I don't own Ben 10 or Justice League or Justice League: Unlimited

Italics will be used for telepathy, thoughts, comm. etc.

…

Justice X

Chapter V

Ben walked down the sidewalk with one hand in his cargo-pants pockets, nonchalantly chatting with Diana who walked beside him in civilian clothes. Without her uniform, she sported a white crop-top blouse with a blue jean-jacket to match, regular white denim jean pants coupled with slick brown beige high-heels. Though he washed, dried, and cleaned his own clothes with the Watchtower facilities, Ben never really changed his outfit; still wearing the black skin-tight shirt with a white stripe down the center of its torso along with tightened combat boots.

"I can't believe malls look exactly like I remember them; no floating fro-yo, no multi-species bathrooms, and not a single store accepts galactic-credit! I couldn't even find a hovering-corndog booth," He took a lick out of his coned frozen yogurt while Diana watched with an adorable smile, "When I was a kid, my Grandfather used to take me to places like that all the time, although; I would usually get kicked out."

Diana giggled, locking her free arm with his as they had grown to do quite often, "Oh, I'm sure those reasons were justifiable, I'm just surprised that so much changed in only twenty-years," they continued walking down the side-walk approaching an intersection.

"Well," Ben said between licks, "I helped broker intergalactic peace that spawned an entire city to promote that peace when I was like nineteen, so that probably got things started…" he took another long lick, savoring the flavors and pretending it was a smoothie all the-while, "Along with all of the Kinceleran workers, we were done in just a few years."

Diana raised her brow waiting for their turn to cross the street, she wasn't entirely familiar with the species he was referring to, "Oh, uh, XLR8's species, right? It's difficult to keep track of the different types of aliens you use that don't even exist here. They're nearly the fastest in the Universe… your Universe," she explained casually, nudging his arm implying there were much faster people in this Universe. Diana giggled, covering her mouth, "I'm just surprised you managed to broker politics in the first place!"

"It was more Greymatter, Brainstorm, and Frankenstrike than it was me but, my watch and my idea so…" he trailed off licking up another trail of strawberry frozen-yogurt. Batman had them all briefed on his different transformations, or at least the hundred main ones he used in battle in the past weeks but, there was still so much uncharted waters within his seemingly limitless arsenal.

She couldn't help but admire him, Diana was always attracted to men who could match her will and relentless stubbornness as well as even share in her introduction to man's world. It was part of the reason she was attracted to both Steve and Bruce when they first met, both were incredibly brave and noble but, neither had the repertoire Ben Ten Thousand shared. "That was you, you are a hero, those transformations are blank slates, as you say, so it was you who utilized their abilities to save lives."

Ben looked down at his cone, only able to recall all of his mistakes, "Yea..." he shook it off quickly with a nod and continued with his frozen desert. He hadn't yet shared with her or the others just how dark things had gotten for him in the years after his wife passed away; what he did to Vilgax, the way he treated his family in the aftermath.

Diana glanced at him with a smile, watching as he shook the troubling thoughts and care-free licked up the ice-cream. For the briefest instant, she looked at his tongue and wondered what it could do- they both turned their heads at the sound of a bank alarm going off around the corner jarring their attention, along with the screeching tires through the adjacent street. She furrowed her brows, one day, just one uninterrupted day with him that's all she wanted, "I got this," he said as he was about to drop his cone to transform before receiving a hand to the chest gently.

"No, let me," they watched the speeding car with bags full of cash piled up in the back seat tear through the street uncontrollably without a single cop after them yet. At a hundred-and ten miles an hour, Diana was angry no doubt, stepping into the middle of the street without fear though, the sadistic driver noticed her and hit the accelerator planning to flatten her at one-twenty. Ben raised his brows while still eating his frozen-yogurt, watching as she lifted her right hand as they came in close, once the car was a foot away she brought her single fist down on the hood of the muscle-car at half the speed of sound, stopping it in its tracks with ease. Tearing through the metal like cheap tin-foil, revealing the engine, and springing both non-seatbelt wearing criminals out the front windshield at ninety-miles an hour. They tumbled with road rash for a hundred-feet until they hit the side of a bus that parked to witness the heroes in action but, also put their lives in danger considering had Diana not been there, the speeding criminals would have torn through the bus, killing dozens of innocents.

