Chapter 10: The Battle of Berlin

BERLIN
JUNE 13, 17:21 CEST

Black Lightning, his daughter Lightning, Static, Gear, and Metamorpho arrived in the capital of Germany just as Darkseid's invasion force mounted their attack. The Bundeswehr had already positioned themselves at several locations across the city to divide the attack force and were waiting to ambush them to add the element of confusion. As the hordes of Parademons swept down upon the soldiers, Black Lightning led the squad into battle and as they came on, he called, "Static, can you give us cover?"

"Sure thing, Black Lightning," the teen hero replied. He projected a wave of electrical energy to temporarily blind the Apokoliptan invaders and buy time for the group to take their positions. When they arrived, Staff Sergeant Johann Linden saluted them and said, "Thank you for coming so soon, Justice League. We were afraid those Kreaturen would overrun us before you could arrive."

"How many men are stationed here in Berlin?" Black Lightning asked.

"We stand at 80,000 strong in Berlin alone," Staff Sergeant Linden answered. "50,000 Reservetruppen are positioned further into the city. We should be able to hold the line while reinforcements make their way here."

"Then let's go kick some Apokolips buns!" piped Gear.

And so, the five heroes on Eta Squad prepared to confront the hordes of onrushing Parademons, Hell Hounds, and all the rest. At that moment, thousands of Parademons swept upon the German capital, unaware that the German soldiers were waiting for them. At a signal from Black Lightning, General Peter König gave the order. "Die Biester are upon us, men! Now fire on them! Mach schnell!"

All at once, the soldiers of Germany opened fire with rapid-fire laser turrets, plasma cannons, concussive missiles, and multi-turret laser tanks. Their attack was swift and fierce and it came from so many sides that Darkseid's minions could barely register where their opponents truly were. In an instant, more than half of the contingency's front lines had been decimated. Ashes of Parademons littered the streets, many Draco-Tanks and Hell Hounds had been blown apart, and pieces of Doom Hawks made grisly monuments all around. Then more attackers came on, resulting in more long-range attacks from the German forces, and that's when the Justice League made their move.

Black Lightning alighted on one particularly tall building where a platoon of German soldiers led by 2nd Lieutenant Albert Burkhalter were engaged in a heated standoff with at least twenty Parademons armed with energy pikes and Agony Gauntlets. As Black Lightning prepared to unleash his electrical powers on the Apokoliptan monsters, the crackling bands of electricity caught their attention. Then Black Lightning growled at them, "Boys, I'm serving a power pie! So get it while it's hot!"

The Parademons shrieked and came to attack Black Lightning and the German soldiers, but they were met with a repelling force that they had never felt before. As Black Lightning raised his hands to the Apokoliptan invaders, blinding bolts of lightning shot from his fingertips and enveloped them. The Parademons tried to deflect the lightning with their weapons, but Black Lightning was putting out a much higher degree of power than he used on most supervillains and the ones that were wielding Agony Gauntlets were blown away and fell thirty stories, helpless to fly due to being stunned by the tremendous voltage.

Black Lightning was barely breaking a sweat as he blasted the remaining twelve Parademons with his lightning lances, but for the Parademons, it was far worse. The lightning bolts danced over their energy pikes and fanned out in many different directions, occasionally hitting the Parademons. Their organic shell-bodies flickered under their armored forms as Black Lightning's immense power coursed over them, and they stuck their pikes into the roof of the building to keep from being blown away. By now, Black Lightning was beginning to perspire, and one of the remaining Parademons stung his left leg, breaking his concentration and forcing him to collapse. Shrieking with bloodthirsty glee, the Apokoliptans raised their energy pikes to kill the electric hero while he tried to ease the pain. But they had reckoned without the German soldiers.

"Für Deutschland und die Welt!" yelled 2nd Lieutenant Burkhalter. And before the monsters knew what was happening, Lieutenant Burkhalter fired a hand plasma blaster at the lead Parademon, taking off the monster's right hand. Then the other German soldiers opened fire and disarmed the others, even obliterating a few of them. The five Parademons that remained were howling in pain, and Black Lightning was helped to his feet before hitting the beasts with more lightning bolts. This time, the Parademons were shrieking with agony and shock as the white-hot bands of energy surged over and through their armored forms. Their internal shells flickered brighter beneath their armor and their hideous skulls became visible. There came a loud cracking and popping of armor and their bat-like wings smoked. Black Lightning exerted himself a little more and finally, the last five Parademons on that building were lifted off and fell hundreds of feet to the street below.

The German soldiers cheered for Black Lightning as he saluted them and then took to the sky to launch another lightning attack on Darkseid's war machines.

Meanwhile, Black Lightning's daughter Lightning was fighting Parademons on her own. She hit them with lightning bolts and blew several of them out of the sky, then performed a ball lightning attack that sent a swarm of them careening away. She performed incredible feats of aerobatics over the heads of several Hell Hounds and drew their fire. Each time a fireball was sent her way, Lightning moved to avoid it, and several shots ended up hitting more Parademons as well as several Doom Hawks. Lightning was doing a fair job, but she soon found herself surrounded by Parademons in the sky and Draco-Tanks on the ground.

