Chapter 9 - Bitter Return
A/N : Note to all don't say your in the swing of updates then disappear for three weeks. I've got the opposite of writers block, I'll call it writers overflow, I've got way to many plotlines running through my head at the moment. Anyway thank you to my new follows I have now. Also I made up the president as not to offend anyone, unless there was one called Harold? In which case I apologise.
"Is that it, is it over!?" asked Superman regaining his senses but still shouting due to a ringing in his ears.
"Ugh, it's over although I wasn't expecting such a large sound wave!" shouted Katar in reply as his too were ringing.
"Sir!" came the captains voice as he staggered over towards the general
"What!"
"We've got an incoming transmission attempting to contact us, sir!"
"Darkseid? Already!" theorized the general
"No Sir! Earth!" replied the captain.
"Earth? How did they find our channels"
"They didn't they simply bombarded the fleet with transmissions from every channel and frequency"
"Wait, so who-"
"Sir! Their on screen now"
"Who!?"
"Harold Wright, President of the united states of America" informed the President over the screen.
"I-"
"What on earth was that!"
"Well if-"
"What are you doing here!"
"If you just-"
"And the justice league are there too?!"
Katar remained silent this time not knowing if the President had finished or not, whilst Superman looked on like a rabbit caught in headlights and Batman managed to pull off his signature disappearing act during the confusion.
"Well, any answers?"
"There were some variables with the Neutron Array we were unaware off, also you should be well aware of what were doing here, isn't that right Superman?"
Superman remained silent.
"Superman? You did pass on the information like we requested?" pleaded Katar.
"We wanted to find out more information, before we informed the earth" replied a rather unconfident Superman.
Katar gave an exasperated sigh and buried his face into his hands, whilst the President looked like he had just been slapped.
"You knew, how long" asked the President
"Just now, were finding out information even as soon as before you called" replied Superman.
"Well, why are you here then?" asked a somewhat calmed if exasperated President.
"….Okay, I'll just get the information together, again, then we'll have a meeting, bring in whoever you need"
"You don't think im coming onto one of them ships again do you"
"Of course not, wherever you like"
"Capitol building, one hour, see you there" finished the President cutting of the communications.
"Well that was abrupt, someone locate this Capitol building and Superman where the hell is Batman"
"The Capitol building is in Washington D.C, also Batman will be doing his own research, I have no idea were he went"
Watchtower - Kitchen
John walked into the kitchen, only to bump into the rare spectacle of Flash at a complete standstill, mouth hanging agape and completely speechless. "Let me guess, another one of your amazing chat up lines landed you with a sore left side of the face" Joked John.
Flash gave half an attempt at a laugh.
"Something wrong kid?"
Flash turned and stared at John "Did you not see what just happened?"
"Yeah, bright white light, big crashing sound, but still I've seen worse storms. Wait, your not scared of storms are you?"
"What, No!, John, were in space"
John stared at Flash a moment longer before his mouth formed a perfect O "ah"
"How the hell did you forget that, were on the watchtower?"
"Alright calm down, I've got a lot on my mind right now"
"But seriously, did you not just notice the Thanagarians blast Apokolips from existence?"
"They what?!" exclaimed a rather shocked John
"Yeah, they just ripped space apart and, I don't know, like opened a black hole inside Apokolips or something. I bet Supes is happy"
"Yeah, I err, I bet he is" mumbled John
Flash suddenly adopted the rarely seen serious face " How you holding up"
"Im good" blurted John
"John?" asked flash now maintaining something akin to a bat-glare.
"I don't Know Flash" Silence held for a few moments "I-I decided to give Shay a chance, and as much as I know I want it, as much as I had to convince Shay for it, I still fear, as horrible as it sounds, putting myself through the same pain twice" admitted John
"John if you had to convince her, then you can't back out, she'll kill you and not in the Flash your annoying I'll kill you way, I mean she'll publicly execute you, kill you way"
"Not helping Flash"
"Sorry, look none of us can ever be put into the sort of situation and choice that shay had to make, but she pulled through for us and im betting mostly because of you, the pair of you are perfect for each other, hell john we had a pool going on you two"
"You all knew?"
"You always had different attitudes around each other, even more so after war world, everyone noticed something was up, well except mister oblivious"
"Mister Oblivious?"
