WARNING: Seriously, basically just wrote the ending for this one. You'll see a bit of how Wolf dies (she takes Wally's place in that respect) and how she and the team wakes up. The stuff before that is just the original episode script, which I like to have as a reference for how things originally went.
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Deploying camera sensor units.
Attention.
You have entered the boundaries of Earth space.
Disengage all weapons and engines.
This is your final warning.
Code red.
Full offensive deploy.
Tornado, did you- Yes, Zatara, we saw.
Celestial defenses have failed.
Initiate all terrestrial measures.
Affirmative.
See you in the field.
I must join the League.
We will protect the planet at all costs.
But should we fail, the responsibility falls to you.
We stand ready.
This is Iris West-Allen reporting live.
The extraterrestrials have brought their relentless global attack to Central City.
You should both be safe here.
At least for now.
Thank youFlash.
And Zatara.
Denny, you OK? As you can see, the Justice League is attempting to hold the line.
No.
Iris! Iris, get out of there.
I'm sorry, we're experiencing technical difficulties from our Central City feed.
We take you now to a devastated Taipei, where another League contingent is having a bit more luck.
Ladies and gentlemen, we've lost Black Canary, Green Arrow, and the Hawks.
Other heroes reported dead or missing include Batman, Ikonn, Adam, and Aquaman.
Wonder Woman, above you.
Red Tornado to cave.
I fear I am all that remains of the League.
R.
T.
! We are Earth's heroes now.
So what are we waiting for, a theme song? A strategy.
Earth's weapons are ineffective.
And it has been made tragically clear a direct attack will not succeed.
Checking satellite imagery.
Here's where the aliens are now.
This one get lost? That's Superman's fortress of solitude.
Superman has a fortress of solitude? Its power source must have attracted the aliens attention, at least enough to send a scout ship to investigate.
Must be some fortress.
- Connor.
- No, it's OK.
I guess there's a lot about Superman I'll never know.
Uh, you know, now.
We will target this lone ship.
Yeah, break it down, build more, hit those ugly aliens with their own mojo.
Ow! Martian and Kryptonian in the house.
Uh, heh heh.
Not that all aliens are automatically ugly.
Communications disabled.
Propulsion disabled.
And ETs are sealed inside.
Uhh! Identifying weapon's structural stress points and links to the ship.
Here, here, and here.
Uhh! Wolf! There was no indication of feedback.
I'm sorry.
Can't do anything for him now.
Let's go.
Ahh! Rerouting systems to integrate weapon into ship's biomatrix.
We'll need to decamouflage for a few minutes.
May not have a few minutes.
Miss Martian, open fire.
Can't.
Weapon systems are offline to incorporate the new cannon.
And that's not fully integrated yet, either.
Got you covered.
Get inside.
I'm almost there.
Artemis, behind you.
Uhh! Artemis! Artemis! Get inside.
All of you.
Aah! They're dead.
Every single alien, if it's the last thing I do.
Ahh! Ahh! Ahh! There will be time to mourn later.
Now we have a job to do- defend the Earth and ensure Artemis' sacrifice was not in vain.
Back to the cave?The hall of justice.
The human race must know that there are still heroes defending them.
There is still hope.
Now! Open fire.
See? It is Superman.
I told you he wouldn't leave us out here alone.
I don't know.
He looks kind of young.
Where's the Cape? I'm not Superman.
I don't know who you are, son, and right now, I don't care.
You wear the "S" and you got the job done.
I'm not Superman.
Tell that to the enemy.
General Wade Eiling, U.
S.
Air Force.
Aqualad, Justice League.
We'll help you salvage as many of the aliens' cannons as possible, then we start taking back what is ours.
They're really gone.
Uncle J'onn! M'Gann, check his mind.
Make sure he is whom he appears to be.
It's him.
He's real.
He's alive.
But we saw you get disintegrated.
You and Superman.
And everyone.
Yes, I remember.
But I cannot remember how I survived.
Or how I arrived here.
Maybe you were density shifting, the beam passed right through you.
Scrambling your brains along the way.
My mind is clouded.
I feel certain I had something important to tell you.
Hello, Wally, come on.
I knew it! Look.
It's giving off zanopenes, the same stuff that powers our zeta tubes.
This thing doesn't disintegrate, it teleports.
Artemis is alive.
- Maybe, but- - No maybes.
