I meant to get this chapter finished last night, but I didn't get to it. I thought about skipping the update this week, but I'll just give you what I have of the chapter and add the second half of it next week. Sorry, but hope it's better than nothing. Please review!

Mallory and Brek walked onto the Bridge, looking around to see why they'd been called, and Zatanna waved them over to where she, Raquel, Donna, and Kyle were gathered. "The Lanterns are arriving," the magician told them, but Mallory barely heard the announcement, her senses seeming to dull as she was drawn to the scene outside the window. It was like watching colored fireflies come out of the woods and spread across a dark field. Green, blue, violet, and even red and yellow dots of light were floating closer to the Watchtower, more and more coming by the second. The pyrokinetic took a breath, reaching out a hand to rest on the glass. She'd never been a very artistic person, but in that moment, she had an overwhelming urge to capture the scene for everyone who couldn't be there.

She felt Brek let out a breath beside her and pulled her hand back, rubbing it on her arm instead. "I…never thought I'd see anything like this," he murmured.

She shook her head, trying and failing to find the words. All she managed to get out was, "me, either."

The room shifted as groups of lanterns started to come in from the airlocks. "It's more than we thought would come," Kyle told them. "I guess the Guardians understand how serious of a threat Apokolips is to the rest of the galaxy. John said they hardly even put up a fight."

Raquel winced. "Great. That makes me feel good about our chances."

"We'll be fine," Zatanna said optimistically. "Look at this place. We've never had this many people all working together. All the teams, reserves, solos, I even saw a few bad guys pitching in." She smiled at Kyle. "Not to mention the first White Lantern. Is it even a question?" Kyle couldn't help but return the grin, glancing down at the unfamiliar white uniform.

Mallory's eyes roamed the crowd once again taking in just how many people had shown up for this fight. There had never been this many people in the Watchtower before, at least not in all the time she'd been allowed up there. Even the numbers they gathered for the final event of the Reach invasion paled in comparison to this.

She was about to point that out when a light caught her attention outside and she turned back to the window, squinting and zooming in with the lenses in her mask. A pale face and sharp canines became clearer and she grinned, her heart leaping in her chest. "It's Razor!" she told the others, looking at Raquel and Zatanna as she said it. They watched him fly into the airlock and took off, leaving the others behind as they flew over the rest of the heroes. Hal and Kilowog beat them to it, though, the latter nearly suffocating Razor in a bear hug when the girls made it to them.

"It is good to see you, too," Razor was saying, half heartedly pushing the larger lantern off. He looked at Hal and added, "Both of you."

"And what about us?" Raquel asked, landing in front of him and wrapping her arms around his neck.

Mallory landed a few steps away, studying his suit pointedly. "So…what's new?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

He chuckled, stepping out of Zatanna's hug and glancing down at himself, the split in the uniform coming from the different colored rings on each hand. "...A lot has happened since I last saw you," he admitted.

"No kidding," Raquel mentioned. He smiled, quickly returning Mallory's hug before stepping a good two steps back. He claimed not to understand their species' need for personal contact, but Mallory suspected that he didn't hate it as much as he pretended to.

Hal was about to say something, but an alarm drowned the words out, drawing everyone's attention to the middle of the room, where Barbara had holographic screens surrounding her wheelchair, monitoring for new boomtube signatures or other unnatural disturbances. Now, she had a news feed up showing a new booomtube open in Hong Kong. Whatever lightness had made it into the room evaporated as the heroes were reminded why they were there. Captain Atom started calling out names to come with him, but he had only said five names before Barbara interrupted him.

"There's two more signatures in Brazil and Australia," she announced, her fingers a blur as she searched for news coverage of the new events. More news feeds opened, all showing the same scene: armies of parademons pouring out of boomtubes, tanks the size of small buildings crushing cars as they rolled down streets, local authorities attempting to manage the chaos, a thimble of water on an inferno. More and more boomtubes began to open all around the world, faster than the heroes could gather groups to face them.

Mallory looked at the people she was standing with, a grim look on her face as the reality of what they were facing finally sank in. "And now," she said, her voice tight, "we go to war."

I am about to start writing the ending, so this is the last chance to have input on what happens. Who was your favorite of Mallory's boyfriends, who is a character that you think needs more of an arch or that I didn't handle well, any plot holes in the story that need to be tied up, anything like that, either leave a review or dm me. Even if it doesn't make it to the ending, I'm going to read the whole thing from start to finish after it's done and rewrite some things, and there's a few things I want to add that I didn't think I could handle well at the time.