Instead they got a firsthand view of an angry Amazonian, who turned around with a furious glare at the two already injured criminals. The car smoked in the background from the damage she'd done but, it didn't faze her in the slightest, "I try to take a day off, try to have a semblance of a normal life, I even tried going on a date for the first time in years but, no… you two had to decide to pick today to rob a bank. On this street!" she ominously approached but, the man somehow thought it was smart to pull the pistol from his strap, firing at her which Ben watched, still licking his iced cream, confident that it wasn't something to worry about.

It wasn't after all, she didn't need her bracelets to instinctively use her bare skinned wrist to deflect each regular round until the magazine was empty and she was standing above him, looking down at the scum with disappointment. He glanced down at the weapon and gripped it by the barrel, in an attempt to throw it at her as a blunt object, "Oh, sure, that'll work," he looked back down at it and realized how useless it'd be to throw.

She grabbed the only man of the two still conscious by his black-shirt, "Stop! Please! I've learned my lesson!" he pleaded.

"No, you haven't. Your kind never learns." Tossing him twenty-feet back onto the dented hood of his smoking car, Diana leaped to land on top of said car, shattering the rest of the windows with her impact, grabbing the man, and preparing to further dent the roof with his face.

"Uh, Diana…" Ben announced.

"What?!" she shouted turning to face him with a rageful growl and furious expression but, she only faced a crowd of people taking pictures with Ben in front, and those on the bus watching her including children, "They haven't had enough," she insisted with her fist still primed.

Ben dropped his cone and walked across the street even while she was still huffing, ready to impale the man's head with a single punch, she heard his boots crunch against the glass on the asphalt. He reached up and grabbed free hand by the wrist, "I think they have, you won, let's go." The local police quickly surrounded the incident at every intersection, some assisting the bus-full of people to safety.

Diana glanced back at his slightly concerned emerald eyes as her expression softened, letting go of the collar of the man's shirt and taking Ben's hand as she hopped off the crushed car. Just then, a group of police officers sprinted passed her with guns drawn, and cuffs prepared.

She was still angry and it wasn't even her time of the month yet, having no idea where the aggression was coming from, she grabbed hold of Ben's hand and took a deep, calming breath as they left the scene. "You okay?" he asked as he intertwined their fingers together walking down the sidewalk away from the police who had it under control at this point.

"I don't know, something is effecting my emotions, thank you for calming me down back there," Diana glanced down to her heels in shame but, Ben tightened his squeeze on her hand, prompting her to look up into his glistening emerald eyes, gleaming in the mid-morning sunlight.

"Anytime," he smiled at her as they both stopped to listen in to their earpieces, hearing the voice of the Martian Manhunter addressing the two simultaneously via satellite communication.

"Ben Ten Thousand, Wonder Woman; I have an assignment for the two of you," the Manhunter lied but, was too honorable to do so, "Actually it was for Diana but, since you're already partnered with a peace keeping politician…"

"Get to the point, J'ohn," Ben announced frustratedly not enjoying being labeled a politician though, being Martian, the alien didn't feel insulted or that he was rude, he simply continued, "Queen Adria of Kaznia has asked the League for help, her country is being torn apart by waring paramilitary groups," he continued with a more serious tone, "Each faction has ties with neighboring countries, if this escalates further it could easily ignite the region."

She felt it again, anger burrowing from within that almost didn't feel like her own, "What is wrong with people, J'ohn? Hostility is their answer for everything," Diana complained as she turned to Ben who left a raised brow as a response.

