Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They belong only to their respective creators and associated companies. I make no profit off of this whatsoever. I write only because there are those that enjoy my work and because I find writing fanfic fun. Therefore I would appreciate it if the creators and associated companies didn't send their corporate lawyers after me to file a lawsuit. I can guarantee that anything you get from me won't even cover the first day of the lawyer fees.

The Badly Damaged Streets of Washington, One Hour Later, Glory's POV

Her self-confidence had taken some serious hits in the last hour but she refused to let her mission end in failure.

These… these… TERRANS were actually managing to injure her and were it not for her own regenerative power, she would have been defeated the first time they teamed up to fight her. With it, though, she most she was managing was a stalemate and that would not do one little bit. Helspont would not wait forever for the Kherabim computer and if she was late, it wouldn't matter if she delivered the package or not. In the Daemonite Lord's mind nothing less than elite would do for his army and if a member was found wanting, steps would be taken to make sure they were never wanting again.

EVER!

However, try as she might to figure out a way to dispense with the duo once and for all, nothing came to mind besides hoping that one of them got sloppy. She couldn't do anything to endanger a large group of humans due to that blasted Kryptonian's speed so the easiest way of escaping was not available to her. Even if she ignored the facts and took a chance, she had little doubt that the green brute would pounce on her the second her eyes left him. If only she could get one of them out of the way she could easily trounce whoever remained, leaving her free to promptly accomplish her mission…

It was then that a moment of inspiration that she realized there was a resource of hers that was still in the area and would do nicely.

Reaching up, she felt a button on a temporary implant the little toad had put behind her ear when she'd picked up her minions for the mission. It allowed her complete control over the beast that the little man had created but it also had a second option that she'd intended to use only if the entire Justice League got in her way. With a feral smile stretching across her face, she saw the key to victory as well as the means to gain ample revenge on these two lummox's for causing her such difficulty.

"WeLl, It'S bEeN fUn BuT I tHiNk iT's TiMe FoR mE tO tAg OuT!" she said before pressing the button and hearing the whine that told her the feature had activated.

Within seconds the results of her action could be heard as a loud roar succeeded in crossing the distance between the source and their location. Almost immediately afterwards the sound of explosion could be heard with a plume of smoke rising into the air quite visibly from where the three of them were.

"What did you do?" the Kryptonian asked in a tone that implied reprisal depending on the answer.

"I jUsT cHaNgEd ThE sEtTiNg On My LiTtlE aBoMiNaTiOn FrOm VeRbAl CoMmAnDs To CHAOS!" she replied bearing her sharp teeth at her foes. "It'S nOw OuT oF cOnTrOl AnD dEsTrOyInG eVeRyThInG aNd EvErYoNe In SiGhT! NoT eVeN I cAn StOp It NoW!"

"What!?" the Kryptonian exclaimed as he gazed in the direction of the chaos as though unable to believe she was telling the truth.

"YoU hAvE a ChOiCe HeRo: KeEp FiGhTiNg Me Or StOp My AbOmInAtIoN." She said delivering her 'choice' to the unofficial leader of the Justice League. "ChOoSe QuIcKlY."

Just like she predicted, though, the fool didn't even take a second to make his choice and, with a blur of super speed, her problems were reduced to one furious moron who had all the intellect of a rock. While this didn't meant that it would only take one move to finish the fight, she knew she now held the advantage as the only person on the battlefield capable of moving faster than the common eye could see. Invigorated by the little victory she'd achieved over the Kryptonian, another idea came to mind for dealing with the Hulk. While she'd prefer to pound the green giant until he was paste in the ground, she realized that the mission had to come first. The fool wasn't all that smart and it was unlikely that he'd be able to pick up her trail if she was too far gone for him to see with the naked eye.

With that in mind she charged in and began to deliver a series of blows designed to daze and confuse her prey. Once she saw him wobble enough to know that it worked, she grabbed him by the arm and began to whirl him around like a propeller until she succeeded in reaching her top speed, then she let him go. Like a giant cannonball the Hulk flew through the air and, while she had no clue where he'd eventually land, she did know that it'd be far away.

Without missing a single step she ran in the direction that scrap pile H.A.R.M had crashed and where the Kherabim computer awaited her. It took her little, if any, time to reach her destination but, when she arrived, she had to growl with annoyance at the scene playing out before her. Instead of the cyborg waiting patiently for her, he was fighting with two little girls that he should've been able to easily. One appeared to be made of liquid metal while the other appeared to be the female version of that Martian that was a member of the Justice League. She could've sworn that both of them had been beaten into the ground back at the embassy but obviously they were determined to annoy her further. Rushing forward at super speed, she backhanded the Martian, sending the green bitch through two buildings before latching onto the metallic woman with both hands so that she could tear the slut in two. Letting out an animalistic snarl, she ripped the metallic redhead in two flinging the halves as far as she could.

"AAAIIIEEEE!" screamed the mutated human as it suffered serious injury.

Nothing is quite so satisfying as the suffering of weaklings! She thought as her mood improved a bit. Now to get the target back to Helspont.

Looking down on its humanoid form, she was pleased to see that it was still inactive since it would be a real pain to have to chase it down and short circuit it again. Reaching down to pick it up, she almost didn't hear the sound of something moving swiftly through the air but she did and with instincts born of many battles, she instantly struck out with her right hand. Instead of passing through air, though, it hit something that was solid to the touch but invisible to the eyes… or rather the object had been invisible until her blow disrupted what had kept it concealed. Hitting the wall of a nearby building hard enough to create cracks was the Martian from earlier and, oddly enough, it impressed her that the whelp was able to push aside the pain the bitch was obviously feeling to fight.

It wouldn't keep her from doing something more permanent to the green girl but perhaps it might just make her upgrade the shapeshifter from slug to mouse.

"Y-you're not leaving w-with Void," the Martian bit out as it unsteadily got to its feet.

"AnD I sUpPoSe YoU pLaN oN sToPpInG mE?" she asked without the slightest bit of concern.

"I don't plan on stopping you. I WILL stop you!" the Martian declared before charging forward again with fists raised to attack.

With the utmost condescension she remained in a relaxed stance and raised only one arm to defend herself with since she doubted it'd take much more than that to make the fool eat pavement. Just as the idiot reached her she used her speed to get herself into position to grab the moron by the head so that she could thrust it towards the ground below her feet. However, before she could, the unexpected happened as the little girl's head twisted away from her grasp as though it was made from clay. Before she could adapt to this change, a punch about two thirds the strength of what she'd received from the Kryptonian slammed into her chest, sending her through a nearby wall. It was not strong enough to do any appreciable harm so she recovered quickly and quickly put the Martian back in the slug category.

A slug that was about to get thoroughly squashed!

"NiCeLy DoNe!" she growled as she strode out of the building she'd been knocked into. "YoU'vE jUsT eArNeD a PlAcE oN mY kIlL lIsT! YOU WON'T SURVIVE THE HONOR!"

Ten Blocks From the Justice League Embassy, Zealot's POV

The monster is out of control and the members of the League appear to at best be able to act as distractions for it. She thought as she observed the costumed heroes come close to a fatal mistake many a time. Only the beast's lack of intelligence allows them to keep it marginally contained.

Retreating back into the alleyway where brother Grifter was finishing the process of putting his uniform back on, she evaluated where they stood now in order to determine where they should go. As far as she knew, the Daemonite agent had successfully made off with Void, making it likely that unless someone interfered, the artificial intelligence would soon be in Helspont's hands. She'd seen Megan and Cessily fly off in the direction her foe had gone along with a transformed Alexander, so there was at least a chance that Glorificus could be delayed for a time. Nevertheless, the consequences would be dire indeed if they failed for she knew of the secret that lay at the core of the artificial being as she had been a person of significant rank aboard the Kherabim ship, Pantheon. Therefore the course she should take was obvious but as she looked at Cole she could tell that he wanted to help the Leaguers before the monster killed them. While the former member of Team 7 might often make jokes about the showy costumed heroes, it did not mean that he didn't appreciate the good that they did for Earth.

It did not mean that he failed to recognize the fact that he owed them his life each time they saved the planet from oblivion.

By both Grifter's code of honor and her own, they were obligated to render aid if the heroes were ever in a strategically dangerous situation.

"I know what you're thinking, Zealot, but we've got to help put down that monster." Cole said as he pulled his signature mask over his face. "I know all you want to do since we recovered our gear is go after Void but you and I both know that against that Daemonite bitch we'd get our hearts ripped out before we could blink. At least with Big Ugly over there we might be able to help."