"Oh yeah Supes, he actually believed you two hated each other, but like I said he can be a little oblivious, thank God batman actually runs us"
"Yeah, thank the heavens for Batman" agreed John
"Seriously though you two will be fine, im never wrong on these things, when you eventually get married, im presiding"
John laughed before adding "well you may have some competition now, but you get my vote" laughed a finally smiling John
"well if I get your vote im in" declared Flash
"Kid, a man has no power at his own wedding and with Shayera you can guarantee the decision is hers" replied John who walked away laughing at Flash's heartbroken face.
Watchtower Med Bay
More silence aboard the watchtower as Shayera, Diana and Rhian all looked into the space were Apokolips had briefly stood.
"Was, that the…" Rhian Slowly began
"Neutron array? Yep" finished Shayera
"By Hera" added Diana still staring into space
Rhian looked to Shayera and mouthed "Who's Hera" Shayera responded "Don't ask" whilst putting her hands together in prayer and mock holiness. Rhian had to bite his tongue and stifle a laugh.
"So much power, mortals should fear such power lest it destroy the wielder" Stated Diana
"So should gods, we had to kill ours" added Rhian who received a death glare from Shayera
"You never killed Icthulu, you banished it and it reappeared here on earth" retorted Diana
"Icthulu was not the only god we were foolish enough to accept, there were others who we had to destroy…" Rhian was interrupted by his communicator, "Well its about time" mumbled Rhian looking apologetically to Shayera "See you soon sis, apparently Superman wasn't very informative to humanity, so now were of to the Capitol…yay" added Rhian sarcastically before vanishing.
Diana turned to Shayera "Well you can definitely tell you two are related" joked Diana
"Your kidding, he's the opposite of me, he reminds me of Flash"
"How are you holding"
"Di, im actually good, I mean im spinning because there's so much happening but I've got so much back, im just worried how long it'll last"
"What do you mean"
"Look at my track record Di, whenever something good happens, something terrible follows, something will happen, I can feel it"
"Shay what could happen, as much as I didn't like it, your people destroyed Darkseid in seconds"
"Apokolips Diana, not Darkseid, there is only one way to truly destroy Darkseid, that's with Radion, also there is no guarantee, the same as us that the fleet perished with the planet"
Diana's face contorted to pure anger at this "You mean to say, that you have brought your war, to our planet, how do you do it Shayera, how do you keep taking us all for idiots and stabbing us in the back" hissed Diana bringing herself nose to nose with Shayera.
"Nice to see everyone just waiting for me to stick the knife in again, Darkseid has already attempted to take the earth before, he orchestrated the invasion, also he sent a scout party to the earth just hours ago. He has made his mind up Diana, he's going to invade regardless of Thanagars position, thanks for been so understanding" retorted Shayera as she shoulder barged past a silenced Diana who attempted to call Shayera back to no avail.
Watchtower Kitchen
Flash was just about to leave the kitchen after emptying the fridge of anything unhealthy, as was his sworn duty, after all even superman had to watch his calories. He stopped however when he heard a rustling in the fridge, he turned round and thought he'd stepped back in time. Shayera had her head buried into the fridge.
"Shayera?"
"Wha-Ow, son of a" Mumbled Shayera as she whacked her head on the top of the fridge and pulled out with one of Johns beers in hand. "Flash? Have you been there the Whole time?"
"Yeah…. Shay what are you doing" asked Flash nervously gesturing at the beer
"This… I erm, look its helps ok" replied Shayera whilst taking a few gulps.
"Shay, you can't talk about it ,like that people will think….Oh shay, just how much were you drinking?"
"Don't worry about it, im fine, it doesn't affect me in the same way, I'd drown before I got even tipsy off this stuff" quickly answered Shayera.
"Shayera, you might not get drunk but it still can't be healthy"
"Oh no, heaven forbid I knock a few years of my life expectancy" joked Shayera
"Shay!, I know you've been through a lot but, that's not the answer, shay I've seen what it does, hell you've been here long enough you must've seen what it does"
"Why is it that suddenly everyone feels the need to give me advice lately, look it's harmless, it's just a distraction better to sit there drinking then to sit there feeling sorry for myself. It's got nothing on the sort of things that happened on Thanagar" Laughed Shayera finishing the bottle to Flash's amazement
"Sorry Shay, your like a big sister to me, only shorter. I just don't want to see you hurt again" admitted Flash.
