Disclaimer: I don't own Halo or DC franchise
Chapter: 4
Somewhere in an Island...
Along the shores of the city what appeared to be as medieval architecture with Greek influences, there were two woman in white dress on a horse back as the warmth sunlight fell over them.
"Mother, The omens are ill. Mankind may be facing it's darkest hour" one woman said, her beauty unparalleled.
"Then mankind must face it alone" the other elderly woman said in strict authoritative tone.
"But mother? How can I sit her idly while the whole world is in chaos?" she asked perplexed by her mother's views.
"Diana, what happens beyond these shores are none of our concern" she said as she turned her horse back to the city.
"Here the gods will protect us" she said. The young woman was saddened by her mother's cold words.
"Hera, help me!" she muttered.
...
In the outskirts of Metropolis...
Superman, Batman, Martian and the Spartan came out of the facility as they watched numerous alien crafts and giant walkers firing and destroying everything. In a few moments, the place has gone to hell. The four watched as the fires blazed every where.
"Superman, stall them as much as you can. I will get the bat wing and see what I can do, We need to minimize casualties, that's our priority" Batman said with John acknowledging his tactical skills.
"On our way" Superman said as he flew out of the place to pursue the hitchhikers before they reached the city.
"J'onn you are with me. You are still weak" he said to which the Martian nodded.
"What about you Spartan?" Batman asked as he had no idea what to do with him.
"I have my craft. I will use it provide support to destroy these fighter swarms" he said in a stoic tone to which he nodded, though he had lot of questions in mind, he decided to stow them away. Then Batman pressed a button in his arm gloves for auto pilot retrieval of his bat wing. As the black jet came down, Batman entered and flew away the next moment.
John entered his griffin fighter from where he parked as he took the controls and proceeded with lift off.
Batman was maneuvering the attacks made by the alien crafts that were using their directed energy weapons to shoot his plane. There were two crafts following him. he suddenly slowed his plane as the enemy crafts dashed forward only for him to fire two missiles that blasted them to pieces.
Superman for his part was fighting a huge walker that was firing powerful energy beam. He used his speed to evade the attacks and managed to land a blow to its bulbous body.
**WHAM**
But the walker corrected it balance and used a tentacle like arm to hit him unexpectedly.
"AAH" and was immediately blasted by the energy beam
"RRAHHH" he yelled in pain as he was momentarily weakened by the blast. As the walker was preparing another attack. Superman used his heat vision to melt one of its limbs and immediately proceeded to lift it and began spinning. Then he threw over a mountain.
*BANG...CRRRRACCK* the walker hit the rock boulder hard that it fell over the walker and disabled it.
"Damn they are tough!" he said
But another walker got behind him and hit him with energy beam. Then it grabbed him and threw him towards the approaching Bat wing. Batman seeing this immediately maneuvered to avoid hitting him only to be shot by another craft that flanked him from his right. The right wing got hit as it caught fire. Batman gritted his teeth as he fought with the controls to prevent his ship from fatal crash. When things looked bleak,
"Gotcha!" a voice came as a green bubble encompassed his plane and was slowly landed to the nearby cliff.
"What the-.." Batman said
"Help has arrived, at last" J'onn J'onzz said.
"Right on time, I guess. Had to quell a rebellion in Rigel 9. Also the Lantern corps had been receiving a lot of distress calls lately" John Stewart, Green Lantern of sector 2814 arrived flying, wearing a green and black suit with a lantern insignia in his chest.
Then immediately followed by the arrival of another flying red headed woman with biological wings and a hawk faced mask, wearing yellow shirt with bare shoulders, green pants and black boots. She carried a huge spiked mace that crackled with electricity
"AAHHHH" she let a battle cry as she hit the alien crafts with the mace as it blasted mid-air.
"Hawk girl? What is she doing here?" Batman asked wondering what the Thanagarian doing at this time.
"I called the Lantern and Hawk girl for help" Martian said as he flew above and became intangible to have the two approaching alien crafts from opposite ends to crash one another.
Lantern for his part used his rings to fire green bolts and morphed hardlight objects to bash through the fighters.
Superman once again renewed in strength through the sun light flew at high speed and punched through the craft and blasted them with heat vision.
Hawk girl was evading their attacks as she got to make another hit at the alien jet as it crashed down. But she was already targeted by another craft that managed to fire its weapon that hit her left wing.
"AAAHH" she cried in pain as she lost altitude and fell over a huge flat rock space and she struggled to get up and turned to look at the same craft that was about to finish it's job, just when,
"Allow me!" a woman in a weird red metallic dress with a tiara jumped front as she deflected every gun shots from the alien craft with her bracers directed back to them.
She was tall, raven haired and wore a red metallic one piece with yellow and white stars and a red boot. There was a golden lasso in her right waist, a golden tiara in her head.
"Who's that rookie in a swim suit?" Stewart asked raising his eyebrow.
"Not sure, but she could be of help" Superman replied as he held a fighter's tail and spun it high speed and threw it over another jet as they both exploded.
While these were happening, there was a red streak of electricity that rushing at light speed from the ground towards Batman's position and stopped. It was aman who wore red suit with a yellow lightning symbol in the chest, he's called The Flash.
"Did you lose something Bats?" the crimson speedster asked the dark knight as he gave a stoic look at him. That's when Wonder Woman landed near them which Flash's mind go crazy at the sight of the beautiful woman.
"Whoa! Where have you been the entire life?" he asked.
"Themyscira" she replied not getting the underlying meaning behind the question. After all, this is her first time visiting man's world.
"Home of the Amazons? I always thought that place was a myth" Hawkgirl said.
"It is as real as the place we are standing in" Wonder woman replied.
"On your guard! We have multiple fighter crafts on our position" J'onn alerted everyone as they all readied themselves and that's when
**WHOOOSH...BAM BAM BAM**
A strange alien looking black fighter jet blazed across them above as it fired a missile that split into three and each hit a enemy craft that were vaporized to nothing. Others were stunned at the sight of the new craft of inhuman design and it looking deadly to the eyes.
"What in the blue hell is that?" Stewart asked as he readied his ring.
"Looks like another enemy, lets get them!" Flash said without a second thought.
"No wait! If I think right who it is, then it must be him" Superman said preventing the others to engage the new unknown.
"Him?" Stewart asked in confusion.
"The Spartan" Batman finished.
John flew the griffin and launched a seeker missile whose warhead split in to three and targeted each craft and vaporized three of them. The remaining 6 crafts converged to take him out seeing him as a primary threat. That when Cortana's hologram popped from the console.
"Looks like you are having fun. You got a lot of admirers in your tail" she said with a chuckle.
"Planning to finish it soon" he said as he engaged the MHD pulse cannon that came out from under the craft and rotated at 180 degrees and began firing the stream of metallic plasma. The enemy crafts weapons fired on him, but the positron shield blocked everything. Each round destroyed one enemy fighter as the other three split in 3 directions to escape the threat.
"Not on my watch" he said as he did a right steep curve and now he was behind one fighter and fired the cannon and it was shattered to pieces. The bend was too fast and short that the enemy craft didn't anticipate this move as it met its end.
"NO WAY! No craft can bend like that at such a speed!" Flash commented as his eyes widened. Batman was on the same thought.
"The craft's is highly sophisticated to achieve a maneuver like that. It's impossible!" Batman thought unable to fathom such a technological feat.
