Serenity: Justice League

Chapter 53


A/N: Wow, its been a while. Life happened I guess, just as it has with everyone else. I feel like I'm like that meme that the person finally updates that fic after 13 years. Better late than never, I guess? I make no excuses for why I was gone, just simply that I didn't have it in me to write for a while and I didn't want to write this story unless I could be in the right state of mind for it since I don't want to mess it up and give you all something that is lackluster.

The good news is that I am working on the outline for the rest of the chapters for this story now, so lets see where that takes us. As always, thank you for your loyal support and I'm sorry that it has taken my ass so long to get back to this.

Also, I didn't edit this chapter at all since I just wanted to get something up, so if there is any grammar/spelling mistakes... well, it will just fit in with the rest of the fic lmao.


kmhappybunny240: You and me both! The snyder version is def a lot better of a storyline.

Love. Fiction. 2022: Thanks!

Crystal-Wolf-Guardiwn-967: Thank you!

monkeybaby: Thank you for the support and I am glad that you are also doing well!

Sabi2: So the belts, that is actually something that people wear! My cousin actually wore one to a wedding we were both at recently! Its kinda really cheesy but still funny!

CJ/Oddball: The real question is have you watched the Snyder's cut yet?

Beth: Oh don't worry, you will be pleasantly please with what is to come, however, you are definitely on the right track! However, thank you as always for checking in on me, I appreciate it.

Regan: Thank you for the kind words and the review! I really appreciate it and I am so glad that you are invested in this story!

SayMeow: Haha well, I am glad that this story was bingeworthy! I know that there is probably plenty out there to compete with it now, so it is refreshing to hear that you enjoyed it so much :) And with everyone going through things, well, just wait for the rollercoaster that I have planned!


The group of five jumped down from Bruce's mechanical spider contraption and the only thing that was going through Grace's head was that she had the strange feeling that this beast was going to become so damaged that it wouldn't be able to be repaired. However, she knew that Bruce would pay her good money to try and make sure that it was fixed. So, at least she had the money to look forward to when this whole mission went to hell. As the others began to walk forward, Grace looked the beast up and down and for some reason she felt the need to say a small prayer for it before she walked through the tunnels. It wasn't so much a prayer as it was a blessing for the machine to hold up if they needed to sacrifice it.

Grace turned away and when she did, she caught the eyes of the Cyborg. It was like he was looking through her, scanning her for information rather than seeing her. He was an interesting individual, but she figured that to be in this so-called group, you had to be unique. As she locked eyes with him, when he came back to reality, he offered her no explanation as to what he had been trying to do electing to stay silent. After the brief pause between the two of them, they finally caught up to the rest of the party. Grace knew that without Bruce leading the way, even with the map that displayed on her visor, she would have for-sure gotten lost in this maze under the harbor. Granted, with a loud crunch under her boot, she looked down and clicked the side of her helmet for a flashlight to turn on. Lifting her foot, she took a good look as to what she had just stepped on.

It seemed that there were miscellaneous human items alongside a few badges from different places of employment. Upon closer inspection, it seemed that most of the badges hailed from the same company. That was interesting, but they probably had something that they shouldn't have… one of those magical boxes that these aliens seemed so intent on finding.

"We're close," Diana broke the silence as she took a long breath in to smell the air, "the scent of the enemy… of absence. Darkness. Death… it lingers thickly in the air."

Well, that wasn't cryptic at all Grace couldn't help but think. She made a comment under her breath how weird this make-shift group was. The words that came out of Diana's mouth did make the hair on the back of Grace's neck stand up. Whether it was from some lingering, unseen tension that was accumulating in the air or if it was just the minor suggestion that they were almost upon their enemy, she wasn't about to take any chances. Instead, she found herself placing her hand on her holster in preparation of the battle that was to come. One would have to be naive if they didn't think that nothing was going to come of trying to go into the lair of the aliens.

