Disclaimer: I do not own either Young Justice or its related characters. Such are the property of DC Comics, Warner Bros. Entertainment and Cartoon Network. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.
(A/N: I apologize for anything I might have gotten factually wrong in this chapter in regards to military bases, weapons and geography. The "research" for this chapter was done in 15 minuets on Wikipeadia, not the best source in the world for serious research.)
Signals
Chapter Thirteen: Retaliation
Watchtower
April 2 – (irrelevant)
Superboy-Dark was board.
He had been confined to quarters shortly after Superman's escape from the station, Lashina even refused to let him help with sealing off the air-leak in the aft hangar bay and getting the oxygen circulation back on line. It probably would have gone faster if she'd let him help. That's not to say that he was particularly fast, no super-speed was not in his power-set, but he was much smarter and cleverer than the Parademons she assigned to the task.
He couldn't hear them in the vacuum hangar, but every now and again something, either a tool or an actual Parademon, would contact with a wall that connected to a still aired section of the station and he would wince every time he heard the hollow echoing bonk or plunk. Then, finally, the vent in the wall of his requisitioned room rumbled to life and cool fresh recycled air drifted in. He hadn't realized how hot the room had become until he felt the cool air kiss his face. He also hadn't realized just how little air he'd actually been getting. Superboy-Dark closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Really, they should have let him help. It would have been done much faster.
Where had this desire to help people come from?
He rolled off the bed and stood under the air vent pondering that question. On Apokolips he was taught helping people was an empty act that brought you nothing. The only person one should ever help was himself. But Superboy-Dark's desire to lend a helping-hand was so strong, much stronger than just the desire to get the air back on line prompted by self-preservation. No. This helping people desire was so strong that it bordered on 'instinct'.
Lowering his face from the vent, the silent brigadier general's eyes fell on a photo on the small desk in the room. It was a relatively old photo, he'd place it at being taken about twenty years ago, judging by the slight fade to it. It showed a warm and happy middle-aged couple with their arms around a boy –young man, more like it- whom looked exactly like him. It wasn't him, of course. Superboy-Dark had never met the people in the picture before. No, the boy they were hugging so affectionately was Kal-El, his genetic-parent –or father, his mind was a little fuzzy on that exact detail.
Did this instinct to protect come from him? Was it not something that could be learned or taught or trained out of him, but rather a specific trait that was coded into his DNA, that was a part of his very being? He wished Kal hadn't escaped and that Granny had been able to turn him to their side. It would have been nice to be able to ask him these sorts of questions. But his former Team had to swoop in and rescue him, much like they had rescued them from Cadmus… he thought. He wasn't quite sure, his memory was a bit spotty.
He remembered living in the Cadmus laboratory, and he remembered running through the corridors with Robin, Aqualad and Kid Flash. But he couldn't remember anything between them. He remembered buildings falling on them, but he couldn't figure out why. There had been a monster there, but he didn't know who it was or had been or why they had been fighting it. He remembered living with Wally for a few days and he remembered living at the Cave for what seemed like a long time. But that couldn't have been right because he lived at the Fortress of Solitude with Kal. …Right?
He did remember M'gann. …Or was her name Megan? Miss Martian. He remembered Miss Martian. He remembered helping her to combat another psychic in Bialya …or was it Qurac? No, it was Bialya! And the psychic's name was… Psimon? Yeah, that was it. He had tried to kiss her after that fight, but something had stopped them.
They had ended up kissing latter, though. On another mission. He remembered her frozen in a block of ice and she was blond for some reason. He wasn't sure why she had altered her form to look like that, nor could he recall why or how she'd gotten frozen. He did remember thinking he'd lost her, and then… and then they had kissed? No, something happened in between that, after he thought she was dead but before the kiss, other wise, how'd she get out of the ice?
He remembered making love to her too. Not on missions, of course. Back at the Cave, in her room, when it was just the two of them, the rest of the Team away, and Red Tornado locked in his own apartment. Ah! That was probably why he thought he had lived at the Cave, because he spent so much time there with M'gann …Megan? –Miss Martian. He lived at the Fortress with Kal, but visited the Cave to see Miss Martian so often that it felt like he lived there! That made sense.