Stewart for his part was amazed as no military on Earth and even in other advanced alien civilizations possessed such a powerful fighter jet.
There were only two more enemy jets. Their design somehow reminded him of the covenant seraph fighters. John began to analyze the remaining two craft's movement a they somehow understood his tactics as they were flying randomly in non-sensical direction. But John has 60,000 years of unmatched experience and he keenly observed their movement and he primed the thrusters to maximum as it let a sonic boom, tearing through the atmosphere, towards a cliff. The enemy vessels struggled to match his velocity.
The other heroes were tensed at his action and Hawkgirl saw what he was trying to do.
"Oh no! He's heading straight for the cliff. Is he nuts!? At that speed he will crash and die!" she said unaware of his plan.
John watched as the remaining two fighters lagged behind at a greater distance as he maneuvered in a short curve as multiple flaps were disengaged to help the curve. He then targeted the two crafts and used his armor visor's display to predict their next path and shot a round at that point. Unfortunately the craft ended the same place the next moment and got blasted out and he did the same thing to the other enemy craft. With that, the threat in the air was over...for now.
He then slowly flew the craft towards the heroes and pressed a holo-icon in the console that opened the bottom door and moved the seat out. John then flew out into the air with his artificial gravity unit as the seat went in and the door's closed and John guided the Griffin fighter in auto-pilot mode. He then made his way towards the gathered heroes as they were watching him slowly descend towards them.
He then slowed down and dropped to the ground with a metallic thud and rock cracking sound gracefully as he then slowly walked towards the heroes that were tensed to see him except Batman, Superman and J'onn J'onzz. John after watching them felt they are not hostile forces as they fought the same enemy vessels themselves. But the others who saw were quite astounded as he was 7'10" and appeared bulky that raised many suspicions.
"Easy there cowboy! Stop and identify yourself!" Stewart pointed his ring towards him and spoke in commanding tone.
"Good to see you all. Hope everybody's alright" John said ignoring the former marine.
"That was one hell of a show off!" Flash said with a laugh though felt intimidated by him.
"My god! He's huge! Is he a human or an alien?" Hawkgirl thought warily.
"DIDN'T YOU HEAR ME!? I Said STAND DOWN!" Stewart yelled as he started losing his temper.
"I did hear you marine and I won't stand down. Perhaps no military personnel in this world can order me to do so" he said in a calm yet terrifying tone that stunned Stewart.
"It's not good to talk to a lantern like that. He's crazy!" Hawkgirl thought.
"He's got guts to say that!" Flash thought with a disappointing nod.
"He's determined and not going to stand down!" Batman thought
"He has the courage and the stature of a warrior! He could be the legendary Spartan of the old times" Diana thought amazed by his presence.
But Superman and Martian had enough of this banter as they had more to worry about.
"Enough! It was me who summoned him to help us out and the others" Martian said loudly to break the stalemate.
"So you contacted us to warn us of this threat?" the Spartan asked.
"Yes, you were the first I was able to reach out since you too are a telepath like me and found you could be of great help" the Martian said. John had no reason to tense as being a telepath and also his metaphysical nature, he could easily block psychic intrusions and even force them out violently if he had to. John knew that none of the knowledge has been compromised in his conversation with this green alien being.
"You can call me Spartan 117" he said.
"Are you in military? Judging by what you told Stewart, you must be" Hawkgirl asked eyeing the details of his armor.
"In a manner, Yes. That's all I can divulge now. We have something to take care of" he replied as he didn't want to waste time.
"J'onn, I didn't peek much into your mind to know your origin. Also I'm unfamiliar with you too" he said looking at the Martian and the Amazon.
"My name is Diana, princess of Themyscira" the raven haired woman spoke.
"Well, that's the first time I'm hearing about the place" he thought privately.
"Awful long way from home, aren't you?" Flash asked.
"Themyscira is protected by the Gods, but I cannot sit idly when the whole world is in danger" she said.
"It was lucky you showed up when you did" Superman said with a smile.
"Not luck. I contacted her too just as I did with the spartan" J'onn Said.
"Okay listen, I'm usually a little quick on the uptake. But can anyone explain what's going on here?" Flash said voicing everyone's question in their minds. J'onn decided to explain his story.
"I am a Martian. More than a thousand human years ago, Mars was inhabitable filled with our advanced civilization as life flourished. But then-...'THEY' came. We were not sure about their origins, but knew enough that they were violent and determined to take over my world. We are pacifists by nature but know when to get our hands dirty. We fought a bloody war with them for centuries in an futile attempt as those beings fed upon our psychic energies like parasites"
John was very reminded of the Ceph and the Flood.
"They are natural shape shifters and managed to take our own disguise. But those few of us survived enacted a desperate plan to stop them. We engineered a nerve toxin from a rare martian plant and launched the gas straight into their citadel. They were all paralyzed, but this was but a pyhrric victory as I became the last of my people"
"But what we didn't know was, when they invaded Mars, some of their sleeper cells landed on Earth too into hiding, as a contingency just in case Mars couldn't be conquered. But looks like, they have succeeded in invading both worlds. I took it upon myself to guard the paralyzed beings in to hibernation. But when Earth's astronauts found the chamber, they were awakened and now they are controlling their species in this world too. I wanted to warn Earth, only to be captured" Martian said.
"Wait, those astronauts never said anything about finding life on mars" Flash said as he too remembers the historic find.
"Hmm, could be some pencil pusher in Washington decided to keep this under tables" Stewart said rubbing his chin.
"No I don't believe that happened" John said suddenly as everyone turned to look at him.
"What do you mean Spartan?" Batman questioned wondering what was his point of view.
"If what the Martian said about the alien beings are true, then such species who had only lived to conquer others would never be so careless to let someone slip in and out with their identities. If they had been planning this invasion for a long time-..." he said to which others were dawned at the horrific realization.
"Wait, You mean-..." Diana asked wide eyed.
"My God! It means, the original astronauts might have never left Mars alive" Flash said in horror.
"Exactly. Sleeper cells on Earth had to strategically plan the invasion by blending among the common people to learn Earth's secrets and defenses. Imagine, attack on the Wayne tech deep space telemetry arrays, attack on the ground station. Even having Superman disarm every single nuclear arsenal that could be the potential defense against the aliens, who made him do that?" John asked to a point that almost everyone had the correct answer in mind.
"Senator Carter! J'onn also said they are shape shifters. That only means he's our real enemy" Superman finished the final piece of the puzzle. John also understood now why his ship's sensors couldn't identify the spires before. These beings had the ability to mimic anything even the earth, thus concealing their presence.
"He carefully prepared a recipe for invasion that no one is prepared for" Batman said in a grim tone.
"Like hell they are! We must stop them before they succeed" Stewart said to which everyone agreed.
"But it's too late already" J'onn said.
As they spoke, thousands of alien fighters flew the earth's atmosphere attacking everything. There were huge spires that broke out from the ground as it caused powerful tremors. There were multiple explosions as huge walkers fired energy beams at everything. Earth's worst nightmare has begun and every being is walking the fine line between existence and extinction. Then some of the spires used a drill like weapon that beat the ground like a heartbeat as it expelled lots of dust and smoke that began to spread into the atmosphere.
The heroes watched this.
"What are they doing?" Diana asked.
"It's begun, the full scale invasion" J'onn said in a hopeless tone.
"It's releasing some kind of smoke" Hawkgirl said.
