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Four
By the time they reached Metropolis, Kate's face was so cold from the whipping night air that she couldn't feel it anymore. She hadn't thought to remove her beanie before J'onn had taken off with her in his arms, either, so that had been torn from her head. As the Martian put her down, she nearly collapsed, but she'd been holding so tightly to his neck that her arms would not unwind themselves, and therefore, she used him to keep herself upright. "S-S-Sorry," she said, teeth chattering from the cold, yet inside her heavy winter coat and boots, she was sweating. Probably, she was shivering more from nerves than from the temperature.
"Carrying you may have been a mistake," he told her.
"Yeah, I think I'll take the Batwing next time," she said, managing to let go of him now. Her arms ached from holding so tightly. "I didn't choke you, did I?"
He almost seemed to smile, and her powers caught a flash of amusement. "No."
Diana and Batman were approaching them now.
Listen to me, he said into her mind. I do not mean to belittle you, but you have absolutely no combat training and have never been in a situation like this.
You're not belittling me, she said quickly, eager to hear any advice he had for her.
You must do whatever we tell you to do. Do you understand? Never get ahead of us, never ignore an order.
Right, she said, and swallowed. Inside her mind there seemed to be two juxtaposing thoughts running. One was that none of this was real and that she was going to wake up at some point and all of this will have been a strange dream. The other was that this was very real and that she was going to die. She still wasn't sure which thought to believe.
Diana and Batman met them where she and J'onn were standing. Kate realized that, given how many words she and the Martian had exchanged, and how short the distance had been between themselves and where Batman had landed his jet, that she and J'onn must have been thinking at each other much faster than one could speak aloud. It filled her with a strange sensation. Could all Telepaths—of which she apparently was one—communicate this quickly?
###
"Hiding like cowards is not the Amazon way!" Diana said some time later as she, Kate, and Batman snuck around, watching.
"They must have a weakness," Batman replied, with the tired patience of a man who had said this a thousand times already. "When we find it, we'll strike."
Kate merely eyed the two of them silently, then went back to watching the Walkers. She still felt like an outsider here whose limited powers couldn't really do much in this situation, so she mostly tried to stay out of the way.
J'onn appeared before them, rising up out of the ground like a ghost before turning fully solid.
Batman's expression was hidden behind his mask, though his mouth opened a little in surprise, and Diana stared at the Martian openly. Kate smiled a little in amusement at their reactions. She, on the other hand, had known he was coming.
"I have scouted the outer walls," J'onn said. "There are no openings."
"Then we'll make our own!" Diana proclaimed, and took off into the air.
J'onn motioned to go after her, fear for her safety zinging through him, but Batman lay a hand on his chest. "Wait. Let's see what she can do."
Kate had forgotten that Diana was just as untested as she was. Though, as she watched the Amazon woman bring down a Walker all by herself, tying its legs together with her lasso and sending it crashing to the ground, she suddenly felt even more inadequate than she had two minutes ago.
"There's your opening," Diana proclaimed, gesturing at the giant hole she'd knocked into the side of the building with the invaders' own weapon.
J'onn and Batman stood stunned for a moment. Kate eyed them, then eyed Diana, and wanted to sink into the ground and disappear because there was no way she'd ever be that useful to the group. She'd only slow everyone down. It wasn't that she was jealous of them; she'd never wanted to be a superhero. It was that the entire world was at stake, and they could not afford to be babysitting her when they needed to be doing other, much more important things.
"Not bad," Batman told Diana, and took off after her, into the hole.
J'onn lay a hand on Kate's shoulder, bringing her out of her thoughts. Without a word between them, she knew what he wanted from her, and dutifully put her arms around his neck as he picked her up and carried her safely down into the hole. Even this made her feel useless. She was the only one without a quick way to get around. Batman, for all his lack of superpowers, still had his grappling hook to help him get around without assistance.
Stop comparing yourself to everyone else, J'onn told her. You've only been a superhero for a day, and you did not come prepared to stop an alien invasion. Give it time.
She knew he was right and tried to put the unhelpful thoughts behind her.
The next moment, she had no time to think unhelpful thoughts except, Oh shit! as she and everyone else were shot at by a group of invaders. Diana blocked their blasts with her cuffs, sending the lasers back towards the aliens.
J'onn quickly put Kate down and tensed his body, readying for a fight, but the invaders stopped shooting almost immediately and ran away, farther into the factory.
Kate stared after them, confused.
"They run like cowards!" Diana said, and turned to look over her shoulder at the others. "What are you waiting for?" she demanded, and took off after the invaders.