"Yeah and your like the annoying brother I thought to be dead, but still im fine"
"Okay, I know when people say fine they mean otherwise but I'll let it slide"
"too right" said Shayera throwing the bottle across the kitchen and into the bin before turning to be confronted by Diana "ah, I was just leaving"
"Shayera, look, I want us to be friends again Shay, but your people and their power, frankly Shay, its fearsome. Their sat up there, with that sort of fire power and your shocked I overreacted. What if they are playing you along again, what if they turn on us again"
"I told you all Diana, I told you that I wouldn't vouch for them, I told you im worried something is going to happen. If what they have told us so far is true then they'd have already turned on us. It wouldn't make sense to wait up there or destroy Apokolips it only weakens their position, that weapon you saw, if the stories are true then that's it, we don't have another one"
"Look Shay, im-"
"Don't worry about it, everyone's on edge, there's enough fuel around at the moment all that's needed is a small spark for something big to go down, I just hope we can look back on this and make a joke one day" finished Shayera as she left Diana and Flash together.
Diana turned to the Flash who simply shrugged at the whole situation.
Washington D.C - Capitol Building
(P.S I wrote this without internet and know nothing of U.S politics or any politics for that matter)
Katar looked to the two Officers he'd brought with him, they both looked perfectly content with the situation, but they were all military men, Katar didn't know a single Thanagarian in the military that had anything remotely pleasant to say about politics. With only an hours notice Katar assumed that the meeting would be the president and a few aides and obviously some security. Then an aide who like everyone else seemingly in the building carried a firearm and were ex forces, informed him, that not only would every chief of staff and senior politician from the U.S be there, the G8 would be present as they hadn't left and other leaders and foreign diplomats would be present via video links. Still it had at least been amusing when they were asked to declare weapons and handed in over twenty weapons between three of them, much to the shock of the staff.
One of the security staff informed them that everyone was ready. "into the lions den, an appropriate saying as any" muttered Katar as they walk through into the main room to absolute silence and took place in the centre of the room surrounded in a semi-circle by hundreds of politicians and video screens, but most confusingly to Katar hundreds of media broadcasters from across the globe were also present.
"General Hol…I believe you have some things to clear up and you brought….security" addressed the President as a small amount of quiet laughter broke the ranks.
"Yes, well, been told there'd be a meeting in one hour I assumed it would be on a smaller scale and perhaps a little more private" replied Katar looking towards the assembled media.
"Why, do you have something you wish to hide from the world General?"
"So you read all the information we sent within the hour and organised this, assembly"
"Yes of course, your point been"
"Well nothing really, but your happy for every piece of information within the documents to be revealed to…well seemingly the entire population of the planet"
"Given what happened last time, I believe its best everyone hears as oppose to a select few" retorted the President before adding with a small hint of sarcasm "anyway were are our manners, who are the other two"
"Commander Kett and Commander Sahldro, head of warfare and head of operations"
"General, yet again we find ourselves with your race here trumpeting it's desire to help our planet, any comment on that"
"Well except we really are not Mr President, after all we initially came here with half a mind to wipe this planet from existence" the effect of this line was amazing as the assembly erupted into uproar which Katar allowed to continue for a moment "However!" the uproar subsided somewhat "as I thought you would've been aware we were lured here for that exact purpose, thank you for taking the time to read the information sent"
"So you have no planet, what's to stop you deciding ours would make a suitable replacement or stabbing us in the back again and attempting to destroy us" asked the President of Russia wading into the debate.
"Firstly, once Darkseid has been taken care of once and for all, Thanagar, as barren and destroyed as it is, it is still salvageable. Secondly there would be no attempt would we decide to take the Earth, after all the pain and horror we caused, your planet is still woefully unprotected from any invasion from space, tell me anyone, what would you do were I to declare war?"
The same silence that greeted their arrival filled the air small murmurs of Nuclear weapons and Justice league could be heard still.
"The justice league, admittedly from what I've seen and heard an amazing group of heroes. Superman your truly ultimate weapon, completely loyal to the earth, a being with the power to strike down an entire race, they've done so in the past. Unfortunately most of our weapons and most notably Nth metal were designed with the purpose of destroying Kryptonians in mind.