"What happens to the members of the Justice League and the monster pales in comparison to what will happen if Helspont successfully acquires Void." she pointed out without any indicator of which way she was leaning. "I am sure their comrades will arrive shortly to render aid."

"Well, they're sure taking their sweet time!" Cole said pointing back in the direction of the Embassy. "It's been over an hour since this brawl started and no new heroes have swooped in. If the ones here don't get backup soon, it's only a matter of time before one of them gets turned into paste. I'm not about to let that happen. Not when we're within shooting range of that thing."

"If we do not stop Helspont from getting Void, every living thing on this planet could 'get turned into paste'," she said, throwing his own words back at him. "It's a question of numbers, Cole. Save a handful now and risk everyone else or prioritize the world and forget about the few who can be replaced soon enough."

"Zannah… I've met more than a few who used that same line of thinking to leave me and my team twisting in the wind. We weren't people to them, we were assets, expendable assets that could be replaced," Cole said with an edge added to his tone. "When I left the military, I made a promise to myself: I would die before I did the same. I'm going to go help them take down that monster. You do whatever you want. You always do."

With that he pulled out his guns and ran for the battle between the League and the monster, laying down rapid fire the moment he got a clear shot.

While she could understand his reasoning, she had the benefit of centuries of experience within her mind and knew that warriors who acted on their emotions often lost sight of the big picture to the doom of all they sought to protect. In war one had to remain calm and objective, relying only on the facts to determine the most efficient means of achieving victory. While there were some limitations as dictated by the Code of the Coda, she never hesitated to utilize what options remained in order to win her battles. At the moment her experiences were yelling at her to leave Grifter behind and focus on recovering Void but, for some reason, she could bring herself to turn away from the fight her partner had become embroiled in. It went against every ounce of tactical knowledge she possessed to choose any other course of action than what her experience had told her to do but still conflict existed within her.

With a sigh of annoyance she drew her sword from its sheath and moved to aid her partner.

Cole had clearly passed on some of his foolishness to her and she would make sure he paid for it later.

Seeing the monster about to hammer his fist down onto a dazed Black Canary, she leapt into the air and slashed the beast in a place that would evoke the most pain. As she'd expected, her Kheran-forged blade barely managed to pierce the scales of the monster but she'd taken that into account when she'd chosen her target. Getting out of the way as the giant lizard's strike range as it reared back in pain, reflexively reaching for the wound she'd just inflicted, allowing the woman with the sonic scream to recover her senses and get clear.

"Decided to join the party after all, Zealot?" Grifter asked, sounding a little smug that he'd rubbed off on her.

"Strategically I would stand a better chance defeating Glorificus with an ally," she replied, watching as the abomination turned to glare at her, "therefore the sooner this distraction is defeated, the sooner we can pursue the Daemonite and retrieve Void."

Cole merely chuckled at her perfectly rational line of thought but then they had to focus all their attention on the monster as it charged the largest clump of heroes looking to retaliate for the pain that had been inflicted.

"Look, lady, I don't know what's going on but for saving Canary from getting turned into mush you've got one more on your side when you go after that lizard woman." Green Arrow said before firing a volley of explosive arrows at the scaled beast.

They didn't do a thing to slow the target down one bit, making her wonder if the archer would really be of any assistance against one of Helspont's enforcers.

"No. The League can handle that demonness on its own," Vixen said as she charged like an angry elephant. "Once this overgrown gecko is beat, both of you're going back to your cells and we'll deal with that bitch queen."

"You're welcome to try, lady." Cole said, managing some precision shots to the abomination's eyes. "But you're going to need a helluva lot more than you got to pull it off than what you have right now."

Watching the beast rear back in pain once more, she had to agree that if the fight continued like they were it was unlikely that any member of the League currently present would be in any condition to detain them. Then again they might not be in any better condition so escape might not be possible for them either but so long as both she and Grifter remembered their training she was confident that their injuries would be minimal.

As the fighting continued her situational awareness let her know that the situation had changed with the arrival of her and Grifter. While the two of them might not be as powerful as some of the others present, the members of the Justice League were trained to use just enough force to subdue their opponents without venturing into excessive or potentially lethal force range. She and Cole, on the other hand, had no reservations about using lethal force if the situation warranted it and, given the power gap between them and the monster, 'kid gloves', as Cole called them, had to come off. Non-lethal force would not work against this creature and pretending otherwise would only mean severe injury or perhaps even death for all of them. Little by little her sword and Coles guns were inflicting harm upon the beast, however she could already see signs of a regenerative healing factor taking effect. At the rate things were going, it could take them hours before they succeeded in doing sufficient injury to the abomination to render it incapable of fighting further.

That was unacceptable. They needed to start inflicting significant harm upon the monster if they were going to achieve victory swiftly enough to make save Void.

While she let her mind wander a little, the crime against the natural order slammed both fists into the ground, shattering and upturning the pavement in all directions around the point of impact. As a result those not prepared for it found themselves knocked to the ground while those that had seen it coming were able to leap into the air to avoid the worst of it. It didn't mean that their landing was very steady with the loose pavement about but at least it left them in a better position. Sadly she was one of those knocked off her feet and so it was her that had to look up to see the giant being looming over her with a look of madness in its eyes.

However a blurred form slammed into it and succeeded in sending it flying before skidding down the street creating a trench as it went. Looking at the blur that had since solidified into a person, she could only believe that the Kheran gods of old had heard her wish.

Standing before her, looking only somewhat bruised, was the Justice League member known as Wonder Woman.

Somewhere Else, Place Unknown

"HOW DO THINGS PROCEED?" the central figure asked from the command chair overlooking the bridge.

"It would appear, my lord, that Glorificus is having significant difficulty retrieving the Kherabim computer core." A man wearing a fedora replied as he looked to the various video feeds. "Even with the resources she tapped into, it is unlikely that she will be able to return with her target anytime soon."

Silence reigned in the room as the various underlings went about their assigned tasks while at the same time diverting part of their attention to the important conversation going on in their midst. Their master's temper was well known and the bungling of the enforcer could very well be the final straw and cause their lord to lash out in a fury. None wanted that because, when their leader was like that, he didn't discriminate between his people and the ship itself when it came to dispensing his anger. One or two considered finding excuses to leave the room but realized that it would be seen as a sign of weakness, resulting in them being either killed or 're-educated'.

Neither possibility failed to send a shiver of fear down their backs.

"SIGNAL HIGHTOWER AND DEFILE," commanded the figure with power from the large chair in the center of the room. "MY PATIENCE IS AT AN END. GLORIFICUS HAS FAILED. IT IS TIME FOR ME TO TAKE CHARGE OF THE SITUATION PERSONALLY."

"By your command, Lord Helspont," the man in the fedora said with a formal bow before bringing the communications system online. "And what of the prisoners?"

"THEY SHALL BE USED AS EXAMPLES. ONCE I HAVE THE KHERABIM COMPUTER, IT WILL BE ALL TOO EASY TO LOCATE THE ORB OF POWER. THEN THE DAEMONITE CAMPAIGN TO CONQUER THE KNOWN GALAXY CAN BEGIN!"

The time for observation was over.

The time to act had arrived.

Megan Morse's POV

I c-can't give up! She thought as she fought to keep her body from trembling with strain. Can't let this woman get away w-with Void!

Sadly while her will remained strong, her body was another matter entirely as it was proving incapable of matching her foe blow for blow. Some might look at her and assume that she's just as capable as the famous hero Martian Manhunter but that would not be the case. While none of the abilities inherent in all Martians were beyond her reach, her efforts since arriving on this world had been centered on blending in. Before Xander had arrived she'd only used the abilities that would help her conceal her true nature from the people around her and, as far as combat was concerned, fighting the odd overzealous customer didn't count.

Fighting someone who obviously had vast experience and skill in the area in fighting was proving to be quite the difficult challenge.

In terms of physical speed and strength they appeared to be near equal, with the lizard woman only edging her out by about ten percent or so. However it was only the inventive ways that she coming up with for using her powers was keeping her in the game but tricks like that would only last for so long. Eventually the evil woman would wise up and adapt to her abilities but, strangely enough, she was willing to take those odds. After all, her mission here was to delay the evil woman long enough for Xander to return because, when he did, the two of them would have no trouble at all pounding the slut into the ground.

So if time was what she needed to buy then she'd make sure to get all she could acquire with her meager abilities.

