Sorry for missing a week, but I've been sick and I haven't had any time to write. The first part of the chapter is the same as what I posted last time, but everything after the line break is new so you can skip right down to that if you've already read the first part. I really hope you like this chapter, I feel good about how it came out. Anyway, leave a review and enjoy the chapter!
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."
Mallory followed Conner through the maze of cops, SCU, and whatever soldiers the mayor had managed to get in, working their way to the boomtube, which was still open and spilling parademons into their city. "Tank?" he asked, not slowing down.
She clocked the Apocalyptic vehicle the size of a small building shooting randomly in every direction. It was barely out of the boomtube, and there weren't any Earth people close enough for an accidental casualty. She nodded. "I'll go high, you take the front?" He nodded and she flamed up, startling an officer that was a little too close for his comfort.
She sped towards the tank as soon as she was airborne, shooting flames at the black metal to get the driver's attention. It worked, and there was a low rumbling as the barrel moved to aim at her. She waited until she could see it warming up, then dove, slipping into her strength and grabbing the middle of the shaft, the material denting beneath her grip as she pulled.
Sweat turned to steam on her skin as she strained against the weight, and she gritted her teeth, doubling the flames in her feet. The metal bent with a sickening creak, and for a moment she thought it would break before it lifted off the ground. Then, in a jerky movement, the front end lifted, and she silently thanked Conner for the finishing boost as she continued to pull, the tank coming easier now, its own gravity working against it as she continued to pull it back.
She didn't stop pulling until it was falling on its own, and she suddenly felt a surge of energy and looked around, realizing that she was on the Apokolips side of the boom tube. She flew up, her eyes on the closing light of Earth's sun as the tank rushed to close the gap. With a final boost and a twist, she was back on her own planet, fighting the shiver of extra power off her like an unwanted advance.
"You good?" Conner asked, looking between her and the closed portal.
She nodded, following his gaze to their finished work. "Yeah."
"Hey! What did you do?"
They both turned towards the familiar voice, neither wanting to deal with the face it was coming from. "Turpin," Mallory said, biting back a sigh of annoyance.
"Yeah, Turpin. Where have you been? The city's been under attack for half an hour, and you just now show up? And what are we supposed to do with all the ugly brutes that already came through? And where's the Boyscout? Shouldn't he be here?"
"Superman's been called to another site," Conner told him. "What's happening here is happening all over the world. He can't be everywhere."
"Great, so we get stuck with you two," the man grumbled.
Mallory opened her mouth to tell him they didn't have to be there, either, but Maggie Sawyer cut her off, shooting a glare at her man and saying, "we appreciate the help. If there's anything you need us to do, just let me know."
"Thanks, but you're doing all you can," Mallory told her.
The head of the Special Crimes Unit nodded grimly, knowing it was far from a vote of confidence. They were all doing everything they could, and it wasn't anywhere near enough. A new wave of screams reached the group, and Sawyer nodded to the heroes. "Go, my squad can handle this area."
They didn't need to be told twice. They found a group of civilians being herded by a few dozen parademons, almost a hundred people being moved like a herd of cattle. Conner landed before Mallory, taking out three of them with the impact. Several of the civilians fell down from the vibrations of his landing, and Mallory soared over them, grabbing one of the Apokolips soldiers and shoving him into another.
"Go, find a safe place!" Conner yelled, and people began to scramble in every direction, panic taking over as they tried to get away from the fight. In the confusion, parademons began grabbing people and flying away, and Mallory looked at Conner, fear filling her chest.
"Go! Go!" she screamed, her own attention divided by six parademons. He grimaced, conflicted with leaving her by herself, but in the end he grunted, grabbed one of her attackers by its wings, and leapt after the kidnappers. Mallory flew up a few feet, the civilians still too close for comfort, and let out a burst of energy, the fire singing three parademons that were hanging on to her and forcing another two back. The two unharmed creatures dove for the crowd still largely gathered in the middle of the street, but the hero lunged after them, refusing to let them take anyone else.