As for your nuclear weapons, with the click of a few buttons I could have your entire planets stockpile under our control, unfortunately that's just thousands of years of technological advantages"
"Lets say that everything your saying is true, which most here will doubt, if you think it would be so easy to destroy us, how would we possibly have a hope against Darkseid" added the President of China
"Because the only positive you should take from all the wars amongst yourselves, is the fact you have well developed ground forces, but as you know air superiority is everything here, unfortunately space superiority negates that"
"But how can anyone here afford to trust you" asked the Prime Minister of the U.K
"Im not asking anyone to trust us, that would be pointless given our history, we have some information on Darkseids forces, units, common tactics and so on, we'll pass this on you can make of it as you please, we'll hold space and you do what you please down here on Earth
"How confident are you in been able to hold space?" added the President of the U.S
The simple question caught Katar by surprise what sort of question is that he thought to himself
"General Hol?"
"Well its war, im sure everyone knows there's no guarantees"
"but you must have some idea"
"Until we receive the first results of our long range scans, we realistically…. Have no idea what were dealing with"
"so your just leading us on. You could bring your desperate attempt at revenge to our planet and not have a hope of winning"
"Mr president as we stated earlier Darkseid is coming regardless of our presence"
"Well perhaps we could deal with Darkseid on our own terms"
"Terms, you think Darkseid would listen to terms, Darkseid would give you two terms, surrender or death but of course this is not for us to decide, should you want surrender…or death, then we can still get out of this"
"So you would leave us here?"
"What? Is there anything I can actually say that doesn't result in complete shock or-" Katar was cut of as Commander Kett lent over a passed information to the General, whose facial expression changed noticeably shocked for a brief period before returning to normal.
"Something wrong General?" asked President Whiting with a slight amount of concern.
"Well Apokolips was well and truly destroyed, however…..It seems Darkseid was following the scout party that we just destroyed, though they should be unaware of the demise of the party. At the current trajectory, Darkseid will arrive….within the week" Informed Katar noticeably quieter as shock spread through the assembly "Whats more, it's a much large portion of the fleet than we'd have suspected, roughly three times the size of our own fleet" gasps and shouts of impossible rang thought the assembly now,
"Enough, we are live broadcasting across the world, the last thing the world needs to see is fear. General, with this information do you have the answer to my earlier question, also how many individuals are we talking about here, how many do you have"
"Well our fleet is fully operational, however it is undermanned-"
"Undermanned, why would you bring an undermanned fleet?" interrupted the Russian President
"After our victory over the Gordanians we had of course suffered large losses, then we never made it back to Thanagar, so there was never a chance to receive any supplies or personnel"
"So what numbers are we talking?"
"Our total currently stands at roughly seven million"
"What should it be?"
"Closer to twenty million for this portion of the fleet"
"Portion, just how big was the fleet"
"The entire fleet? Never even saw that myself, but if it was all fully manned, operational and in the same place it would be close to two billion total in service"
"That's insane"
"Well not really, we had a total population of near seventeen billion, I mean thats roughly a one to nine ration of military to civilian, also we never had police or emergency services like here on earth, all those services were military as well, I mean how much would your military, police and other services completely add up to"
"Well I guess that's true, also I don't think there a number we could put on that straight away" finished the Russian president
"So how many, will Darkseid have, were not talking billions here are we?" asked the Prime Minister of the U.K
"No, no most ships are actually smaller than ours, with the exception of the flagship which is just stupendous, given the fleet approaching and its size the estimates will be between fifty to sixty million"
More shouting erupted throughout the room for as few moments before calm descended "General just how will a space battle pan out exactly"
"What do you mean?" replied Katar looking clearly confused.
"I mean if we were fighting such large amounts on the earth, then the war could drag on years"
"I see, well unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, a space battle is much more brutal and a lot faster, I wouldn't expect the battle in space to drag out longer than a week, the objective of the space battle would be isolating Darkseid, the only way to win this is to take out Darkseid, If Darkseid falls his forces will flee"
"And if it lasts longer than the week"
"If that's the case, then it is unlikely that we will be able to keep larger portions of Darkseid fleet, out of earths air space"
After this the assembly erupted into uproar again, before the meeting moved on to yet more arguing and accusations, with hints of planning and tactics thrown in.
A/N Okay I could've gone on for thousands of words with that political bit, but I'd imagine that would get boring after a while so I decided to call it a day for that bit.
Also not sure of the numbers I came up with but it seemed realistic in my head, although if anyone disagrees let me know.
Once again sorry for delays, but this is becoming incredibly hard to write, perhaps I should've done something a little easier for a first story, oh well stuck with it now :P
Review, tell me im rubbish, mediocre, good or none of the above.