Shoving aside her pain she charged forward, once more elongating her body as she went before attempting to bind the woman's arms with her body, thus leaving the bitch vulnerable to attack. However, as fast as she was, the lizard woman proved to be one step ahead of her and leapt clear of her stretched body, forcing her to change her plans. Pulling her body back to its normal human proportions, she flew into the sky, accelerating to the height of her levels of speed, intending to use the fact that the witch couldn't fly to her advantage. Acting like a cannonball with a mind of its own, she struck the scaled woman in the jaw as she flew past and then came back around for another attack and then another. Over and over again she took advantage of the fact that a woman could not possibly dodge since there was no way to move out of the way or few ways to change her orientation. For a time she thought she had finally found a method that would succeed in keeping her foe off balance until Xander arrived but that moment of hope soon shattered.

As she threw her next punch, a great surprise occurred when the demonness arced her body just enough to evade it and then, before she could pull back her arm, it grabbed.

"My TuRn!" her foe declared before burying a fist deep into her stomach.

Then, before she could recover from the shock of the first blow, another more powerful one was delivered to the back of her head, sending her plummeting to the ground below. So dazed was she by the blows that she was unable to save herself and so impacted on the street hard, almost sending her into the sewer tunnels below. She didn't know how long it took for her to regain her senses but, when she flew out of the hole in the ground her body had made, she barely had time to prevent herself from losing them again. A vicious punch that had been aimed at her head almost connected but she managed to spin out of the way in time to evade it allowing her to float more than fly a dozen feet away.

Dammit! I really thought that'd work! She thought as she glared at her enemy in frustration, Now what can I do?!

She didn't have the experience needed to become intangible and with the injuries she'd received thus far, her ability to turn invisible would be unstable at best. That left her with only her telepathy but she hesitated to make contact with such a foul, evil mind. In the past she'd only used her telepathic abilities to adjust the minds of some particularly rowdy customers or punish those men who thought they could abuse others without consequences. She'd never tried using the power in combat or to make contact with the mind of such an evil being.

Did she dare to take action?

A roar of fury quickly growing louder and closer saved her from making the choice as, with an impact that caused anyone close by to compare it to a brief earthquake, the Hulk made his return to the battlefield. Fury was still etched on his face and he pushed off the ground, tackling the lizard woman with the power of a runaway freight train. Building after building collapsed as their central supports were shattered and, by the time the fourth building fell, the momentum from Xander's attack expired.

Flying after the battling duo, she arrived to see them literally matching each other fist for fist, sending out shockwaves each time they slammed into each other. Whether they were planning on doing this on purpose or not, one was intercepting the other's punch with their own and so the force from each was diverted off to the side. This went on for a while before the lizard woman ducked under one of the Hulk's punches and used the claws on both of her hands to cut open his stomach. Green blood splattered across the rubble that had once been a building as Xander bellowed in fury-filled pain pressing a hand to the open wound. However, as the monster woman soon found out, making the green giant angry only made him stronger when, in a move of surprising speed, he grabbed her head with his free hand and slamming it into the ground with great power. Xander pulled the lizard woman's head out of the ground moments later but this proved to only be so he could slam it again into the ground, deepening the indentation the initial move had made.

When he finally paused to inspect his work, she wondered if they'd finally succeeded in defeating the witch.

When a clawed hand shot out of the impression and slashed open the Hulk's throat, though, she was amazed that the inhuman woman she'd been fighting still had the strength for it. Her state of shock didn't end there when the slash was followed up by a thrust kick that sent Xander into the air for a short time until he landed with a boom a dozen feet away.

Impossible! she thought watching her foe rise unsteadily to her feet. After getting pummeled that way, she shouldn't be conscious, much less still be able to fight!

"ThIs IsN't…OvEr…NoT yEt.." snarled the humanoid lizard as she tried to steady herself.

"FOR YOU IT IS, GLORIFICUS." came a malevolent voice from an alleyway thirty yards behind the lizard woman.

A sudden and powerful blast of energy shot out of the alleyway and tore through the demoness' chest as though she were a normal human. So large was the hole made that it wasn't unfeasible to say that a person could fit their head through it without difficulty, leaving her to wonder what was keeping the witch's body from separating into two halves. She wasn't left to wonder long as the body dropped to the ground as though all life had left it leaving her to wonder who had slain the foe who'd been such a problem for the rest of them. The person responsible soon emerged from the alleyway but the perpetrator was definitely not an Earth native but she was unable to identify the species. Clad in a purple and green bodysuit with golden tubes wrapping around the torso was a fearsome-looking villain with a head of electric blue flames given normal features only by a tattered skull-like mask. With a purple cape falling down the alien's back, it looked like it'd stepped straight out of a sci-fi movie and the role of the main villain.

"…H-helspont…" the lizard woman managed to say as blood trickled from her mouth.

"THERE IS ONLY ONE FATE FOR FAILURES." Helspont said as he picked up the lizard woman by the neck. "DEATH!" With that final word the flaming villain ripped Glorificus completely in half, dropping both halves like they were so much trash moments later.

We… we have to get out of here! She thought with fear as her eyes remained locked on Helspont, H-He'll kill us all!

Her mind tried to come up with something encouraging, like the fact that they'd softened up the demoness for Helspont, but she couldn't let go of the memory of Glorificus being torn apart. She had to somehow convince the Hulk to withdraw because, while he might be powerful, he had all the intellect of someone severely mentally challenged. There was no way that he'd be able to survive an encounter with someone who'd slain a foe he'd had such trouble with.

If Xander tried to fight Helspont, he could very well die.

"AS FOR YOU, HUMAN, YOU SHALL PAY THE ULTIMATE PRICE FOR INTERFERING WITH MY PLANS." Helspont declared as his gaze became fixed on the jade giant.

"Flame man…steal Hulk's prey…flame man BECOME Hulk's prey." Xander growled out as though his mind could barely gain coherence enough to speak. "HULK CRUSH!"

With that green mountain of muscle charged towards his new target and retreat ceased to be an option.

Survival, in her opinion, was the best he could hope for.

The Streets Near the Outskirts of Washington, Tony Stark's POV

"Emergency repairs complete. Reinitializing systems and administering stimulant."

With a gasp of sudden consciousness he woke and immediately tried to make sense of his surroundings, focusing first on what the main visual display only to find a street tilted on its side, along with many buildings. It took a moment for him to realize this was because he was lying on his stomach so he rolled onto his back and sat up. The next thing he noticed were the numerous readouts that flashed across his armor's HUD and this jogged his memory, allowing him to recall how he'd been knocked unconscious in the first place. He'd been flying to the outskirts of the city in order to investigate a suspicious anomaly when, out of the blue, he'd been attacked by a masked villain wielding an energy pike of some sort. He'd put up a decent enough fight but a direct hit to his suit's primary power source had caused some serious damage, rendering him unconscious just after he'd ordered Jarvis to initiate emergency repair protocols. Obviously they'd worked because, based on the readings he was seeing on the HUD, he was now a little better off than he'd been after the fight at the embassy. There was still some nasty battle damage but that couldn't be helped by anything other than returning to his lab and working on it there.

That wasn't an option.

His attacker's words and the timing of his attack confirmed for him that something was hovering in wait outside of the city and whoever was in charge inside didn't want to be exposed before he/she/it were ready. While his first instinct was to resume his investigation, he realized that that wasn't possible. If the masked man he'd encountered was some sort of watch dog then he'd almost certainly reported the presence of a man flying around in a metal suit to his superiors. The element of surprise was lost and, given the state of his armor, he doubted that she'd fare well in a head on confrontation with a force capable of hiding a large ship. That meant that he had to get back to the Embassy and inform the people there of what he'd found out because he seriously doubted that the hidden spectator's intentions were benevolent.

Activating his repulsor boots, he rose into the air and once he cleared the rooftops he flew towards the embassy at top speed.

He was about halfway there when a roar echoed throughout the air followed by the destruction of several buildings, making him automatically look in that direction and use his armor's sensors to find out what was going on. What he saw made him believe that the situation was a great deal direr than he'd originally thought because, right before his eyes, the Hulk was getting his big green ass handed to him by some sort of flame-headed super villain. The bad guy appeared to wield formidable energy blasts and strength that made the lizard woman seem no stronger than the heroine Vixen. Watching as the Hulk repeatedly tried to attack the evil matchstick, it soon became clear that the giant was outmatched in every way save strength. The craters made from the jade giant's blows showed that he was getting stronger with every passing minute but all of Xander's attacks were obvious to anyone with a set of eyes. Anyone who'd even had basic training in hand-to-hand combat would be able to evade the attacks and find the openings in Jade Jaws' defenses… though that could be because there was practically no defense to speak of in the first place.