He remembered tangled sheets and mingled gasps. There might have been chocolate syrup and whipped cream involved at some point… He also recalled a time in the bio-ship… maybe… Yeah, in the captain's chair! And… in hay? Rolling around in hay together? Where had they done that?
Superboy-Dark shook his head, putting all thoughts of the martian girl out of his mind. There was an invasion going on and while he had been removed from an active roll in it, that should be the focus of his attention.
…
Anacostia-Bolling joint Air Force Naval base
April 2 – 10:23 am
"I got a pair of 'em on my six!" Captain Trevor's plane dove, twisted and corkscrewed in a series of wild maneuvers that would have made Luke Skywalker swoon. "I can't shake 'em!"
Parademons swarmed around him, filling the skies above Anacostia-Bolling in a swirling kaleidoscope of green and gold, and craws and teeth. They seemed to be outnumbered, two Parademons for every plane they had. He launched a missile into a thick gaggle of them, scattering the creatures with the explosion, but not doing much more. He brought the nose of his fighter about to follow up his missile shot with a barrage of machine gun fire.
Then his plane gave a sort of kick. …and was halted dead in the air.
But he wasn't making like a brick and dropping. Craning his neck to peer out the aft window he saw the problem. The two Parademons that had been on his tail caught up to him and now held him by the tail fin. Steve cut the power, lest the strain blow out his engines.
"Mayday!" He announced over the radio. "They got me. Bailing out!"
Steve double-checked his harnesses to make sure they held him secure in his seat, loaded a clip into his side arm and grabbed the small med-kit from a side compartment. Then, he kicked the Emergency Eject and suddenly was no long cradled within the confines of his fighter but sailing through the air with nothing to support him but his disembodied pilot's chair and a parachute he had not yet let-rip.
His side arm was in his hands, the barrel trained squarely on the two Parademons that still held his now empty plane. Steve got off three shots, two of them hitting the creatures in the head, the third going wide as his attention shifted from the enemy monsters to the ground that was rushing up to meet him. He pulled the cord to let loose his parachute, his decent instantly slowing with a gut-wrenching jerk and set butterflies fluttering in his get (it would have been rather fun if he weren't in the middle of a battle). The gun was again pointing at the 'Demons and he got off another two shots before a shadow streaked over him, there was a ripping sound as his parachute was torn and then suddenly he was once again plummeting earthwards.
Steve sighed. "Crap."
It's said that when a person is about to die their whole life flashes before their eyes, that they relived every significant moment of their existence within the last moments before it ends. That did not happen for Captain Stephen Rockwell Trevor. It wasn't because he was a career airman and feared neither death nor heights. No, instead of his life flashing before his eyes, his mind was instead occupied by one singular thought. A regret rather. He had never told Diana Prince, that spunky army nurse, how he felt about her. …and now it seemed he never would.
There was a glint of light in the corner of his eye, sunlight reflecting off of armor, a blur of red and blue and exposed famine thighs. Then he was no longer falling but floating. Hovering suspended in mid-air.
"Honestly, Steve, we've got to stop meeting like this."
"Angel!" The base might be under attack, the whole world might be in danger from a monstrous invading enemy, a few moments ago he might have been plummeting to his death… But in spite of all that, Captain Trevor couldn't help the smile that spread over his lips.
Wonder Woman set him down on the parade field next to a young girl dressed head-to-toe in green with an exposed midriff, her main of blond hair pulled back in a bushy pony-tail. She held a bow in her hands; the string pulled back and let an arrow fly. It sang past Wonder Woman's ear to strike a Parademon behind her in the eye. The creature snarled and staggered backwards, injured but not dead.
"Artemis, take care of Steve for me!" And before either of them could reply the Amazon princess was sailing upwards again to rejoin the aerial fray.
The girl notched another arrow to her bow.
"'Artemis', huh?" Commented Captain Trevor. "You an Amazon too?"
