pointing.
"She didn't send it to the top of a building," Crush said. "She sent it to the fucking moon!"
THE FUCKING MOON
On the bright side of the lunar surface, upon its silver sands, the Colossus of Nemesis stood.
It turned its face to the white horizon, regarding the distant blue jewel of Earth with an eyeless, featureless visage.
One of the quirks of Misfit's teleportation powers was that she herself was the only living organic material that could survive her teleportation. Any other living creature that teleported with her exploded.
She found this out when she tried to teleport with her dog, the poor dear.
In one instant, The Colossus of Nemesis was about to dispatch The Atom, and in the next, it was here in this barren range.
Misfit had stayed behind for four seconds, risking death by a number of factors, including lack of oxygen, decompression, and solar radiation.
She stayed in hopes of seeing the Colossus of Nemesis explode.
But it did not. Because the Colossus of Nemesis was not, strictly speaking, alive.
Misfit teleported back to Earth at the end of those four seconds, leaving the Colossus of Nemesis alone in these desolate wastes.
Unless it destroyed itself.
The Colossus of Nemesis dug its gargantuan spikes deep into the sands of the lunar surface. And, soundlessly, it dashed its head against the ground.
A large chuck of its head flew off in the kick-up of white dust, floating aimlessly away into the dark reaches of space.
It was the second attempt that put it down. Its entire head violently parted from its body, and slowly lifted off. The deceased stone carcass of the Colossus of Nemesis lifted up by the feet, its spikes eventually dislodging themselves from the sands of the moon, and floated away into orbit.
The chief drawback of the Stone of Nemesis was that it required proximity to be effective. The one who wielded it couldn't just send Soldiers to a far-flung corner of the globe, no. The one who wielded the Stone had to follow their Army.
The Colossus of Nemesis was dead, but it could still reform itself into new Soldiers close to the Stone.
And the Stone was still in Gotham City…
FOUNDERS ISLAND
Orphan saw Crush smiling at the still prone Misfit.
"Yo," Crush said. "You single, honey?"
Misfit looked up at her. She had stopped coughing, but she was still freezing.
"I'm-m-m-m-m-m… as-s-s-s-s-sexual… Sorry."
Crush sighed, picked a lock of black hair out of her empty eye-socket, and said "Man, it sucks to be me today."
Nightwing folded his arms. "Crush, you, uh… you need medical attention for that? Halo's flying around, I'm sure they can…"
"I'm Czarnian," Crush said. "My eye'll grow back. Unbunch that g-string of yours."
"Right," Nightwing said. "Sorry."
As the pink cloud of teleportation smoke continued to dissipate further, Orphan saw The Atom (who had shrunk back down to normal size) walk toward them. He was holding his hand beneath his busted nose, catching whatever blood was still dripping.
"Did we win?" The Atom asked Nightwing. He sounded like he had a cold.
Whatever Nightwing had to say was cut off by the sound of a deeply angry woman's voice coming from beyond the thinning pink smoke.
"Hey! HEY!"
It was Black Canary. And once she set her blue eyes on The Atom, she marched right toward him.
"Ryan, what the hell were you thinking?" Black Canary asked. "There were a million ways that could have gone wrong!"
The Atom, sighed, took his hand away from his nose, and said:
"You're right."
Black Canary went right on through. "I mean you can't just- What?"
"I didn't anticipate the ways I'd be vulnerable at that size," The Atom said. "I neglected to think of the danger I could have put everyone else in. And I didn't think about what seeing me get hurt at that size could have done to you. I reacted to the situation emotionally instead of rationally. All I can do is apologize, and try my level best never to do something like that again. I'm sorry, Dinah. I really am."
Black Canary looked at The Atom in a shock so deep that it almost bordered on being offended.
She had taken issue with something her significant other had done, and that significant other had apologized in a forthright and adult manner.
And Orphan could tell by the way she stood there, the way she was apparently debating with herself to either rage further or flee in embarrassment, that Black Canary was almost uncomfortably alien to the concept.
Look of shock still firmly in place, Black Canary reached out with her gloved hand and lightly tapped the red breastplate of The Atom's costume. Almost to see if he was actually real.
Orphan heard a flutter of fabric behind her, and turned.
Superboy descended from the thinning cloud of pink smoke, and touched down a few feet in front of her.
"Uhhh… Hi," Conner said.
It took a second for Orphan to say "Hi" back. Seeing Conner just come down to Earth like that, through the smoke, the snow dotting his black hair, his broad chest stretching out his black t-shirt so that the red crest of the House of El was as wide as possible, his muscular arms not even reacting to the December cold with goosebumps, made Orphan feel… funny. Like, in the stomach region.