Suddenly, a brilliant beam of emerald-green light shot from the sky and morphed into a green-energy broadsword which cleaved the Parademons and Draco-Tanks to pieces. Lightning and the others looked for the source and were elated when they saw a large squad of Green Lanterns entering Berlin airspace. Commanding the Lanterns defending Berlin was Iolande, who had saved Lightning. The alien queen saluted and called to her fellow Lanterns, "Onward, Green Lantern Corps! Fight on to the last breath!"

With that, the Green Lanterns moved in to fight and began pushing the Apokoliptan lines back to allow the Justice and the German lines to gain ground. Then enhanced jets from the Luftwaffe; Eurofighter Typhoons, Tornadoes, Phantoms, MiG-29Gs arrived and began firing on the Parademons and Doom Hawks. As another dogfight in the sky broke out, several German planes pulled off aerial maneuvers to throw the attacking Parademons off, and one squad of German planes successfully hit several Doom Hawks with energy beams that made them appear to evaporate.

While Black Lightning and his daughter covered for the defenders from the sky, Static and Gear stayed together on the ground. Already, several Parademons were coming at them shrieking "For Darkseid!"

"All right, wire heads! Come and get us!" hollered Static. He charged at them and began zapping the oncoming Parademons to the ground. He magnetized abandoned cars, downed streetlights, and metallic rubble and pelted the monsters with the stuff, scoring several hits. When a couple Draco-Tanks approached, Gear zapped their rivets with a destabilizing laser and disassembled the monstrous machines with ease. He also used a couple Zap Caps to bind a few Hell Hounds and successfully tripped them, and then he and Static began to fly low over the streets of Berlin.

"Roger that, Air Command. We are in pursuit of the bogies and closing in," Static said, pretending to be a jet pilot.

"Preparing surprise attack on enemy rear," replied Gear, imitating radio static in his speech.

The super-intelligent hero took a long laser-firing cannon and said to his back-mounted scouted robot, "Backpack, activate targeting system." Then Gear raised his device to fire on the Doom Hawks as they flew and he waited as the system locked onto the nearest one. In a moment, the laser cannon locked onto the first Doom Hawk and Gear fired a few bolts of high-grade energy. His aim was true and the first Doom Hawk was blown into flaming shards of metal. Gear aimed and fired at the second Doom Hawk, sending it careening toward the streets in a raging fireball. Then he pursued the last Doom Hawk of the squad and with a single shot, he blasted the technological horror into a fiery oblivion.

Meanwhile, Static chased after the troop of Parademons who were still trying to ravage the German ground troops when they turned and tried to catch him. They were armed with energy pikes, but Static's electric force field kept their attacks at bay before he fired back. After another chase, he doubled back and then unleashed a concentrated electromagnetic pulse at the closest Parademon in front of him. The pulse blew out the creature's mechanical heart and it plunged from the air with flames spewing from its chest and back. Static did the same thing to the next one, and it sailed into the streets and exploded. For the third one he was chasing, Static released bolts of electricity, intending to shoot the next Parademon down. After a few tries, he managed to hit the third Parademon he was chasing on the wing, whereon it sailed through the air and crashed into the street, exploding in a raging inferno.

Outside the Reichstag, Metamorpho was aiding several more German soldiers in Berlin's defense. Several hundreds of Parademons were rushing down upon the defenders with their typical howls "For Darkseid!" As the German units, led by Colonel Werner Zimmermann, opened fire on the Apokoliptan attackers, Metamorpho prepared himself to strike back with all the elements he could think of. As the first few Parademons swept down upon him, Metamorpho morphed his body into diamond and hit the incoming creatures hard. He smashed them to pieces or flung them into buildings, then rushed over to a Hell Hound and pulled it to the ground. Then as some Doom Hawks came at him, they shot fireballs at the elemental hero, who turned into stone and pelted the Doom Hawks out of the sky. Metamorpho sealed a few Hell Hounds in cement, drenched a few Draco-Tanks with carbonic acid, and pelted some more Parademons with blasts of fire, water, electricity, and even turned into liquid nitrogen and froze the creatures solid. With the lines holding, the Justice League and their allies pressed on, forcing Darkseid's invaders to a stalemate.


A/N: Hope you all enjoyed this new chapter. Keep your eyes open for Chapter 11, 'cause the Justice League is gonna have some old pals showing to help too! Plus, more Star Wars prequel callbacks!

Translations:

Bundeswehr- Armed Forces
Kreaturen- creatures
Reservetruppen- reserve troops
Die Biester- the beasts
Mach schnell!- Make it quick!
Für Deutschland und die Welt!- For Germany and the world!
Luftwaffe- Air Force