"This might be a horrible time to mention that I can't heal myself," Kate breathed quietly behind J'onn and Batman.
"What?" Batman said, turning toward her.
"Well, I can," she amended, glancing at him and then looking at her boots. "But only if I, you know, drain someone's life force."
"So if you get hurt…" J'onn began.
"I have to heal like anyone else. Slowly."
"We should never have brought you here," the Dark Knight grumbled, marching off.
"No," she agreed quietly. "You shouldn't have." But they'd had no choice. She'd shown up at the military base and, from there, things had sort of escalated outside of anyone's control. Besides, the invaders were all over the city now; even if they wanted to get her somewhere safe like any normal civilian, there was no place for her to go—not unless they left her in the middle of nowhere.
Stay down, J'onn told her. Try to stay hidden. Only come out to heal us. He placed a rallying hand on her shoulder, then the both of them took off after Batman.
For the next… honestly, it felt like a hundred years, Kate, J'onn, Batman, and Diana fought their way through the labyrinthine tunnels. Rather, the other three fought and Kate kept her head down and stayed out of the way, which was incredibly difficult because there was nowhere to hide in here. One of the other three often had to take fire for her, which made her feel like shit. However, once, when Diana miscalculated the trajectory of a laser blast and, instead of it bouncing off of her cuff, it got her in the hand, Kate ran to heal her. As soon as the invaders were down, she tore off her right glove, holding the Amazon's arm, which Diana had been cradling while trying not to scream. In a matter of seconds, her hand, which had looked like an awful, melted, mangled mess, healed.
Kate felt the drain on her reserves—she was already tired from her long day at the hospital, the three-hour drive to rescue J'onn, and now all of this—and swayed on her feet. But she stayed upright.
The other three all stood for a moment and stared at Diana's freshly-healed hand. "Not even a scar," the Amazon said.
Kate smiled weakly and they kept going. Vaguely, as she ran, she noted the strangely squishy floor they were running along. The walls were the same—not hard and straight-edged like plaster or concrete or any other building material she'd ever seen. And there were no right angles in this whole place. Everything was soft and wavy and… organic. Like they'd fallen inside of some giant monster's mouth and were now running around its insides.
Yes, J'onn told her, as they ran. This place is alive in a way.
Kate tucked that information into the back of her mind because she wasn't sure what to do with it, but it was interesting.
###
"They've blocked us off again!" Diana complained as the four of them backpedaled to avoid the group of invaders up ahead.
"It's almost as if they know what we're thinking," Batman said. He tossed a batarang at them, which scattered them for the moment, but they all knew that wouldn't be enough. "Any ideas, J'onn?"
The Martian's eyes had begun to glow. Kate could feel his mind somewhere far off, checking something.
"J'onn!" Batman repeated.
"Shh!" Kate reprimanded, though her eyes stayed locked on the Martian's face.
J'onn returned to them a moment later. "Superman and Hawkgirl are down," he said solemnly. "They have failed."
"What? Are you sure?" Diana asked.
The Martian nodded. "I can sense it." Then he took off down a side passage. "This way! Hurry!"
The three of them ran after him. Kate hadn't had this much exercise in years and it was really starting to wear her down. That, and all of her winter clothes were making her overheat. With a pang of regret and annoyance, she stripped off her coat as she ran and left it on the ground, also removing her other glove. She'd just have to make sure she didn't accidentally touch anyone, which shouldn't be a problem; she'd been avoiding touching people, except to heal them, for most of her life. In fact, J'onn had given her more affectionate touches than most of her friends and family had in many years, though that wasn't entirely their fault; she often shied away from hugs and handshakes, even with gloves on, for fear of accidental skin-to-skin contact somewhere else on the body.
"Kate, to me!" J'onn said, breaking her out of her thoughts. Now was not the time.
She looked up, trying to ignore the sound of laser blasts coming from behind them, to see him with his arms spread. There was a big hole above his head, some other passageway. Understanding, she readily allowed him to pick her up, her arms going around his neck for support. In three seconds, he'd put her back down in the new tunnel, several feet up from where they'd just been, and continued running.
They rounded a corner and Diana held back for a moment to see if they were being followed. "We lost them," she said.
"For the moment," Batman replied, powering up some kind of electric brass knuckles.
Kate tilted her head at them, bending forward to get a better look, curious as to how they worked.
"Don't touch," Batman warned, like a father telling his toddler not to touch the hot stove.
