Chapter 23: In Too Deep

One of the scouts had returned. The others had been left to fight and do as much damage as they could to the Martians before they would inevitably be forced to retreat. They were a weak bunch, but they were still fighters. That was more than could be said of those Martians. They weren't their Earth-based allies. Those were the dangerous ones. And if they were distracted by the clouds central core, then even a band of weak Imperium soldiers could do serious damage.

But what was really important was what the returning scout had had to say, the message that he brought with him. Two of the Earthlings had gone into the core, and they had stayed there. Yet those humans had done nothing to try and halt the cloud's advance out of the oceans, to stop the Imperium's charge to the destruction of the Earth's mighty city. It was therefore obvious what that meant, what they were trying to do.

The humans were attempting to gain control of the core.

Of course the Imperium knew that wasn't the be all and end all of this. If the humans got the core control – if – then it wouldn't be unanimous. They would have a strong, permanent link to the control cluster, but that wouldn't block the Imperium's own channels. With all their strength focussed on the cloud, they could still utilise it against the people of Earth. If they kept the humans distracted, worried, then they could still utilise the cloud against the people of Earth. If they could kill the humans and put an end to whatever plan the pests had, then they could still utilise the cloud against the people of Earth. They had threat on their side. The humans might play games, but the Imperium would not blink. They would not stop until this planet suffered for what it did to their leader, for leaving them lost and alone.

No matter what the humans were up to, the Imperium would stop them. This was far from over. The humans would not stop them.

The cloud was almost out of the waters, and those two humans were still in the core. The city would suffer before the humans even had a chance to stop them.

The city would die before the humans could stop them. The Imperium would see to that.

The city of Metropolis was going to drown in flames.

The Martians definitely weren't fighters. J'onn excluded, those guys were doing everything but actually running away as some more of those Imperium guys came around looking for trouble. Admittedly one or two had initially held their ground alongside Flash, J'onn and Shay, but they'd all wound up getting themselves shot, or worse. M'vall had had her buddies all quickly fall back even tighter to the core, though still sticking around with J'onn saying he'd protect them. Flash and Shayera would watch out for their new friends too.

It wasn't the most hectic of battles, even if the ongoing screams issuing from Bats and Wondy inside that core thing made it seem that way. Flash wasn't the master detective of the group but he could tell these guys hearts weren't in it. This wasn't a real fight. This was just them testing the waters. These Imperium folks were all getting beat easy enough. The problem was that even though there wasn't many of them, there were only three Leaguers about to fight them.

And there were a whole host of Martians they had to keep from getting killed. And big groups were fairly easy to hit with a gun, even with a dodgy aim. Lucky, then, that Flash was fast enough to block out most of the shots, but even he couldn't be in two places at once. If they didn't end this fast those Martians were going to be slaughtered.

The League trio were working on it. In between protection duty they were each taking down badguys as fast as they could, but there just wasn't enough time between protection duty. If they dared risk the Martians' safety they could have bought more seconds, but they didn't dare, not when they had to sit back and wait for Bats and Wondy to be done 'merging'. Until those two were done playing around with the clouds absent brains, Flash and chums had to keep the Martians safe.

It was as Flash was charging around to take out an Imperium eager for a pop-shot that it happened. There was a flash of light from that core behind them so bright that the Imperium must have gotten damn scared that their nightmare was happening all over again. Even the fastest man alive needed a second to catch up with what was going on. By the time he had done, things were already going down.

Before Flash knew it a golden lasso had whipped out from nowhere, lashing together a whole bunch of Imperium, including Flash's target. With them bound and unable to move, something suddenly flew into their midst – a batarang. The next second the bunch of Imperium exploded.

The next second the two of them were right them, fully emerged. Bats and Wondy, fighting hard, and side by side. They surged out from behind Flash, so fluid, so in tune with one another as they took the Imperium out of play one by one. Flash – and J'onn and Shayera too – couldn't help but drop back to a pure guard position and watch on in awe. That core had definitely done something to two of the Leagues biggest hitters. It was like they each knew exactly what the other would be doing at any given second, like they knew exactly where the other was without needing to see it. It meant they hardly needed to break a sweat to end this bunch of villains. They had each others backs completely covered, and the badguys backs completely pummelled.

For the first time since hearing the plan, Flash wasn't requiring his usual unquestioning optimism to believe in what they were doing. Ruddy hell, watching Bats and Wondy just then... They all definitely had a chance.

At least until it came to the next blast of freaky sci-fi voodoo, anyway.