"Nope." She let the arrow fly, this one striking a Parademon in the throat.
Steve's gun was back in his hand and he followed up her arrow with a shot of his own, hitting the creature in the center of the forehead. It fractured the Parademon's faceplate and Artemis took quick advantage of the weakened armor, lodging an arrow through the narrow crack and into the monster's brain.
"Nice combo." Captain Trevor offered a brief congratulation.
"You're not a bad shot yourself." Artemis smiled back.
"You sure you're not an Amazon?" Shots at two more Parademons, targeting the foreheads.
Two more arrows striking through the weakened armor fractures. "Pretty sure."
…
NAS Pensacola, Florida
April 2 – 10:31 am
The beaches of Pensacola were empty –an odd occurrence for Florida in the early spring. Perhaps it was largely in part due to the fact that the near-by naval base was under attack by vicious monsters. People stayed in their homes, or barricaded themselves in their offices, schools went into lockdown. No one went outside.
Planes soared overhead. The air was filled with the ratatatatatat of machine-gun fire and ptu-shoooom of missiles as F/A-18 Hornets zoomed overhead to engage the enemy.
A red and yellow blur streaked down the 29-FWY, heading south towards the naval base. A few moments after the blur's passing, a sleek black motorcycle with a single masked and caped rider zoomed along the same path heading for the same destination.
The red-yellow blur reached the beach and turned, arcing its path into a circle, accelerating faster and faster until it created spiraling vortex of kicked up sand and miscellaneous beach debris. Several Parademons were caught in the cyclone and bombarded by the maelstrom of sand, kelp and driftwood. Then, at the foot of the vortex, the red-yellow blur stopped his whirling circling and struck out on a strait-line course for the Pensacola base. Some of the Parademons fell to the ground dazed and disoriented while the rest hung in the air in a confused stupor.
The fighter planes, meanwhile, took full advantage of the enemy's momentary disorientation.
The motorcycle and its rider found a ramp and launched itself into the air, the rider jumping off the biking and pulling a device from one of the many pouches from of his belt. It fired a grappling hook and line that wrapped around one of the Parademon's throat, the hook catching the creature in the teeth. The caped figure swung out and upwards, using the combined momentum of his bike's forward motion and his cable's swing to launch himself at another Parademon. He landed on the creature's back and, quickly withdrawing something else from his belt, stuck it to the monster's back before quickly jumping off again, landing on another of its fellows.
The first Parademon thrashed and snarled as it hovered in mid air, trying to pull the line and cable from his neck and mouth. The second exploded from whatever it was the caped acrobat had stuck to him. The third tumbled in the air as it tried to throw its unwanted rider.
They corkscrewed through the skies above Pensacola. The caped figure refusing to let go and the Parademon trying madly to throw him off. They thrashed through the air in a zig-zagging spiral that ultimately landed the Parademon face-first in the dirt outside the base's historic light house. The caped acrobat pulled another sticky explosive from his belt and slapped it to the creature's back before leaping clear. He did a summersault and a tumble as chunks of the monster's armor and bits of flesh went flying over him.
Climbing back to his feet, the newly arrived hero pulled his motorcycle helmet from his head to reveal himself to be Robin the Boy Wonder (as if that hadn't already been obvious from his belt and aerial acrobatics).
Two uniformed soldiers just happened to witness his landing and stood gaping at the Wonder Boy.
Robin turned to them. "Don't just stand there, soldiers!" He shouted in his best 'Batman voice'. "We're in the middle of a war here!"
The 'Batman voice', sadly, did not have much of an effect when coming from the throat of a thirteen-year-old boy and they did not move, just continued to gape.
"You're… you're Robin!" Said one of them.
The red-yellow blur zipped passed their field of vision, then swung back around and materialized next to Robin as another teenaged hero.
"And Kid Flash!" He grinned. "Hey, ya got any of those MREs? Saving the planet's hungry work."