"Not some smoke. Its the incinerated rock vapor with tonnes of soot, sulphates and perchlorates, oddly that can block the sun light" John said as his visor display zoomed and gathered the information.
"You are right. The invaders are nocturnal. Sunlight is their weakness, so they are blocking it out to live in perpetual darkness" Martian said.
"Friend of yours, Bats?" Flash asked chuckling at the reference.
"This is not a joke!" Batman snapped at him.
"I mean, What's the problem here? Can't you just whip out some of that nerve gas? Flash asked as he stood near the martian.
"Unfortunately no. That gas can only be made from the rare martian plant and the last sample I brought with me was destroyed" Martian replied monotonically.
John who had been listening along with Cortana and Miranda decided to take an initiative.
"Cortana, Captain Keyes, I hope you have been listening to this. I am sending you the tissue and cell structure data I gathered from a giant walker. Use it to find any weakness that we can exploit. Even if we managed to remove the smoke, something tells me we have to initiate a planetary sterilization"
"It's possible John. I'll work on it while you do your thing" she replied to which he thanked.
"Okay, fine. What's plan B?" Flash asked with a dull face.
"We can target the factories to destroy those generators" Diana voiced her opinion.
"That's right. It's must be our priority" the Spartan said supporting her decision.
"Easy people! This is not a job for amateurs or hotshots in fancy tin suits" Stewart objected disrespectfully. John was calm as he watched the lantern's juvenile behavior.
"TIN SUIT!?" a loud female voice yelled which stunned everyone.
"Uh-OH!" John tensed at Cortana's display of anger as he can feel it. John felt he must have turned off the speakers to prevent her from listening to this.
"John, I need to have a word with jolly green here!" She said as if its not a request.
"I will object but you will still have your way and make it worse. Fine, but please be gentle!" he said. Suddenly from his armor's hard light emitter, Cortana popped up standing in full human height as others watched gaping their mouth like fish.
"You think you got big cohones to say that to his face, marine? she asked.
"I don't care what you think, but this man has seen and fought the worst shits this universe can throw at him unlike busting pirates or drunk aliens, whatever it's that you do mister. The only reason he's patient taking up your crap since you laid eyes on him is because he is a soldier who's living by strict code of conduct something you have no idea about if any of your records to go by" she said in a pissed off tone as she got to his face as if she's gonna punch him.
"So shut your mouth and let her and this man do their job or he can whoop your green ass sideways before you can blink" she finished as she vanished into fragments into the thin air. Everyone was dumbfounded at the sight of a weird woman letting out the feminine rage. Stewart was petrified to be frank.
"That wasn't needed, you know that" John said privately.
"Indeed. But I wanted to blow some steam off and simply found an opportunity" she replied with a jest to which he sighed.
"What in the heaven's name is that?" Hawkgirl asked.
"An Artificial Intelligence and my friend" he replied. Batman was stunned to hear that was an AI and found it to be more human with all that emotions. He made a note to research her origins.
"That little blue b-..." Stewart was about to yell something only to be shown a strange alien looking pistol straight to his face.
"Don't even think about it!" he said in a calm threatening tone.
"Alright, that's enough! Stewart, we need all the help we can get" Superman intervened having had enough of these banters.
"Fine, sorry to you both" Stewart grunted in response.
"We now have multiple objectives. We should split into teams" Lantern said to which others agreed.
"Dibs on the Amazon" Flash said with a cocky smile as dashed towards Diana which made her eyes widened in shyness.
"First we need to take out the four drills that are spread across the world. Cortana, which is the most highly guarded region?" John asked.
"One moment-...Egypt is the one that is highly guarded. I think I know why. Its a desert region that drinks a lot of sunlight. Sabotaging that will be a severe blow" she said.
"Then I will go there and finish it off, rest of you take care of the others in Mexico, Metropolis and Europe" the Spartan said while others were taken back by his decision.
"Alone? I will come with you, Fighting as a team always leads to victory" Diana said to which he nodded, though he didn't need it.
"What? I thought I could show the princess a good time!" Flash whined.
"You are coming with me" Stewart ordered much to the relief of Wonder woman.
"Then I shall go with Superman" Hawkgirl said.
"I and the Martian will take care of the one in Europe. J'onn we will get there by Batwing" Batman said to which he nodded in agreement.
"Good, now we have figured the teams, we have our objectives. The world is counting on us. Let's move" Superman said as they all moved out. Superman and Hawkgirl flew to the one in Metropolis, Batman and Martian to Europe in bat wing, Stewart and Flash racing to Mexico and finally John and Diana in his Griffin. Though Griffin's a pure fighter, it can still hold three additional people.
As they flew across the Atlantic towards Egypt, Suddenly the Spartan's comm burst out again.
"Commander, the situation is getting worse around the planet. I am sending in multiple long swords and broadswords in auto pilot to destroy the stragglers in the air. Meanwhile Cortana and I are working on the data you sent. I think we can take them out in a single shot. We'll update further" Miranda said.
"Acknowledged, 117 out" John said, feeling hopeful of saving .
"Commander? Is that your military rank?" Diana asked.
"Yes ma'am" he replied.
"Please, call me Diana. No need for formalities among allies" she said.
"Usually, we use alternative names when we feel revealing our true identities might compromise the mission or the safety of those we care" he replied.
"I see. Is that truly necessary in man's world?" she asked innocently.
"Something tells me it won't be necessary-... at least for you" he replied as they approached the enemy site near the city of Giza in the Sphinx. The detailed holographic display of the site came before him as he and Diana observed. John agreed this was really heavily guarded.
"Cortana, Me and Diana are going inside the spire" he said.
"Oh-...You and Diana? Well Well!" she said in cocky tone that started to get on his nerves. Diana who also heard her couldn't understand her jest.
"What was that?" he asked raising his eyebrow.
"Nope! Nothing!" she said with a shrug.
...
With Green lantern and Flash
"You are no fun!" Flash said accusingly to Stewart while he was running at top speed with lantern flying keeping pace with him.
"This isn't supposed to be fun! We are better off without any distractions, okay?" Lantern chided back.
"Okay Okay! I hear ya!" he said in a mockingly.
As they both reached a rock edge, they saw three giant walkers on patrol. Stewart watched as he began formulate a plan to engage them.
"So there are three. Here's the plan-.."
"What plan? We kick these alien butts...that's the plan!" Flash said ignoring him as he blew away from that place much to the annoyance of the lantern.
"NO WAIT!...Fool!" he tried stopping him in vain.
Flash stopped behind a walker and whistled loudly to get its attention.
"Hey you! Wanna catch me!? I'm right here!" Flash yelled as the walker turned to look at him and fire energy beam which he kept evading.
"Ha ha-...Missed me!" he kept mockingly evading the attacks until he started running beneath it to attack, but he didn't realize he was running into a trap as he stepped over a gooey part on the ground, it exploded and threw him above.
**BLUCK**
"WAAAHHH!" he yelled as he fell on the same sticky substance that trapped him from moving.
"Way to go Flash!" he said as the walker was ready to finish him off.
"Fool!...Hang on hot shot!" Lantern cursed as he flew towards the walker and shot one of its legs as it broke. The walker couldn't balance itself as it fell down and incapacitated.
"Huh...I am kinda stuck here!" Flash said weakened from effort to get out.
"Let's hope others are faring better than us" Stewart said.