She grabbed a chain off a gate at an alley entrance, ripping the lock off. The metal glowed bright red as heat traveled through it and she whipped it at the nearest enemy. A sizzling sound made her inwardly cringe as the metal burned skin, and the creature screeched, throwing its head back for a second, then turned on her angrily. She recoiled the chain, holding it in both hands and slowly circling, putting herself between her opponent and the crowd. It flew for her and she struck out with her newfound weapon, the chain wrapping around the creature's wrist. She pulled hard, driving her elbow into its face hard enough to break its cheek. It reared back and she finished the fight by pulling its head down to her knee, cracking its skull.
She didn't even have time to draw in a breath before she found herself in a headlock, the meaty arm pressing into her throat and cutting off her airways. A second parademon grabbed her legs, stretching her out so she couldn't move. She scratched at the arm, but it only tightened its grip on her. She reached back blind, her hands searching for a grip as her vision began to darken. She found handles on either side of its head, and vaguely she could picture the wings on their helmets. She grabbed hold, hoping that it would stay connected as she pulled, tucking her head as much as she could. The parademon flipped over her head and into the one holding her feet, and she gulped in a few breaths, stumbling to the side to dodge another attack.
Something came too close to her back and she spun, slamming her fist into its face. The newcomer grunted in pain and she winced, recognizing the sound at the same time as she recognized the face. "Duck," Orion growled, ignoring the friendly fire. She dropped to a crouch, feeling the gust of air as her half brother's fist collided with a parademon's jaw, dropping it with one punch.
"I had that under control," Mallory told him, a little irritated that he showed up at the end of the fight. She slammed her fists into the pressure point between the last parademon's wings, and it dropped to the ground.
"Fine," he replied, and he turned to go without another word. Her eyebrows rose slightly, surprised that he made it that easy to get rid of him, but she turned too, needing to get the crowd somewhere safe.
Suddenly, the ground shook beneath her feet and a thump behind her had her spinning back around, raising the chain in her hands. A huge, hairy, gorilla-like man was standing on top of Orion, driving his face into the concrete again and again. She ran closer, heating the chain and lashing it out at the new threat. "Hey!" she yelled, whipping the chain from side to side. Sparks flew off the heated metal as it grated against the pavement, and she fed the new flames, hoping to make herself look more intimidating.
His gaze snapped to her and he dropped Orion's head, walking towards her slowly. "So, this is what you have become. Father should have let me kill you when we had the chance."
She narrowed her eyes, remembering him from when she and Conner were on Apokolips years ago. He'd taken them both out without a fight. She tightened her grip on her weapon, backing up a few steps when he got too close. "It must kill you," she said, swallowing hard, "that he's more interested in the one that wants nothing to do with him than it is in you."
The man roared, rage clear in every inch of his body, and she backed up faster, attempting a tactical retreat. She wanted to get him to a more isolated part of the city to let him cool down, but she didn't get far. She'd barely gone three feet when he charged for her. She jumped out of his path, wrapping the chain around his wrist and immediately running behind him and pulling the rest of the chain around his throat, pinning his arm to his chest and pressing into his airway. She pushed more heat into the metal, just enough to make him groan in pain, and said, "don't make me hurt you."
He looked at her over his shoulder, an unnerving grin coming to his face, showing off his blocky, yellowing teeth. "Oh, don't worry about that."
In one move, he pulled against the chain and it shattered in her grip, leaving her stumbling backwards to put distance between her and him. She wasn't fast enough, though, and he threw a backhanded punch that spanned the entire side of her skull. Her feet left the ground with the force, her entire head feeling like jelly. Her back slammed into something hard, and for a moment she just layed there, the breath knocked out of her lungs, blood roaring in her ears, head swimming.
She could see him coming closer, she knew she needed to get up, but as soon as she rolled to her side, her head spun and a wave of nausea made her insides lurch violently, her stomach emptying in burning waves of vomit. Tears squeezed out of her eyes, a cold sweat covering her body, and she pressed her hands to the sides of her head, trying to settle the vibrations in her brain.