They're all alive.
That must have been what you wanted to tell us.
We're on our way.
Negative.
We can't win this.
Miss Martian, camo the bioship.
Aah! M'Gann! That didn't feel like- We're falling back.
We're trapped.
Maybe not.
We can all zeta to the cave if you can grant us computer clearance to access the tubes.
I can only authorize one at a time.
Send the soldiers first.
Belay that! You six are assets we cannot afford to lose.
Override.
Martian Manhunter 07.
Recognized.
Access granted.
Miss Martian.
B-0-5.
Robin.
B-0-1.
Kid Flash.
B-0-3.
Aah! Aah! - He goes next.
- Fine.
Then you.
Private Jason Bard.
USMC.
- Can you make it? - Sure, Superman.
- I'm not- - Superboy.
B-0-4.
They need you more than me.
Go! Our next mission is clear.
If we believe the aliens have been teleporting their victims- We do.
Then the only reasonable detention facility is here.
Their mothership, atop what used to be Smallville.
Ring any bells? No.
I'm sorry.
Superboy, you'll create a distraction.
No! He's offering you as a sacrifice.
Aqualad would never do that.
You're right.
Aqualad would sacrifice himself, a mistake that just cost us our leader.
Superboy is the most likely to be perceived as a threat, motivating the aliens to deploy.
Worst case, he's teleported inside and we set him free along with Artemis.
And Aqualad and everyone.
It's OK, M'Gann.
It's what Superman would do.
And though we know all seems lost, the one thing the aliens cannot destroy is hope.
Hope survives because the battle is not over.
Not as long as even one of us is willing to fight.
It doesn't matter how many fall, for new heroes will always rise to carry on, bring all their resources, their skills, their talents to bare, to defeat the enemy.
The people of Earth will survive this.
We will rebuild and we will thrive.
Never doubt and never forget the Earth will never surrender.
Stay close to J'onn.
He's still First team, deploy.
Ahh.
Ready.
In position.
Be careful, Connor.
I love you.
Uhh! Grr! Careful.
Don't disconnect the power source.
All right, you glorified trespassers.
You want to see how a real alien fights? Now or never.
Way's clear.
Go.
Dah! No.
He's gone.
It's all right.
We'll find him with Artemis.
I know it.
No.
My mind is clearer now.
The disintegration beam is exactly that.
There is no detention facility, no prisoners to rescue.
Our mission holds no purpose.
No, you're wrong.
The zeta radiation proves she's alive.
- She's- - Stop it, KF.
I've been scanning for League and team signals since we got inside.
They're not here.
Artemis is gone.
But our mission still holds purpose- to destroy this mothership.
Grr! This is the power core.
Blow this and the whole mothership blows.
Uhh.
Uhh! You knew.
You knew from the beginning why we were really here.
Let's go.
- Perfect.
- Huh?
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"Green-man," I barked, catching his attention. Following my lead, Robin matched his gaze and pointed up.
"Take Miss Martian and go," he ordered, looking grim.
"No, we won't leave you!" Green-girl shouted out loud, looking horrified.
"That's an order M'gann; we'll follow as soon as we blow those doors!" He shouted back. With a final nod, Green-man grabbed the younger girl and shot up, her echoing cry in our ears as they disappeared.
I glanced over at the decreasing numbers still floating above my companion's watch and grimaced, meeting his eyes. He nodded in sad understanding and I stepped forward, burying my face in his neck as we waited for the last six seconds of the countdown.
"See you on the other side Wolf," his voice whispered quietly in my ear. I swallowed and nodded, the tears running down my face hotly.
"Goodbye.…Robin."
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Pain. I felt it consume me utterly, each molecule breaking apart one at a time, my skin and bones burning to dust before my very eyes. Combating the physical hurt was the emotional, my heart shattering with the fresh loss of my mate and our pack.
I felt my throat ache with the force of my cries, the screaming howl a pale testament to the agony of my failure to protect the most important person in the world.
Connor. He wasn't supposed to die, I should have protected him, oh god –
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Outside, Martian Manhunter and his niece landed
Don'tDon't tell me the mission was a success.
The price was too high.
No.
No.
No.
No. We have to get out of here now.
No, we have to end this now.
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The next thing I knew, I woke up panting; my head pounding with the worst migraine I'd ever experienced. My throat felt raw and for a second I panicked, my skin crawling with the sensation of being burned and disintegrating to ash.