As they transverse the tunnels, Grace had turned off her flashlight on her helmet. She knew that the beam of light would give them away if they were caught creeping through these tunnels. She was sure that they would run into the workers that were stationed on perimeter duty. It was just a matter of time before it happened. She was just grateful that Bruce and Alfred had upgraded her helmet once again with a darkness mode. It was pretty much as if she could see in the dark even with her tinted visor completely shielding her face. It may not have a super fancy AI display like what Bruce used, but she would take what she could get. The features that she did have, well, they were nice.

"Umm guys?" Barry whispered and then he pointed to the walls.

There was just bug goo everywhere. Ugh. Gross.

"Alfred, where are we?" Bruce asked into the intercom system.

Even though they were underneath Gotham at this point, Grace could hear Alfred as if she was right next to him. His voice came through crystal clear without any feedback. Must be nice to have money to spend on stuff that actually worked.

"You should be directly under the venting tower for the tunnel that they are in. If you look to your left, you should see a staircase. There are thermal masses showing up in the next room over which I am going to presume are your human hostages."

The party started to move forward again while Grace offered up a small thank you to Alfred. He was just as much a part of this team as any of them were. She did notice that no one else in the group had bothered to thank the man. She wanted to go with the benefit of the doubt that they were just in the mindset of the mission and trying to rescue the hostages before their untimely fate.

"You're welcome Miss Sanibel."

Grace rolled her eyes and made a mental note to tell Alfred again that he should just call her Grace. She knew that it was probably just a habit for him, but it made her feel weird when he addressed her so formally. Finally, they reached the top of the stairs and their first hurdle was in front of them. There was a big gap to cross, and Grace knew that she wouldn't be able to cross it by herself. But the others, the others seemed to like this challenge. It was just something that they could show off before any real danger was present.

"Right, so, is there like some sort of plan?" Barry asked.

Grace was impressed with her friend. He had uncharacteristically stayed silent for this whole journey, so it was fitting that their first obstacle would make him voice his concerns.

"Either of you… don't hesitate to speak up," Barry motioned between Diana and Bruce.

Bruce sighed, "Don't engage alone, we do this together."

Grace didn't even have time to react to that statement and come up with a smart quip of her own since she felt Barry's arm around her waist. The next thing she knew was that she was looking at the group from the other side of the chasm. She felt dizzy and wondered if she had just suffered whiplash.

"Thanks," Grace muttered, bending down so her hands rest on her knees as she hung her head willing for the world to stop spinning.


After everyone crossed, showing off slightly as they did so, they quickly and quietly moved forward and heard screaming from the boiler room; just like Alfred predicted. The group watched through holes in the wall, making sure to stay low and in the dark corners, as Steppenwolf paced around the room addressing the humans.

"I grow tired of your silence. Now, tell me, where is the Mother Box?"

Steppenwolf tried to intimidate the humans by showing them his teeth and growling but when that didn't seem to get him anywhere, he picked one of the men up. The man started to scream, "Please! We have families!"

"All I hear is that you have a weakness fitting for such a disgracing species!" Steppenwolf snarled.

By the wall, Barry couldn't help but voice his thoughts, "Okay, so I am guessing that that is the bad guy?"

Grace looked at him and rolled her eyes, "No shit, Sherlock."

Barry mouthed the same words back at her, mockingly before whispering under his breath, "I'm really missing Superman right now."

Grace shared the same sentiment, but they couldn't rely on the man anymore. He was dead. Gone. It was up to them to finish off this crazy-power alien and his bug army.

Barry shifts next to Grace and backed away from the window. He places himself completely against the wall as if he was trying to steady his breathing. He was obviously shaking.

"Right. Okay. So, here's the thing… umm… see... I'm afraid of bugs, and uh, guns, and obnoxiously tall people. Can't forget murder as well… so, I just, I just can't be here right now.

A parademon screeched as if it was laughing to its bosses' antics with the humans. Color seemed to fade from Barry's face as the situation finally started to set in.

"Its really cool that you guys seem ready to do battle and stuff, and I mean even Grace seems fine with this, but she isn't new to like fist fights and stuff…"

Grace splayed her hands out in front of her as if she was questioning why Barry was using her real name and he just shrugged in response.