"Look!" J'onn said then, and the other three turned to see what he was talking about. Far up above their heads, connected by what looked to be—well, Kate thought they looked like veins or arteries—was some kind of glowing ball, its light haloing around it and making it look bigger than it really was. "It's the central core," J'onn said, and crawling all over it were a bunch of invaders, who seemed to be performing tests on it, or simply keeping it in good repair.
"How can we shut it down?" Batman asked.
"The ion matrix crystal," the Martian replied. "If we can remove that, we'll shut down the whole plant. I'll need a diversion."
"You've got it," Batman said, pulling a batarang from his utility belt and flinging it with great accuracy towards one of the large, hanging vine-like structures near the core.
We were right, Kate thought with some disgust as black liquid gushed out of the severed vine and covered one of the invaders. This place is alive.
Diana, getting the idea, grabbed one of the vines next to her and yanked it out. Some kind of gas filled part of the chamber and many of the invaders stopped what they were doing to wave at their… faces, such as they were. Then they turned their sights on the heroes and aimed their guns.
J'onn went intangible and disappeared through the floor.
Kate ran behind the nearest wall/vine to avoid getting blasted by lasers. She pressed her back to it, breathing heavily, trying to stay calm. So far, she hadn't gotten hurt, but that was no guarantee of anything. And if she went down, she wouldn't be able to heal anyone else.
Almost as if the universe had heard her, she sensed J'onn go down from a laser blast, falling several feet to the floor of this place, dropping the crystal. She heard his groan of pain as if he'd been right in front of her. He wasn't dead—she knew that—but he was in pain and incapacitated, which was a great way for him to get dead if someone didn't rescue him before he got shot again.
Without thinking, she ran from cover, staring down the cliffside at his still form. "J'onn!"
Diana had seen, as well, and was already lunging for him, her body torpedoing straight through one of the invaders to do it. She landed beside his prone body, putting a hand on his shoulder, trying to push him onto his back.
"Get him out!" Batman yelled from somewhere else in the chamber, his voice echoing strangely off the pulsating walls. "Now!"
Diana slung J'onn across one shoulder then flew straight towards Kate, one hand outstretched.
Kate, knowing this would hurt and, not caring, reached out her own hand and allowed Diana to grab her. This was not a good position to be in, dangling by her arm as the Amazon flew towards the nearest exit. Her arm could come out of its socket if they weren't careful, and at the moment, careful wasn't something they could afford to be. Kate grabbed Diana's forearm with her other hand to try and offset any damage, but she was barely holding on. Luckily, the woman was strong enough that having to carry two people wasn't affecting her balance.
Kate, going back and forth between squeezing her eyes shut in exertion and swiveling her head to look around at everything that was happening, saw the Dark Knight scoop up the crystal that the Martian had dropped. She saw him fall slightly behind because he couldn't run as quickly as Diana could fly. She saw the tunnel close over with that strange, thick, membrane-like material, with Batman still trapped on the other side. She cried out to him.
Diana quickly dropped her and J'onn and flew back towards the membrane.
Several laser blasts were fired on the other side, distorting the membrane as it absorbed the blasts, though it did not break.
"No!" Diana yelled.
Kate felt her horror and shock and grief like a wave of icy-cold water. On hands and knees, she let the feelings wash through her, then let them go, trying to sense a pulse on the other side of that membrane. There were the pulses of several invaders, and there they went as they ran off. And there, left behind, was Batman's human heartbeat, slower than theirs had been, and much more familiar to Kate, who had felt so many in her years as a nurse. She got up off the ground and ran towards the membrane, yelling, "Wait! He's—"
Shhh. J'onn's silent warning echoed all around her mind like the sound of the ocean in a seashell you press to your ear.
Kate stopped dead and fell silent.
No one can know. I have spoken to Batman and he to me. He is to be our secret weapon. Do you understand? No one can know he is alive—not even us. We must endeavor to forget. He is lost to us.
Kate acknowledged him in her mind only, scrambling to think.
"He's what?" Diana demanded, coming to stare into her face. "Is he—is he alive?"
Kate dropped her head as if she were grieving, but really it was to hide her expression from the Amazon. "No," she said, and hoped the tremor in her voice sounded like tears. "I thought I… sensed him, but… no. I'm sorry."
Diana heaved a great, terrible sigh, and stared at the membrane over the tunnel opening with desolate eyes.
"I'm sorry," J'onn said, putting a hand on the Amazon's shoulder. "There's nothing more we can do for him."
"Hera help us," Diana murmured.