"–olf," a hoarse voice croaked to my right, making me freeze. I tried opening my eyes, but the flames were too bright, too hot –
A large clammy hand wrapped around my arm, the grip uncomfortably strong –
"Connor?" I whispered, feeling more tears drip down the sides of my face at the fierce pain that shot through my chest at the name; wanting to hope but not daring to think my mate was actually –
"I'm here."
My eyes shot open completely and I looked over, a hard sob forcing its way out when I saw it was really him. I scrambled to get off the table and fell over, landing into him with a hard crash.
"–onnor, Connor, Connor," I cried into his shoulder, taking in the scent of someone I never thought I'd see again. His arms carefully squeezed around me, picking me up and settling me on his lap as he sat back down on whatever I'd been laying on.
Around me I heard and smelled my pack groaning and shuffling around us and I tried to stifle the tears, wondering for a brief moment if we'd actually died and really were seeing each other on the other side.
"You're all alive!" I heard Green-girl gasp a few feet away, an intense cloud of relief and grief injecting itself into the already crowded area. I glanced over Connor's shoulder and looked around to see we were in the training room; everyone looking haggard and disoriented as they staggered off the circle of pedestal-like tables we'd all been laying on.
"What happened in there?" I heard underwear-man murmur under his breath to the male Martian he was helping up on the other side of the room.
"The exercise….it all went wrong," Insert name groaned, clutching at his head in obvious pain.
"Exercise?" Robin panted lowly, his body drenched in sweat as he tried to lean over on his arms to look at the pair.
"Try to remember," underwear-man replied lowly in a placating tone. "What you experienced was a training exercise. Manhunter psychically linked the seven of you within an artificial reality; something you all knew going in." Pausing with a bitter twist of his lips and smelling of regret, he continued. "What you didn't know was that it was a train for failure exercise; no matter what the team accomplished the scenario was designed to grow worse."
Not giving us time to digest the information, underwear-man sighed and ploughed on. "Still, you were aware nothing was real, including the deaths of the entire Justice League."
"That is why you hardly grieved even when several of your mentors were disintegrated before your eyes," Insert name cut in, his red eyes glancing up with a pained grimace. "But all that changed when Artemis died. Though consciously Miss Martian knew it was not real, her subconscious mind could not make that distinction and she forgot it was only an exercise. Her subconscious took control, making all of you forget too."
Green-girl brought her hand up to her mouth, looking horrified. "I-I'm so sorry," she whispered to the group, the words loud in the deathly silent room.
"This isn't her fault!" Connor tensely defended, his voice loud in my ears. "Why didn't you stop the exercise?!"
"We tried," Insert name answered back quietly. "But M'Gann had a death grip on the scenario. Even Artemis, who should have awakened upon her death, was so convinced she had passed that instead of waking, she slipped into a coma. I realized I would have to wrest control from Miss Martian's subconscious from within, but upon entering the reality I was overwhelmed by your collective emotion."
Looking down at his hands, Insert name smelled pungently of guilt and unease. "There was too much noise to think clearly, to remember why I was there…..The deaths of Aqualad, Kid Flash, and Superboy helped," he admitted without much emotion. "But only when the mother ship exploded and Robin and Wolf were silenced did my mind clear enough to remember my true purpose…..to shock M'Gann out of the exercise before your comas became permanent."
Looking up, Insert name regarded us all with regret. "My apologies. I had no idea a training exercise could be so dangerous.…or so damaging." Trying to stand up, Insert name stumbled and would have fallen if underwear-man hadn't caught him in time.
"As bad as all that?" the cowled hero asked quietly. After a moment Insert name nodded. "Perhaps worse," he admitted.
"….But this isn't what troubles you."
"Make no mistake, my niece is untrained and cannot be held responsible for this – for our debacle."
"No one blames her," underwear-man reassured, "but clearly we underestimated her abilities."
"You understate it," Insert name replied ominously. "In terms of raw power, she has the strongest telepathic mind I have ever encountered….stronger by far than mine."
Deciding they weren't talking about anything important anymore, I ignored them and pulled back to look at Connor's face. His blue eyes met mine and as we regarded each other silently, unsure of how to act or what to say to each other after something like this.
Things weren't okay, and I had no idea how any of us would change that.