Bonus Chapter, Part Five:
The Ghosts of Our Fears
Aboard the Watchtower, Barry Allen began a race like no other living being had ever run. He broke the sound barrier in the first few steps while his feet propelled a specially designed, super-magnetically levitated conveyor at unbelievable speeds, preventing him from suddenly running out into space.
The suit that Bruce had designed could siphon off the mysterious energy known as the 'Speed Force' and transfer it into a battery, but the suit also deprived him of a portion of the energy he would have normally used. To reach the inconceivable velocity required to power the Paradox Cannon, Barry would have to give it his all.
His mind was a continual mantra of one single word…
Faster.
Barry knew that if they had any chance of saving the rest of the League, Bruce would need the Cannon charged quickly. The fate of the world was now resting upon his legs and what they could do. Barry gritted his teeth and ran faster, approaching the light barrier as the inside of the encapsulation chamber suddenly become a mad cacophony of energy, radiating all around him.
Faster.
Giving it everything he had, Barry watched as the chamber became a pure white, a mass of uncontrollable energy, about to explode and then…
Space?
What had he done?! Had he ran through the Watchtower? Where was he now?
A thousand stars and galaxies surrounded the Flash as he slowed to a standstill in the middle of this void…
Only to suddenly find himself back in the Watchtower, just outside the encapsulation chamber, staring into the very angry, violet eyes of Raven Wayne.
Bruce's wife was wearing nothing more than a blue hospital gown that could hardly contain her very pregnant belly. Her dark hair was a mess of tangled, sweat-soaked knots and her face was flushed with effort.
Raven Wayne was a full six inches shorter than Barry Allen and petite, but she was still the most frightening thing he had ever seen.
"That's enough, Barry."
"...Yes, Ma'am."
A shocked Bruce rushed over to his wife, a look of panic and dread spread across his distraught face in equal measures.
"Raven… How could you?!... Our child…"
Raven met him head-on.
"Do you mean how could I stop you from altering reality itself, Bruce? From using technology that could would destroy the flow of life and rebirth as we know it?! I did it because I have to! You have no right to make this choice!"
"All I did is what I had to do to save our son!... To save you! And now you've… Oh, drop the illusion, Raven… I know that you've become the Champion. But how… How could you do that… to our son."
"This is no illusion."
"But… You're you. How?... You have to be the Champion… to do what you just did here... to Barry."
"I am… but I am also human. For the sake of our child, I could not allow myself to transfer into my Goddess form… So I remained human. I am the will of six Gods, but I am also the human woman Raven Wayne… And it is not an easy thing to bear."
Tears suddenly flowed from Bruce's eyes as he collapsed to his knees.
What had he done?
How could Raven ever forgive him for this?
The same sin as before with the Engine of Destruction, when all he had wanted to do was to protect everyone? He had created the weapon which had been seconds away from extinguishing all life on Earth…
And his wife had risked her very existence to give him the opportunity to save his soul. She had trusted him with a faith beyond measure. And he had betrayed her trust...
"Raven… I'm so sorry…"
Raven held her husband's head in her hands, raising his chin up.
"My love… Your fears have been used against you… Nekron is the living embodiment of Oblivion, a master of fear... He is the Dark Sea, the primeval waters of rebirth, the Great Darkness… But he is also the God who breaks down the memories and fears of the Dead, allowing each new child to be born unburdened by the memories of the past."
"All I knew is that he wanted to take you from me... And I can't lose you, Raven Wayne."
"He does want me, my love… My father signed a Contract of Fate with him long ago. But I am yours and you are mine. Our destinies have been tied together, never to be unbroken. Nekron will never possess me."
She kissed him gently on the forehead while he asked.
"Can you stop him?"
"No… His contract is binding. Our only hope is that he listens to reason…"
Raven stood suddenly alert, as though listening to a far-off voice.
"We must face him quickly, my love... Our friends are in deadly peril… Are you ready, Barry?"
"Yes, Ma'am!"
With every frightened fiber of her entire being, Barbara Gordon knew the awful truth… that the Justice League was lost.
Her worst nightmare had become reality to take vengeance upon them.
A thousand spirits flew into the night while the Dead walked the earth around her. And she had been left alone… Clark and Diana had been mercilessly smashed into the earth by an undead Trigon as though they were cockroaches. Barbara prayed that they were only unconscious and not… not… She couldn't let herself believe that.