Kalibak was over her sooner than she'd calculated, grabbing her hair and holding her at eye level. "You are weak. You were never worthey of Darkseid's intentions, and he will finally see that when I drop your bloodied corpse at his feet."
She swallowed hard, braced her sickened body, and swung her legs up, her heels driving into his throat. He dropped to his knees, choking, and she fell back to the ground. She tried to push herself to her feet, but the ground rushed up to meet her when she took her first step. Kalibak growled, his rage growing with every second she wouldn't die, and she started to crawl down the street. "The only place you're going is to the grave," the man said, his steps shaking the street as he came closer.
She shut her eyes tight. She just needed a minute, just sixty seconds to reset so she could get back on her feet and put a real effort in. She wasn't going to get it, though. He was ten feet away, his fists clenching and unclenching in anticipation of ripping her limb from limb. She tried one more time to push herself up, but in the middle of the attempt, the ground stopped shaking, and a new voice was talking, sounding like it was underwater.
Something in her mind pricked when she heard it, and she looked up, trying to clear her vision. A civilian was standing between her and Kalibak, his arms spread wide in a protective gesture. She squinted, her mind muddled. She knew this was bad, she knew she should be stopping this, but she couldn't muster the constructive thoughts that she should be having. She saw Orion struggling to get to his feet in the distance, and the man in front of her was yelling.
As her senses started to come back to her, the itch in her mind sharpened to an alarm, her body telling her to get up before her brain could piece together why. Kalibak raised an arm to punch the man, and it hit her all at once, her legs scrambling to find purchase in the now ruined street. Fire was shooting out of her feet, boosting her towards her father before she was even prepared to balance, but she didn't slow down. She watched the arm come down, screamed as it collided with her dad's chest, and spun in the air to chase after his flying figure. Orion slammed his fists into Kalibak's back, but Mallory couldn't find it in her to care. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. She reached out to Darrin, but she was two feet too late. He hit the wall hard, his head cracking on the bricks. She caught him before he fell to the ground, shaking her head in denial even as she laid him down as gently as she could.
Every breath he took was a hiss of pain, blood ran out of the corner of his mouth and oozed from the back of his head, and she could tell from the way he was laying that his ribs were at least cracked. "Dad?"
He looked at her, alternating between labored breathing and swallowing. "Hey, Sweetie."
"Darrin?!"
Mallory looked over her shoulder, finding her mom running over, one hand covering her mouth. "What are you doing here?" Mallory snapped, trying to turn her grief to something more comfortable. "In Metropolis, in an invasion, in the middle of the street?"
"We were worried about you," Elaine said, holding Darrin's hand with both of hers. He coughed, groaning at the pressure it put on his chest. Mallory sucked in a breath, her muddled mind taking too long to tell her what to do, her weakened body refusing to conceal the panic attack that was coming. "He needs a doctor," Elaine said, locking eyes with her daughter.
The redhead nodded, her breaths coming hard and fast, tears seeping through her mask. She looked around the street for location markers and brought a trembling hand to her comm. "I need– Inferno here, I need a doctor at my location."
"Acknowledged, Inferno. I'm putting in a request to the authorities in your area," Oracle replied.
"No, now. I need someone, just…Alex. Send Alex."
Barbara's tone changed when she picked up on the panic in Mallory's tone. "Ok, sending him now. The nearest zeta tube is three minutes away. Mallory, are you ok?"
Her concussion and cracked ribs begged for attention, but she ignored both her broken body and the question. She looked back down at her dad and choked down a sob, her eyes and throat burning with the effort of staying together. "And…send Vigilante," she told her friend, her voice breaking as she added, "tell him to hurry." She sank to the ground, watching helplessly as her dad bled out from the inside. "Why are you here?" she asked again, her voice hoarse and quiet.
"You scared us when you came to talk," Elaine admitted, her grip on her husband's hand so tight that her knuckles were white. "We called the Kents and they told us what was happening, and we caught the next flight out. We wanted to be close in case something happened."
"So you go out into the streets?" Mallory pressed, wanting to hate her parents for putting themselves in danger so that she didn't have to blame herself for it.
