Chapter 7: Battle Plans

PARIS
FEBRUARY 14, 03:54 UTC+1

One could say that the others might have been jealous of Flash as he made it from Gotham City to Paris in under ten minutes. He reached the outskirts of the city and noticed that the heart of Paris was currently in danger, with damage equal to the other cities at threat in progress.

Now Flash may be fast with his feet, but he certainly wasn't hasty. He knew that if he was going to stop the Appellaxian attacking the beloved City of Lights, he would have to find it, lure it away, and then take it down.

He dashed down the streets and soon found the trail of destruction that the unknown attacker had left behind and noted that most of it involved burning. This kind of ruin wasn't unheard of to the well-seasoned hero, but whatever elemental alien did this was a major threat considering the possibility of gas explosions.

Increasing his speed, Flash followed the trail until he came to the site of the Arc de Triomphe, where the French military was taking a stand against the Appellaxian that had landed here. Looking at the elemental alien giant, Flash's eyes widened with shock.

The creature he had to face had a humanoid shape, but its form was composed of fire. It had four fingers and toes each on its hands and feet, and its shoulders were crowned with flames leading up to its head and smoke and embers rose from its body. The creature's eyes were red and the outline of its mouth displayed a row of fangs.

For a moment, Flash worried that he may have gotten in over his head, but he fought to get his head back in the game.

Come on, Barry! Think! Flash urged himself mentally. You're a superhero! Don't lose your cool now!

After a moment, the Scarlet Speedster found his courage and ran at super-speed close enough to get the flaming monster's attention. He picked up a broken metal pipe and threw it with all his strength. It sailed through the air and reached the fiery giant's waist, only to melt into slag. Fortunately, this was enough to turn its attention to Flash.

"All right, you walking Molotov cocktail! Come and get me!" he shouted.

The fire creature responded with a whooshing, crackling roar and strode towards him on its great legs, leaving flaming footprints in its wake. Then it began hurling enormous fireballs at the red-clad superhero in an almost reckless manner.

Thinking quickly, Flash spun around at super-speed and reflected the fireballs so they flew harmlessly into the sky. Then he lured the fiery creature away from the Arc and past the Eiffel Tower until he reached the Pont Alexandre III. Standing at the midpoint of the bridge, Flash braced himself for a run.

As the fire giant lumbered its way toward the bridge, Flash ran to grab pieces of rubble from one of the wrecked buildings and began throwing the rubble at the creature at the speed of a spinning CD disc. Though the bricks and pipes only burned to ashes, they seemed to be preventing the fiery being from advancing, for it was too slow to dodge the speedster's attacks.

More fireballs were thrown at him, but Flash pulled off his cyclone move and managed to dissipate the flames. But his resilience angered the flaming monster, who did the typical thing of breathing fire at him, and Flash had no choice but to move out of the path of the scorching stream.

"Great!" he said sarcastically. "I try to drive this creature out of Paris and it torches a world-famous monument without restraint!"

Fortunately, the bridge wasn't even mildly harmed, for the fiery giant had aimed for the street. But Flash had seen enough damage for one time and he soon had an idea. He ran to a fire hydrant that was still standing and knocked on it with a piece of metal. When he got the monster's attention, it flung another fireball. Just as Flash had hoped, it hit the fire hydrant and Flash used his legs to propel the water into the creature's face.

The fire monster shrieked as steam began to pour from its face in addition to the smoke. It lumbered after Flash as he took off for the river Seine, little knowing that the hero already had a plan to drive it away.

As the monster neared the river, Flash ran in circles at supersonic speed so he formed an artificial waterspout using his speed trail. It rose high enough to reach the fire giant's height, and then Flash ran in place, effectively dousing the fire giant, who roared and began to retreat. Flash continued to run in place until the monster had been hit with so much water that it had finally had enough. It floated into the sky and finally fled, not willing to prolong the battle.

"Well, I've stopped that creature for now," said Flash. "Now back to Gotham City. If Batman and the others are there, they'll need to know about my success."

So saying, he jumped over the side of the walk and began running on the surface of the river Seine and was in the English Channel in less than a minute. Then in a matter of seconds, he was running from Europe to North America on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.


TAIPEI
FEBRUARY 14, 12:15 CST

The skyline of Taipei brought fond memories of his home planet to Martian Manhunter as he came at last to the capital of Taiwan. Though he knew the large cities of Earth were built with tower buildings, this city had an air that clearly spoke of gentility and honor balancing pride and strength. For a moment, the Martian hero felt the old ache in his heart rise, but he pushed these thoughts aside to focus on finding the Appellaxian invader that had trespassed in this corner of the world.

As he approached the city center, he saw the Taiwanese military already in action against the elemental alien that had chosen Taipei as its target, and this Appellaxian had a body of glass. It too had a humanoid form, though its body was completely transparent as though it was solid mass while still flexible. Its eyes were a silver-white color, but aside from these, the glass alien had no other features to its face.