…
Camp Pendleton, California
April 2 – 10:45 am
When one heard the word 'California' they usually thought of sandy beaches, bikini-clad bleach-blonds with plastic breasts, palm trees and Hollywood. They did not think of arid desert and dry dusty air. But that is exactly what M'gann's first impression of the state was as she and Red Tornado flew over the Camp Pendleton Marine base.
The martian girl dropped out of the red spiral of the android's cyclone and floated on the outskirts of what could only be called a 'rout'. The Marines of Camp Pendleton had no combat ready planes on base and so could not bring the battle to the enemy in the air. That was one advantage the Parademons had over them. But the Parademons also lacked projectile weapons and so to do any damage to the base at all they had to fly in low and strike fast. That was one advantage the Marines had.
M'gann watched as an M1 Abrams tank launched a shell that caught one of the creatures in the chest and exploded on contact. The charred body fell to earth with a thud that was drowned out by the noise of the rest of the battle. Red Tornado sent waves of air, so thin and traveling so fast that they might as well have been blades, into the thick of the Parademon's formation. His attack cut two of them and scattered the rest.
With her telekinesis, M'gann sent one of the creatures crashing into another two of his fellows. The three tumbled in the air, disoriented, until they saw her and suddenly she had three monsters bearing down on her. Miss Martian shifted her form to creature she wasn't actually sure existed, it was something she'd read about in a book. Her body grew larger, her limbs longer, her hands and feet ending in huge talons, large leathery wings sprouted from her back and her virescent skin was replaced by a series of armor like scales. Had anyone from the base below taken the time to remark on her appearance, it would have been to make a snarky comment about D&D tabletop role-playing.
M'gann caught two of the Parademons in her hands and, swinging them rather like rocks, crushed the third between them. She let go. All three fell to the ground in a daze. But her new larger form drew the attention of the rest of the swarm and she found a third of them had broken away from the main group and were now focused solely on her.
She shifted her form again to give them a smaller target. Her new form was a bird-like creature that used to live on Mars, small and fast, it was well suited to ducking and dodging through obstacles while staying airborne.
Red Tornado appeared to help her chew all that she'd bitten off. She created a large cyclone and sucked many of the Parademons on her upwards and sent them spiraling into the outer atmosphere.
She shifted back into her green martian form. "Thanks!"
"That is just a delay tactic." He informed her in a robotic monotone. "They will be back."
Oh, happy times. And that was just a small percentage of the main force. He might have gotten them off Miss Martian's back but that, by no means, bought them a breather (not that the android needed to breath). She glanced from the Parademon swarm to the Marines below.
"It'd be better if we collaborated with the base."
"I'll leave that to you." Tornado gave the bares of nods. "With your empathetic powers you are far better suited to interpersonal communication than I."
…
Pearl Harbor Hickam, Hawaii
April 2 – 11:00 am
"I feel like I was just here."
Aqualad swung his weapons in a wide arc, gathered a great wave of sea water as he did so. Then, then the wall of water and white sea foam was taller than the ship on which he stood, Kaldur sent the small tsunami upwards towards the swarm of Parademons. The wave broke over them in mid-air and the creatures were pulled downwards by its force and weight.
"What do you mean?"
Green Lantern, John Stewart, created a glowing green shield around one frigate that was unfortunate enough to have drifted into Parademons' drop-zone. He pulled the ship back to the rest of the fleet before manifesting a titanic sized fly swatter and batting at the rest of the creatures that had remained airborne.
"I was here last July with my King."
He manifested two water-whips and lashed out with them, wrapping one around a Parademon's throat and pulling it downwards, slamming the creature beneath the water's surface. A second Parademon landed on the carrier on which he stood and Kaldur shifted his whips to a pair of maces and engaged the monster in a series of grapples and melee attacks.
Stewart manifested a giant cage and began trapping the Parademons in it. Using a combination fly swatter and cadge technique in which he would smack the creatures into the glowing green prison (rather like golf, actually). In a matter of minuets the swarm of Parademons had been reduced to just those still under water and the one grappling with Aqualad on the aircraft carrier's open deck.
