Sorry not sorry for splitting the day into so many parts. Hope you like it, please review. :)
Five minutes after the announcement, the team and Leaguers that had come aboard met Aqualad and Blue Beetle in the control room, where Blue had a shocked expression on his face as he stared down at the person that had been Black Beetle.
"What's going on?" Dick asked, his good mood gone as he looked between them, all business.
"We–we lost," Blue Beetle stammered.
The older heroes narrowed their eyes. "What do you mean, we lost?" Dick asked.
Jaime shook his head. "The Reach put in a failsafe, and they already activated it. They want to destroy the Earth to keep the Green Lantern Corps from finding out that they were tampering with the planet."
"How do we stop it?" Wally asked.
Jaime didn't answer, and Kaldur put a hand on his shoulder. "He does not know."
"Well, we'll find a way," Wally said. "Let's call in the League, and–"
"You're not getting it," Jaime said quietly. "I don't know because Black Beetle didn't know. The Reach didn't have a way to stop the failsafe once it was activated."
Mallory took a step back, all the weight that she'd just let go of crushing her again. Wally took one look at her and shook his head. "There has to be a way. Let's let everyone know, and we can get the League on this."
Nightwing had his hand on the comm to report the developement when Captain Atom made an open channel. "There are devices popping up around the world, they look like Reach technology, is there any information on them?"
Mallory looked at Jaime and Dick. "You guys fill them in, we'll go round everyone up," she said.
They nodded, and the heroes split up, Dick, Jaime, and Kaldur on their way to the watchtower, the others to get in touch with every hero they knew to be on call to help when, or if, they came up with a plan.
Every hero on the planet was out that day, and even some of the villains were helping to save people from the natural disasters that had started to wreak havoc on the planet. Mallory had left Wally and Artemis so they could go to their cities, while she and Hotspot's team made sure that Metropolis was taken care of. The first time she saw her ex was as he was pulling some people out of a car that had crashed into a building when the first earthquake hit. She gave him a hand, noting that the other three members of the team were doing the same not far away.
"Thanks," she said, ripping the door off of the car.
He didn't even look up as he pulled the woman from behind the wheel. "It's my job. Now, I know you have more important places to be, so get going."
She nodded. "I'll call you when I hear the plan," she assured him, and she took off to the docks to help with the flooding.
It went on for hours, and the only times that Mallory wasn't protecting Metropolis were once when she went to make sure her parents were safe and the times that she was called to other locations to lend a hand. She was in three cities every two hours, and in all of those, she saw dozens of new faces lending their hands to the more established heroes, as well as some familiar faces that were usually on the other side of bars or her fists. Cheshire was at Roy's side in Star when she answered his call for help with a collapsed building, and on the other side of the city she ran into Icicle Jr freezing a tsunami before it hit the city. She swooped in to get some workers out of the danger zone, but she couldn't resist swinging by him.
"What are you doing out here?" she asked.
He just shrugged and said, "hey, if the world's gonna end, I'd like to at least be able to say I tried to stop it."
She smiled and nodded. "Thanks. Maybe you weren't so bad after all."
"I don't love how you're talking about me in the past tense, but right now, I'll take it," he said, grunting as he doubled the amount of ice to try to contain the wave.
She flew off with the last of the civilians and zetaed back to Metropolis as soon as she got the ok from the others. When she got there, she found a surprise waiting for her at the latest disaster zone. Another building had collapsed, and when she dove down to help with the rescue, she found Volcana already there, working alongside police and the SCU to get the survivors to relative safety. She didn't comment on it, but Volcana offered her a smile when she noticed her digging through the rubble.
"Hey, kid. What's new with you?"
Mallory raised an eyebrow. "How did you even know about any of this?" she asked.
Volcana snorted. "Please, when there are tsunamis and earthquakes on my little slice of the world, I'm gonna just assume there's something going on. The cops set up shelters at the train stations. We need to get as many people as we can to them before it gets dark."
Mallory nodded, not saying that by the time it got dark, it likely wouldn't matter. Her comm beeped, and she pressed it hastily, going on with what she was doing. "Inferno here," she said.
"The natural disasters are being caused by the Reach tech, they're called magnetic field disrupters. Blue can track where they are, but they're all guarded by drones, and he doesn't know how to shut off the MFDs themselves," Nightwing reported.
Mallory sighed. "So…what? Are you telling me there's hope or not?" she asked.