Martian Manhunter saw that the damage done in Taipei was already marked with civilian injuries, and he was moved to fight. He moved in to face the creature, and when he saw it reach for a tank, he used his telekinesis to move it out of the way and set it down gently so the soldiers could escape.

The glass creature looked around to see what sort of force had spared its intended targets, and when it saw Martian Manhunter, it gave a vibrating growl and lumbered toward him. When it tried to grab him, the Martian hero shapeshifted so his legs became like a huge serpent's body. He wrapped his serpentine form around the monster's right arm, then its chest and left arm, and then around its body.

The glass creature struggled to free itself, but Martian Manhunter only tightened his hold and began punching the beast's head with intense force. The creature then slammed Martian Manhunter into a building, which stunned him and allowed it to get loose. However, Martian Manhunter came to after a few seconds and then hurled huge pieces of rubble at the glass giant. His strength was enough to cause the creature's transparent form to crack, but the wounds soon mended and the giant tried to swat him out of the sky.

Martian Manhunter avoided the creature's sharp-fingered hands and used his telekinesis to trip the monster with fallen streetlights. The tactic worked beautifully, and then Martian Manhunter used some streetlights to bind the creature hand and foot. However, it soon broke free and raising its hands, began firing shards of glass at Martian Manhunter, who used his density-shifting and allowed the shards to pass through him before telekinetically shattering them.

The glass monster gave a booming roar and it picked up a tank to throw at him, but it never got the chance, for a strange sound began ringing in its head. But this sound wasn't coming through its unseen ear. It was literally inside the creature's head, in its mind, and Martian Manhunter's voice was there as well and he said, "Stand down."

As Martian Manhunter focused his telepathic power on its mind, the glass giant staggered and dropped to its knees. It tried to fight back, but Appellaxians are no telepaths, and it soon gave up the struggle. To the utter amazement of the Taiwanese soldiers, the glass monster finally took to the sky and began its flight out of Taipei.

The people who had been caught in the midst of the disturbance had never believed that life on Mars existed and so had no idea who Martian Manhunter was. But he had clearly been fighting the creature that landed in Taipei, and they thanked him with cheers and hurrahs. Martian Manhunter didn't stay long, but he waved and gave a nod of thanks, then he too headed for Gotham City to meet with the others.


GOTHAM CITY
FEBRUARY 14, 7:00 EST

Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Martian Manhunter were the last to return to Gotham City after facing the Appellaxians who had attacked in the Eastern Hemisphere. It was just after daybreak, so they had to be quick getting to the Batcave without attracting attention.

When the three heroes arrived, they found Superman, Batman, Flash, and Green Lantern waiting for them. While Batman wasn't exactly smiling compared to the other three, Wonder Woman could swear on Hera's crown that she saw a faint crease at the corner of his mouth. But she pushed the thought aside to bring her new friends up to speed on the matter at hand.

"The Appellaxian that attacked Tokyo has been successfully driven away," Wonder Woman reported.

"Cairo's emergency has been neutralized also," added Aquaman.

"Taipei is relieved of disaster as well," finished Martian Manhunter.

"Good," Batman replied simply. "We've seen victory on our ends as well, but the fight is not over yet. The aliens have ceased their attack on the world's cities, but the threat will not be neutralized until they are driven completely and permanently from Earth."

"Agreed," said Superman. "Our next move will be to find where they've gone and take them down there."

Then Flash spoke up next and said, "There's still one thing I don't get. J'onn said that the Appellaxians were intending to conquer Earth, so why has none of the populace been enslaved while their cities have been attacked?"

"When I looked into the minds of the Appellaxians, I saw their motives as well as their thoughts," Martian Manhunter explained. "Their plan was to claim territory before claiming subjects. But I have learned why they fled from us. They chose Earth as their target because they believed that there was no one capable of defending the planet from them and the militaries around the world were no exception. But that changed when we encountered them. They have seen a new generation of heroes stand against them, and they intend to defeat us if they can before completing their conquest of the world."

Then Superman said, "Then the plan stands. But the problem is we don't know where in the world they've gone."

The group would have probably opened suggestions to the floor, but the next person to speak up was Green Lantern, and he was surprisingly a bit more optimistic about the situation.

"Maybe we do know," he considered. "We would've heard by now if any other cities around the world were under attack. So how would these Appellaxians get somewhere else in the world without being trailed?"

Then Green Lantern used his power ring to send out a tracing signal, and much to his own surprise, the ring got results.

"I knew it!" he exclaimed. "Their elemental bodies are giving off energy signatures, which means my ring can follow them by tracking their energy." He put his ring to work tracking the Appellaxians and then said, "It looks like they're all converging on…"

Green Lantern waited for a moment, then a surprised look crossed his face. "The island where they first landed."

"Then we move now," Superman decided. "We can't risk waiting for more parts of the world to be threatened. These creatures must be stopped."

The others all agreed, and this time, they left the Batcave as one unit to reach the Appellaxians' hideaway island and end the threat to Earth's freedom altogether.


A/N: Italicized quotes in this chapter are part of Martian Manhunter's telepathy. In others, they are either TV or radio programs.