Sorry for any confusion that happened Wednesday. I imagine many of you saw an alert for this chapter and then couldn't access it. I just lost track of what day it was and accidentally posted. I apologize for any inconvenience to that led up to that. Now, at last, here is the chapter.

There was a feeling of numbness, one that Wally hadn't felt since…since…well, that was a tough story to go back to. He hadn't been quite the Flash yet, but the helplessness, knowing that even though you were the fastest guy around, you weren't fast enough to stop something horrible from happening.

This time around, it was watching as Captain Atom began to…um, what was the right word to use here? Power up? Yeah, Captain Atom was powering up, and it was agonizingly slow, doubly for the Scarlet Speedster. Silver Skin was starting to shimmer, and was it him, or was all that silver lightening up to something like white?

The captain of atomic energies was hunched over, hands hidden away, and legs bent even though they could dangle in the air. There were twitches running throughout that large body, and it really got him paying attention. He hadn't really noticed before, but underneath all that silver was a body, or something shaped like a human body. The muscles that made this man close to being a hulk were all there, in the right places, and he had to wonder how the captain became like this; and whoever else was involved, they did a pretty good job.

It was like a silver-colored human body…

Flash was distracting himself and he knew it. It was a habit, one he thought he had gotten over a long time ago, but apparently giving the okay to what was a nuclear blast was enough to bring it back. Sheesh, give him a break.

He understood how bad this was! But that forcefield was right there, not moving, and not letting anything in, and they needed to get through it before that generator reached the point of no return, and that light shooting out from the top of it was still getting bigger!

Tearing his eyes away from the sight, his gaze landed on the Thanagarian ships. Were they in the forcefield too? And so high up, it was going to take a lot of time to figure out a way into them, and that was time he didn't know if he had. The booms drew his attention to the dogfighting, manmade jets taking on the Thanagarian equal, but who was winning was hard to say.

None of them were paying any attention to them, so it was back closer to home and to the only other thing of note. Captain Atom was brighter now, and how much more energy he was going to use for this, only the captain knew. Flash figured he could outrun the blast, and he wound, but until then he wasn't going anywhere until the last second.

He owed that much. He was the one who gave the order. A nuke, a freaking nuke, that was his big idea. How was everyone else going to handle that? More importantly, what about the world? As long as the planet lived, then maybe he could put it past him. Live with it, as hard as it would be. It was amazing the kind of things a guy could do when desperate. Not that it changed anything, but…but…

I hope you can forgive me, Barry.

The Thanagarian planes, fighters, fighter-planes, whatever you wanted to call them, didn't hum or give off any sound to give them away. That was perhaps the only reason why the shots that started pelting the area around the two Leaguers even happened in the first place.

Plasma beams blew up against the ground, they struck the forcefield, and then one hit Captain Atom in the back. The military man-turned-hero gave out a cry, and then a flare of atomic energy discharged. All anyone could see was a flash of light. In the next second, Flash was holding onto Atom with some distance between the two of them; and where they had both once stood, white slowly dissipating while sand and dirt fell around the two of them.

Flash felt his heart start beating again and he blew some air out of his mouth. That had been quick, grabbing onto Atom and running for dear life, but…had that been enough energy? It didn't look like a nuclear blast to him and there was no mushroom cloud he was seeing, so…

"Damn," Captain Atom grunted through clenched teeth. "I just needed…more time."

"Can you stand?" Flash asked, adrenaline really letting him know how heavy Atom was. The big guy was flopped over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, and now his legs were starting to wobble from the weight. He bent down, and helped to keep the captain balanced, all the while keeping an eye out for any more surprises.

It was a good thing he did that, because he could see quite a few of those Thanagarian fighter planes heading their way. It seemed like someone had been paying attention, spotted them, and were incoming to finish the job. How perfect. His guilty conscience had to wait a little longer before he could feel guiltier.

"We got incoming, man," the speedster warned. "We're gonna have to put up a fight."

Captain Atom looked over his shoulder with a grimace. "We'll have to make it quick."

He couldn't help it. A snort came out of the Fastest Man Alive's nose and mouth. "Who do you think you're talking to?" he quipped. "Fastest guy around. I'll take away their sight, you shoot them down. Sound like a plan?"