...
With John and Diana...
John and Diana landed near the sphinx a hundred meters away. The griffin reached the place with low engine output and masked its presence. From the air, they jumped the ground as they proceeded towards the spire.
"Hiding is not the Amazonian way of fighting" Diana said.
"I could do the same thing. But if they find our presence and decided to move into city. There will be casualties which I don't want in my mission" he replied in a militaristic sense.
John then scanned the entire complex for opening but there seems to be too many walkers, though with no opening except the vent from which the cloud is created.
"Looks like there is no opening, but we need to sneak in" he said.
"Then allow me to do the honors" Diana said as she rushed towards one of the walker. John was going to stop but Cortana interfered.
"John wait! Let's see what she can do" Cortana said to which he complied. Diana ran towards one of the walker that was alone as she grabbed its attention. She spun her lasso and threw it at one of the limb's anchor point and flew at high speed and tied all the three limbs and then pulled the rope with maximum strength.
"ughh...ughh...HERA!...GIVE ME STRENGTH!" she said as she made the walker lose balance and fall down only to hit the spire's bottom and break the abdomen, creating a huge hole. John was impressed by her abilities.
"She really is a wonder, John-..uh-oh! Multiple walkers approaching her!" Cortana warned.
"Talon launchers will also hurt her at close proximity. So going to snipe mode" he said as he summoned a large black alien looking AMX-100 sniper rifle into his right hand. He then interfaced with its scope to aim from his visor and identify a weak spot.
**BAAM**
Then he fired a shot as the super dense silicon condensate bullet pierced the body of a walker, carrying whatever it could from the inside, as it fell lifeless. Diana slowly began to gain the upper hand as John fired another shot as another walker lay lifeless. There were only three more as he quickly sniped them. With that, all the walkers were done and John's visor picked no more targets nearby. He then walked towards her.
"Huh, looks like that's the last of them" Diana said as she knocked dust of her hands.
"Yes, let us go inside"
...
With Batman and Martian...
They both went to Poland to take care of the present spire. They both carefully entered the complex undetected with J'onn acting as a scanner for threats.
"J'onn, can I ask you something?" Batman asked to which the Martian looked at him.
"You said the Spartan was a telepath? Is he like you?" he asked and J'onn could understand where he was getting at.
"Yes and quite powerful too. Although its nature is intriguing. Its different, I can't explain. But he is not someone to be messed with" J'onn replied.
"That much I am aware" Batman said as the alarms started to go off.
"What the hell?" Batman muttered.
"THEY HAVE FOUND US!" Martian yelled as multiple hostile aliens rounded them both with guns pointed at them.
J'onn instantly became intangible as he let the soldiers fire upon themselves. Batman used a electric brass knuckles and punched through each and every soldier as he evaded their gun fire.
"Batman, the central control is one level above. We need to go there as immediately!" J'onn warned him.
"First we need to get past them"he yelled back as he threw 3 explosive batarangs that exploded and killed multiple aliens. But soon they were outnumbered.
"Lets move towards that door" J'onn said as he intangibly moved fast as he swiftly beat the soldiers along the way while Batman used batarangs to kill some on his own.
"Stop them from reaching central control" an alien soldier yelled as they are fired at them.
Batman used his grappling gun to anchor to a highest point beyond the door and climbed above as J'onn flew alongside him.
**BASH...BAAM...CLUKKK...KKRRRZAAKK** J'onn and Batman killed some soldiers who were ready to kill them both. Then entered another chambers which was huge as they saw alien beings working with some computers.
"This is the Central control" J'onn said as Batman eyed on something bulged in the network of these organic structures.
"The Spartan and his AI said that there are thousands of spires around the world, but only four are said to generate the cloud. This chamber should hold something specific. What's that crystal inside?" Batman asked peering with his analytical skills.
"That's the Ion matrix crystal. Its what that powers these machines to generate the cloud" J'onn replied.
Batman now had an idea as a plan started to form in his mind. After all, this is something he has dealt with previously when Scarecrow drowned the entire Gotham with fear toxin cloud burst. He re-engineered the chemicals to neutralize it.
...
Back at Metroplis with Hawkgirl and Superman
As Hawkgirl and Superman reached the Metropolis spire, the place was already under assault.
"HAAAHHH!" The Thanagarian let a battle cry as she pummeled a walker with a mace to its top body that broke and exploded. Superman swiftly got to another walker and choped its legs and an uppercut to its body that finished it. Then he threw the walker towards the spire to break open a passage.
"Hawkgirl, follow me!" Superman urged her to get inside. As they both flew they landed into a passage way that ws like a network.
"Keep your eyes sharp" Superman said.
"I always do" she replied. As they both walked, suddenly the alien soldiers started to shoot a them.
"Stand back! I'll-.."
"HAAAH!" Hawkgirl already flew past him ignoring his words as he beat every soldier left and right with her mace and beat the last one so hard that it flew above Superman and splashed behind the wall.
"Whoa!" he saw turning to look at her to find all the hostiles have been dealt with.
"What? There's a time for talk and time for action! Let's go!" she said as they proceeded to move inside.
They walked the passage for quite sometime as they didn't see any resistance for a long time.
"Odd, there's no one here and we have not met any resistance. Something's not right" Superman said feeling conflicted with the situation.
"They are close by. I can almost smell them" Hawkgirl said to which Superman looked confused.
"Are you always this eager to fight?" he asked.
"My home world Thanagar is always warlike. We either strike first or die!" she replied.
**ZZAATT** a rifle fired in their direction.
"That way!" Superman yelled as they moved into a large room as the front door closed. Then the back closed too. They both were looking all around to look for an exit only to find that suddenly a yellow gas started to spray out
**COUGH COUGH** Hawkgirl coughed allergic to the gas as she fell down.
"Damn! This is a trap!" Superman realized.
"Hang on Hawkgirl!" Superman yelled as he tried to break open the rear door only to be shocked with a very high voltage electricity.
"AAAAAHHHHHH!" Superman yelled in pain as he too fell unconscious as his visions blurred looking at the Thanagarian.
...
With GL and Flash again
"You look and act alike an amateur! Should have brought Wonder Woman with me! Do you know anything about team work?" Stewart yelled at Flash who screwed up the mission.
"Alright, can you please have this motivational speech after?" Flash asked sarcastically as Lantern fired his ring to cut the solidified glue as Flash moved his arms and legs to break free.
The other walker began raining down the bullets and fire the energy beam. Stewart shielded himself within a bubble, but then it fired a gas grenade that filled the bubble with the gas that reacted negatively on him as he coughed and fell down.
"No! GL!" Flash yelled only to find the walker was closing in on them.
"uh-oh! Looks like we gotta run" Flash said as he carried green lantern and sprinted away from the place.
...
With John and Diana
John and Diana managed to get the attention of every single hostile as they all converged to open fire on them.
"Looks like we got their attention, Spartan" Diana said as she deflected their fires back at them as John was firing his pulse fusion rifle. John having analyzed their tissue found that high temperature is a weakness. The protostar rounds melted through them as they became nothing but a slag.
Suddenly a huge 4 legged arachnid like being jumped to the ground that shook the place. Just as it saw Diana in a point blank range, it fired its energy beam.
"Diana! Watch out!" John warned her. Diana saw what he was referring to and used her braces to block the attack, but the force was enough to push her back.