While it seemed a few times that the mountain of a man tried to bring an arm up to block an attack, it wasn't something that he could positively confirm. The only thing he could confirm was that the only thing that was keeping Xander in the fight was his durability and, unless he was mistaken, some sort of regenerative ability. However both qualities had their limits and it would only be a matter of time before the Hulk reached his limits and was drop kicked past them, quite possibly to the point of death.

That left him with quite the choice to make: did he divert to render aid to the person Willow wanted to rescue or did he continue to the embassy in order to warn them of the hidden threat.

In the end he decided to do both and immediately began to broadcast a signal on every frequency used by the police, military and what he believed to be the communications channel for the Justice League.

"This is Iron Man to anyone capable of receiving this signal. I have located what appears to be a cloaked ship hovering just outside the city," he said, hoping that enough of the right people heard his transmission. "I have encountered one of the agents connected to it and do not believe that their intentions are benign. I am sending both the coordinates for the ship as well as all pertinent sensor data so you'll have a better idea of what you're dealing with. Please take every step possible to counter a city-wide threat because any ship capable of generating a cloaking field that strong must have impressive weapons."

With that he ceased broadcasting and set course for the battlefield on which the Hulk stood, locking all targeting systems on the being that seemed determined to kill Xander. Once he was within optimum firing range he began firing repulsor blasts down on the fiend, mixing in the odd tank buster forearm rocket for variety. Like an amplified version of conventional bombing runs, his attacks tore apart the ground around his target and hopefully did the same to old flame face. He was trying to use his sensors to get an idea of what sort of affect his efforts were having but some sort of interference was getting in the way.

It was due to this that he only had a moment's warning to act on when an energy blast pierced the cloud of dust and debris that obscured the enemy. With reflexes born of evading the throws of irate parents and ex-girlfriends he managed to roll to the side and while he avoided the bulk of it, the energy still scraped against his armor, ripping bits of it away to expose the circuitry beneath. Preparing himself for follow up attacks, he watched as his sensors could once more clearly his foe but didn't like the fact that there appeared to be no appreciable battle damage from his earlier attacks. There was some scuff marks and some minor chipping in places, as well as a little damage to the purple cape, but aside from that NOTHING. Considering he'd designed his armor's weapons to be powerful enough to let him take on even the powerhouses of the Justice League, that did not bode well at all.

"ANOTHER FLEA DARES TO DEFY ME?" the powerhouse with the head of flame barked. "WHEN WILL THEY LEARN THAT FLEAS ARE AS NOTHING BEFORE MY POWER."

"Probably about the same time disco makes a comeback big guy." he replied while trying to formulate a new plan of attack. "How about you go away and wait for that to happen? I'm sure people'll respect you better then."

"DO NOT PRESUME TO SPEAK SO TO ME, HUMAN." The enemy said with no sign that he was even a little concerned. "JUST…DIE!"

The fiend let loose two energy blasts from each arm, forcing him to devote all of his focus to evading them using whatever aerial maneuvers he could conceive of. It wasn't easy as he'd only managed a couple of hours in the simulator but fortunately for him the high and mighty big bad wasn't taking him seriously. He could tell from what glimpses he could get that the villain the asshole was casually adjusting his aim and releasing blasts on a whim every second or two. The man, if you could call the one before him that, obviously didn't consider anyone that wasn't him a threat and wanted to make sure that everyone else knew it.

That cocky attitude was going to cost him in three…two…one…

"RRAAAGGHH!" the Hulk roared as he took advantage of his prey's lack of attention to bring both fists down upon the villain's head.

With power enough to seriously disturb the ground in every direction for fifty yards, the blow successfully landed, sending the fiend into the ground quite deep. However this blow only seemed to enrage the caped creep further as the Hulk was flung out of the impression moments before a tremendous force displaced everything from where the fiery felon was located. Coated in an aura of energy at the center of a crater that was a perfect circle, the potent powerhouse most definitely gave off the impression of someone distinctly pissed off. He seriously hoped that this guy wasn't like the Hulk because if he was then what he was looking at was definitely a five hundred percent increase in power.

"HIGHTOWER! DEFILE! DOCKWELL! DISPOSE OF THIS TRASH ALONG WITH THE ENTIRE CITY!" roared the villain with the flaming skull for a head.

In response to this command the sensors on his armor immediately began to pick up three VERY large power signatures and so with all the seriousness such things required he turned his attention towards then.

He almost immediately wished he hadn't.

In three separate locations the air shimmered like heat rising off the pavement and this effect came to reveal three ships with some very nasty weapons adorning them. One was obviously a mothership due to its sheer size while the others were about half as big with a sleeker appearance making him think they were likely more maneuverable. That was about all the casual observing he could do before the weapons he'd spotted on them earlier began to direct deadly blasts of energy both at him as well as the rest of Washington.

Seeing all of this he could only hope that Justice League reinforcements were incoming because even with the heroes he knew were in the city presenting a united front he had his doubts as to whether or not that would be enough.

Justice League's Washington Embassy, Dr. Fate's POV

I know not what but there is something about this young woman that does not feel… right. Dr. Fate thought as he continued to utilize his magic to determine why the teenager would not waken.

Ever since Batman had bade him take Ms. Rosenberg to the infirmary, he had been doing what he could to get her onto her feet but no spell of healing or waking worked. He was confident enough in his own skills to say that it wasn't due to him but that would imply some unknown outside factor or the young woman herself was resistant to his magic. It was rare but there did exist people that magic did not affect even if you used an obscene level of power on them but he didn't think that was the case. Not one of the magic nulls he had ever encountered during his career as Dr Fate had possessed the arcane aptitude that Willow Rosenberg did. Just by looking at her with a passive scan spell he could tell a great many about her not the least of which was her potential as a sorceress. With proper instruction in the mystic arts, she could prove a possible successor to the Helmet of Fate should he or his wife prove to be unavailable.

He could also tell that she had lived upon a Hellmouth for most of her life yet was surprisingly not as tainted as most with the aptitude would be spending the same amount of time at such a location. He could only presume that she had not begun tapping into her magic until the last two years or so. Yet at the same time he could tell in those brief years she'd managed to achieve a measure of progress in mastering her magic, implying that she had either begun to receive instruction or had started to teach herself. Personally he hoped it was the former because there was great risk in doing the latter. Those that were taught by an experienced practitioner in the mystic arts were guided around many deadly traps and prevented from making some potentially fatal mistakes. Those were the students that were able to live long and healthy lives. For those that taught themselves, however, they were entering uncharted territory from the moment they picked up their first magic book. The wise knew that books were poor substitutes for a living instructor because a great many of the books on magic were written with the understanding that the reader already knew the basics and respected the forces of magic.

Such was rarely the case when it came to self-taught mages.

Many saw magic as simply being a way of getting what they wanted quicker and easier than doing it the normal way while at the same time believing that as long as they followed the instructions properly, everything would be fine. Those people did not realize that magic always came with a cost and the greater the feat of magic performed, the more severe the cost would be. Some spells actually required calling upon gods, goddesses, demons or otherworldly beings for assistance. Those entities did not see things as humans did, did not think as humans did, and so what a human would consider adequate payment for that assistance was rarely the same for those otherworldly entities.

Some payments were so severe that they could not be imagined by the human mind and some were so terrible that when the self-taught mage fully realized what they were, insanity was a very real possibility.

If I can successfully remedy this situation, I will have to have a chat with young Ms. Rosenberg about her magic. He thought as he moved on to the next spell that might yield results. While I myself would not be able to oversee her instruction, I should be able to find a suitable substitute with some free time on their hands.

His efforts were put on hold when a nearby screen flicked on to reveal the face of Mr. Terrific and the hero looked decidedly concerned.

"Dr. Fate, I am declaring an alpha red alert for the city of Washington," Mr. Terrific said before an image of the city appeared in the corner. "Three Daemonite ships have appeared and are attacking the city. I am calling in all League members in the area to deal with the situation but as you're there already. We need you to get out there immediately."

Taking a moment to look at Ms. Rosenberg, he decided that there was little more that he could do for her that he had not already done. "I shall leave at once," he said as he made his choice. "What about the others? As I recall, despite our injured, Superman, Batman, Hawkgirl, Vixen, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Steel, J'onn and Captain Atom are in the city as well."