There was a quick nod, and that was all Flash needed as he raced forth. The Thanagarian fighter planes were closing in, but that was what he wanted. Taking a sharp turn to the right, he literally began running in a large circle. He kicked up dirt and sand, and for a bit, it seemed like he was making just an outline of a circle in the middle of nowhere.

The slipstream he was leaving behind was doing the real work, though, pulling air molecules and the like with him. It might have taken twenty seconds, practically forever for a speedster, but the whirlwind he was creating was taking shape, rising up and up and up, and just in time for the Thanagarians to fly right into it.

The ships vanished into the swirling smokescreen, prompting the speedster to kick up more dirt. Captain Atom, meanwhile, was taking off into the air, his hands enveloped by atomic energy. As the Thanagarian fighters started to come out through the other side of the dirt-based funnel, the captain began firing blast after blast.

Unlike the big ships that could probably take the hit, the smaller fighter planes didn't. Hell, they didn't even have a personal forcefield like in that one movie! Raw energy tore through alien metal and sent the fighters falling to the ground below. Pilots began ejecting, their wings fanning out to slow their fall. Hmm, he kinda forgot about that part.

Flash dug his hand into the ground, not even stopping in his circular run. In seconds, he was armed with an armful of rocks, and he used his ammunition as best as he could. The rocks were streaking missiles of their own, and the force behind them thought the helmets the Thanagarians were wearing needed a challenge.

Yelps and cries rang out, and few unlucky pilots got knocked out in one hit, falling to the sandy ground below. Some wings got hit, but others were getting wise and taking evasive action. Well, this couldn't be too easy, right?

They needed to hold on and end this quickly. The generator may be still powering on, but time was running out.

The headache Ollie woke up to was annoying. He didn't recall going on a bender, so the hangover was uncalled for.

With a groan, he came to, pushing himself up as he pressed a hand to his face. Funny thing, he didn't feel like he was pushing himself up from a bed, or a couch, or even the floor of any place familiar. Uncovering his eyes, he saw a smooth, metallic surface.

Okay, he was definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Looking around, he spotted Pretty Bird nearby, clearly unconscious. Thankfully, he could see her chest slowly rising and lowering, so she wasn't in any immediate distress.

The next thing he saw, however, could change that.

He saw a number of Thanagarians restrained, propped up against walls, lying on the floor, some with groggy looks on their faces, others stoic, and a few with anger. Part of that might have had to do with the occasional Tamaranean armed with a plasma rifle, their stupidly beautiful faces gazing at their prisoners.

Ollie really hoped he wasn't one of the prisoners. A quick check of his person and he realized he wasn't restrained like the Thanagarians. That was at least a plus. He even had his quiver and bow, which was even better.

Slowly, he stood up on his feet, a few Thanagarians watching him. One of the Tamaranean guards saw him, nodded as if acknowledging him, and resumed his duties.

Well, that was a pleasant surprise. Faintly, Ollie recalled having fought alongside them. That would explain that at least.

And then he remembered everything that led right up to his waking up in this weird place.

He was in the hangar with Pretty Bird, watching Tamaraneans board defeated Thanagarians. Batman approached them, told them some worrisome news…then he…freaking gassed him!

On his feet, Ollie stormed by the Thanagarians, blatantly ignoring them as many of them watched him walk by. He exited the crowd, heading towards the front of the room, where a number of seats were. Tamaraneans were clearly piloting the vessel they were in, the darkness of space on the outside of the window they were seated in front of.

Then came a not too welcomed surprise. "You are awake!" the Carrot guy exclaimed, causing the archer to turn his head and see the orange-skinned male. Where he had come from wasn't that much for concern.

"Where the hell are we?" Ollie immediately demanded, turning his full attention to the Tamaranean.

"We are in Earth's orbit," Karras told him. "It has been some time since we departed your immigration satellite."

He must have meant the Watchtower. "Where's Batman?" he then asked, keeping his tone the same.

"He is still on the satellite. He has told me he intends to begin the initiation sequence."