"Sorry, Grace, I mean no offense. Like full transparency here guys, and she can back me up here on this one since she is the one who told me to go along with this whole team up effort in the first place, but I've never actually done or been in battle before. I've just pushed some people and ran away."

Grace was ready to reach out and strangle Barry's neck from the continued use of her real name, but she had remembered her own first fight and instead, she wanted to comfort her friend instead. However, she was going to have to have a talk with him about blaming her for joining the team. In her memory, it was he who dragged her along and not the other way around. However, it was actually Bruce who was able to offer the boy some wise words of wisdom.

"Save one."

"What?" Barry questioned.

"Save one person."

"Uh… which one?"

"Don't talk, don't fight. Get in. Get one out," Bruce instructed.

"And then?" Barry was awaiting more direction.

He couldn't believe that that was the only thing that he needed to do. To him, it almost seemed like it was too easy to just do that.

"You'll know."

With the definitive ending to Bruce's pep talk, Barry straightened up and nodded his head. He was ready to follow Bruce's instructions. Grace stood up and patted Barry's shoulder for support, giving him a nod of encouragement as well. There was a re-direction of the group's attention when Steppenwolf yelled out, making the group look back at the situation unfolding in the boiler room. Diana and Victor had taken their own positions and were getting ready to establish a joint attack on the alien in charge. The only issue, was that in that same moment, time seemed to slow down. As Stepphenwolf yelled again, this time at an older man, Victor seemed to immediately go on edge. No one else but Grace seemed to notice it, but she knew. She knew that the Cyborg knew the man that Steppenwolf was holding.

"How dare you interrupt me!" Steppenwolf screamed into this man's face, but the man didn't seem to back down.

Sure, their was fear in his eyes, but he held a sense of unwavering bravery. Steppenwolf took a deep breath in and exposed his teeth in a gruesome smile.

"You smell like the Mother Box… you know of its raw sense of power that it contains…"

The man literally spat in Stepphenwolf's face which seemed to anger him to no end.

"Never in a million years will I tell you where it is."

As Stepphenwolf made the motion to fling the man across the room, Grace watched as Victor opened his mouth, screaming, as he initiated the first contact with the aliens below. There was so much that was happening that it was hard to keep track. It all happened at once. Just as time slowed down before the assault, time seemed to magically speed up as if it was catching up from being almost paused. Grace could see Barry rush around, taking Bruce's words to heart as he started gathering up people and leading them out of danger. In the mean time, Grace took it upon herself to be on bug duty. She picked off parademon after parademon, the barrels of her guns glowing a crisp mix of blue-green letting her know that not only she was getting good use out of her weapons, but there was plenty of moisture down here to unleash a torrential downpour of bullets on her alien victims.

"Guys, this is not together!" Barry started to yell into the fray.

He was right. They were each focusing on their own thing and not helping each other out. It was clear that they needed a lot more practice in being a team.

"Yeah, well, if you actually took one of these disgusting bugs down without having me cover your ass, then we may get out of here faster," Grace yelled back to Barry.

"You two… Go! I'll make sure these things follow me!" Bruce yelled at them.

However, it seemed as if the Batman couldn't really handle any more of the bugs himself even though he was still trying to play hero. Grace watched as a parademon latched itself onto Bruce's back as if he was a bull a cowboy would ride at a rodeo. Grace nodded to Barry as he went back to ushering people out of the way. In turn, Grace took it upon herself to try and make her way towards Bruce. Finally having enough room to aim at the one on Bruce's back, dropping the parademon.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Grace responded as she moved on to the new group of bugs that filled the area.

It seemed as if they never stopped coming. It was one after another. Once she dropped one, two or three were there right away to take its place. Bruce spoke to Alfred trying to get in touch with him in order to summon his new toy towards him. Grace was caught off guard since she wasn't paying attention to her own surroundings, and instead she was listening to Bruce. In the mishap, one of the many parademon's landed on her back, as they flew around as if they were knats. Unfortionately, the armor that Grace wore was more of a body suit than anything. Something that made her more aerodynamic when she was on a bike. It wasn't made to protect her from razor sharp claws. The parademon didn't waste a beat as it sunk its talons into Grace's shoulder making her scream out in pain. She struggled with the alien that was on her, trying to get it off of her. Finally she backed up and slammed the parademon into the wall.