"Vixen, Green Arrow and Black Canary are working with Zealot and Grifter to deal with the overgrown muscle lizard ten blocks from the Embassy," Mr. Terrific said before taking on a concerned tone. "We've lost contact with Superman, Batman, Steel, the Martian Manhunter and Captain Atom. The last three were trailing the craft that fled the Embassy when they suddenly vanished off my screens and the other two did the same when they diverted from the Hulk to deal with the monster Green Arrow is fighting."

"Disappeared?!" he gasped in surprise that such strong individuals could vanish without warning. "Do you have any idea where they have disappeared to?"

"If I did, I'd be sending a strike team to the most likely spots to rescue them." Mr. Terrific replied as he typed on a console that was out of sight. "I'm repositioning three League satellites to Washington to scan everything within fifty miles of the Embassy as well as the Daemonite ships. With a little luck I'll get some information that can help us turn things around."

"While you do that, I will do all I can to keep matters from getting any worse." he said as he summoned a gateway that would take him to Green Arrow's position.

While some might think that confronting the alien ships was more important, he knew that they would need everyone in order to overcome this threat. Better to dispense with the monster that was holding up the members of the League currently in the city then to fight along without back up of any kind.

Walking through the portal, he could see that his reinforcements might not be as many as he'd hoped.

Green Arrow appeared to be unconscious and Black Canary was gripping her right arm, which hung limp from her shoulder, implying that it was either dislocated or broken. Vixen and the former prisoners were in slightly better shape with no serious injuries but fatigue weighed heavily on their shoulders, implying that they wouldn't be able to fight for very much longer. However at the center of the fight was Wonder Woman, who was trading punches with the monster Mr. Terrific had mentioned to an apparent stalemate. The reason why he called it apparent was the fact that his mystic senses could easily tell that Diana was still feeling the blow she had received earlier. There was a tenseness of focus throughout her body and a flicker of movement about her eyes that backed up what his magic was telling him. However, in true warrior fashion, she was fighting despite her injuries and acquitting herself quite nicely but he knew that sooner or later she would make a mistake. With that in mind he cast a spell of binding on the create as soon as an opening presented itself but was surprised when his choice of spells was only just holding the monster. Immediately he added supplementary spells to cloud the creatures mind and rob it of the life energy it needed to continue to fight, both of which took effect within seconds. He waited a minute further to see if some unforeseen element would present itself to free the monster but when nothing did he concluded that the battle was truly over.

"Thank you, Fate." Wonder Woman said as she took a somewhat unsteady step away from her former opponent. "Another few minutes and I would have been forced to make some rather serious decisions."

"Think nothing of it," he said before pointing at the alien ships bombarding the city. "I fear you will have ample opportunity to return the favor before this night is over."

Looking at the powerful blasts that the three spacecraft were sending down from the sky, no one present could dispute that. While not as numerous as past alien attackers, they were still powerful and with so few present capable of opposing them the outcome was far from certain.

"I won't keep track of saves if the rest of you don't." Vixen said, steeling herself for the battle to come.

"Deal," declared everyone present before they moved to confront the engines of destruction threatening the city.

Megan Morse's POV

Why does he keep fighting?! She thought as she watched the Hulk continue to attack Helspont, only to be knocked aside like a child. Even for someone as stupid as him, he has to know that it's pointless.

Yet, in defiance of all reason, the jade giant continued to lunge at the demonic alien, sometimes to be knocked around by Helspont while other times an energy strike from one of the spaceships above managed to connect. She knew that he was so overcome with fury that he wasn't thinking straight and that that was what kept him from realizing that just throwing himself at his foe wasn't going to work. She wanted to convince him to stop, to flee if he couldn't calm down enough to think properly, but between her fear of Helspont and her need to evade the incoming fire from above, she didn't have the opportunity to do so. Seeing that there was nothing for her to do, she flew back in the direction she knew that Cessily had been torn apart. If she couldn't help with the fight between the Hulk and Helspont, then the least she could do was help her friend pull herself together and then get them both clear of the danger zone.

Landing at the site of terrible event in question, she sought out the upper half of Cessily's body since it would naturally be drawn towards the lower half, giving her a means of finding that half. Using her telepathy to home in on her friend's mind, it didn't take long for her to find the upper half of the metal girl's body. As she'd anticipated the trauma of being torn in half had reduced Cessily to a liquid pool of metal with only a barely discernible face at one end.

"Hang in there Cessily!" she said accelerating to her friend's side. "I'll get you back together in no time!"

Using her telekinesis, she lifted her friend gently off of the ground but no sign was there that Cessily even realized that she was there. That did not bode well but nevertheless, through her telekinetic hold, she was able to detect a faint pull in her friend's upper body, giving her a good idea of which direction to go in for the other half. It took a few minutes, though, as she had to move around some rubble in order to find what she was looking for, but eventually she found a mass of liquid metal that could only belong to her friend. Carefully setting both halves next to each other, she waited to see if her optimistic solution to her situation proved to be accurate. At first nothing happened but then a smile blossomed on her face as the two halves began to flow together with obvious purpose and, after a minute or two, they became as one. From there it took less than a minute for Cessily's mass to reform into its familiar feminine form and, once that was done, movements associated with life began.

True, Cessily didn't strictly need to make it appear as though she was breathing or that muscles were moving beneath the surface of her 'skin', but the redhead chose to do so if only to fit in with others.

Time passed and for a moment she feared that this would be as far as the restoration would go but then a groan of soreness escaped Cessily's lips and, with a brief flutter of metallic eyelids, her friend began to push herself into a sitting position.

"Uhhh…what happened…to me?" Cessily rasped, managing to sit up and stay that way.

"You got torn in two by that psycho lizard woman," she replied truthfully as she remained close just in case her friend's strength abandoned her. "Karma had its way with her, though. She's not a problem for anyone anymore."

"Good. Getting torn in two sucks." Cessily said with a bit of relief before deciding to try and stand up.

It was shaky at first but as time passed, strength returned and her friend managed to stand steadily on her own two feet without any sign of weakness.

Too bad it was right about then that a volley of energy blasts struck the ground just far enough away for them to avoid being seriously injured.

"What the HELL?!" Cessily exclaimed as she looked about trying to locate the source of the attack.

"Um… did I forget to mention that three alien ships are attacking the city as well as everyone in it?" she asked, feeling a bit embarrassed that she'd forgotten to relay that important fact.

"Yeah. You DID!" Cessily replied glaring at her for that important omission.

"Well they are and I wouldn't recommend trying to fly out of this place," she said, bringing her friend closer to a sturdy wall. "Those ships seem to like flying targets."

"What about your boyfriend and Void?" Cessily asked as they listened for signs that trouble was coming their way. "They alright?"

"Void should be around here somewhere but Xander… Xander's fighting some super villain called Helspont." she said, taking on an ominous tone as she recalled. "He's… he's not doing so well. In fact he's… losing."

"WHAT!? The guy who can knock heads with Superman is LOSING!?" Cessily exclaimed in genuine surprise at the news.

She shuddered slightly at the memory of the beating Helspont was delivering to Xander, despite the latter being in his empowered form. It seemed impossible that someone capable of matching Superman blow for blow could be so completely outclassed but she had seen it with her own eyes. She knew not how long it would be before the fight between Helspont and the Hulk came to an end because, with the Hulk's durability and regenerative abilities, it could be quite some time indeed. However at the moment she had little doubt as to how it would end. Unless a dramatic change occurred in how the jade giant fought, he would never be able to overcome the skill and power of Helspont.

"Yes, and there's nothing we can do to help him," she said before she began looking about the area. "The best we can do is find Void and get her out of here."

"Wait! You're just going to abandon him?!" Cessily asked in surprise at her suggested course of action.

"YOU THINK I WANT TO!?" she exclaimed in frustration as she turned to her friend. "If I thought there was anything we could do to help him, I'd have dragged you off already! You don't understand just how big the power gap is! If we went there… we'd only get in the way."

It was the undeniable truth that in terms of skill she and Cessily weren't much better than the Hulk and, as far as power went, she felt she'd barely be able to prove equal to Wonder Woman.

They wouldn't be able to do anything for Xander. They could do something for Void, though.

"Alright. Let's see if we can find Miss CPU and get her out of the battlefield." Cessily said, accepting the feelings of her friend.

