We've made it to Season 2! This chapter is pretty much a rewrite, I didn't know how else to introduce the Kroloteans and all that, but I really am going to try to keep it as original as possible. Hope you like the chapter, please review!
Season 2!
The team was back in two hours, mission accomplished and considerably calmer towards each other. Lagaan and Megan kissed when she walked in, but Conner just walked past them, completely ignoring them. Gar went to Peter, who gagged when the green boy came close.
"Dude, what's on you?"
Gar flicked his tail, knocking sewage onto the floor. "Uhh," he said, and Blue Beetle shook his head. "Told you, ese."
Conner kept walking past the three boys. "I'm going to hit the showers," he said.
Blue Beetle compacted his armor, revealing his jeans and jacket, and looked at Gar. "Now that sounds like a plan. You know, for you, hermano."
Robin went to Dick and reported the mission status, and Mallory watched her friend's face fill with pride as he congratulated his younger brother. She put an arm around Peter's shoulders and they were about to leave the room when a holographic screen popped up in the middle of the training room, showing Captain Atom and a smaller screen of the UN headquarters in New York.
"Emergency alert. United Nations Headquarters is under attack."
Everyone paused and looked at the screen. Mal pulled up a screen of his own, searching for Batgirl and Wonder Girl's location. He looked at Dick. "Beta's only two blocks away."
Dick nodded and looked at the screen. "Captain Atom, the team's Beat Squad is in the vicinity. ETA, three minutes."
Captain Atom nodded. "I'll get some Leaguers on their way too, Flash and Green Lantern are the closest, ETA eight and ten minutes."
Mallory debated suiting up and heading over, but she decided against it. She wouldn't get there before Barry or whichever Green Lantern it was, and they shouldn't need the help anyway. Mal and Dick watched the map as Batgirl and Cassie made their way to the building, and the others watched the news clip that Nate had left up, showing the building surrounded by a cloud of dust as whoever was inside punched through the walls and guns went off.
The whole thing only took a few minutes, and then another hole was blown in the wall and the perp jumped onto some sort of ship. The man looked vaguely familiar, and Mallory squinted to make out more of the features. Then the ship started up and Mallory spotted a familiar skull on the front of the motorcycle-like vessel. She looked at Conner to see if he recognized him, and the look on his face said that he did.
"Lobo," she muttered.
Peter looked up at her. "What?" he asked.
She shook her head, already walking. The bounty hunter was already gone, but she needed to find Superman, and fast.
She looked for her partner for the rest of the night, but all she could come up with was that he was on a weekend vacation with Lois. He wouldn't answer his comm, he wasn't at their apartment, his folks hadn't heard from him, she even considered going to the fortress of solitude to see if he had taken Lois up there, but just as the thought entered her head, she got a call from Zatanna.
"Have you seen the news yet?"
"No, I've been looking for Clark all night. Why, what was on it?"
"Apparently the thing that attacked the UN was an alien, and he was after Secretary General Tsing. Or, at least the thing that was posing as him."
"What are you talking about?" Mallory asked, her hand tightening on the phone.
"Batgirl told everyone about it when she and Cassie got back. Tsing was a robot, and there was a little alien thing inside of him, controlling him. That's what the other alien was after. Rocket and I are going to the watchtower, John's up there going over what happened with some of the others. Dick gave us the heads up."
"Ok, I'm a few blocks away from the Hall, so I'll catch a zeta tube from there," she said.
"If you wait where you are, we can go together," the magician suggested.
"Ok, I'll wait on the roof of Red's old stash house."
Ten minutes later, Zatanna and Rocket met her on the roof, and the three of them flew to the Hall. Cat Grant, a reporter for the main news station, was out front with her crew. The girls kept their eyes in front of them and kept walking to the door. The reporter came running over.
"No comment," Zatanna said as soon as Grant turned to them. They didn't stop walking, and Catherine Cobert, the League's new public liaison, stopped the reporter from entering the Hall, telling her that they would issue a statement shortly.
"Thanks," Mallory said when the doors closed again.
Catherine nodded, offering a strained smile. "I hope you come up with a statement soon. I've been dodging phone calls and turning reporters away since last night."