"Wowsers," Flash breathed when the Imperium dudes had finally had enough and slunk away just as they'd done twice before. Even if it was just a scout party of them, Bats and Wondy had done one hell of a job in taking them down. In fact, the pair hadn't waited before marching on over towards Flash and the rest. And they were perfectly in step with one another as they did so.

"I take it from that performance that the pair of you were successful?" It was M'vall who was asking the question. The rest of her crew were still hanging back, but in the wake of the Imperium's latest retreat she seemed to have rediscovered her cajones. Bats and Wondy both halted equidistant from Flash, both looking straight at M'vall. Both even held the same neutral posture and blank expression. Freaky.

"We have full remote access to the control core."

Freakier. They had spoken in complete unison, even the tones of their voices matching up. Heck, it was strange. Obviously something to do with their trip into that mental blender. They'd seemed in great unison in the fight, but they hadn't shared movements and everything as completely as they were doing right now. Boy this would take some getting used to. Flash even found himself desperately hoping that it wasn't permanent. Once this thing was done, if they were both still like that, then that would just be too weird.

"Now we must hurry," the pair of them went on in their joint venture. "We can detect that the cloud is lifting. It's almost out of the ocean. We haven't much time before Metropolis is hit. Its time to begin the next phase of the plan, before people start getting hurt again."

"Then let's get going," Flash returned, unable to stay too quiet for long, no matter how messed up things could seem. Besides, for now they actually needed things to be messed up like this. "Just point Shay and me to those people batteries and we'll go start unplugging. Things are heating up plenty as it is. We can't afford for it to finally boil over. My toes might get burned."

Even with the WonderBat on their side, the heat was definitely now on, and the clock was ticking down to zero hour. If they weren't on top of their game, it might just make it there.

Especially if Big Boy Blue, GL and the rest couldn't keep the cloud at bay a while longer until Flash and the rest had done what they had to to the thing's innards...

The alert signal was all of a sudden wailing. Mr. Terrific was still on duty in the Watchtower's central hub. He had to be until this thing was done, and it wasn't done yet. But things had seemed to have gone quiet. He had been beginning to plan another quick trip down to the Infirmary to check on Doc Conway and all of her patients when the alarms had meant that he couldn't go anywhere just yet. The action was kicking off all over again.

Scrambling, Mr. Terrific quickly scanned his sensor boards. He had watched that cloud remarkably disappear into the ocean beyond Metropolis harbour shortly after it had become the joint Batman/Wonder Woman symbol. That meant he had a very good idea where the danger alert would be coming from. Sure enough, there it was. It was still beneath the waves, but it was rising, and it was rising fast. Any moment now it would be clear again, and almost certainly very dangerous once more. There wasn't a whole lot that Mr. Terrific could actually do to stop it up here, but that didn't mean he was about to sit back and do nothing. He could warn the folks who could actually make a difference that it was time to get active all over again.

"Mr. Terrific to all Leaguers on site at Metropolis," he quickly issued into the comm on a general frequency. "You've got incoming. That cloud has decided the water's not for it, and its coming to you all over again."

"T, its GL!" Green Lantern's familiar voice came back to him in no time. He was practically shouting, a furore of noise going on in the background. Clearly the League weren't the only ones to see what was happening. The people of Metropolis were panicking in full all over again. "We can already see it coming! Keep on monitoring! This could get real messy, real fast!"

John had been ready from the second he had left the ground to return to his position in the skies. It hadn't taken him long to get the rest of the troops prepared either, a task that had befallen him with Superman still not back yet. They were all lined up alongside him, a barrier between the waters and the city at its border. All of them, be it Captain Atom, Stargirl, Red Tornado or any of the rest, were watchful, staring down at the tides. Batman had said that the cloud was going to be raised as part of his plan to end its threat. Green Lantern and his cohorts would be on hand to make sure it couldn't do any damage when it did.

They had to buy time for the guys inside that cloud who were battling to end it. He had to buy Shayera time, to do everything he could to make sure that she made it out of there safely. She had to be safe. Regardless of his indecision about the future, their future, she had to be safe.

It was then that he saw the bubbles. The waves had been fairly gentle, but they were suddenly getting heavier. In fact, the waters were definitely looking suddenly warmer, more energetic. It could only mean one thing.

"Looks like I made it just in time," a voice issued from nearby, a very familiar voice. GL dared the briefest of glances over his shoulder to see that Superman had indeed made it back, suddenly halted having clearly travelled at pace and now hovering there just like the rest, showing no signs at all that he had just traversed half a continent in minutes. He was looking down into the waters, his array of enhanced visual aides clearly letting him actually see the cloud coming. He wasn't the only one either.