That made it loosen its grip on her shoulder. She took the moment to grab what she figured was its atomical wrist and flipped it over in front of her. With the wind knocked out of her enemy, she didn't hesitate to pull out her gun and shoot it point blank in the head splattering its brain juices everywhere. Grace could tell that the wound was deep and she could feel the warmth and stickiness of her own blood going down her back but she didn't have time to worry about her. Her adrenaline started to course through her veins and it started to kick in her fight or flight response. She breathed through her mouth and out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Diana was knocked down by Steppenwolf.

"Fuck this," Grace said as she took aim at the back of Steppenwolf's head.

She didn't hesitate to pull the trigger but in an unlucky fate of the cards that were dealt, she just barely grazed the back side of his head. It wasn't enough to cause any sort of real damage, and instead, it just seemed to piss off the alien boss even more. Steppenwolf deeply inhaled and snarled at Grace.

"You humans… just a pile of vermin!"

He started running at Grace as she braced herself for a fight of a lifetime, but instead, Bruce had finally decided to unleash what was up his sleeve. The item that he was talking about with Alfred. The batman unleashed hell upon the area as bullets seemed to rain down from the sky of the funny looking spider machine, or as Bruce screamed, "Take fury from the Nightcrawler!"

Grace shook her head, hoping that her previous blessing held up. However, just as Bruce's idea was a good one, it quickly turned into a bad one. Stepphenwolf was not going to take any of this as he roared and jumped on top of the night crawler starting to smash it in anyway that he could. As the giant machine came tumbling down, so did the bridge that they were all standing on. Diana reached for her sword as the world was heading down and Grace noticed that Barry went to go help Diana. She started to panic as the ground became closer but instantly felt as if she was being pulled through the air again. Barry.

However, it wasn't a peaceful landing. Barry tripped on the old railway that was still in place. Grace could hear the loud snap of Barry's ankle breaking as she hit the ground and rolled. The air was taken out of her lungs with the collision and ringing started up in her ears, but she was happy that she wasn't dead. Everyone always thought being a superhero was all fun and games. But really its just a lot of broken bones and making your body old before its time.

"Everyone? Is everyone okay?" Grace could hear Alfred's voice on the comms, but it seemed far away and distant.

He was clearly worried about the events that had just unfolded. Grace turned her head and saw that Barry was screaming out in pain clutching his leg. Just beyond him Diana was fighting Steppenwolf by herself. Sexy and strong… that was a combination she wished she had. She closed her eyes again and forced oxygen into her lungs, making herself cough in the process. That was when thoughts of Bruce started to show up in her mind. Bruce was in the Nightcrawler. Damn. She picked herself up and ran as fast as she could towards the machine.

"Batman!? I know you are in there… come on… COME ON!" She screamed as the fire of the machine started to get too close for comfort as she searched for Bruce in the pilot seat.

As her panic came to an all time high, finally, an arm from Bruce coming out of one of the side panels. She quickly moved over there and pulled Bruce out from the rubble just as debris fall ontop of the spider-machine. Grace turned her head back as Victor ran towards the machine, plugging himself into it as a last-ditch effort. This was madness. Simple and utter madness and they were about to lose this fight.

"Grace move!" Victor screamed as Grace ran towards Bruce, both of them jumping out of the way as Victor launched the last of the ammunition at Stepphenwolf.

It was a good plan, hit him with the last rocket that was on the Nightcrawler, but Stepphenwolf was one step ahead. He caught the missile and shook his head. He re-directed the missile upwards, letting it go.

"Vermon, all of you," Stepphenwolf hissed just before teleporting away through the hole above that he just created.

There was silence between the group until the rush of water could be heard.

Barry voiced what everyone was thinking.

"What are we under right now?"

Bruce was the only one brave enough to answer him

"Gotham Harbor."