J'ohn responded having seen the entire incident from the Watchtower satellite, "You're not one to talk as of late." The hero of heroes kept his head down while she frowned and turned to answer their Martian friend.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she kept her finger in her ear, glancing back at Ben who was on this same communication-line, avoiding her glare as best he could.

J'ohn sighed audibly, "Diana, you and I both have been effected by our time among humans, it's important we keep ourselves in check."

Diana frustratedly shut off her comm-link and crossed her arms over her chest, leaving Ben alone on the line with the Martian Manhunter, talking to him without Diana being able to hear, "No, I don't think she broke it. Yea, she just turned it off. Definitely. Ok," Ben shut off his communicator and faced Diana.

He gave her a look, a certain look that told her she was being unreasonable, his emerald eyes looking right through her, "What?! Those robbers had it coming! So did those mercenaries last week, and those squid-creatures from the Krab Nebula? They weren't misunderstood, they thought we were food!" as she finished shouting, she huffed and looked around, before turning her eyes back to Ben who was unfazed by the outburst. She realized he hadn't even said a word and yet she totally flipped out on him. He had long since mastered his emotions, after the trauma he's been through, there was no point in getting worked up over much of anything.

"Done?" he deadpanned.

Realizing her mistake, she shook her head, turning back around on the sidewalk and taking off into a flight leaving Ben to transform on a dime, exploding in a flash of light. Jetray, clad in a skin-tight black suit trimmed with white lining leading to the Omnitrix symbol on his chest, quickly caught up and flew beside Diana. "We're not flying all the way to Kaznia like this, are we?" his raspy voice caught her attention. Noticing she hadn't changed from her civilian clothing yet.

"Of course not, I have my uniform in my jet…" she explained nonchalantly.

"Why do you have a jet if you can fly?"

Diana shrugged her shoulder, "Why does Wally own a car?"

Jetray scoffed before answering, accelerating his speed a bit, "Because he's Wally."

…

They arrived at the airstrip she insisted her plane was docked at, however; there was nothing around for nearly a mile, it was just an empty strip of asphalt. "So, where's the plane?" Jetray asked before exploding in emerald light with a thought, returning to his human form instantly.

"It's right in front of you, did I not mention it's invisible? Only those from Themyscara can see it," he watched as she opened a hatch revealing the inside but, due to the hull being invisible he could still see her perfectly fine.

Ben put his hands on his hips, "That… That's not physics. Not even a little, it breaks so many laws…" he watched as she grabbed her uniform from a compartment in the back and being that she used her plane regularly, she didn't think twice about disrobing. Amazonians grew up without shame of their bodies and they had every right to feel that way as their physical forms were treated as temples.

Ben's eyes went wide, watching as she took her jacket and blouse off leaving her in just her black-laced bra before her face turned red, turning around to find him staring up at her from the runway. He noticed her toned eight-pack abs with smooth, slender curves, the heat building up in her cheeks spread through her entire face, "Y-You should probably turn around for just a minute," he was the one person she wouldn't kill for seeing what he'd just seen but, it wasn't like she was going to put on a show for him either.

"R-Right, duh," Ben turned around just in time to avoid her seeing how beat-red he had turned, just as embarrassed as she was only better at hiding it. He wasn't exactly still ten-years-old but, frankly he hadn't seen a woman naked since his wife passed and ended up acting like an embarrassed teenager for a moment.

…

As they flew through the air, Ben was still astounded by how an invisible craft could operate; looking around and seeing nothing yet, Diana was holding the steering wheel and operating the buttons and or nobs on the dash.

Ben shrugged it off considering she already explained that it was some form of magic, he leaned back in the actually quite comfortable seating. "So, from below, It looks like two people are just sitting through the air at half the speed of sound?"

Diana giggled, not taking her eyes off the sky, "The jet wasn't on earlier, nobody can see anything at all now that I've actually got the controls going."

"Ah, I see, that makes more sense, I think," Ben put his hands behind his head, relaxing as their flight would take at least another few minutes, "So, have you ever been in a war before?"