"Mr. Terrific to all Leaguers on site at Metropolis. You've got incoming. That cloud has decided the water's not for it, and its coming to you all over again."

"T, its GL!" he spoke up before anyone else could. Things were starting to get loud. The activity beneath the ocean was starting to get forceful, and people beyond the Leaguers were starting to notice. The screams from the city were kicking off all over again. "We can already see it coming! Keep on monitoring! This could get real messy, real fast!"

"Everyone, brace yourselves!" Superman bellowed out himself to all of the rest of the flight enabled heroes, taking on his usual role as figurehead. "We know this thing doesn't play nice. Be ready for anything!"

He had barely finished the words when Green Lantern spotted the flash of light beneath the waves. It was short-lived, but it was almost blinding. It was a vast surge of energy from a position still beneath the water, a position oddly far away from the city...

And then GL saw why. The energy surge that GL had just saw wasn't a random act or a side effect of the cloud raising. It had been very deliberate, accurate, calculated. And it was already causing trouble. Big trouble.

For it had just both heated and energised the waves, big time. A huge column of water was pushed up high, forming a superheated wall of liquid, a wall that was travelling fast. It had to start out in the distance to get as high as it was, but the speed was more than making up for it. It was moving very fast, and fast towards Metropolis. That cloud had sent a tidal wave at them. It was attacking already, before it was even clear of the waters.

GL acted fast. At the speed of light he had a barricade in place, using his power ring to create a breaker out as far as he could manage. It had to be wide too, on order to cover the entire breadth of the wave. But GL could manage that. The only question was whether his wall would be strong enough to withstand the wave, especially with it being so spread.

Luckily GL was not alone. A lot of the others did not have the time to react like GL had, their powers not enabling such rapid movement as light could achieve. However, Superman was not one of those others. He was swooping forwards at his rapid best, just a gust almost strong enough to bowl GL over. GL kept his focus on making his sea wall to pay what the man of steel was up to much attention, but he could still figure it out. With all of his powers, the Kryptonian was again the best weapon here. Unleashing his freeze breath, he was able to take away the energy of that wave. He hadn't the time to completely freeze it over, but he could slow it down.

And that was enough. Slowed down it wasn't as powerful. Subsequently that meant that GL's wall of wills was enough.

The wave still struck it hard, but GL was able to hold, despite having to strain. It tripped the wave up, sending it crashing back down into the ocean. Big ripples followed, but they weren't big enough. They weren't the kind of thing that would threaten the entire sprawl that was Metropolis, as that wave could well have done had it been allowed to get any closer. Heck, it had gotten close enough as it was. GL could already feel the warmth of its dying spray passing him by.

But, of course, beating the wave was only the beginning. It was an early effort, an attempt to cause damage by the cloud before it was in a position to attack even more directly. It was a warning shot that once again the cloud definitely meant business.

It was a signal that Batman, Shayera and the others really needed to act fast. This cloud was coming to kill.

And it was practically here. With the crashing hiss of litres of spray, the hulk of energy that was the cloud hit air once again. It was drowned no longer. It was back. It was here.

And, just as before, it did not hesitate before attacking. A tentacle of energy was blasted out as soon as the top of the cloud was clear, but that first strike wasn't aimed at the city. It was aimed at the Justice League, at the heroes who had just seconds ago been too occupied and distracted by that wave. It was a good job none of these heroes were true rookies. Even Superman needed time to react, time he didn't have before that tentacle was coming his way courtesy of his proximity as a result of his part of stopping the wave.

However, the rest of the Leaguers did have time. They may not have found a combination to truly beat the cloud away, but they did have the means to keep its strikes temporarily at bay. Right now, thankfully, that was all that they needed. Captain Atom lead the charge, surging radioactive energy into the tentacle. Many others followed his lead, GL among them. They made it just in time. The tentacle was delayed just enough that Superman could snap out of the way at his rapid speeds, before joining the efforts.

But, just as the wave before it, that tentacle strike had served its clear purpose. It had kept the Justice League busy, kept them active, and pulled them all out towards the cloud to fight it, away from the city.

And now the cloud was out of the ocean.

It hung before them like a menace once again, rippling with energy and darkness, looking angrier than ever. Ready to pounce. Ready to kill.

For the briefest of seconds GL wished that Captain Atom and Superman could have just destroyed the thing before it had harmed anyone. He knew that no matter how good Batman's plan was, there was plenty of chances that someone would get killed by it yet. With all the damage that had already been done, they had to do whatever they could to stop it doing more.