She had to cling to the slim hope that they were still alive…
Even now, poor Richard struggled to raise his beaten body off the ground like a swatted fly, his Batman armor torn to shreds, leaving only a broken man behind. He was trying to tell her something, through cracked ribs, telling her to…
Run…
When he was flicked aside like inconsequential trash by the mighty Trigon… She watched as his body tumbled and rolled twenty feet away… As the Great Terror from her nightmares crouched down and peered at a shaking Barbara with three massive flaming eyes…
A wicked smile spreading across a mouth that could have swallowed her whole…
"Alone at last, my pretty… How I've longed for you in the afterlife… for the Fate which was to be ours… Do you remember?"
No…
No…
She would die before she let that happen…
Did she have enough power left in her Ring to take her own life? To end it before her the nightmares of rape that had haunted her became all too real? As she raised a shaking fist to the side of her head, desperate to use whatever power she had left in her Ring for a merciful end, she whispered her goodbyes to Clark and to Raven…
But something inside her screamed.
No!
She would not lose.
She could not lose.
Fight!
If she took her own life, he won. With the last trickle of power remaining in her Ring, she retrieved her Lantern from her pocket dimension and snapped opened her teary blue eyes, defiantly glaring at Trigon. She wouldn't be afraid anymore… She had to live, to be brave, to fight… for Clark… for Diana… for Richard… for Raven and Bruce and their child.
For Hope.
Trigon chuckled deeply.
"I have already broken a thousand Lanterns in my lifetime, little girl… And I shall break you as well… I shall break your body, and then I shall break your mind, and finally your soul… you will become nothing more than an extension of me… a decoration…"
Shutting the terrible threats of the monster out of her mind, Barbara spoke her oath with firm resolve, feeling an explosion of Hope ignite in her soul as the words poured from her.
"In fearful day, in raging night,
With strong hearts full, our souls ignite.
When all seems lost in the War of Light,
Look to the stars, for Hope burns bright!"
And added her own little after word, glaring at the Beast…
"Screw you, Trigon."
Barbara then did what she should have done from the moment Trigon appeared… She looked to the stars and placed a distress call across the Cosmos for every single Blue Lantern to help. For the entire Blue Lantern Corps to join the battle.
If she were to die now, she would die fighting. Her fellow Champions of Hope would pick up her banner and continue that fight against Trigon… Against Nekron… Against any enemy of Hope.
They were the Blue Lantern Corps.
And as long as she drew breath, she was as well.
She was hope.
Trigon's fist suddenly slammed into the blue dome she had placed around herself – prompting a deafening roar of frustration from the undead monstrosity as he raged against her, his undead spittle smearing upon the dome as he screamed violently.
"You will not deny me!... You will never escape me!... Shall I tear apart your friends in front of you?!... Pull them limb from limb?... Tell me girl… which one of these fools shall I start with?..."
Barbara saw the blue energy lance of Laira Omoto pierce Trigon's eye as the lilac-skinned Blue Lantern of Sector 112 attacked with incredible speed, unmoved by the deafening roar of pain from the Great Terror.
Laira then spun in the air, avoiding the mad titan's hand as an enraged Trigon grabbed for her, spewing threats and howling curses at the fly who had dared strike him… Until a giant bolt of powerful blue energy in the shape of a fist struck him hard in the face, staggering the Colossus backwards…
Launched from the Ring of Sinestro of Korugar.
More Blue Lanterns were suddenly popping into the air all around her, ready to lend their Rings' power to her cause, to defend the Earth from the Dead.
Laira, Sinestro, Tomar Re, Boodikka, Kilowog, Jade…
They had all come to fight by her side, and more will appearing every moment.
Six powerful beams of blue pierced Trigon's dark crimson hide as the monster raged in madness, attempting to stop this onslaught of Hope. Twin beams of scarlet shot from the Beast's two remaining eyes as Sercy, the Blue Lantern of Sector 004, created a blue prism to refract his undead Omega beams harmlessly into the sky above…
And it worked.
They could beat him!