She took off her mask to get a better look at him.
And Conner reacted with shock.
It was at this point that Cassandra remembered that she had fought her father at a hotel, whereupon her father had beaten her senseless (with the aid of surgical implants, but still). And while so much had happened in the interim that it had felt like a thousand years since that fight, it still didn't change the fact that it had only been two days.
So maybe Cassandra showing her bruised, purple, lumpy face to the cute boy she liked may not have been the brightest idea she'd ever had.
But that look of shock in Conner's eyes slowly eroded to one of concern. He opened and closed his fists to get his fingers limber…
...and then Conner started using sign language.
"Are… You… Okay?" Conner asked, slowly moving his fingers, trying to match up the words in his head with the signs.
Cassandra looked from Conner's eyes, to his hands, and then back again.
His face turned red. "I've, uh… I've been learning ASL so, uh…"
He didn't have to. Her hearing wasn't a problem.
At the same time it was…so... adorable, though? He was trying so hard!
It finally sank in that he was putting in all this effort because Conner, the boy she liked, liked her back. A lot.
Cassandra walked up to him, and placed her gloved hand on his left cheek.
She knew there was a protocol to this kind of thing. Certain events had to happen at specific times, so that boys did not get, what Babs called, "the wrong idea."
The thing was, however, that Cassandra didn't even know what the right idea was, let alone the wrong one.
But she knew that things would have to be taken slowly so things didn't happen all at once. If things happened all at once, there would be less to look forward to, according to…
According to…
Says who?
Cassandra laced her fingers around the back of Conner's neck, got up on her tiptoes, and put her lips to his.
And this was kissing.
It was nice.
Real nice.
No wonder Dick and Babs did this so Goddamned much.
Her lips played over Conner's, full and plump and pink as they were, and she felt the beginnings of stubble on his upper lip. It made him more real somehow, she couldn't explain it. As though he were less a theory that had fascinated her for so long, and more an actual person that showed all signs of living up to the hype. The breath from his nose, from his open mouth, warmed her on a cold December night.
Their teeth clicked together a little. She thought she felt Conner's tongue, but she realized that the only way she could have felt it was if she was using her own to look for it, so no one could be judged too harshly.
It wasn't perfect, though.
Was there supposed to be this much drool in her mouth?
And one of his arms-the arms that had entranced her since the very first time she saw him in a t-shirt-was wrapped around her waist (in so doing, being the sixth person to ever embrace her, and now Cassandra Cain could count the people who had hugged her on two hands). This in itself wasn't a bad thing, no, this was a great thing. But the problem was that she was wearing her bulky Orphan armor, so she couldn't enjoy it as much as she wanted to. In an ideal world she'd be wearing a t-shirt, or… or…
Nothing?
Was nothing a viable option?
Cassandra decided to save that particular thought for later.
Preferably for when she was in the shower.
The kiss broke. They opened their eyes at the same time. They simultaneously let out the breath they'd been conserving into the cold air in jets of steam.
And they both smiled at the same time too.
She could tell by his body language that he wanted to go again. Immediately. Right now.
Or maybe she was projecting.
But what stopped her was what she caught out of the corner of her eye.
They were all looking at her.
All of them except Wonder Girl. She was looking down as though her shoes were a really good book.
Nightwing was in shock. Barbara had a look of unalloyed horror. There was an enormous grin plastered on Impulse's face.
But it was Bluebird who started laughing.
And then she started clapping.
She stopped doing both when she caught Robin's eye, and then they both looked away from each other in silence.
They were being weird again.
All revelry has to come to a conclusion, of course. The party has to stop. The good times have to end.
And Cassandra Cain's post-first-kiss glow was ground to a halt when Misfit started screaming.
She snapped her head to Misfit, still on the ground, as she pointed down the street.
Grains of glass and concrete and steel had started flowing away from the buildings, and into centralized points in the middle of the street.
Cassnadra knew in her bones that Misfit's teleportation trick with the Colossus of Nemesis had failed.
They were making more of themselves.
This thought spread among them like wildfire. And Nightwing, the only well-adjusted person among their number, the voice for optimism and sanity in a dark and crazy world...finally broke. With a raspy, worn-out voice, he said:
"We're not going to win this."
Staring at the Soldiers of Nemesis forming in the street, he reached out, and took Barbara Gordon's hand.
Taking his cue, Cassandra took Conner's.
The Atom took Black Canary's.
Robin took Bluebird's.
Troia took Arsenal's.
Which, Cassandra saw, shocked Arsenal to no apparent end.
Donna "Troia" Troy looked at Roy "Arsenal" Harper with tears in her eyes.
"I love you," Troia said. "I always have. I have from the first moment I saw you."
