Chapter 74: Diminuendo

Deathstroke roared as he slammed into a Dominator, lifting it by the waist and throwing it into one of the burning fires on the street. Its screams were barely audible over the raging gunfire. Beside him, Supergirl bowled over another half-dozen or so, pushing them into the flames as well.

"Supergirl! We need you to head over to Central City now!" Her comm blared to life, Amanda's urgent voice cracking slightly.

"What's going on?" The Flash's voice followed.

"The bomb has been released. Astra is currently trying to slow its descent while Firestorm transmutes it, but she isn't strong enough. We need another Kryptonian there immediately!"

"What about the rest of the cities? I haven't tagged all of them!"

"Flash, you'll handle it; I'll transfer all the data from your phone, Supergirl, to his. And Flash, if you need more calories, just hit up the supply centers. They'll understand."

"Copy that."

"Copy that as well. Making a beeline for Central City as we speak," Supergirl responded, before turning off her comm. She looked to Deathstroke, who gave her a single, unspoken nod. With that, she took to the skies.

Flash turned off his comm and turned to Plastique, who had just thrown a bit of concrete she loaded at a nearby group of Dominators. "Change of plans. I'm going to have to split sooner than I thought. Think you can handle things here?"

Plastique gave him a disbelieving look before pointedly slapping the gun of a nearby Dominator. Flash zipped over and picked her up, ducking as the gun exploded.

Boom!

As the sky began to rain Dominator bits, an all too common occurrence in London for the past few hours, Flash nodded as Plastique smirked at him.

"Right. That answers that," the superhero set the woman down back to her feet, "I'll be heading to Paris, then."

Unlike other cities, things were not peachy over in Starling City (relatively speaking). With Supergirl currently busy tagging Dominators and trying to stop bombs, her city lacked metas in their forces. While Green Arrow and Black Canary were far more skilled than almost all of their comrades, with enemies like the Dominators, their contribution wasn't much more than any other soldier their.

Green Arrow had long since run out of arrows and was now fighting with a sword that had been blacksmithed for him by the Flash. While it was strong enough to cut through Dominator skin, he had to fight up close, and thus had to take extra care to avoid friendly fire. Black Canary, meanwhile, had gone the opposite direction: her tonfas had long since run out of reserve power, and she had been forced to resort to grabbing one of the guns of her fallen comrades and using years of shooting lessons to good use.

It was while evading a barrage of enemy fire that this training paid off. From the corner of her eye, she spotted another Dominator aiming their blaster directly at Quentin Lance. Reacting entirely on instinct, she screamed at Quentin to "Duck!", aiming her gun directly at the Dominator's head. Thankfully, the detective did exactly that, allowing the shot to sail over his head and connect. Their assailant collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.

Quentin turned around to look briefly at the invader that had nearly killed him, before nodding his thanks to the vigilante. The two then stood back-to-back and continued to fire away at the growing hordes.

"What the hell are they doing over there?" One soldier called out, pointing to the group of Dominators circling around something.

Martian Manhunter flew up, and saw red. With a roar, he dove down, avoiding shots of enemy fire along the way. He picked up one Dominator with his immense strength, squeezing and crushing its neck before using its body as a bludgeon, knocking all the other Dominators away. Then, he turned to the object of ire: one of the Dominators' mind control devices.

He kicked the devoice down before slamming the skull of the Dominator he just weaponized onto it, denting the metal and breaking off the glass. The device fizzed out, before darkening. Panting, Martian Manhunter let the dead Dominator go, before turning back to the rest of the battlefield.

Akio Yamashiro ripped the arm off of one Dominator and used it to knock the gun out of its other hand. Then he shot it in the head using his own gun.

"Akio!" His mother chided, slicing away at Dominators herself using her Katana.

"Everyone else is distracted, mom." Akio replied to the unspoken scolding. "They'll just mistake it as a hallucination or something. Plus my face is well-hidden."

"Besides, I'd rather have him exposed and alive rather than hidden and dead, Tatsu," Maseo added on beside them, aiming another shot.

Tatsu groaned. Her boys were impossible!

"You think this will work?" Cisco muttered as he readied his hand.

"Doesn't hurt to try," Hartley shrugged, similarly readying his gauntlet.

At a silent count of three, they fired at the same time, merging Cisco's vibration blast with Hartley's sonic wave. The effect was instantaneous: the two attacks reverberated together, hitting every Dominator in the vicinity and throwing them off their feet, crashing into concrete and debris. The soldiers, who had been directed to hide behind the two metas, followed up with a rampage barrage of gunfire, killing their stunned enemies.

Cisco pumped his fist while Hartley threw up his hands in cheer, followed by a high-five.

"We totally need to work on that later," Cisco insisted.

"Yeah," Hartley smirked, before turning back to the battlefield when the sounds of fighting began to start up again. "Just not with an alien invasion going on."

"What the hell was that!?" Eddie shouted after the sounds of the blast subsided.

"Don't know, don't care! Keep firing!" Ralph shouted back, his gun firing round after round at the approaching Dominators.

Beside him, Iris was doing the same, before she was suddenly knocked off her feet. She blinked her eyes open, only vaguely recognizing her father, before his scream of "GET DOWN!" caused her to protect her head. A large explosion could be heard, rocking the ground near her.

"Dad, what…?"

"Grenade, Iris," Joe cut her off, "one of the other soldiers got desperate."

Iris nodded, not that Joe could see it, before her eyes spotted a black speck in the sky that was steadily getting bigger.

What is that? She wondered, unexplainable dread creeping up her body.

Astra grunted as she turned around, her back to the bomb as she used her feet to push against an invisible, non-existent wall. With no leverage, however, the effect was negligible at best. The bomb was still falling at high speed, and it would land before Firestorm could transmute it in time.

"ASTRA!"

The general whipped her head around, spotting her niece's approach. "Kara…!?" Then, realizing what her arrival must have meant, "KARA! HURRY!"

Supergirl complied, pushing her super speed to its limits. She arrived at the bomb and began to push at an angle, trying to get more leverage. Already Astra could feel the bomb's descent slowing down, but still, it was falling.

C'mon Firestorm, you need to hurry too!

Concentrate, concentrate… Ronald Raymond and Martin Stein thought as one, feeling more of the molecules shift.

Gotta do it, gotta do it, the world's depending on us, Clarissa and Lily and Caitlin are depending on us…!

They pushed and they pushed all the power they had into the bomb, rearranging and rearranging the molecules until…

Supergirl stopped as the large bomb she and her aunt had been pushing against disappeared. And in its place was…

"Candy?" Astra looked down at the colorful orbs in her hands, befuddled.

The other Kryptonian popped one into her mouth as Firestorm flew up beside her. "Mmmm…milk chocolate. My favorite."

Third short chapter, but it also has ten parts, so whatever. Next chapter will be the last leg of the invasion, and the chapter after that, the immediate aftermath.