"We just need to find a way to stop the devices, you know, preferably in the next hour. I'm just giving you an update, so–"
His voice was cut out by a sudden rush of static, and Mallory paused, hitting her comm to other channels, but the static stayed stubbornly on the line for a few seconds, then an unwelcome voice said, "Good afternoon, Inferno. Glad I could get in touch with you."
Mallory's body went rigid. "Luthor," she growled. "What do you want? Aren't you just happy that you're finally destroying the world?"
He scoffed. "Do you really think that I would go to all of the trouble I have over the years if my goal was just to destroy the world? Really, how stupid do you think I am?"
"Then what do you want?" she asked.
"Well, I have a possible solution to our mutual problem."
"A problem created by you and the Light," Mallory snapped.
Luthor sighed. "Perhaps, but as you know, the Light always planned to betray the Reach. I developed an anti-Reach software that should shut down the devices. Now, I believe that time is of the essence, so you can stop by my office and pick up what you need."
She debated it in her head for a moment, but ultimately she smothered a grunt of frustration and sighed. "Fine. I'm on my way."
As soon as Luthor cut the transmission, Dick's voice came back, his voice sounding almost frantic as he tried to get in touch with her. "I'm here, sorry," she said.
"What happened?" Dick asked.
She was already airborne, heading for Lexcorp. "Well, there might be hope after all," she said.
"What?"
"Luthor just contacted me, he has something that he thinks will shut down the MFDs."
"What?!"
"Yeah, I'm on my way to pick them up, but we don't have much time. Start rounding everyone up, I'll be at the watchtower in five minutes."
"No, that'll take too long. We'll meet you in Metropolis, outside the Daily Planet." He signed off, and Mallory landed in Lex's office through the window that he had left wide open. There was a large box sitting on the desk, and he was leaning in front of it, Mercy by the door.
"Well, it's about time. It is only the fate of the world at stake."
She looked inside the box and pulled out one of the devices. "How do they work?" she asked.
"Well, you need only touch the device to an MFD to disable it. That is not the hard part. Each of the drones guarding the MFDs is equivalent to a Beetle warrior, and there are two at each location. One hero will need to run interference with them while the other gets the device to the MFD. I trust the task won't be too difficult."
Mallory grabbed the box and started for the window. "Well, I guess we'll find out," she said. She paused at the window and looked back at Lex. "If you could tap into League communications, you could have gotten in touch with any of us. Why did you choose me?"
"Well, Superman is not present at the moment, and to tell the truth, you're the only hero that doesn't make me sick to my stomach and would still have the sense to listen to reason. Contrary to what you might think, Inferno, I have never disliked you, only what you represent."
Mallory tilted her head. "Well, considering the fact that the world's about to end, and I'm your favorite hero, tell me something. I know there's more to your plan, you're too well organized, you have too good of weapons, and you just know too much about everything. Are you connected to Intergang? Is that why you have Apokoliptic weapons? And do you have another partner, or are you really that good?"
Luthor smiled a little. "Sorry, Inferno, but I'm only required one confession. Besides, I can't tell you all of my secrets. We may still live through this."
She didn't want to, but she felt her face softening into a smile, and she pulled a comm out of her jacket pocket and tossed it to him. "Here, I know you like to hear things first-hand. This way you don't have to hack into our comms like a common con man."
He caught the device with one hand and nodded a thanks, and she flew out the window, making a beeline for meeting spot. Everyone was there. The League, the team, the new Reach-origined heroes, Arsenal, Roy, Wally, Artemis, Garth, Donna, Jett, and Hotspot's team. She landed and put the box down, explaining briefly how to use the devices before going to the ground to be with the others. Captain Atom was on the stage, explaining how the rest would go.
"We have an operative overseeing the mission, we'll be splitting into groups of two, each disabling one MFD. We need to get to them before they go chrysalis." He put some groups together based on location, like Aqualad and Lagaan and Garth and Aquaman got two under water, and Mallory and Hotspot were assigned one in a volcano. Other than that, the groups were left up to the heroes, with the exception that the newer heroes would be put with an experienced Leaguer. "All right, get in your teams and head out. Time is of the essence."
Mallory and Isaiah found each other in the crowd and started towards the zeta tube, but Wally caught her arm, looking into her eyes with concern, but forcing a smile for her. "You'll be eating that funnel cake before you know it."
She nodded, and she and Isaiah stood in front of the tube to be sucked away to their part of the battle for their very existence.