Diana lost her smile but, continued the conversation casually, "Yes, actually, many times."

Ben gave a long-exasperated exhale, "Yea, so have I, pretty much had to stop it myself, alien invasions suck," he exclaimed, taking his hands from behind his head and placing them firmly on his knees, "I just don't understand why people can't just make peace, I spent twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week moving at eighty-percent the speed of light; stopping criminals, beating down super villains, protecting the planet from invasions… and for what? It never changes," the tone of his voice spoke to her in a way that just made sense, like she'd met someone who knew exactly how she felt. Starting to feel emotions growing within her she hadn't felt since her time with Steve Trevor all those years ago.

"Some things never change, I've been alive longer than I look, and I can tell you that things may seem like they get better but, without us, this whole world would eat itself alive from the inside out," Diana narrowed her eyes, flashing back to her time defending Steve Trevor during their days together, when she bravely entered No Man's Land to rescue him from enemy fire in one of the bloodiest battles recorded during World War One.

Ben too had vicious memories, watching his now deceased wife be slaughtered before his eyes by a villain he couldn't stop, even after what he did to Vilgax, the Universe still felt like it could challenge him. He was careless and it cost him everything, so he spent the next half decade throwing himself obsessively into his hero work, even after he met his younger self he still wasn't sure he knew how to move on. He never had the heart to tell the boy what had happened to the love of his life.

"Down there," Diana pointed out, cutting through the silence with her attention aimed down at the ground where a line of six tanks open fired on a single target. Explosions ringed throughout the streets of the Kaznian city, the military vehicles retreated even as they fired their best weapons at the single assailant, hardly visible to them through the smoke.

A ten-foot-tall faceless behemoth armored in indestructible black metal foreign to the mortals it was unleashed upon stomped through the war-zone, an armed Humvee unleashed a hundred rounds a second directly to its chest with hollow-point bullets, however; the android didn't appear to be effected at all, grabbing hold of the rotating gatling barrels, and tearing it off the truck before flipping the entire vehicle through the air with his free hand, hitting a tank pinning the driver within.

The behemoth tore through a line of tanks that fired upon it to no avail, the explosions bounced off its armor with no damage; it swung its arms knocking the tanks aside and tearing them apart as though they were made of paper mâché.

"What the hell is that thing? These people don't stand a chance," Ben noted as he watched the retreating men with automatic-rifles firing on the enemy uselessly.

Diana narrowed her eyes, "Don't know, don't care; let's take him down," she selected a single button which allowed the plane to fly itself, prompting Ben to follow her. They both approached the door at twenty-thousand feet, she opened it without care and pencil-dove straight down into the fray.

Ben gave a long-exasperated sigh, turning around and facing the rest of the plane, "It never ends," he whispered to himself before free-falling backwards out of the jet.

Diana landed, crushing the rubble-covered asphalt road beneath her heels before taking the enemy into her sights with a rageful scowl. She sprinted forth without a plan as the behemoth punched a hole through a tank, tearing it in two as it exploded in its face, again dealing no obvious damage. It was finally staggered by an Amazonian uppercut that sent it off its boots, tens of feet away onto its back; as it adjusted, its scanners noticed Stink-Fly floating hundreds of feet above it before transforming mid-air. Cannonbolt spun through the air gaining speed and momentum until he slammed into the robotic-behemoth's abdomen sending a shockwave of cracks through the street.

Transforming back into Ben, he hopped off the giant, and emerged from the smoke dusting off his hands as though it were an easy win, "All in a day's wo-" he was quickly interrupted when the giant gauntleted hand of the android grabbed his full torso, launching him back through the air as it stood to face Diana.

"Ben!" she shouted as he hit a stone pillar back-first, sliding down to his feet, stumbling a few feet at first, and holding his head before collapsing to one knee. "Are you okay?!"

"Yea, just gimmie a second…" he recoiled and shook his head, it had been a long while since he'd been struck like that in his human form.