Rocket sighed. "We'll come up with something soon. We'll have to, the way the news is trying to twist this to make it our fault."
"Oh, please, it's just Godfry. He's been trying to make the League look bad for years," Zatanna said optimistically.
"Yeah, but this time he has something to work with, not just blind accusations. Fear is a powerful thing," Mallory said.
They fell silent again, and the girls continued on to the library and zetaed to the watchtower. They came in the room just as John was getting started. He had a video of Lobo ripping the robot apart on a holographic screen, paused at the part where he was holding the little alien.
"The big guy's–" he started, and Conner interrupted, "Lobo, an intergalactic bounty hunter." The Green Lantern tilted his head.
"We had a run in with him a few months back. He was looking for someone on Earth, but Superman convinced him to leave. Apparently he got another contract," Mallory explained.
John nodded. "Yes, well, he's not going to be a problem for us. He is extremely dangerous, but he's not likely to return. The little guy's another story. He's a Krolotean, and Kroloteans always travel in packs."
"Meaning more of them are on Earth," Batman mused.
J'onn looked around the room. "I believe my friend might have some vital information on that point," he said, turning to a man in his late twenties or early thirties that had been standing off to the side the whole time. "Some of you have not met Adam Strange of STAR labs Erdel initiative. He is the scientist responsible for maintaining the zeta-beam technology we use for teleportation."
The man lifted a hand in greeting. Conner tilted his head, and the old team was linked. "I was wondering why a stranger was allowed on the top secret Watchtower."
"And he has a story to tell," Manhunter continued.
Strange looked around hesitantly. "Uh, it's a little involved," he said. "I wish I had visual aides or something."
"I can assist you," Manhunter said, and he linked everyone in the room. Mallory hid a chuckle at the stranger's reaction to the touch of the link in his head, and she wondered if she'd reacted similarly to it the first time she'd felt it. Manhunter explained how the link worked, and Adam's eyes widened a little.
"Uh, great," he said, then he began his story, hesitant at first, but gaining confidence as he went. He told them about getting transported to a planet called Rann by mistake, and how, after weeks of setting up communications with the scientist responsible for the mistake, a man called Sardath. He was eventually able to tell him that some of his zeta technology had been stolen.
"Fits the Krolotean MO," John mentioned when the story was over, "Their entire culture revolves around stolen tech."
"Sardath detected transmissions between a single location on Rann and multiple locations on Earth. He was attempting to trace those when he accidentally transported me to Rann. He gave me this." The scientist pulled a small device out of his coat pocket and held it out in the palm of his hand. When it opened, it was a map of Earth, with dots around the continents. "It detects trace zeta radiation, and can pinpoint all the locations where Kroloteans have beamed to Earth."
Nate took a few steps closer to look at the device. "Then I'm ordering a two-pronged attack. We'll stage simultaneous raids on every Krolotean target on Earth, while a contingent of Leaguers travels to Rann, with Strange here, to cut the Kroloteans off at the source."
Strange cleared his throat, suddenly becoming uncomfortable. "Uh, we might have a problem there with that second prong," he said. The team and Leaguers looked at him, and his discomfort grew. "Totally unclear on the why," he said, changing the setting on his device, "but earthlings are persona non grata in Rann's corner of the galaxy." The device was showing pictures of some of the more notable Leaguers, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, John Stewart's Green Lantern, and Hawk Woman were flashing on the hologram as he continued, "and these six Leaguers are wanted criminals ."
Everyone stared at the pictures in shock. Nightwing's eyes widened and he turned to his former partner. "Batman, it's the missing sixteen hours!" he exclaimed.
Mallory looked at her friends in surprise. They had long since stopped trying to figure out what had happened during that time, writing it off as something they would never know.
"Agreed," Batman said, and he turned to Strange and explained the situation to him.
John put a hand to his chin, thinking about what they'd just learned. "It never even occurred to us that Savage might have sent us into space," he admitted.
"How have you not heard about this?" Mallory asked. Green Lanterns were all over the galaxy, so it seemed strange that they'd never heard that one of them was wanted.
John shook his head. "I don't know. I'll alert Hal, he and Guy are on Oa now."
"Meanwhile, we have sixteen other active Leaguers to send to Rann to investigate," Nate continued.