"RRRGH!" she grunted in response. When it began to fire again, John telekinetically blocked the attack, lifted it mid-air and threw it at great speed at the opposite end where the impact killed some soldiers and also deactivated the arachnid being.
"Thanks Spartan" she said in gratitude to which he nodded.
John knew he had to bring the spire down as soon as possible. So he used his visor to do a through scan to see if there is any critical component and finally found a bulged container containing a crystal. The visor then displayed information about the crystal as some sort of power catalyst that creates this particulates.
"Looks like we hit the jackpot" he thought.
He decided to use his telepathy to reach out to other 3 teams for status only to become fazed at the sit-rep.
"Oh no!" John muttered which Diana heard.
"What happened?" Diana asked in worry.
"*SIGH* Superman and Hawkgirl have been taken captive" he said to which she gasped.
"No, that can't be! Are you sure?" she asked not willing to believe what he said, but he nodded as affirmative.
"*SIGH*"
"I'm sorry. Diana, you get out of this spire, rendezvous with the other teams and save them before they torture them both to death. I will take care of this one" John said.
"Leaving you here alone? I cannot do that Spartan!" she denied leaving him alone.
"Please! I will be fine. These things can't hurt me. Besides, I have a notion as how to stop this. I will explain right on time. Use my Griffin fighter to get there fast. I am putting in the coordinates and engage auto pilot" he said. Diana hesitated for a moment, but then the Spartan gave a calm thumbs up to which she smiled and nodded. Then she went back the same way as the door closed behind.
John watched as the hostile species fired upon him to no effect. His battle suit can easily withstand a supernova. He took his rifle to simply open fire on them as one after another the alien beings died as they melted, screaming in agony. The magazine got over as he reloaded the weapon with fresh lithium canister. But the hostiles have been taken care of in the chamber.
He then walked towards the catalyst.
"Batman, do you hear me?" he called him over the comm. He got a response a second later.
"Yes Spartan. But how did you reach out to my communicator?" Batman asked wondering how the armored man managed to figure out his comm frequency.
"Listen, I have found a catalyst that seems to be generating this particulate" he said.
"I know! Its the Ion matrix crystal. These things know we are after it. If I can somehow alter the polarity, it will reverse the ion flow-..." Batman said
"And the spire will disperse the cloud. Do you have the resources to pull it off?" he asked the detective willing to help him if required.
"Yes, back at my lair. I'll need some time" Batman replied.
"Fine, I will take care of this one in Egypt. And then we have a rescue mission. I hope you know-..."
"I know, Superman and Hawkgirl are held captive" J'onn replied this time through to his telepathy.
"See you all at the rendezvous point" he said as he cut the comm.
"Cortana?" he called out.
"John, I have already fabricated a small bi-polar gating device. Sending it to your slipspace container" Cortana said who had been listening to the conversation.
"Commander, we have found a way to completely wipe out these creatures across the globe!" Miranda said which relieved the Spartan.
"Glad to hear it. May I know the process involved?" he asked, as Miranda began her explanation that stunned him. While he know what she said is possible, he was still worried about the civilian casualties and the odds of success.
"Since disrupting the spires will cause trouble on geological scale, this is our only way" she finished.
"Fine, I hope this works without hiccups. Once I am done with this spire, I have to move on to save Superman and Hawkgirl" he said which saddened them both.
"Then hurry John, they don't deserve to be foods for these scums" Cortana said which he acknowledged.
He then summoned the bi-polar gating device in his right palm. Then summoned a telekinetic sword in his left arm and cut the hard sheath that protected the crystal. He then placed the device over the crystal. The device released a high gain negative current that changed the polarity of the crystal and there by altering the entire catalysis. He watched as the red chemicals turned blue and from the spire's vent, a powerful blue energy blasted through the sky as the smoke started to clear out slowly revealing the blue sky and the yellow sunlight as John let an evasive smirk.
He then decided to teleport back to Metropolis.
...
Back at Metropolis...
The civilians were yelling in fear as they ran in random directions as fires raged. People breaking into shops and stealing goods. J'onn and Wonder Woman watched it from a building roof top.
"Perhaps mother was right about mankind. They are nothing but untamed savages" she said disgusted by their actions.
"Don't judge them too harshly. They act out of fear" J'onn said.
"I hope my mental shield over Batman holds long enough. Else, these creatures will find what we are up to" J'onn hopefully thought. Green lantern and Flash reached their position by that time.
"Sorry for the delay, we had to help some civilians" Stewart said.
"Why did you call us back?" Flash asked
"Superman and Hawkgirl are being held captive inside the structure. We have to help them" J'onn pointing to the Metropolis spire.
"What about Batman and the Spartan?" Flash asked. Diana thought about the Spartan for a moment who she left alone.
"Batman is missing, but he is alive. I can sense it" J'onn lied to them which tensed the others.
"Wait, Batman's missing too!?" Diana asked wide eyed as now she was worried for both the spartan and the dark knight who she felt were the most level headed of all. Flash having known the Bats and that he had faced superhuman foes and took them down, can't believe he's missing amidst the fight.
"The Spartan sent me save Superman and Hawkgirl while he planned to tend to that factory alone" Diana said .
"Alone? Is he crazy?" Stewart was irate at the actions of the mysterious spartan.
"He is more than you think. He can do it" J'onn said in a monotonous voice which made the others wonder what he meant by that.
"I agree on that. Remember how he blasted those enemy crafts sky high?" Flash said reminding everyone of that part of fight.
"Then we better hurry and save the two" Green Lantern said to which others agreed.
The four flew towards the spire and entered the same way Superman and Hawkgirl used. They went deep inside only to meet an endless silence that didn't sit well with any of them. They didn't encounter any resistance.
"This isn't right. Why haven't we encountered anyone so far?" J'onn thought as they all approached another room only to find Superman and Hawkgirl hung upside down from the ceiling.
"There they are!" Diana said.
Green lantern slowly went near them only for the both to open their eyes which appeared blood red.
*GASP*
"IT'S A TRAP!" J'onn yelled but they were too late. The strange yellow gas filled the room as everyone coughed and started to feel unconscious.
"Stewart-..*COUGH*...your ring!" Diana said as she fell down struggling to breath.
"I-..UGH-...CAN'T-...*COUGH*-...FOCUS-..." Lantern too struggled to breath as he tried to use the ring but fell unconscious as his vision blurred and watched them both morph into their original form.
...
With the Spartan
John teleported to a building top near the spire only to find there were destroyed walkers.
"John, we got a bad news! A large ship is heading towards your position that matches these alien profiles" Cortana said in a comm.
"Can you intercept?" John asked.
"Negative commander! We are in the opposite side of the planet. Also a short range teleportation of a ship this size is impossible. But give us some time, we will anchor to your position" Miranda replied.
"You got it. 117 out" John replied as he closed the channel.
He then spotted Batman near by the spire and decided to go to him.
"Did you succeed in your plan?" the Spartan asked from behind.
Batman was calm and collected as he replied.
"Yes. What about you?" he asked.
"A bi-polar gating device to reverse the ion flow, took care of the one in Egypt" he said. Batman was quite amazed as he too found a way to do exactly what he was planning to do. He agreed the big man knew his stuff.
"A similar device I made. I already sent two of my associates in Mexico and Poland to place the device in the crystal" he replied.
"You sent them alone?" John asked feeling as sending some one to such a heavily guarded spires was too risky.