Diana's expression quickly flipped from concern to rage, flying in for a strengthened jab but, it was caught midswing in the armored droids grip, "By the Gods?" it squeezed, nearly breaking her wrist as she shouted in pain, she still stood using her remaining forearm in attempt to break its grip. As she was in agony she was also close enough to notice a very specific marking branded onto the chest-plate of this armor, a familiar symbol. It wasn't long before it turned and tossed her through the air backwards strategically hitting a recovering Ben. Both of them tumbling into a pile of stone and dirt, neither of them fully conscious at the moment, both groaning in an attempt to get up.

Ben stood first, holding his hand out to which Diana used to stand herself up, "It's getting stronger, faster," she noted as he turned his gaze to the suit. He responded by transforming in a flash of green-light, the raw power catching the android's attention, Diamondhead stepped in front of Diana forming his arms into jagged weapons. Using them to fire hundreds of shards of sharpened crystal projectiles, they all shattered on impact with the armor, catching its attention more than the army now behind it, and walking through crystal barrage as though they were as useless as the bullets. "You keep it occupied, that should buy me some time…"

Diamondhead exploded once again, this time transforming into a hulking Tetramand with a white sleeveless, black-trimmed shirt and black pants, "Time to do what?" he questioned keeping his eyes on the approaching enemy.

"I have to see a man about a suit of armor…" she muttered cryptically.

Fourarms stretched his right upper-arm, rotating his shoulder in the process, "And you want me to hold it back… alone… yea, I can handle that. You figure out what it is, and I'll figure out how to break it," cracking all sixteen knuckles the Tetramand continued to his neck, "Shouldn't be too hard."

Diana took off straight into the sky at hypersonic speeds in the opposing direction while Fourarms stampeded forth, cracking the ground with every step. He attempted a right cross once he was within close-combat distance though it was no surprise it caught his fist in its right armored palm. He followed up with a left-straight to the empty-helmet but, the same fate befell this attack too, now struggling with both fists caught in either of its hands; it wasn't expecting two more to uppercut it from below with Fourarms' extra appendages.

This attack staggered the armored droid back several steps giving Ben the opportunity to shift forms with a flash of emerald light which stunned its sensors as well. Heatblast emerged from the light immediately bombarding the enemy with waves of fire that even melted the concrete at its armored feet. Another transformation lit up the battlefield while the melted stone and asphalt hardened around its ankles, trapping it while a blue-white skinned ghostly moth flew forth exhaling freezing gusts of cryogenic winds. Big Chill turned intangible even as the armor tried to clap it out of the sky like an insect, failing and being encased in a large tundra of ice. The Necrofrigian flew right through its body further sealing it in nearly a metric-ton of even more ice.

Big Chill examined his work from above, floating with his arms folded and his wings flapping to keep him in the air, "That should hold him."

The two facial-slits upon its armored helmet illuminated even within the blocks of ice, suddenly giving it the strength to break through its prison by swinging its arms apart. "Or not," he spoke with a ghostly exhale as it broke out of the hardened concrete by simply lifting its legs with seemingly no effort. It glanced up at Big Chill and clapped its hands with such strength and speed that it created a sonic wave knocking Ben right out of the sky.

He toppled to the ground with an explosion of green light leaving Ben to recover in his human form, rolling to his hands and knees before standing to hold his rattled head for the second time, "This might be harder than I thought."

Nardoc, the leader of the hard-pressed Northern Kaznian forces, stepped forward to observe the battle between the lone hero and his newly found weapon. One gifted to him by a mysterious wealthy supporter on the condition that he use it to crush his enemies and end the civil war. His men lined up beside him but, he wasn't worried enough to order them to take any battle station. Instead he watched with his hands behind his back.

Ben took a strategic retreat as he transformed into XLR8, dashing across the battlefield saving two men who were too busy fighting one another to see the flaming truck about to crush them. He scooped them both up over his shoulders and ran them a hundred feet away, "Both of you, run," both soldiers ran but in opposite directions, clearly of opposing factions.