Kaldur brought both his water maces together, smashing his Parademon's face between them. The creature fell to the deck, unconscious. He looked up at the Green Lantern and John materialized a pair of man-sized glowing green tweezers to pick the monster up and add it to his collection in the cage. Aqualad then turned his attention to the few remaining Parademons under the ocean's surface. What where they doing down there?
As if in answer to this question, the ship gave a sudden lurch. Its engines stopped and its aft segment began to sink.
The young Atlantian dove over the edge to find three Parademons ripping into the aft starboard side of the ship as if it were a soup can. Bringing his water-bearers about, he sent a jet of pure shapeless seawater at the creatures to flush them away from the ship. The three swam upwards and propelled themselves out of the water. Kaldur trusted the Lantern to take care of them, he turned his attention instead to the slowly sinking ship.
Aqualad swam inside the open gash in the hull and, using his water-bearers, began pulling and pushing at the water until is slowly began to drain was out the hole through which it had come. It was heavy sorcery and placed a great strain on him. His tattoo burned on his arms and Kaldur found himself gritting his teeth against the unfamiliar sensation. Maybe after the Earth was safe he should go back to Posidonis and complete his training. Tula and Garth be dammed!
…
The Pentagon
April 2 – 10:30 am
The Pentagon was not so much a military base as it was a command center; it was the seat of the United States Department of Defense. As such, it had no on-campus weapons of its own, just a well-armed security personnel. It was in its most basic sense, a glorified office building. The Anacostia-Bolling joint Air Force Naval base was on the other side of the Potomac, the two were closes enough to one another to employ a ferry from one base to the other. But Anacostia-Bolling had problems of its own at the moment.
The sleek black outline of a Boeing F/A-XX zoomed through the air above the building, circled to get a clear view of the whole scene and then dropped a series of flash bombs into the thickest pockets of Parademons. The creatures staggered in the air, their claws going to their eyes with shock and discomfort. With the enemy now disoriented, the Boeing F/A-XX launched weighted nets and grappling hooks to further immobilize the beasts. The netted and tied Parademons were then caught by a blur of red and blue that zipped and flitted through the air like some giant patriotic humming bird.
Between the plane and the red-blue blur, the skied above the Pentagon were cleared in a matter of minuets.
The red-blue blur decelerated enough to reveal himself to be none other than the Superman and he dropped his catch of tied and netted Parademons in the center of the building's central plaza, sardonically nicknamed 'Ground Zero' by those whom worked there. The Boeing F/A-XX then dropped several large pellets that burst on contact with the ground, releasing a thick gas that knocked the monsters unconscious.
The plane landed in the southwest parking lot, the hatch popped and the Batman climbed out. Superman met him at the South Parking Entrance façade.
"Nice work with the nets and cables." Grinned the Big Blue Boy Scout.
The Batman, however, did not respond. His mouth was a thin grim line as they entered the building together and made their way to the nearest security elevator.
The Pentagon building had seven floors in total, but only five of those floors were above ground. The other two, labeled 'B' and 'M' for Basement and Mezzanine, respectively, were underground and one needed a security clearance card to access them. A member of the security staff was stationed by the elevator, he was young, late twenties maybe early thirties. Clean-cut. Ironed uniform, combed hair, strong after-shave and even stronger anti-persperant. Superman noted that his heart rate was circling the 140 range of beats per minuet –he was terrified.
The Man of Steel offered him a soft smile and a friendly hand, hoping to calm the man a little. "Hey there." He said, voice brimming with wholesome farm boy charm. "You wouldn't happen to have a card to the elevator, would ya?"
He fidgeted nervously and offered the Superman a shaky smile of apology. "With all due respect, sir, you don't have the appropriate clearance for-"
He was cut off mid-sentence by the Batman rushing forward, grabbing him by the collar of his uniform and slamming him against the wall. The Dark Knight fixed him with a steely bat-glare through the white eye-slits of his cowl and said in a low gravely growl, "Access card. Now."