Somehow, Barbara knew what needed to be done. She had witnessed the Needle of Fate which Darkseid had impaled Raven with, before Bruce had 'reset the clock' using the LexCorp Tachyon Cannon, allowing Raven to become the Champion of Magic. Raven had mentioned that it had been a Needle of Fate through Trigon's dark heart which had truly killed her father.
Barbara knew what Trigon feared.
Using the power of her Ring, Barbara Gordon fashioned a blue Needle of Fate thirty feet long which she wielded like a harpoon. She focused everything she had into that Needle as her brothers and sisters in the Corps fought the growling behemoth, pushing him back.
It was only when Trigon glanced far down at her… down at the thing she held tightly in her hand… at the unspeakable fury from countless nightmares on nights when Clark had held her until the dawn… at the unstoppable resolve shining brightly within her two blue eyes…
It was then that Trigon felt terror.
The monster who had tortured her in nightmares, who had used her as nothing more than a prop in Bruce's third choice of destinies, the Beast which had destroyed a thousand worlds now faced his own destruction. A destruction at the hands of one of the countless lives he had torn asunder…
With every ounce of power Barbara could muster, she launched the Harpoon of Fate at Trigon's heart, coursing like a bolt of blue through the night sky as evil spirits evaporated in its wake. As though its course were predetermined by Fate itself, the Needle found its true target once more…
Impaling the dark heart of Trigon.
The monster bellowed, his deafening roars shaking the very ground around them as he clutched at the Harpoon embedded deep in his chest. Her fellow Lanterns did not cease their assault, as Trigon began to glow blue from the inside, his flesh bubbling and turning to nothing more than black ooze.
The Great Terror began to melt into nothing more than the black waters of Oblivion.
Barbara almost jumped when she suddenly felt a familiar hand on her shoulder and heard a voice she was incredibly happy to hear coming from just behind her…
"Well done, sister."
Crying tears of joy, the Blue Lantern of Earth turned around to see Raven… Still in her hospital gown and still very pregnant. By her side stood a stunned Bruce and Barry.
"Raven… Shouldn't you be in the hospital? It's not safe…"
"This is where I must be, Barbara. To face Nekron."
"Raven, did you?..."
Barbara suddenly wondered where her inner strength to face Trigon had truly come from. Had Raven given her the resolve to face the Great Beast after she had been ready to take her own life? Had her sister saved her life once more?
"No… What you did here, you did on your own, my sister. Only you could have defeated this shadowed Trigon. He was the manifestation of your own greatest fear and only you could truly conquer him… Nekron uses the dark waters of Oblivion to bring to life our greatest fears and then uses them against us."
Barbara considered that for an instant. The part about Trigon being her greatest fear made sense… but what about Clark?
"Raven… That doesn't seem right. Clark and I faced Kara Zor-El from Krypton… And Clark's never even met his cousin. How is it possible that Kara could be his greatest fear?"
"She is not. His greatest fear is losing you, my sister."
A look of shock and surprise dawned upon Barbara's face… It was true! Clark's greatest fear was losing her… The shadow Kara Zor-El had been able to twist their fears into making Superman betray her, to take Clark's power away so he would no longer be able to protect her.
Barbara herself had private fears, wondering if she were strong enough to be with Clark who was closer to a God than a man. Barbara secretly harbored fears that Clark would leave her for another more like himself...
This was Nekron's true power.
As the other Blue Lanterns landed around them, Barbara looked at Raven with needful eyes. Her husband had not betrayed her. Clark's own fears of losing her had simply made Kara too strong.
"Raven… Would you mind?"
"Be with him, Barbara… But return soon. I will need all of you."
Barbara streaked to Clark, buried in the soil, using the power of her Ring to extract him from the crater of Trigon's fist. She held him tightly in her arms as her Man of Steel slowly regained consciousness.
"… Barbara?"
"I'm here… And this is where I will be forever, Clark... with you."
"Trigon?... Is he?"
Barbara smiled that wonderful smile… The smile he had fallen in love with.
"He's gone… I won't be having the nightmares anymore, Clark… I beat him... Let that bastard have nightmares about me for a change."
Clark found the strength to hold her even closer as his wife gently flew the pair of them into the night sky, raising her Ring to the stars and teleporting as close to the Sun as she could bear…
Remaking her fallen hero into the Champion of Light.
To face a God of Darkness.