Adam Strange stepped into the circle, adjusting the settings on his device to show pictures of all the Leaguers. Mallory's heart skipped a beat when she saw her own picture pop up, going to Zatanna, then Rocket, then Flash. "You're not getting it," Strange said, "there's a planetary watch alert out on Rann for every Leaguer."
Nightwing glanced at the others, then stepped forward. "Not all of us are Leaguers," he pointed out. "I can send a squad to handle the Rann end of things, and to find out more about the missing sixteen hours, without causing an intergalactic incident."
"Do it," Nate said.
Dick nodded, and he, Conner, and Megan turned to go. "Uh, if you're going," Strange said, looking at Conner. The clone paused and looked at him. "Don't wear that shirt," the scientist finished with a smile.
Conner just looked at him, and he caught up to the others. They had to walk past Mallory, Zatanna, and Raquel to get to the zeta tubes, and they paused in front of them, Megan linking them briefly.
"You know," Zatanna said gently, "that thing about you not being Leaguers, you three still have an open invitation so…"
Dick smiled. "We know, Z," he said.
"But we're all pretty happy–" Megan started, and Conner finished, "where we are."
The girls nodded, and Mallory turned to the business at hand. "Who are you going to send?" she asked.
Dick tilted his head. "Megan and Conner, and Gar I think. They're going to need experience on their side, and Gar can blend in easily."
Mallory smiled. "Well, I don't envy you having to tell Peter that he can't go," she said.
Dick returned the smile. "Oh, don't worry, he'll have plenty of excitement when we start taking out those bases."
Mallory nodded. "That he will," she said.
"Good luck, guys," Rocket said, and Megan and Conner nodded. The team went to the zeta tube, and Batman put out a call for all Leaguers to report to the watchtower.
"If you're going to Rann with the team, you might want to catch up with them," Rocket mentioned to Strange, and the man nodded and jogged to the zeta tube where Dick was putting in their coordinates.
Half an hour later, everyone on the League and team were in position to attack the Krolotean bases. Mallory was on a squad with Zatanna in Chicago. When they got the call to attack from Mal, Mallory flew down to the warehouse and burned the door. There were only two of the little aliens in it, which surprised Mallory. They went to the platform before the girls could get to them and zetaed away. They landed next to the platform and looked around, staying ready for a moment.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," Zatanna mentioned, sounding a little disappointed.
Mallory chuckled. "Yeah, it was. Let's hope the others did better. Come on, let's get rid of this thing." She tapped into her strength and pushed over the platform while Zatanna worked her magic on the computer, miniaturizing it and stepping on it.
"Inferno to League, we took out our platform, but the two Kroloteans escaped. There aren't any prisoners here, either."
"We're getting the same reports from the others, too. Come back to base," Nate told her.
The girls went back outside, and they were about to take off when their comms went off again.
"Sending coordinates, the team's gamma squad found the main base, all Leaguers report to these coordinates ASAP," Nate announced.
Mallory exchanged a glance with Zatanna, and they went to the nearest zeta tube, setting their coordinates for New Orleans. They ran into the entire League and the rest of the team on the way. Peter and Dick were in the Supercycle, they'd been on a squad with Cassie in Philadelphia.
"Are they ok?" Mallory asked, flying closer to her friend.
He shrugged. "I don't know, I–" he was interrupted by an explosion, a big one, right in the area the squad was in. Dick's face froze, but Mallory saw the fear in it as he pushed Sphere to go faster. They all did.
When they first got to where they could see it, there was no movement in the area, and they all collectively held their breaths. Then, one by one, people started popping up in the water. Most of them were the prisoners, then there was Blue Beetle, and Robin, and finally Lagaan. They heaved a sigh of relief. They were safe. They continued on, their faces serious.
The boys looked up, and the League could see the awe and fear on their faces, seeing the entire Justice League and team collectively coming towards them, serious expressions on their faces as they took in the destruction. Then Dick grinned down at them.
"Dude!" he said, leaning on Sphere's handlebars, "Way to get your feet wet!"
The boys' expressions lightened, and they grinned at each other, then at the leader.
Mallory smiled at them and looked at her friends. "It's a lot less scary being on this end for a change."