As if he hadn't been scared enough already. The poor man fumbled at his belt and withdrew a plastic card on an elastic string. The Batman snatched the card from his hand and wordlessly cut the string with the bladed barbs on his gauntlet. He let the man go and pushed the button for the elevator.
"Thanks." Superman cringed apologetically. "And sorry if we scared you."
"Superman!" Snapped the Caped Crusader.
"Right, right. Coming." He hopped in the elevator next to the Dark Knight.
Batman waved the card's embedded chip in front of the reader and pressed the 'B' button for the Basement level. Nineteen-twenties music began to play as the elevator slowly descended from ground level, past M-Mezzanine and on to B-Basement. Superman tapped his foot to the rhythm of the melody.
"You actually like this song?"
The Man of Steel shrugged. "Its elevator music. Nobody likes this song. But ya gotta take time to appreciate the mundane every now and again."
"Ya know, Buddhists say that if you can louse yourself in the moment, you experience truth."
"Sounds good." Smiled the Superman. "You should try it."
The elevator halted its decent and the doors parted to reveal a war room in utter chaos.
"Yeah, I'm not really in the mood."
The pair stepped out into a flurry of activity.
Technicians and annalists hunched over consoles, supervisors and superior officers stood over them asking for updates, administrative aids ran to and fro carrying status updates, memos, reports, briefs and coffee. A number of higher ranked officers from all branches of the military stood in a glass-walled conference room looking strained and tense. Batman recognized the Secretary of Defense, General Philip Blankenship, a friend of Queen Hippolyta of Themyscira, King Faraday, an agent who's role Bruce had never really been clear on, Amanda Waller, a key player in Checkmate, the Agency, Task Force X, the Suicide Squad and the Shadow Fighters (and those were just the ones that Batman knew about), and finally there was-
"Oh no…" Superman groaned next to him. "Not General Lane."
The Caped Crusader found himself suppressing a smile at the Man of Steel's sudden discomfort. He could move mountains, deflect missiles, fly to the sun and back again in less than a day and perform any number of other near impossible or even 'god-like' feats, but he recoiled at the prospect of facing Lois Lane's father. That just goes to show that even near-immortal alien heroes were really just normal men. Of course, the fact that General Samuel Lane also hated Superman's guts might have also been a contributing factor. The Batman shrugged.
The two approached the conference room. It was the Secretary of Defense that noticed them first. He threw open the door with a sigh of exasperated relief. "Thank god you're here! We've been trying to raise the Justice League all morning. What in the name of hell is going on!"
The Batman thought momentarily about stating the obvious and informing the Secretary that it appeared to be a large-scale invasion, but he opted not to. This was not the time for jokes, nor would such a comment be in keeping with the image of Batman that he had so meticulously crafted. Also, stating the obvious was Superman's job.
"Well, Mr. Secretary, it appears to be a large-scale invasion."
And the Boy Scout did not disappoint.
It was at that moment that General Lane cut in. He pushed himself between the Secretary of Defense and the World's Finest, glaring daggers at the Superman. "Would've known you'd be the one to joke at a time like this, alien. I don't know how, but I know you're responsible for this somehow!"
"Good morning to you too, General." The Man of Steel forced a smile in return. "Lois is fine, by the way. I'm sure she'd want me to tell you 'hi' for her. She was recently nominated for another Pulitzer, maybe you read about it? It was for her article on using military rank to push personal agendas. It was rather good."
The General practically vibrated with impotent aggression and unchanneled loathing. He grit his teeth, refusing to lower his eyes to the Superman. "You stay away from my daughter."
Faraday came over and placed what might have been either a soothing or commanding hand on the General's shoulder. It was sometimes hard to tell with Faraday because his rank was always undetermined. "Gentleman," he said, "if we could maybe hold off on the personal vendetta's until after the current emergency has been dealt with. I'm sure you'll have all the time you want to glare and scowl at each other then."
Batman liked Faraday (most of the time).
General Lane stood back to let the World's Finest enter the conference room fully and they briefed the cabinet on what they knew of the situation (minus one Superboy detail), and the cabinet briefed them on what they knew of the situation.
…