But it was the briefest of seconds. Destroying the cloud would do damage in its own right. All those Metropolis citizens in there, all of those Martians, each of those Founders. Shayera. They couldn't be sacrificed, not while there was any chance of saving everyone.

Atom and Superman definitely seemed to agree there. Just in those few seconds, GL could tell that those two were being extremely careful not to unleash their respective radioactive and freezing powers concurrently. They were in there fighting to hold the cloud as close to the waters as the League could manage, but they were ensuring they didn't unleash their one way of destroying it. That would be left to Batman's plan, after the people were safe.

But safety seemed a long way away right now. GL could see the cloud getting ever higher. He had actually formed a mallet via his ring to try and pummel the cloud back into the ocean but it hadn't worked. The thing was still rising, getting ever higher into the skies, and getting closer to Metropolis by the second. The League were battling to hold it off, but it wasn't working. When it was using all its energy just to move, as it was doing now, that thing was a true juggernaut; unstoppable.

But the Justice League had to try to stop it. Glancing over his shoulder, Metropolis was looking all too close already to GL, and the cloud was driving them ever closer to it.

The danger was definitely back. They could only hope that they could manage to keep it in check for long enough, that that cloud could be defeated from within.

And GL was definitely hoping.

General Mulligan was no fool. Green Arrow had told him what the Justice League were up to and that it was already in play, too late to stop. The archer had been right when he had predicted what Mulligan's reaction was going to be. To say he wasn't happy would be one hell of an understatement. His rage had been intense. So intense that Green Arrow had quickly dismissed himself from Mulligan's presence before any kind of incident could occur.

He knew that what the League was doing was designed to save many, including those who had at one stage seemed already lost. They weren't blindly stupid. They were just idealistically naïve. And that could well wind up getting the people of this city killed.

It almost had already. Mulligan wasn't blind. He had seen that wave suddenly burst out of the ocean, a wave of superheated water that would never have happened if Superman and Captain Atom had both just destroyed the cloud when Mulligan had ordered them to. Granted the League had managed to halt that wave before it could do any major damage, but that wasn't the point. The point was that that cloud was back, right there threatening the city all over again. The military were still trying to get the citizens clear, and the Justice League had brought that deadly energy being right back to their doorsteps. Those heroes had just put everyone right back at risk.

They were supposed to try and save people. Yet they had just begun to do the opposite.

Mulligan had already issued the order for the evacuation attempts to try to pick up the pace even more, but truth be told his people were already working to full capacity and there were no more reinforcements to call in, not in time. He knew that they would need longer than Superman and his cohorts would be able to keep the cloud at bay having watched them battle it twice already – and poorly at that. Even with Green Arrow and his non-flying Justice League friends out there lending a hand, Mulligan's men just couldn't work fast enough. The General was convinced. This city was about to become a bloodbath.

That was unless he could do what the Justice League had failed to do. Unless he could destroy that cloud, once and for all. Alone in his command post, Mulligan pulled out his personal radio and thumbed it on, frequency still set for his contact at the airbase.

"This is General Mulligan," he immediately spoke into it. "The situation here is getting out of hand. We haven't much time. That thing is over the water right now. The quicker we can destroy it, the less unavoidable casualties there'll be. Tell me the missile is ready."

"General, Major Breckman here," a voice quickly returned, getting the hint from Mulligan's tone and speaking with a proper sense of urgency. "Those security features are installed, and the fermonic gases are in place. They're in the final stages of integration with the other materials now. We'll be able to launch any second, just as soon as the engineers give us the go ahead that the mix is holding. Otherwise, if we launch too early it'll just be as futile as throwing a giant metal block into some mist."

"I know the situation, son," Mulligan firmly responded to that. He knew exactly what it would mean if the rocket wasn't ready when it was fired. He had ordered the thing put together, after all, having witnessed what Superman and Captain Atom could – and were failing – to do. "Just get the engineers to hurry. I want no delays on this. When that missile is ready, the second it's ready, I want you to fire it. Consider this as your orders to launch. Don't waste any time getting further approval when the time comes. Just fire it. Is that understood?"

"Implicitly, Sir," the Major replied. "I'll inform you when its in the air."

"Good," Mulligan uttered. As he did he glanced through the gap between the towers of Metropolis' skyline. He couldn't see much through the narrow channel, but he could just about make out the sky out over the ocean, where that wave had been moments ago. That cloud was right there, making its presence known against the blue hues. "And son, wish us luck. This is going to be a close one. The fate of thousands, if not millions, are in our hands. And we don't want to let them down."

He didn't add the words he was actually thinking at the end of that sentence, but they sang out strongly in his mind. "...Even though that's looking like it might be damn likely."