"No worries. The hostiles have been taken care of. Satellite images show zero life signs around those spires" Batman said understanding the logic behind his question.
"So this is the last one" he said.
"Yes, but the others are held inside captive. We must hurry" Batman said to which he nodded. By that time, the alien vessel flew near the spire as it disengaged a small craft that flew and positioned above the spire's top entrance as it.
"That must be that of their leader's. Let's enter the spire from two ends and meet at the main chamber" Spartan said to which he nodded as they proceeded to move inside through the broken pathway.
J'onn J'onzz slowly opened his eyes, his blurred vision cleared up as he heard an echoed voice yelling his name.
"J'OOONNNN-...JH'OOONNNN-...J'ONN! Wake up!" It was Superman trying to wake the Martian.
John moved in through the network of pathways as his visor guided him towards the central control. Then he finally reached the narrow passage that led to an opening. He knelt down to watch the entire chamber. To his right were the heroes locked up. In the straight direction, he watched an alien looking directly at them.
"Earth's Mightiest Heroes! What a pity to be here!" the alien spoke in a mocking fashion as it morphed into a human, precisely as Senator Carter.
"Senator Carter!" Superman said with distaste.
"Your Senator never left the marsh land alive. So I assumed the role, made you weaken Earth's defenses, hmm ha hah!" it said.
"It not over yet" Stewart yelled. Then their leader, the Imperium, a huge spherical purple transparent being with multiple tentacles. That came down and began mocking, directly addressing the Martian.
"J'onn J'onzz, Its good to see you again!" the Imperium spoke as J'onn was irritated by its jest.
"It's good we are maintaining discretion. Else they would have tortured them to expose ourselves" Cortana said through the speaker which he agreed. Element of surprise was a must in this situation.
But the Martian sensed something as he let a smile.
"NOW!" J'onn yelled as suddenly a black object flew and exploded over the huge bulbous thing that formed a huge crack. As the smoke clear, they saw Batman, hanging over.
Then all of a sudden, from another direction,
**BOOOMMM** a huge explosion as a tall armored humanoid leapt from high above as he summoned the Adamantine hammer, charged its head full. And as he landed, struck the ground with an explosive sound as it released energy towards the aliens and splashed them out. This distraction was enough for Batman to insert the device as the crack sealed itself and began to turn it into blue color.
"GUYS!" Flash yelled in shock.
"No way!" Diana said equally in awe.
"I knew they were here and waited for the right moment" J'onn said with a smile.
"No! NO! What have you done?" the Carter imposter asked.
"Reversed the ion flow" he replied casually.
"DESTROY THE CRYSTAL, KILL THEM ALL!" The Imperium yelled to the other aliens. The alien soldiers fired at the crystal only for it to have no effects.
"It's shielded" one of them said. Meanwhile Batman used a laser cutter to free the others.
"UV rays. These aliens have no protection against them with the cloud dispersed, let'em have a full taste of it" Batman said as he freed Diana and Hawkgirl. Superman smiled as the sunlight fell and nourished him, from the roof hole caused by an explosion. He smiled as he used his heat vision to break himself open.
Meanwhile the Spartan who took the brunt of fire from the others, sent the hammer back through slipspace and summoned the telekinetic swords from his upper wrists. His vision covered a broad area. The next moment, he dashed as blinding speed as he first impaled one alien as it died roaring. Then he swiftly cut the other two in 'X' fashion and then he rolled front, then extended his arms to the side and spun at 360 degrees to cut three aliens like wet paper.
He connected the spin with forward sprint as he cut down four more aliens that tried use their morphed hand weapons only to get slice and diced as they scream in death.
Batman watched him as he rescued the others only to be stupefied by his fluid movement. He could see a grace in every kill move he made. He firmly believed that no man should be able to do that in an armor like that and being that tall and stocky. Not only him, as the other heroes were shocked at the sight of his dance of death.
"DAMN! He's fast as a bullet!" Flash thought.
"He's fighting like a veteran! As if he's been doing this for a long time!" Hawkgirl thought, being born in a warlike world, this was still stunning for her.
"I thank them for talking some sense into me to prevent picking fight with him!" Green lantern thought feeling relieved that he never picked a fight with the Spartan.
"He must have been blessed by the Gods to be this good! He truly is a Spartan!" Diana thought in a warrior sense acknowledging his skills on the contrary to her upbringing in her home land.
As the fight progressed, the tides began favoring the heroes as the sunlight fell with the cloud completely gone. The aliens running in fear to hide and those who cant roared as they turned into molten slag.
J'onn grabbed the Imperium's tentacle as he dragged it towards the sunlight. The skin burned and boiled with white puss.
"You live underground and shun the light! WHY? Does it burn your pale putrid flesh!" J'onn angered as the Imperium struggled but gave a shock to J'onn to free itself and move underneath it's craft to escape.
"So you did find the weakness" Diana asked as everyone were freed.
"Yes!" Batman replied.
Soon, the others joined the Spartan in the battle as the Imperium escaped into its craft and began to move towards it's ship. Hawkgirl used her mace to bash through the aliens left and right, Flash speed blitzing over one after another, Diana used her strength to throw them and deflect their fires back at them. J'onn used his intangibility and strength to crush them.
John watched the Imperium escape. He never planned to leave anyone alive, So he channeled gravitational energy in his arms and transferred it to the craft and held it firmly in its place. The craft was generating kilo-tons of thrust force but it was nothing for him. He used his armor integrity to firmly hold it in its place. The heroes were amazed by the feat he pulled in front of them. So far, one after another, it only added mystery to the spartan.
"HAWKGIRL!" he yelled as she flew to the bow of the craft
"HUUAHHH!" she charged her mace and blasted the craft that cracked. Then she once again hit it with full charge and this time, it blasted and destroyed the craft.
"That was impressive Spartan!" Superman said as he threw a huge piece of floor over the remaining aliens.
"Thanks"
"The cowards are fleeing the planet!" Diana said in anger.
"Not on my watch" he said calmly to which everyone looked at him confused.
"Captain? Blast it down!" he said through the comm.
"With pleasure!" she replied. The others wondered who this lady was as her voice was different from the AI they have seen before.
"Suddenly a powerful particle beam came down from sky that pierced and blasted the entire ship. The ship blew with a brightness of a star as it died into trillions of pieces that can't even be seen with naked eye.
"WHAT THE DEVIL WAS THAT!" Green Lantern yelled in terror. Other's face turned emotionless. But Superman gasped in terror looking at the sky.
"What happened?" Hawkgirl asked looking at the man of steel as his eyes were fixed towards the sky. Then he slowly turned towards the Spartan with a stern looks.
"That ship? Is it yours?" Superman asked shrinking his eyebrows. Others didn't even understand what he was referring to, except John who is aware of Superman's telescopic sight.
"Yes, I will explain later. The threat here is contained, but the aliens are still at large around the world" the Spartan said.
"I agree. Batman can track down the locations so that we can finish them off" Green Lantern said.
"No need. I have something handy. But first, let's get outside" he said to which others nodded though wary of the armored human who had been so discrete till this moment.
As they all gathered out,
"So what's this plan of yours?" Diana asked.
"You'll see...Cortana? Is it ready?"
"A long time ago. Just waiting for your go ahead" she replied enthusiastic.
"Go ahead, cleanse the planet" he said calmly that made others wide eyed.