Her dad put a hand on her knee, even that small gesture clearly an effort for him. "Look at me." She did, but the intensity in his eyes was hard to take, as close to breaking as she was. "Don't you ever think that this was your fault." He paused, coughing, and Mallory almost threw up again when she noticed the bruise traveling up his chest, just barely peeking over the collar of his shirt. That wasn't good. "And don't you ever feel guilty. It was worth it, to be there for you when you needed it." His grip tightened on her knee. "No one hurts my baby girl, or they'll have to deal with me."
A sob escaped her before she could stop it, and she pressed a hand to her mouth to contain the rest of her emotions, all threatening to spill out uncontrollably. She leaned forward, hugging him as tight as she dared. "I love you, Dad. And I'm so, so sorry. Please, just…" He relaxed in her grip before she could finish the plea, the last words lost in his ears, "don't go."
Her mom leaned over him, crying, but Mallory pulled away, rocking back to her heels, pressing her hands to her temples. She heard boots running on the pavement behind her and she turned and stood in the same motion, clenching her teeth at the sight of her brother and Alex coming towards them. Peter froze when he realized what he was looking at, his eyes going wide as he stared at their parents. Alex rushed to Darrin's side to assess what could be done, but Mallory could have told him the answer to that. It was too late.
Agony filled her chest, pushing her grief over the edge, and she stood in the street, crying silently. She shut her eyes tight, blocking out her mom's cries, and her dad's body, and her boyfriend trying to bring him back, and her shocked brother, and counted. Sixty seconds she stood there, processing, compartmentalizing, and transferring. A thud shook the ground beneath their feet and her eyes snapped open, locking onto Kalibak's prone form, Orion standing over him. Pure, boiling hatred bubbled through her veins like poison, her gaze traveling to the destruction around them, the parademons still flying overhead, the tank rolling down the street. Darkseid. All of this was because of him. She looked further, locking onto the boomtube a few streets down, the tank rocking as the enemy on the other side tried to push it out of the way. Her feet moved automatically, breaking into a run, her eyes never leaving the boomtube, the hatred never cooling in her blood.
"Inferno, no!" Peter yelled, running to catch up to her. She didn't turn, didn't slow down, so he pulled a line out of his belt and threw it, his aim true. It wrapped around her and he pulled it tight, throwing all of his weight into keeping his sister there. She tapped into her strength and pulled him with her a few steps, but he pulled himself up the line and grabbed hold of her arm, digging his heels in. "Stop!" She still pressed on, but he tightened his grip and said, "Mallory, wait. Don't." He sounded so small, so young, it reminded her that he was only fourteen, and she was supposed to be there for him. She paused, turning to look at him, her eyes wild, her heart pulling in her chest. This was always going to be the hard part, wasn't it? Thinking about all the people she was leaving behind? "Don't go," he begged, his eyes round, tears trailing down his face, his grip on her speaking to how scared he was to let her go.
She took a shaky breath, hoping that he knew how proud she was of him, how much she loved him, how glad she was that their lives had been woven together for whatever time they had. That no matter who their biological parents were, he would always be her brother. It didn't matter, she could see the answer to it all on his face. She just wished she could have had the time to tell the others, her team, her friends, her family, the people who had made a home with her. She could see that in his face, too, willing her to remember them, to choose to stay with them. She twisted her lips, trying to keep her willpower, trying to keep from crying, and when she blinked, her eyes were glowing red. "Just tell them, ok?" she said quietly, and she heated her hand.
It killed her, how long he kept his grip on her. Through his gloves melting off, even after the heat started to touch his skin, but it hurt so, so much more when he finally couldn't take it anymore and let her go, his hands burned and blistered, a look of complete devastation on his face. He took one step to follow her, and she aimed her hand and threw flames, openly crying as she melted his prosthetic leg out from under him, careful to keep the heat off his skin. He fell to the ground at the sudden loss of balance, and she turned, his screams haunting her to her core, echoing in her very soul as she flew away from him, ripped the tank out of the boomtube, and plunged into the fiery air of Apokolips.