Initiation sequence? Ollie wasn't sure what that meant, but as fate would have it, the Watchtower suddenly moved into view. Turning his head back to the window, the Emerald Archer saw they were off to one side of it, flying by one of the cylinders that extended out of the satellite's main body. It was quite large through the window, meaning they hadn't gotten too far from it.

"Alright, you need to turn this ship around and get us back to the Watchtower," Ollie then said, staring at the sight of the Watchtower. "We need to—"

Suddenly, the cylindric extension began to rotate. It was rather startling to see, enough so that Ollie cut himself off as he watched. The extension continued turning until they were at an angle with the main satellite body.

Then, from the upper part of the extension, fire suddenly erupted. The roar would have been deafening had it not been for the vacuum of space silencing it. However, Ollie soon realized those extensions weren't just for show; those were rocket ports, no doubt originally built to get the Watchtower into space when it was first launched.

And now they were being used to return it to the planet from whence it came.

Ollie slapped a hand to his ear as he activated his comm link. "Watchtower, come in!" he shouted, startling Karras and the other Tamaraneans. More Thanagarians were watching him as well. "Come on, damn it! Pick up, Watchtower!"

He was met with radio silence. No doubt, Batman was ignoring him. This was a bad time for that. So if the idiot was going to ignore him, then Ollie would go over his damn, pointy head and get in touch with someone that could stop this madness.

"Justice League! Anyone! We have an emergency!" he tried. Unfortunately, he was greeted with more silence. "C'mon! Someone pick up already!"

"I am afraid that you will not be able to reach anyone," Karras suddenly spoke up, drawing the archer's attention to him. "We are currently outside of any communication lines save for the immigration satellite. You will not be able to reach anyone until we enter the range of something else."

Oh, great, they were outside the range of anyone that could help him. Goddamn it. Goddamn it! Tearing his eyes away from Karras, he stared at the Watchtower helplessly as it began to make its re-entry.

Goddamn it all.

Blast shields lowered in front of each window, blocking out the view of space. One by one, every weak point was reinforced, making the Watchtower a veritable missile.

Non-critical areas had their power cut off, then redirected that power to the engines. This included the commissary, the dormitories, and the medical bay. More areas would have been shut off, but unrepaired damage was still present. That included a part of the wall where a certain Kryptonian's Heat Vision had seared through.

With all the time that had passed since the League in-fighting, you would think repairs would have been performed already. One had to wonder what they had been doing all of this time.

Batman stood in front of the main computer, fingers dancing across the keyboard. He had already plotted the satellite's re-entry course and activated the engines. He wouldn't need to take a hands-on approach until the Watchtower breached the atmosphere. This allowed him to pull out every trick he could to speed up the descent.

"Watchtower, come in!" a voice barked over a speaker. Batman immediately recognized it as Green Arrow's. Hmmm, he seemed to recover from the knockout gas faster than anticipated. He mentally made a note to check the chemical's formula for potency, but then…he wasn't going to have that opportunity, was he?

"Come on, damn it! Pick up, Watchtower!" came Arrow's follow-up demand and the vigilante struck a button, effectively forwarding the call elsewhere. It basically had the effect of ignoring it altogether. Returning his attention to more important matters, he found there wasn't much more to do, not until he needed to take the literal wheel.

So he took a seat in the chair behind him, making himself comfortable before he struck a few more keys. The console in front of him raised up before moving to one side and setting back down. In the gap left behind, a steering wheel emerged, stopping in front of the Dark Knight.

It seemed he had done everything so far. Well, perhaps not everything.

"Ace," he called out. He felt her presence in his mind shortly after. "We need to have a talk."

"I'm not going to stop you," the girl immediately responded. There was clear trepidation on her part, thus her hastily given assurance.

"That's not what I want to talk to you about," Batman replied evenly. He rested his arms on the armrests, his hands moving to intertwine with each other in front of his abdomen. "I'm certain you know this is a one-way trip."

"...I am."

"Just because I won't be coming back from this doesn't mean you have to go down with me," he continued. "If you can, reach out to J'onn through your link with him. I'm certain he'll let you reside in his mind."

"You're telling me to go," she said slowly, as if she were seeking confirmation.

"Yes, I am."