"Cleanse the planet!? What the hell that's supposed to mean?" Flash asked worried about his implications.
"Cleanse? What the hell are you talking about, Damn it!?" Green Lantern yelled in anger.
Sudden as bright streak of light blinked in the sky as they all felt a huge energy pulse passing through everywhere around them.
"Alfred!? What's happening?' Batman asked tensed at the situation.
"SIR! Our satellites have detected a powerful energy surge penetrating the entire planet. But-...But SIR? This is interesting. The pulse is destroying every alien beings including several thousands of their spires" his butler replied which confused the dark knight.
"Everyone! Look!" J'onn asked the others to see where he was seeing only to find the spire they were in was crumbling into dust. They all were awestruck with what happened. The final feeling of relief, They have won!
"How the hell did you do that?" Flash asked.
"A weapon we made in our ship to target these aliens on a planetary scale" he replied.
In fact the weapon was nothing but a device that can emit a neurogenic degenerative pulse at a frequency that resonates with the neural processing frequency of these alien beings gathered from the tissue data sent by him. The device's pulse was amplified a little by his ship's main weapon Thanatos, as it released the amplified pulse and destroyed all the alien beings and the structures associated with them. As the pulse spread, the hostile extraterrestrials could think of nothing but dwell in their own demise as it turned everything to dust.
The world has been cleansed of these parasites. This was infact the idea of Miranda Keyes, who suggested the use of something similar to a Halo pulse but on a planetary scale to target these alien beings. John and Cortana were impressed and glad that she was still in her game.
"The pulse has obliterated every hostiles in the planet 100%. Congratulations! The World Is Saved" Cortana said through the speakers.
"YES!" Flash yelled in joy as others too felt happy at the outcome.
"Thank you Spartan! This saved us a lot of head ache. We all don't know anything about you. But you helped us a lot-...helped-... the planet that I call home" Superman said.
"I must admit, this could have taken months to finish until the world returns to normal. Now all we have to do is help the world recover" Hawkgirl said.
"No need to thank me. I was doing my duty as soldier" John replied that made the others smile. John, with the power he has could have easily destroyed the aliens with simple brute force tactics. But he is a leader who always fights enemies making sure the innocents never get caught in crossfire.
Diana who was brought up in a land where men are considered insignificant changed her opinion opinion with the super powered individuals she fought along with to save Earth. Most notably, the Spartan, he was calm and level headed and strategic minded, but a true demon when it comes to fight. Green Lantern, though he was glad the Spartan helped, was still wary of him and his motives. J'onn J'onzz was quiet all this time as he too didn't know anything about him, but recognized his strength and value in this fight. Batman for his part though never saw his face, he could weigh with his tone. He could see a soldier's discipline in him and a lot of technological mysteries that irked the great scientist in him.
"Now with this all over, May we know who you are really?" Superman asked.
"Sure, but not now. The world still needs our help to recover, tend to the wounded and damage assessment" he said.
"He's right. We can talk about this later" Batman replied.
"Fine, lets move" Diana said as they all moved and scattered throughout the world.
The media had undivided attention on every hero documenting their efforts with clean up and medical aid. Especially the Spartan was given more attention as his medical and technological assistance already caught the sight of peering eyes of the public and billionaire industrialists who were amazed by the things he possessed at his disposal. Some less than savory group wanted to steal tech from him even his armor for study.
But overall, things were going smooth for the next couple of days. John though tried hard still couldn't hide from the prying cameras, but he never much thought to it. Even he never gave any answer to any of the questions raised by the press on spot. At any rate, the world is aware of his existence now.
...
Aboard the flag ship...
John used the griffin fighter to get back to his ship as he removed his armor that fragmented back into slipspace. Wearing a civilian dress he walked into the bridge, greeted by Captain Keyes with a salute. He returned the gesture.
"At ease captain. So what's the sit-rep?" he asked as there were many floating 3D hardlight panels, consoles and displays and a projection of Earth with highlights that scrolled on the details.
"The planet is healing faster than we imagined. People are returning to their normal lives. You did great!" she said.
"WE-...We did great! By the way, your idea to wipe them out was a daring move" he said to which she nodded, her face beamed.
"Huh, Cortana's right. He hasn't changed one bit" Miranda thought. She could see the spirit of a great leader, yet the character of a simple soldier.
"Cortana?" he called his friend.
"Welcome back! You've clearly made an impression in this world!" she grinned.
"Cortana, can you establish contact with the New-Genesis?" he asked finally to address something that he shelved for a while.
"On it" she replied as she opened a comm channel to the New Genesis comm array end-point. In a second, a secured channel was established with a successful marker appearing in the display.
"Communication established commander" Cortana said as the face of a humanoid with a strange helmet appeared.
"Spartan! Glad to hear from you again! *SIGH*...Especially with the way the things are going as of now, good to see a friendly face" Metron, the scientist of their people spoke though he sounded crest fallen.
"What's wrong?" he asked, having a feeling that he's not gonna like what he hears.
"A day after those machines attacked, we observed something. A mother box, one of the universe's biggest energy source and a sentient super computer has gone missing from our vault" he said. John, Miranda and Cortana shared a glance at one another. Though John had a little idea about these Mother boxes from Earth's records, they are still in the dark only.
"How big of a threat are we talking about?" John asked.
"The end of everything-...the universe! Who ever did this, we have no trail of them, not even a faintest idea of their motivation" Metron replied grimly which startled the others.
"Is that the only one?" he asked.
"No, there are three boxes. One is lost. The other one is on Earth. The third one is well hidden by its creator that no one knows" Metron replied.
"Wait, one on Earth!? Then we need to secure it!" John thought about the priorities.
"We can help you find it. This box must have a unique energy signature that I can use it to trace the emission pattern. I can use the one on Earth as a base. But I need to secure it too" John said.
"Agreed. We will do what we can from here. Farewell Spartan" Metron said as the comm closed on both ends.
"So this is what the Warden mentioned about succeeding in New-Genesis" Miranda said connecting the dots.
"Yes, this is far worse than we imagined. Cortana, can you track the mother box on Earth?" John asked.
"Negative Commander, somehow our sensors don't pickup any anomalous energy signature on Earth" replied Cortana which made him sigh as he proceeded to think on the next possible course of action before its too late.
John started to feel like he's got another new mission that involves the fate of the universe. The last time, it was the Flood and the Ceph. Now, not sure what or who's cooking a recipe of annihilation.
"You said Superman has acquainted with the New-Genesis in the past. May be he can help finding the box" Miranda said.
"Yeah, that might work. We can talk to him" Cortana supported the Idea.
"Then its time we revealed ourselves to them" John said as they watched a news feed by Snapper Carr.
"This is Snapper Carr from the daily planet as we can see the world is recovering fast from the alien assault two days ago, thanks to the band of superheroes and the mysterious armored calling himself the Spartan-...General, what do you think of the current situation?"
"We may have defeated them, but we must be prepared for another onslaught like this. My question is how much are we ready should another civilization comes to us with hostile intentions!?"
Batman who was in his bat cave sat in front of his monitor as he watched the feed. He agreed with the general's point. How much are we ready? Well, he's got an answer to it.
...
Two months later
In the Geo sync orbit, stood a massive space station that acted as a guard for the planet, the Watch tower.
Superman watched his adopted home planet with a warmth on his face. Batman walked behind him looking at the same world.