With that the two of them began to explore the area where they'd last seen the alien artificial intelligence, moving aside debris as needed. Ten minutes later they found the person they sought and, thankfully, there didn't appear to be any noticeable damage to Void as a result of all the fighting. Utilizing the normal ways that she knew to wake up an unconscious human, mostly because she didn't know how to wake up an offline humanoid A.I, concern manifested when she received no response. Nevertheless she refused to believe the worst since she'd already been forced to accept a bit minutes ago with Xander.

"C'mon." Cessily said as she picked Void up off the ground, "We need to get the hell out of here before something we can't handle comes along."

Before they could take two steps, a massive object burst from the side of the building in front of them before finally coming to a stop as its momentum proved insufficient to allow it to pass through yet another wall. As dirt, dust and debris danced about in the air, she had a hard time seeing what or perhaps who had just come through the wall but eventually the air cleared all with eyes to see clearly.

She truly wished that she could've remained ignorant of the object's identity for a great deal longer.

Lying scarily still on the ground was the Hulk but, unlike how she had seen him before, both of his arms had somehow been burned off and he was unconscious. Looking extra carefully, she could miraculously see signs of labored breathing but it looked as though it was getting harder and harder for the disarmed giant to accomplish this feat. All this information was being processed peripherally as the majority of her mind just couldn't believe that someone could've done this to the Hulk or that the giant was still alive if only just barely. She was not given much longer to consider this a primal instinct told her to relocate herself and Cessily from their current positions IMMEDIATELY. Thanks to the state of her mind, she reacted with impressive promptness and that was the only thing that saved the two of them from an energy blast that left a bowling ball sized hole in the wall Hulk was resting against.

"IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIVES, YOU WILL PUT DOWN THE KHERABIM COMPUTER, HUMANS." Came a malevolent voice she'd hoped never to hear again, "I WILL NOT ASK AGAIN."

Someone… ANYONE… help us! She thought unknowingly transmitting it telepathically to everyone within range.

Xander's POV

Someone…ANYONE…help us!

It was a single familiar voice but sometimes that's all someone needs to pull themselves out of the chaos of their own mind. Megan's voice was certainly enough for him and with resolve born of seeing his only hope he began to claw his way through the near overwhelming sensory input that he'd been forced to experience. It was hard to think amidst the chaos, hard to form a coherent thought, making him feel that he'd only gain clarity once the source of the storm of information was turned off. Thus it had been a welcome change to hear Megan's voice and, given that it'd managed to pierce through the chaos, he saw it was a chance at clarity that he could lunge at and therefore he did. He knew not how long it took him to clear the chaos but his instincts, the ones that told him salvation lay in the direction of the voice, provided true as he emerged in what could be considered the eye of the storm.

Taking a moment to soak in the peace he had been deprived of moments ago, he then looked about to see if Megan was standing someplace close by waiting for him. Instead the only thing he saw was a nightmare version of the old Sunnydale High School library, pre-BOOM. The parts that existed closest to the center of the library were exactly as he remembered them but the further away from that center he looked, the greater the signs of degradation until all that could be seen was the chaos. Sometimes the chaos looked like a funnel of randomly colored energy and sometimes, for a split second, he thought he could make out images of the real world flitting by before it all became a multi-colored funnel again.

Seeing the familiar sight put him more at ease but a part of him still did want to know where he was, how he got here and how he could get back to the real world. It was about then that he spotted one of those omnibus comic books on the main library table and decided to follow the instinct that was telling him to take a look at it. Walking over, he picked it up and looked at the cover only to find the word 'Hulk' written at the top as well as a well-drawn picture of a set of angry green eyes right below the title. Almost immediately his mind made the connection between the cover and the monster he was cursed to turn into every time he lost his temper. His first instinct was to throw away the comic book and try to find his way back to reality but a stray thought telling him to look inside for answers prompted him to open the book.

What he saw inside was the expected comic book panels containing detailed drawings, text boxes and speech bubbles but the thing that he noticed first was the fact that every drawing was done as though the artist was drawing what a specific person was seeing. While this did happen occasionally in comics, usually the artist drew things the second or third person perspective since it allowed for more context. One by one he looked at the drawings until he realized that it was the interior of the containment chamber he'd been secured in by the Justice League after his capture by the military.

Could I be looking at things through the Hulk's eyes? He thought as he committed more focus to examining every detail of every panel for information.

It was one of the biggest fears he had about his curse, not knowing what he'd done as the Hulk, so the chance to fill in the blanks was an opportunity he wasn't going to let pass him by. With almost mechanical precision he turned the pages as he absorbed the actions of the Hulk depicted in each panel. He saw the Hulk pursue the demon lady with obsessive determination. He saw the green colossus trade blows with Miss Freaky, sometimes with help while other times without, but the first piece of good information he discovered was about Willow.

She was alive.

She was alive and in good condition according to Megan, whom he had no reason to doubt at the moment.

That left him a bit puzzled as to why he was, based on his current environment, still the Hulk. From his point of view, the reason he'd changed had been because he'd thought that the evil woman had killed his best bud but if that wasn't the case, why wasn't the Hulk calming down. That answer came on the next page when the hell bitch actually stated that she'd pay Willow a visit to finish her off. Obviously it wasn't the memory of past anger that was keeping the jade giant going but the future threat to Willow and that likely wouldn't disappear until the bitch was dead.

Proceeding through the next few pages, it wasn't until the final five or six pages that he got what he believed was the most current info. The she-demon that had threatened Willow with death had been killed by her boss but, instead of ending the rage, all it'd done was cause the Hulk to switch targets and this proved to be a big mistake. While it was hard to tell from the panels, it looked like the Hulk was getting his ass handed to him in six or seven different ways, all of which looked painful. It didn't take a genius to figure out why because, according to what Cole had told him, the Hulk was about as smart as a box of hammers, so he probably had the fighting skills of a five year old. Anyone with an ounce of skill would be able to outfight the Hulk and, if they had enough power to back them up, they'd turn the green guy into their own personal punching bag.

And that was apparently what this flame headed fellow had done very, very thoroughly.

The last couple of panels showed the Hulk's arms getting blasted off, followed by a punch that obviously left the Hulk unconscious since the final panel was completely black.

O-kay! So I've literally been disarmed, possibly bleeding all over and old propane puss is probably moving in for the kill right now. He thought as he tried to decide on his next move, Megan's probably near me and I doubt this guy's going to let her walk away unharmed.

If he was in control of his body, he'd yell at her to run for it while he charged the big bad in the hopes of buying her enough time to get out of sight, however he doubted that was an option. After considering all the facts, he believed that the reason he'd been unable to remember anything of when he was the Hulk was because he was trapped in the chaos storm circling the pseudo-library. Why he'd been able to break free of it now wasn't important and could be shelved for later. All that mattered was somehow getting Megan the help she was crying out for and he knew in order to do that, he needed to speak with Gaea. He knew that his past conversations with the goddess of the Earth hadn't gone well but he was determined to make it turn out the way he wanted this time.

Sitting down on the floor and assuming the meditative position Dr. Fate had shown him, he followed the same process he had before when he'd tried to reach the being that'd cursed him to be the Hulk. With time being a crucial factor, he sought out the feeling of incredible divine power with every ounce of metaphorical speed he could muster. Every route was explored and every lead followed but it wasn't until he felt the titan sized presence in front of him that he opened his eyes to see a feminine form made out of green energy walking towards him that he knew he'd hit the jackpot. Watching as she approached him, completely unaffected by the chaos that had blocked his recollection of his activities as the Hulk, he tried to think of the best way to convince her to give him control over his body Hulk powers and all.

Not being a master manipulator or genius with words, he decided instead of tripping over his own maze of words he'd just be honest and professional since he still remembered how losing his temper with her hadn't helped last time when he spoke with her.

"I guess you're probably wondering why I want to talk to you," he said before moving on to the bare bones of the discussion. "I know you don't want to put me in the driver's seat as the Hulk because one of the last people you gave this power to went bad, but even you have to know we need a new plan because the this one ain't working. The Hulk you dreamt up and put in control doesn't have the skill or the IQ to take this guy down.

"I know you aren't crazy about putting a human like me in the driver's seat but I don't see a lot of other options. This guy is destroying Washington and killing a lot of people, normal people and heroes that've dedicated their lives to protecting you and the entire human race, and that's something we have to stop. I know asking for a permanent driver's license with Big Green is probably out of the question, so howsabout just this once? Once this fight is over you can put Cave Hulk back into place. That sound good?"

"NO." Gaea said, causing the environment to ripple with her words.

Should've known that overcoming centuries of mistrust wasn't going to be easy. He thought as he tried to formulate another acceptable option.