Arsenal took off his red protective glasses. With his eyes sincere, with passion in his voice, he asked:
"Huh?"
SLAUGHTER SWAMP
"What do you mean you're not gonna help?" Kate asked.
"Your problems… do not affect The Green," Swamp Thing said.
Kate ran her gloved hands through her sweaty, snowy red hair. "This is bullshit. You know that, right? This is BULLSHIT!"
"The problems... that humans get themselves into... are of no concern to me," Swamp Thing said. "The Parliament of Trees… will not act."
Swamp Thing craned his head to look beyond Kate's shoulder.
"And your interests… are far more narrow… than the whole of humanity."
Kate looked to see what Swamp Thing was looking at.
It was Wonder Woman, on the ground and wrapped in Batwoman's cape. She was too weak to even shiver.
And the damnable thing was… Swamp Thing was right.
Not her.
Not today.
Kate turned back to Swamp Thing, who was beginning his slow walk back into the vile waters of Slaughter Swamp.
She searched her brain to find something that could convince Swamp Thing to help. Anything at all would do.
And she thought she might have found something.
"Hey," Kate called, actually getting up to her ankles in swamp water. "We're not done here yet!"
Swamp Thing slowly turned to her.
"Uncontacted tribes," Kate said, as though that alone should be the reason.
"What… about them?" Swamp Thing asked.
"If you're tight with plants," Kate said, "you know how many of them there are."
She pointed behind her, in the vague direction of Gotham City.
"Those things do nothing but destroy all human life," Kate said. "So when they take out everyone in the cities and the towns, where do you think they're gonna go? And when they find those uncontacted tribes in jungles, in forests, in swamps, what the hell do you think they're going to make more of themselves out of?"
Swamp Thing slowly pondered this, but his eyes went wide when he finally got it.
"The trees," he said.
"The Green," said Kate.
Swamp Thing fixed his eyes on her, before he slowly extended his large, mossy hand.
"Give me… the Stone."
FOUNDERS ISLAND
Orphan cracked her knuckles.
So did Crush.
Strix and Empress readied their swords.
Wonder Girl uncoiled her lasso.
Robin gave his bo staff a few practice swipes.
Same with Babs and her tonfa.
And Conner's eyes glowed red.
Nightwing, escrima sticks at the ready, started talking.
"If we die here tonight," he said to them and everyone who could hear him on the radio, "if they're gonna eat us alive, then we choke these things to death on the way down!"
The Soldiers of Nemesis were fully formed.
And they began to move.
That was all the prompting Nightwing needed.
"CHAAAAAAAAAAAAARGE!"
SLAUGHTER SWAMP
Kate dropped the glowing Stone of Nemesis into Swamp Thing's leafy palm.
And then she stepped back, hoping to all she believed in that this would work.
Small, spaghetti-like vines with sharp, pointy ends extended from the tips of Swamp Thing's fingers, before they curled up and pack to the center of his palm, and touched the Stone of Nemesis.
The vines began turning.
They began drilling.
Nothing happened for a few seconds that Kate considered an eternity, but then…
The Stone started glowing brighter.
And Kate felt warm. As if to convince herself that this was just in her head, she looked down.
The snow that had collected on the chest of her Batsuit had begun to melt.
She took another step back.
Because something was happening. And whatever it was, it was going to be big.
Kate looked up at Swamp Thing just in time to hear a large CRACK!
A green shockwave erupted from the ruptured Stone of Nemesis, knocking Kate Kane flat on her back.
FOUNDERS ISLAND
They all felt it.
They didn't know what it was, but they all did.
It was as though a light gust of wind ran diagonally through the buildings and broke against their bodies. In so doing they felt slightly warmed, in a way that felt calming, yet unnatural.
The superheroes of Founders Island stopped their charge. Those who flew just hovered in the air.
And the Soldiers of Nemesis ground to an immediate halt.
Simultaneously, as if they were one, they knelt in the snow.
As though they were showing respect.
And after a few moments, also simultaneously, they began to dissolve into sand, collecting in brown piles among the snow that had fallen and the blood that had been shed.
Cassandra Cain looked around her.
Robin and Bluebird had skidded to a halt on her right. Crush and Strix beyond them.
To her left, there was Nightwing. There was Babs. There was Arsenal and Empress.
Troia, Defacer, Superboy and Wonder Girl were above her. Just across from Apollo and Supergirl. Power Girl and the younger Steel beyond that.
And then, Cassandra looked across from her. To the sea of faces, some familiar and some not.