If the two of them had been physically speaking to each other, it was clear that Ace was allowing silence between them. So he added, "When you go, there are a couple of messages I want you to deliver. The first—"

"I'm not leaving."

Batman paused. Then he scowled. "This isn't a request."

"I am refusing your order."

"Don't be stupid. Now isn't the time to let sentiment get in the way." What the hell was this girl thinking? It was clear he was a sinking ship and there was no reason the both of them should go down. She still had a chance to have a long life. Hell, maybe J'onn could help her regain a physical form, something he had failed to do for her.

"There's nothing out there for me," Ace responded then, clearly reading his thoughts. "Even if the Martian placed me in another body, I have nothing. There's no one waiting for me to come home."

"I can make arrangements for that," Batman pressed.

"You need me more, now more than ever."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"...no one should have to die alone."

The tone she had used, it was quite meek, soft even. It was the only thing that stopped the Dark Knight from snapping at her. "I've already done that," he told her quietly.

"I know. For everything you've done for me, this is the least I can do."

"There's no talking you out of this, is there?"

He detected a hint of mirth. "No. I am with you until the end."

He didn't want to hear that, but it seemed there was little choice in the matter. What was he going to do? Kick her out? Could he even do that? Damn teenagers. Taking a deep breath, he let it out as a sigh. "Then if you're insisting on staying, you're going to have to earn your keep."

"Anything you need."

Batman looked up at the screen on the computer monitor. It wouldn't be long now until the Watchtower reached the atmosphere. The real work was about to begin. "As you know, we don't have an autopilot to successfully navigate the Watchtower to target. I have to manually steer it in. There's no telling what's going to happen during re-entry. If something happens and I'm injured, or I pass out, I need you to take over and make certain we hit the target. Understood?"

There was a moment's pause. "I can do that."

That was one more matter resolved. Though Batman didn't like that Ace was choosing to stay, he couldn't remove her himself, so he was stuck with the situation. At the very least, she would ensure the Watchtower hit that damn generator, assuming the forcefield was down.

That shield had better be down.

With one more deep breath and sigh, Batman then reached out to the steering wheel, his fingers wrapping around it. He could feel a slight vibration through it, though whether it was from turbulence or some hum within the satellite, he didn't know.

Regardless, it was time to get to work.

"This is most unexpected," Kragger said as he stood up, one of his hands rubbing his cheek. "And a Green Lantern no less."

John held a fist at his side while raising his other one out in front of him, his ring crackling with power. "That's right, a Green Lantern; this is your only chance to surrender, otherwise get ready for an ass kicking."

Kragger dropped his hand to his side, his other hand adjusting his grip on his Nth metal axe. "I wonder, are you the Green Lantern called John Stewart?"

"I am."

Unexpectedly, a smirk appeared on the Thanagarian's face. "I've read—"

Suddenly, Shayera was lunging at the winged man, swinging her mace at his head. "Haaaaaa!" she roared. Kragger was able to react much faster than John had expected him to as he whipped his axe up, blocking the mace as the two metallic weapons clanged.

However, it did leave John with an opening and he wasn't going to turn it down. Twisting his arm so that he had it fully extended and pointing his ring at his foe, he fired a green blast, one that raced towards Kragger. With his attention on Shayera, he never saw the attack coming, not until the last moment when it was too late.

The beam struck the Thanagarian, causing him to cry out as he was knocked off his feet and sent flying down the hallway. Shayera had pulled herself out of the way in the nick of time, turning herself to watch her opponent crash to the floor, where he skidded across it until he came to a stop.

Immediately, the redhead pounced, throwing herself towards the fallen man. However, it seemed he didn't need much time to recover as he suddenly shoved his upper body up so that he could fling an arm out. That motion allowed him to throw his axe, sending it whirling towards Shayera.

Eyes wide, she flared her wings out, stopping her flight abruptly, then she flung herself backwards. This allowed her to dodge the axe as it flew upward and then collided with the ceiling, the blade sticking into the surface.

As it turned out, that was just a delaying tactic, one Kragger used to get back onto his feet. He then charged towards Shayera, flying as fast as he could. As the winged woman lowered her head to look at him, Kragger rammed into her, his shoulder slamming into her stomach as his arms wrapped around her body. He tackled her out of the air, the two landing on the floor, Kragger on top of Shayera.