It was then that a promising possibility made itself known in his mind and immediately he began looking through the bookshelves for what he needed. It only took a couple of minutes but eventually he managed to find the book titled 'Solider Boy' and hoped that it contained the remnants of his Halloween possession. Returning to the glowing form, he took a deep breath and presented to her his plan B.

"How about this instead: graft these bits and pieces of Soldier Boy onto whatever personality you made to control the Hulk." He held the book out for her to take, "It's not a complete human mind so you wouldn't be trusting a human and if you tweak it a bit, you can make yourself Solider Boy's commanding officer. That pretty much makes sure he'll obey whatever orders you give him so you won't have to worry about him going AWOL. This'll at least give him a better chance of fighting Flame Face out there and maybe get people to trust him more."

As he finished saying his piece, he waited with anticipation hoping that the goddess would find this arrangement more to her liking. While not him in the driver's seat like he'd prefer, he knew things would be a lot better with Solider Boy making the decisions than the temper tantrum titan. Solider Boy wouldn't cause massive amounts of property damage just because he didn't care if two dozen cars needed to be sent to the scrap heap after he'd left. Soldier Boy wouldn't duke it out with the Justice League unless they went evil or were being mind-controlled or something. People would be reasonably safe around Soldier Boy and the remnants would know enough to take a fight elsewhere to protect innocents. It was the best compromise he could come up with and he seriously hoped it would be accepted.

"ACCEPTABLE." Gaea said before the 'Solider Boy' book disappeared from his hand.

Then, with a flash of light, she was gone, leaving him alone in the pseudo-library with the edges of the chaos storm still whirling about him as violently as before. For a moment he thought that he might be tossed back into the storm since he figured that was Gaea's way of making sure he stayed separate from the Hulk and the giant's actions. When nothing happened for what he considered a full five minutes, he could only conclude that the goddess must be content with leaving him in the eye of the storm.

Probably because she figures I can't cause any trouble from in here. He thought as he sat down in the chair nearest the main table. Not exactly what I'd prefer but in this case I'll take what I can get. Now if only he could get a box of Twinkies and a six pack of Pepsi, I might just be able to get comfy here.

Justice League Embassy, Washington DC, Infirmary, Five Minutes Earlier, Willow's POV

"Uhhh…whaa…" she said as she opened her eyes and gazed about the room she found herself in.

Her memories were a bit of a mess but, as the fog of unconscious faded, she began to recall more and more. She remembered being used as a hostage by the demon woman the Justice League had been fighting but then the skank had thrown her into the wall, most likely with the intent to kill her. She didn't recall much else before waking up except for some reason she could remember sitting in front of a fire someplace but that memory was very fuzzy. Sitting up in what appeared to be a hospital bed, she looked about and figured that she must've somehow been saved at the last minute by one of the League members because, aside from a little soreness in her back, she felt fine. Looking down at herself, she was glad to see that she was still wearing the disguise she'd picked up for her mission because, much like Xander, she didn't like the drafty outfit hospitals put most patients into. Looking about, she could see that she was alone but was hooked up to monitoring equipment as well as an IV drip but no handcuffs or other restraints.

Nice of them not to make this too hard for me, she thought as she started disconnecting herself from the monitoring devices. I need to get out of here and quick. If I'm lucky I'll be able to spring Xander while the heroes are fighting that demon lady.

While she knew that she was being more than a little optimistic of her chances, it was far preferable to the more realistic scenario that everything had already been resolved while she'd been unconscious. If that was indeed the case, she'd be facing the League alone in her efforts to free Xander and with her bag of tricks confiscated, she was woefully unprepared to face them. Without her bag and the element of surprise, she'd literally have no choice but to face them head on because leaving to try again later was not an option she was willing to accept. Coming back later would only make things more difficult since the security would almost certainly be heightened and they'd have intel on her methods, making things much harder for her.

No. Better to assume that it's still chaos out there and try to take advantage of it. She thought as she pulled out the IV and hopped off of the bed.

She was somewhat surprised that no alarms had gone off or that she hadn't been visited by orderlies wondering why she'd flatlined all of a sudden, but she figured that something during the fight must've shorted out some of the building's wiring. Moving over to the door, she flattened herself against the wall and tentatively reached out for the doorknob to see if it was locked or not. A slight turning revealed no resistance so she turned the doorknob even more and was ecstatic to find out that whoever had checked on her last had forgotten to lock the door. Easing the door open while listening for annoying squeaks of hinges in need of oil, she slipped out into the hallway the second the door was open enough to fit through.

Carefully tip-toeing her way down the hall, she strained her ears as best she could so that she'd have at least some warning of incoming military people or super heroes. It was as she turned a corner that she spotted a sign on the wall that gave her an idea of where she was according to the architectural floor plans she'd acquired through her hacking. She was on the third floor on the western side of the building from what she could see, so that meant she had to find a way down two floors before she could get to Xander's cell. Turning right at the next hallway intersection, she tried to walk casually yet quietly since she had her suspicions that looking like you were trying to sneak out would be a good way to make people think something was up.

When she felt the building shake as though it'd been hit with something, she decided that perhaps moving a LITTLE quicker would be alright.

She was just about to open the door to the first staircase when she heard people approaching and, after a moment of desperate searching, she found a reasonable hiding place behind a vending machine. Remaining as silent as she could, she waited for the two people, at least she believed there were only two based on the footsteps, to go away so she could make good on finding Xander and getting away.

"It's getting crazy out there," spoke a male voice as it got closer. "Those alien ships are shooting everything in sight and, according to Mr. Terrific, most of our heavy hitters are either missing or injured."

"I know what you mean. That's why they told us to begin setting up this place as temporary medical relief station," a female voice said in complete agreement. "Win or lose, there are going to be a lot of hurt people out there and the local hospitals aren't going to be able to handle them all."

"Assuming this place is still standing when it's all over," ahe male voice said as the duo got to within twenty-five feet. "With the way they're laying down energy blasts, I give this place five minutes before it's nothing but a pile of rubble."

"Don't worry. The League built this place to take a pounding." the female voice said with confidence. "You don't build a superhero HQ without expecting some uninvited guests."

"I seriously doubt even half the defenses are still working after all those people tried to break out the Hulk," the male voice said with some skepticism in his voice. "I swear they should just toss that monster into a hole and pour in some cement."

"Kenneth!" the female voice exclaimed in outrage.

"What? You saw what he did in Vegas and heard how he fought Superman." Kenneth said, not understanding what was wrong with his preference. "The guy's a walking nuke just waiting to go off. Better to seal him away someplace where he can't hurt anyone then risk keeping him someplace he could hurt people."

"You know as well as I do that it's not the kid's fault!" the female voice said from less than fifteen feet away. "Dr Fate and the others are doing everything they can to get him back to normal and he hasn't been anything but co-operative with them."

"Yeah? Then why'd he go green and escape?" Kenneth asked not liking the different point of view. "Either he's decided to stop being 'co-operative' with them or he can't control himself."

"You weren't there so don't be talking about stuff you just heard about secondhand," the female voice said, trying to end the discussion right there. "Just focus on your job and wait for the League to put a stop to those alien ships."

"Assuming the aliens don't put a top to us first," Kenneth said grudgingly before getting in the last shot. "Still if what I head from Robinson down in the C&C is right we won't have to worry about the Hulk for much longer."

What? She thought even as she did her best to remain concealed.

"What do you mean?" the female voice asked as the duo entered her field of vision without apparently noticing her.

"According to Robinson, the Hulk's getting his big green butt kicked by some sort of flame headed super villain. Really hardcore according to the satellite video footage," Kenneth replied with a bit of optimism in his voice. "I'm telling you, Gabby, if we give this another hour the only thing they'll need to do about the Hulk is build a coffin big enough to put him in."

NO! she thought with fear at the idea of her best friend dead.

Without any warning the vending machine she'd been hiding behind began to go totally haywire, circuits sizzling, light bulbs bursting and a few soda cans being flung from it at pro pitcher speeds. She was so surprised by this that she let out a yelp, which pretty much blew her attempt at hiding clean out of the water. Looking at the duo that had just passed her, they were looking right at her with one of them reaching for a walkie talkie clipped to his belt. She had to stop him! If he put the word out that she wasn't in her room then she'd never get out of the Embassy so she could look for Xander. Reaching out towards the two Embassy employees, she was about to tell them to stop when an arc of crimson electricity leapt from her outstretched hand and struck the walkie-talkie. The electronic device fried under the assault, the plastic parts melting while smoke rose out of the holes, making it quite clear that the object was now fit for the garbage bin.