"Impressive! Does your stock holders know about this Bruce?" Superman asked.
"A little line item in the Wayne Aerospace R&D budget, this watch tower will serve as the early warning system for potential threats to our planet from deep space" Batman explained.
Flash and Diana walked towards them with a glass of fruit squash in their hands.
"And it has a fully loaded kitchen. Ice mocha?" he asked the man of steel.
"No thanks"
Diana took a sip and the taste was good for her.
"Hmm, it tastes good. They don't have these in Themyscira" she said.
"Stick around princess, I will walk you through" Flash said with a smirk.
"Perhaps I will"
Green Lantern and Hawkgirl slowly descended down towards their position.
"Impressive installation! But what its got to do with us?" Stewart asked.
Superman's face turned serious as turned to look at Earth once more.
"I once believed I could protect this planet alone. But I was wrong. Together, we saved the whole world! As a team. Working together will help us keep up the ideals of peace and justice, that which we strive for everyday" he said.
"What? Are we some sort of a bunch of super friends now?" Flash asked excited.
"More like the Justice League" Superman said with a smile as he placed his right arm out.
"Do you have any idea how corny that sounds? But may be he Big man's right about us working as a team to save the world. Count me in" Flash said assured, as he placed his hand over.
"Me too" Green lantern placed his hand.
"And me" Hawkgirl walked over as she placed her hand over the others.
"My mother may not approve of this. But I find man's world intriguing" Diana said agreeing to be part of the team.
"What about you Batman?" Superman asked turning to the dark knight.
"I am not much of a people person. But when you need help-...and you will, you know where to find me" he replied stoically.
"Understood"
Diana looked around searching for someone.
"Where is J'onn?" she asked.
"Yeah, where's he?" Flash asked.
Superman turned around as he flew above to find him standing over the observation deck watching the endless void. He flew towards him and stood beside.
"J'onn we were looking for you" he said to which the Martian was silent staring at Mars.
"J'onn you alright?" he asked.
"My world, my people, My loved ones-...all are gone!" the Martian said ached as his voice trembled in sorrow. Superman placed his hands over his shoulder.
"I know how it feels" the man of steel said having dealt with a similar thing of losing his own people.
"Mars is dead-...I am alone in this universe!" he said lowering his head down.
"J'onn, we can never replace the family you lost. Trust me, I know what it is to be alone. But I would be honored if you begin to call Earth as your home, just like I did" he said with a smile extending his hand. J'onn completely understood the man of steel's words and didn't find any fault. He smiled and shook hands with him.
As they both walked towards the group, Hawkgirl brought up something of greater relevance.
"What about him? The Spartan?" Hawkgirl asked.
"Yeah, doesn't he have a stake in this too?" Flash added his opinion.
"Yes, he did help us fight these aliens and even with the two days of recovery and clean up" Diana said
"Except for the fact that he disappeared for two months and even I couldn't find his ship that Superman claimed he saw in the sky during the fight" Green Lantern said
"There is still a great mystery about him" Batman said rubbing his chin.
"How are we gonna find him?" Superman asked.
"Not to worry. Look at the back" J'onn said as everyone gathered over the central control where they watched a strange black alien craft flying towards the Watch tower's hanger as Batman opened the bay doors to let the craft inside.
The craft was huge as if it could fill 20 persons inside. It slowly touched the ground with the engines powering off. Then the door opened in three fragments as they all watched a tall armored human walking towards them.
"Spartan, just now we were talking about you" Diana said welcoming him.
"Yeah man! Where were you all this time" Flash asked.
"Apologies, had to take care of something beyond the solar system" he replied. That's when Cortana's hardlight form appeared near him.
"Yeah, make sure there were no threats as far as the interstellar space from here. That would be another headache. By the way, how are you fellas doing?" Cortana asked folding her hands with a glee on her face. Diana for her part understood that she was not a real human in flesh though acted like one with such emotions.
"We are doing just fine" she replied with a warm smile.
"We had a proposition that we were discussing and wished to talk to you about that" Superman said.
"I hope its not urgent. Because I came here on an important matter" he said in an emotionless tone.
"Is it about the explanations on your origins?" Batman asked
"Yes, we can board my pelican so that we can talk inside my ship" he said.
"What ship?" Stewart asked to which Cortana waved her right thumb towards the window as everyone watched outside. They all witnessed a huge ship that dwarfed the watch tower like an ant as it revealed itself out of a warped spatial manifold. The huge behemoth of a space ship of completely alien design appeared as everyone's mouth gaped like a fish.
"JESUS CHRRRR-...*POP*" Flash free fell to the ground stupefied at the sight.
"WHAT-...IS-...THAT?" Hawkgirl asked as she saw a ship the size of a state of America. Superman was the only one not shocked at this moment as he had already observed this ship on the last day of fight.
...
John and the other league members entered the pelican as Cortana auto guided the pelican towards Labyrinth's hanger. Once reached, the pelican landed as they all got out of the dropship to be greeted at the sight of a humongous space were they watched oddly shaped Argus drones flying here and there, doing routine maintenance. super advanced floating robotic arms working over the landed pelican.
"Holy crap! This is the best thing I've ever seen!" Flash yelled in excitement. He even managed to spot a food generator.
"Wait! That's a food generator?" Flash asked to which Green Lantern bumped his arm with his elbow.
Superman tried to use X-ray vision, but he couldn't see past the walls as the materials blocked his visions. Batman for his part was astounded by the technologies present. To him, he believes they are eons ahead of them and wondered who would have developed such sophisticated technologies.
Cortana then popped right in front of them.
"Welcome to Labyrinth of Chaos, the flag ship of human military" Cortana greeted them.
"Human? No way we could have built a ship this size with-...technologies that are beyond our understanding!" Green Lantern said.
"We will explain everything once we get to the conference room" John said as he guided them to a nearby elevator. The elevator was huge that could hold 15 people with enough free space. As they all entered, John used a hardlight console to activate the elevator to 100th floor. The platform moved with the use of artificial gravity at a great speed though they never felt the inertia.
In 2 minutes they reached the 100th floor, as they walked towards the series of hall ways that looked more like facilities of some kind. Finally they reached the conference hall that was large. There was a large elliptical table with line of chairs. And then they all notice a woman, having a look of 30 yrs old, standing 5'9 in a dark blue armor like uniform(Officer armor). This is the third unknown person they are meeting now. Cortana was there already
"Welcome aboard everyone! I am Captain Miranda Keyes of the UGSC. Please have a seat" She said with a warm welcome. Everyone sat down with 3(Batman, Superman, Hawkgirl) on one side and 4(Stewart, Flash, Diana and Martian) on the other side.
"What is this UGSC?" Diana asked.
"United Inter-Galactic Space Command, Governing military body of Humanity" John answered.
"But there is no such thing on Earth. You are either delusional or lying straight to our face" Green Lantern said not buying his theory. Miranda didn't like his attitude, he was more like a simple rowdy subordinate. But she kept her cool.
"You are right on that regard-...for THIS Earth, Mr. Stewart" Cortana said which made the others confused while GL, Martian, Batman and Superman were shocked to hear this.
"THIS Earth-...Wait!-...Do you mean to say-..." Superman choked on his words realizing on something he was familiar with.
"How much are you aware of the alternate universes" John asked as others looked at them in awe.
To be continued...
From the next chapter, you will see the Justice league series. Also I would like to hear your thoughts and opinions.