Pushing himself up, Kragger stayed on top of Shayera, drawing a fist back. He then slammed it down on her face, snapping her head to one side. Over and over, his arm pumped up and down, pounding the redhead's face.

Like hell was John going to let this continue. He fired another beam from his ring, which soon formed a manacle construct. The manacles sailed through the air, heading right for Kragger.

The Thanagarian, however, noticed they were coming and he broke off his next punch. Shoving himself down on top of Shayera's body, he then grabbed her by the throat and hauled her up, putting her right between him and the manacle construct, using her as a human shield. Eyes widening, John stopped the construct in its tracks, the green-glowing manacles floating in midair.

"It's just as Hol's reports say," Kragger said, that infuriating smirk on his face. "Unwilling to harm his comrades. It's a commendable quality, but one that is easily taken advantage of."

Hol's reports…He must have meant Shayera. While John knew she had been making reports, Kragger must have meant one of them was specifically about him. That did not sit well with him.

However, with his attention on the Green Lantern, Kragger was blind to Shayera suddenly drawing a fist back. She threw it immediately, slamming it onto his face. "Gyaahh!" he yelped as his face twisted with pain.

Raising both of her hands above her head, her mace hanging from one of her wrists by its strap, she clasped both hands together before swinging them down, landing a jackhammer blow to his face. His head snapped downward, his hand around her throat losing its grip. Instantly, she pulled herself back, throwing herself away from her foe.

That's when John resumed his own attack. Changing his manacle construct into a large fist, he sent it flying towards Kragger, where it rammed into his gut. The man bent over the fist, his upper body practically lying on top of the construct. Raising his arm up, John willed the fist construct to raise upwards, turning so that it was carrying Kragger up towards the ceiling until it was smashed into it.

Lowering his arm down and then drawing it to one side, John removed his construct from Kragger, allowing the Thanagarian to begin falling to the floor. Arching his arm up, he moved his construct above the falling man, opening the fingers to form an open hand. He then brought the construct down on top of Kragger, shoving him faster down through the air until he crashed onto the floor.

There, that should have knocked some of the fight out of him.

Allowing the construct to fade away, revealing Kragger's prone form on the floor, it looked like that was about to be it for the fight. But then the winged man began to push himself up. His arms trembled as he held himself up, revealing a trickle of blood leaking from his nose, dripping over his lips, and staining his beard.

He then spat out a wad of blood, which must have been filling his mouth. "You are as strong as Hol said you were," he said as he continued to get onto his feet. "It is no wonder she developed feelings for you."

"You're treading on something that doesn't concern you," John warned him, holding his ring hand up, and pointing the Universe's most powerful weapon at the Thanagarian. The ring glowed dangerously due to his will.

"To the contrary, you treaded where you shouldn't have."

"Kragger, stop," Shayera warned.

The smirk was back as Kragger glanced from one Leaguer to the other and back. "What is it, Hol? Do you not want your little toy to know you were already promised? That your entire relationship is adultery?"

John felt as if lightning were running up and down his spine, a sense of dread filling his stomach like a stone. Promised? Adultery? He couldn't help but turn his head to look at Shayera in shock. Her lovely face was without her usual helmet, so he saw how pale she turned upon Kragger's admission.

While he wasn't entirely aware of what promised meant to Thanagarians, it didn't take much to realize that Shayera was with someone and must have been prior to coming to Earth. That meant…that meant he had been affectionate with another man's woman.

All of this time and she had never said a word…

Suddenly, Kragger threw his arm out. A small, round ball struck the floor, one that was roughly the size of a baseball. A cloud of smoke suddenly erupted from it, forming a smoke cloud that swallowed John and Shayera.

Immediately, he began to cough, his lungs trying to keep the smoke out of them. Something moved against him, shoving him to one side, but he wasn't certain what it was as his eyes were shut due to the stinging from the smoke. Pressing a hand to his mouth as it coughed and hacked, he stumbled backwards until he emerged out from the smoke cloud.