XLR8 sped across the field and up a hill over-looking the battle from a safe distance, "I'm not making a dent, if anything I'm only making it stronger… something is going on here," transforming back into his human form, he narrowed his eyes as the giant robotic weapon drove a large group of opposing soldiers to retreat with haste. Glancing to the backside of the streets, where the border of a camp met the field of battle, he noticed a man nod in reassurance before returning to his tented base of operations. "Bingo."

…

The satisfied leader entered his tent with a sigh of relief, grabbing a bottle of liquor and pouring himself a glass on the rocks before sitting down in his wooden chair and putting his feet up on what were battle plans. Ben approached from behind, still in his human form, listening in as another finely suited man entered the tent before him.

"You let them go," the figure stated with obvious irritation in the tone of his voice, "Why didn't you push on and take their camp? They have enough arsenal there to mount an assault against the capital before dusk!" he shouted.

"I have no designs for the capital," the man stood up and placed his drink down on a map of the area, "We won, Mister Sir, the animals attacked and we ran them out of town," the leader clearly didn't know the name of his benefactor but, still spoke as though they'd met before.

The benefactor stepped forward with an intimidating sire, "I didn't give you the Annihilator so you could run your enemies out of town… I gave it to you so you could ANNIHILATE them!" he backed the leader into a corner of the small tent.

The leader scoffed and turned around, placing his hands on the same map his drink formed a ring over, "Forgive the insult sir but, you are beginning to think like a South Kaznian," his grip on the map tightened nearly knocking the drink over, "They want to destroy us all but, my brothers and I only wish to keep our land. Perhaps I could take their camp but, the cost would be too great… should I take control of my country but, massacre my people?" it was an obvious rhetorical question but, the fine suited man answered anyways.

"YES!" he grabbed at his head and closed his eyes, "I think like a South Kaznian? Has it ever occurred to you that they think like South Kaznians!?" he shouted with untampered rage, getting closer to the leader with a finger pressed against his chest, "And you better start thinking like that too if you want there to be North or South left of this rat-infested dirt pile of a country!" Ben thought this would be the end of his tirade but, it was only the beginning, "All you mortals are good for is slaughtering one another, you fight and fight until your bones are ash strewn across the battlefield, only to rise again in the next generation like a well-tended crop!" the malice in his voice, the powerful rage erupting in waves was something even Ben could feel without powers of any kind, "That's what the Annihilator is for, but NO, you're using it to play tag!" he spat.

The leader wiped the spit from the rageful man's shouts from his face with a nearby rag, "You know what? You're crazy, and I wash my hands with you," he asserted as he turned back around to sit at his make-shift desk, "I'll thank you to get out of my 'rat-infested dirt heap' now, you can take your robot with you," his nod was for him to make his own exit with dignity left before he summoned his guards to escort the stranger out.

"Better idea, I stay, you go…" his finely kept suit lit ablaze suddenly, burning away the fabric with orange flames to reveal silver-plated armor with golden trimming along its precisely cut edges. He grabbed the leader by the shirt as fire ignited in his eyes, giving a sinister smile as he could feel the murderous intent from their proximity.

What he wasn't expecting was for Ben to feel it too, barging into the tent urgently to find the armored-warrior holding the leader up off his feet, "Put him down," the hero demanded, sweating from the bloodlust he could feel wafting over him. It was the first time in years that he'd hesitated like this.

"Look what you've done," after turning to take a look at Ben he turned his head back around to face the leader who he still had a grip on, "Now you've made me a murderer twice over," an explosion of emerald light engulfed the entire tent and in a burst of speed that even he found impressive, both the unnamed man and the leader of the Northern forces were gone. Looking at his hand still in the air where he'd gripped the man he was prompt to kill seconds ago now completely empty, "Fascinating…" he murmured with another evil grin.