To Plastic Man, and Jenni Quantum, and Traci 13, and Wildcat. To Speedy, and Solstice, and Super Awesome Guy, and Dumb Bunny. To Mister Terrific, and June Robbins, and Captain Cold, and Atlee. To Metamorpho, and Virtue, and Suzie Ming, and Protector.
All possessed of the same urge that Cassandra herself had. All having answered the same call.
To die in service of others. So that the weakest among their number, so those who could not protect themselves, could live just one second longer.
Cassandra answered this call because of guilt. She had taken a life, and dying a hero was the only way the universe could right itself. She had felt unique among this cadre of do-gooders, as they sought revenge. Or they sought justice. Or they were just good people.
But looking among this sea of people whose life she shared, she knew there were so many of them that there had to be more like her. Those who atoned for past misdeeds. Those who wanted to right what they themselves had put wrong.
Above this, however, beyond this, was a certainty that was new and altogether fresh to her. That those who were powerless, that those who were voiceless, that those who lived to see another day because of the actions of the people assembled on these streets did not give a single damn about any of their motivations.
The deed was all that mattered. Saving lives was all that mattered.
She thought that if she believed in the things these good people on this street believed, if she did the things these good people did, then she herself might become a good person purely by accident.
Cassandra Cain felt quite a few emotions, looking at this broad and various collection of superheroes on Founders Island. Feelings rose, and were counted.
But of all the things she felt, the one most conspicuous by its absence was loneliness.
On a winter night in Gotham City, so close to Christmas, Founders Island fell eerily silent.
There was no hue and cry of great victory. There was no collective sigh of relief.
Only silence and stillness in the wake of death.
SLAUGHTER SWAMP
Kate cleared her head, and sat up on the small dirty island before she looked into the swamp.
A system of branches coming up from the water, in the vague outline of a humanoid form, was all that remained of Swamp Thing.
And the Stone of Nemesis was nowhere to be found.
Kate got up and stepped to the water's edge, peering into the moonlit darkness at the branches.
A couple of them bore blossoms that were quickly, impossibly, turning into flowers.
The branches began to sap. Clumps of moss and leaves were slowly oozing to the surface of the fetid water, and began attaching themselves to the wooden framework.
It took a while, but Swamp Thing finally reformed himself.
"That… was unpleasant," he said.
"Sorry," said Kate. "But thank you."
"You… are welcome," Swamp Thing said. "Though your motives… were selfish… your actions mark you… as a friend of The Green."
Swamp Thing scanned his surroundings, before fixing his red eyes on Kate. "I look forward… to seeing you again."
Kate turned and walked to the center of the island as Swamp Thing slowly trudged into the water.
Selfish motives my flat, white ass.
Kate sat cross-legged, her knees popping and her muscles screaming, in front of Wonder Woman, still wrapped in Batwoman's cape. Kate could hear her breathing which was, in and of itself, an encouraging sign.
When Wonder Woman finally spoke, it was in a weak rasp.
"I feel it," she said. "The divinity that infected me… is gone. I...I'll be alright."
"Good," Kate said. "You sure, though?"
"I have been closer to death than this," Wonder Woman said.
Kate shrugged her shoulders. Yeah, that figures.
They sat without speaking for a spell, on a night so cold that even the crickets in the swamp dared not chirp, until Wonder Woman finally spoke again.
"You…" Wonder Woman said, "have a very dirty mouth."
Kate laughed at this. Partly out of relief, partly because it was true, partly because it was genuinely funny.
"It is a common phenomenon among the younger Gotham vigilantes," Wonder Woman said. "You swear enough oaths to turn the air blue."
Kate smiled. "I'll try to cut back."
"I didn't say you had to stop."
A wider smile. And yet more silence.
"You gonna be in dutch with the Gods of Olympus?" Kate asked. "Y'know, killing Harmonia and all?"
"I would be," Wonder Woman said. "But… aren't we forgetting something?"
"What?" Kate asked.
She turned her head to look behind her. Wonder Woman's head was poking out of the top of her cape-blanket.
"The Blade of Resurrection," Wonder Woman said.
"Right," Kate said. "We still have that, don't we?"
"If you kill someone," Wonder Woman said, "only to bring them back, does it actually count?"
"I'm sure Batman and Superman would say yes."
Wonder Woman's eyes got a mischievous twinkle that Kate had never seen before.
"I won't tell them if you won't," Wonder Woman said.
Kate smiled. Wonder Woman's pale hand reached out, and found Kate's.
And Kate squeezed that hand as hard as she dared.
They sat that way for a while, an Amazon Princess and a Jewish Army brat in a dank and quiet swamp, watching the moon make the snow vivid and silver in the night. A peaceful silence settled on an uncertain future for these two.
And that was the best part.
Anyway, that's how Diana met Kate.