Opening his eyes, ignoring the tears that had formed from the smoke irritation, he found himself looking to the Thanagarian guards he had taken out when he arrived here. Though watery, his eyes spotted a pair of boots disappearing around a corner.

His brain put two and two together at that point. Someone had shoved him as they fled, most likely that Kragger guy. He couldn't let him get away.

That's when Shayera rocketed by him. Though surprised by her initial appearance, he quickly gave chase as he took to the air. They clearly needed to talk, but that was a conversation that would have to wait. The wrongness he felt didn't compare to the fact the world would be ending if they failed.

And he wanted to have that conversation.

This was seriously taking too long. Get this, that big dirt tornado he had made? Well, it was drawing a lot of attention, see, and now that had even more Thanagarians coming after them.

So yeah, the plan had backfired.

Captain Atom was doing his best to take down as many fighter planes as he could, but now he also had flying Thanagarians with their maces and, apparently, axes trying to get a piece of him. And here he thought they only used maces. Go figure.

Meanwhile, Flash was ground-bound, and getting the scrapes. Anyone that Atom didn't knock out, the speedster took care of. Anyone still conscious got to take a dirt nap for a while.

But damn it, this was taking way too much time,

That white column of light coming out of the generator looked to be about halfway through. At least, that was with the calculations running through his head on how big the generator was and what the top looked like and also taking into account that objects far away might be bigger than they appeared, and so yeah, it looked about halfway.

Well, probably more than halfway at this point. Come on, couldn't they get a break?

By now, he was no longer running around in a circle, and the Flash-made wind was dying off, along with the funnel he had made. It gave him the chance to note that the largest of the Thanagarian ships was pulling away from the generator. Say, wasn't that thing on the other side of the forcefield? You know, their side? Didn't that mean…? Could they…?

"Surrender or die!" a Thanagarian yelled, interrupting the speedster's train of thought. Flash frowned, standing where he was, even as the very heavy axe blade was coming right down where his head was. Everything seemed to come to a stop, except for him, and he moved seamlessly out of the way. Before the axe blade could begin touching where his head was, the Scarlet Speeder was landing an untold number of punches all over that winged body, and ending it with a smooth as hell uppercut.

Time sped back up and the Thanagarian collapsed into a heap, his momentum dragging him against the ground. Right, now to get back…aw man, he lost his train of thought!

Quickly, he looked around, knowing his source of inspiration was somewhere around here, among all the flames and planes and space planes and the large Thanagarian ship that was further away than it should have been—

Those plasma blasts that he was sick of seeing streaked through the air, and boy was there a lot of them. More than what should have been possible unless more Thanagarian fighter planes were getting involved. No wait, there looked like a whole wave of them crashing the party and they looked a bit too different than what he noticed the Thanagarian ships look like.

"Those are Tamaranean!" Captain Atom called out, and that definitely caught Flash's attention.

Snapping his head upwards, he called back, "You sure?!"

"I blew up enough of them back when they attacked us. I'm not mistaking them for anyone," the atomic man confirmed. There was a heartbeat of silence, naturally interrupted by all the explosions, but then, "They're attacking the Thanagarians. What do you think we should do?"

Good question, but it had an easy enough answer. "They die too if that generator goes off, right? I say let them handle the Thanagarians while we try to get through that forcefield! We can figure out who our friends are later!"

Captain Atom looked undecided, but then gave a sharp nod of his head. What choice did he, or any of them, have? Sure, go on and try attacking the Tamaraneans, but from here it looked like they were only going after the Thanagarians.

There were more explosions in the air now, and flares of plasma taking out Thanagarian ships. Oh, there were also more Thanagarians, um, taking to wing? Was that the right term? Well, there were more of them using their wings now and flying about, but their speed that was no match for the Tamaraneans'

But wait, it got better! Tamaraneans were slipping out of their ships and going one-on-one with the Thanagaians. There were those plasma rifles being fired, sure, but there was some aerial hand-to-hand combat going on too. Flash would have stuck around and watched, but you know, fate of the world.

So back to the forcefield he ran, leading the way for Captain Atom to follow. They were going to find some way to break through, and hopefully soon.

There were no second chances or do-overs this time.