XLR8 stopped nearly a mile from the tent, putting down the leader who caught his breath, "H-He was going to-" thinking carefully about his next words, he straightened himself out as best he could while the velociraptor-speedster tried to think himself, "Who actually was that?!"

XLR8 transformed once again into a more intimidating form, from the flash of light Fourarms stepped through and grabbed him by the shirt in the same way as the enemy just had, "I don't know," he pulled the man closer to his large-fanged, four-eyed face, "But, you're gonna tell me everything you know about him."

…

Diana flew through the clouds, seeing her target in the distance, a massive volcano no man would dare to trek towards; she quickly dashed above and lowered herself into a heated cavern with molten slag lighting up the area. The only other thing in the cavern was a pile of scrap metal that appeared to be made of materials not of this world, and a single man hammering away at a sheet of the same metals.

Sparks flew in front of his face as he detected Diana's landing behind him gently without turning to face her, "Ya know, I made that armor for your Mother, did she ever thank me? No."

Diana cut straight to the point, already aggravated as it is, "I'm not here to discuss my armor, Hephaestus; there's a suit of armor that needs no wielder and bares your mark," she asserted, folding her arms across her chest.

He turned to face her with his hammer and chisel down, "The Annihilator…" he muttered under his breath but, the Amazonian heard him all too clearly.

"Than you did make it."

Hephaestus scoffed at her with a smile, "Who else does such fine work, Ares liked it."

Diana put the pieces together in her head in the span of microseconds, all the connections, her uncontrolled rage as of late, "Ares, so he's behind this. How do I stop it?" she asked with an assertive tone.

"Awe…" Hephaestus wiped his hands with a rag from the grease and burning oil that didn't seem to faze him, "She knew to ask the right question… I do leave a unique weakness in all of my creations, an Achilles-heel, If you will." He tossed the rag on an anvil nearby and continued, "It's so nobody gets too powerful, if you know what I mean?" and she did, she knew all too well that mortals or gods alike can't handle weapons forged in this place that were truly unstoppable.

"Than what is the Annihilator's weakness?" Diana prompted, trying to get to the point as quickly as possible.

Hephaestus chuckled, "Diana… you wouldn't want me going around giving out your armors weaknesses," he shrugged until she grabbed his shoulder and tossed him half-way across the room, his back slamming into a large piece of machinery, she pinned him and pulled back for a right-jab, but he only smiled.

"With that attitude, you'll never beat it."

Diana connected the final piece of the puzzle, backing off and releasing Hephaestus as she backed quickly into a float, "Come back any time, Princess…"

…

Ben strutted into the same tented base that he only escaped less than twenty-minutes ago, nonchalantly pacing the room with the man in armor clearly disguised as their Leader, "So, that's the end game? Pit two warring factions against one another until you destroy an entire country. Why?" he asked calmly as the man disguised as the leader turned in his seat to face the shapeshifter.

"You again, I am more than intrigued in your abilities, rather astonished I would even say but, you don't have a clue the magnitude of the machinations I'm developing," he stood and cleared the desk of its maps and slamming the drink poured earlier by the real leader into the wall, shattering its glass. "You want to know why I'm doing this? You think this will stop with Kaznia?"

Ben watched as he stalled for time, not certain he wanted to start a fight he wasn't sure he could finish, "Still no answer then?"

"Because I've existed in this world since the dawn of time and I have never seen a change in the violence and carnage humanity has to offer, I am Ares, God of War," he commanded respect with his tone but, received none, "This is my purpose," he stated with conviction.

"No," Ben responded, "You're enjoying it, feeding off their fear and their pain… the Annihilator will tear apart everything in its path and you'll be there to watch with a smile…"

"All true, unfortunately for you, you wont be alive to see any of it," Ares formed a blade from thin air which quickly lit-ablaze with bright blue flames, "Funny, I never even asked your name."

"It's Ben Ten Thousand, and I wont let you continue hurting people," Ares swung his sword down as an instantaneous explosion of emerald light intercepted the swing with Diamondhead's forearm sharpening into a blade itself, "I don't think so."

"Urgh, you mortals can be so petillant!" Ares parried Diamondhead's blade, jabbing him in the face with the hilt of his blade, which cracked his incredibly durable crystal nose, before front kicking him with so much force he flew back through the tent and out tumbling into the battlefield.

Diamondhead stood to his feet and formed both arms into serrated-blades now, it wasn't until he heard the familiar stomping behind him did he worry as he turned slowly to face the android. His first instinct was to swing his arm which shattered on contact with its mid-second, "That's not good!" he was grabbed by the arm, swung backwards through the camp sight, smashing a table, and clashing with a munitions depot which detonated on top of him.

"The Southerner's have returned! Protect the Capitol!" one soldier shouted out as gun-fire resumed and the battle continued, some friends shooting other friends out pure feat.

Wonder Woman landed as quickly as possible, "The only way to stop it is to stop fighting it, it-"

Ben finished her sentence, "Thrives off violence and aggression, I picked that one up while you were out."

"The armor was forged by a God with material impenetrable to man," she looked wearily to Ben with her crystal blue eyes staring into his, "Man of any species."

"I have an idea…" Diamondhead transformed into a three-foot tall humanoid, leaping atop the nearest truck, Echo-Echo released a blast of sound upwards strong enough to stun everyone on the battlefield including Diana. He transformed into his human form this time, looking out around at the crowd whose attention he clearly grabbed, "Stop! I know… I know what you're feeling right now. You're divided and have been for so long, but that doesn't mean you aren't the same people, this thing…" he pointed at the Annihilator approaching from several hundred feet away as Diana got ready to defend herself. "It thrives off your hatred, and the only way to stop it… the only way forward… is to lay down your arms and walk away!" the crowd was conflicted at first but, as the droid grew closer, they soon began dropping their firearms one by one until they all just sighed and returned to their camps. The war would be fought on a different day, without the meddling of the Gods, on equal grounds.

One soldier was still firing his automatic-rifle at the droid when Wonder Woman approached, placing her hand gently on his shoulder, "You must stop this!"

"I must stop nothing! And I don't take orders from woman!" Punctuating his sentence with slam of from the butt of his rifle into Diana's invulnerable skin. He was shocked when she turned back unfazed and snatched the rifle from his hands prepared to beat him with it but what Ben said stuck to her. She recoiled and snapped the rifle in two with her bare hands, scaring the once brave man off back to his camp.

Even as the battlefield cleared out, the Annihilator approached still, getting closer to Ben who held his hands up and took a deep breath even as it loomed over him prepared to strike; Ben dropped his arms, fell to his knees, and closed his eyes.

The Annihilator threw his fist regardless stopping only inches from Ben's rather vulnerable face, he peeked one eye open and noticed that it had frozen. Lowering its arm as the slits on its helmet turned dark and empty once again. The hero let out a long sigh of relief, getting back to his feet, he was surprised by an Amazonian strengthened embrace wrapped around his torso, "You did it, if it wasn't for that speech…"

"All I did was… nothing, sometimes the best path to victory is through peace."

Diana pulled back, still only inches from his face, admiring his rugged good-looks, "Sounds like a politician to me," they both noticed how close they'd gotten face-to-face and blushed a deep crimson. Their lips felt magnetized like the moment was perfect for their lips to- "J'ohn to Wonder Woman and Ten Thousand, we received reports that you've disabled the weapon; a Javelin had been dispatched to pick all three of you up for debriefing,"

Ben chuckled along with Diana, still inches apart hearing the same interruption from their comms, "Package is secure, let's lock it up in one of your vaults in your space satellite thing."

Spite not knowing exactly what he was referring to, Manhunter gave it his best guess, "Copy that."

Ben backed away for a moment, holding Diana's hand still clasped in his, "Maybe a raincheck on this whole date-thing?" he proposed.

Diana smiled like she hadn't in decades, "Most definitely."

…

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