What? She thought as she looked at the hand that had discharged the energy. How?

She didn't know how she'd managed the blast but since the duo before looked ready to try and capture her themselves rather than call it in, she decided to shelve the question for the time being. Turning around, she bolted for the door to the staircase and, once she was through, began making her way down as quickly as was safe. She wouldn't do Xander any good if she tripped and fell down a flight of stairs and broke her neck in the process. She could hear the duo of Gabby and Kenneth pursuing her and hoped that she had enough of a head start on them to make it out of the building before they caught up.

Throwing open the door at ground level, she could see the damage that had been caused by the numerous attempts to capture/rescue Xander. Seeing it, she agreed at least with one of Kenneth's statements that they'd be lucky if half the systems in the place were still in working shape. Navigating the hallways, she mentally breathed a sigh of relief as she spotted an emergency exit and wasted no time in going through it. Lady Luck stayed with her for one more trick as she found herself staring at the OPEN main entrance to the Embassy with no replacement guards to bar her path. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, she ran through them but soon found herself presented with a new and potentially fatal problem.

The story about the alien spaceships destroying the city was true and that meant driving anywhere in the city was going to be downright hell in the metaphorical sense of the word. Walking there would also be difficult since she'd wager people were stampeding away from the danger while soldiers were making sure no one got onto the battlefield that wasn't supposed to.

If only I could fly or teleport! She thought as her mind desperately worked to find a solution to her problem.

Sadly both options were highly advanced forms of magic and, while she wasn't an amateur in the arcane arts, she was nowhere near the level needed to employ either act of magic. However… the strange things that'd been happening since she'd purchased the headdress didn't seem to be tied to her own magical ability. Firing bolts of crimson electricity, making vending machines go haywire and shorting out electronic locks in her favor were not things she'd been able to do before tonight. The question was could it do something as powerful as teleport her to wherever Xander was at the moment.

How would she even make it do what she wanted it to do?

Well… when it doubt, pull a Xander. Deciding to do what her friend would likely do in her position, she pled, PleaseteleportmetoXanderplea seteleportmetoXanderpleasete leportmetoXander!

Over and over she repeated the phrase while wishing with all her heart and soul that the crimson headdress on her head would heed her wishes. For every second that nothing happened she doubled her efforts determined to get to her friend in time and rescue him from whatever threatened him. For as long as she could remember, Xander had always been the one coming to her rescue so this time she was going to be the one to save him from harm no matter what.

With that level of resolve reached she felt a surge of energy flow through her and then in the blink of an eye everything changed.

Tony Stark's POV

"You got that plasma problem locked down, Jarvis?" he asked, peeking out from the shell of a building he'd taken temporary refuge in.

"Indeed, sir, though it is a temporary patch at best." Replied the onboard artificial intelligence, "I would be cautious of putting too large a strain on the armor's power distribution systems as that could cause a relapse."

"Gotcha," he said as he watched the ships continue bombardment without minimal signs of Justice League counter attacks. "Somehow I don't think I'm going to be able to be cautious. Any word on the status of the rest of the League or the military?"

"Three squadrons of F-15 fighters are inbound from Andrews Air Force Base and, according to military communications, all combat certified pilots are being called in." Jarvis replied, bringing up a small GPS screen showing the current locations of the F-15, "ETA on the fighter squadrons twenty minutes."

"Not bad but considering that Stark Enterprises sold them their hardware, I don't know what they can do against these ships." He took to the air, evading incoming fire as needed, "Dad designed them to handle Earth-born threats, not ray guns and spaceships."

"Quite. Tactical analysis indicates that the F-15s will be at quite the disadvantage." Jarvis stated, putting in his two cents.

"What about the League? They got any back up coming?" he asked as he turned his gaze to the ground to locate Helspont.

"Unknown. League communications channels are oddly silent." Jarvis replied, sounding genuinely puzzled, "Normally there is at least some routine communications between embassies but I am picking up nothing."

"Is it possible they're being jammed somehow?" he asked, not liking the worst case scenario his mind was coming up with at the moment.

"Negative. A jamming signal strong enough to block worldwide Justice League communications would register on my sensors and affect other communications networks as well." Jarvis replied as the armor's sensors pinged indicating a possible match to Helspont's energy signature.

"Then the problem has to be happening from inside the other embassies as well as any place with connections to those locations," he said with concern as his hunch seemed to match the facts. "Helspont must have people working for him inside the other embassies and ordered them to do something to cut off the other heroes before he showed himself."

"That would seem likely." Jarvis stated as he maneuvered towards the target his sensors had highlighted.

I guess we're on our own then. he thought not relishing on saving the world on his first night as an armored superhero. Then again, if it was easy to do, everyone would be doing it and it wouldn't be nearly as impressive.

As the last obstruction between him and the source of the energy signature moved to the side, he beheld a sight that did not bode well for anyone. The Hulk was down and seriously injured with the only positive piece of information being that the jade giant appeared to still be alive, if only just barely. In fact, unless his sensors were malfunctioning, they were telling him that the Hulk's missing arms appeared to be regenerating at an accelerated rate. Best estimate for when they'd be back to normal was about ten to fifteen minutes but, given that Helspont was standing not ten feet away, it was debatable as to whether or not the big guy would have that much time. The villain appeared to be threatening two women, one of whom was a mutant while the other appeared to be extraterrestrial in nature. Closer examination revealed a third woman being held in the arms of the alien and, with enhancement, he recognized the third person as the woman that had been abducted from the Washington JLU Embassy.

They have less time than the Hulk. He thought as he immediately descended from the sky and dropped himself between the villain and his prey, Time to prove I really am a hero and not just some rich boy wannabe.

"Not another step closer, Spooky," he warned as he began to prepare his armor's one trump card.

"ANOTHER BUG THINKS IT CAN DEFY ME? MADNESS." Helspont said as he advanced towards his target.

"Yeah? Well this bug has one helluva stinger!" he said before firing the most powerful weapon he had installed into the suit.

The tentative name for it was the Uni-beam but he was considering trying to find a cooler name for it. Uni-beam just sounded too nerdish and hell would freeze over before Tony Stark used something with a nerdy name or made the name public. Yes he was an inventor and one of the smartest people on the planet but everything he did he did in style with the coolness factor at maximum.

Still, he couldn't argue with the results.

The energy blast from the uni-beam slammed into Helspont and sent the villain flying backwards through the air, past the prone body of the Hulk and into a hole that had been made in a concrete wall earlier in the fight. It wasn't quite as good as he'd hoped, he'd wanted the big bad to go through at least four building before coming to a stop, but given the situation he'd take what he could get.

"Alright, ladies, that's not going to keep him down for long." He turned to the damsels formerly in distress, "Let's get while the getting is good. Any of you need a lift?"

The girl that seemed to be made of liquid metal tentatively raised her hand so, as non-threatenly as possible, he picked her and Helspont's primary target off the ground and activated his boot repulsor jets. Looking to the green-skinned girl, he was somewhat surprised to see her hovering off the ground herself but shrugged since that would make their escape easier. Without further delay they flew off, heading for quickest and safest route out of the city since he figured so long as they kept the silver-clad target out of Helspont's hands the fight wasn't over yet. Maybe they'd catch the mixed blessing of having the three alien spaceships chase after them in which case the battle could be drawn away from the city. True, it would mean that the totality of the enemy's firepower would be directed at them but, last time he checked, the superhero handbook a hero always put the wellbeing of the innocent above his own.

Sadly Fate wasn't done with them yet as his armor gave out a familiar warning, causing him to immediately roll to the right in order to evade an equally familiar energy blast. Bringing up one of his rear exterior cameras, he saw what he figured he'd see and groaned, wondering why being a hero had to be so damn hard. Airborne behind them and closing the gap quickly was Helspont who, amazingly, looked even more furious than before.

Of course he can fly! he growled mentally as he and green girl continued to evade incoming fire from the alien with the flaming head. It's a part of the super villain package, after all!

Checking his armor's systems, he saw that he could increase his own velocity if he wished but he didn't want to leave green girl behind, since he very much doubted his two current passengers would approve, plus it went against his personal morals. He had no choice but to accept that he'd be having the spaceships plus Helspont following him out of the city, so he sent up a prayer that his evasion skills would be up to the task.

They weren't.

A blast from Helspont made enough contact with his right repulsor boot to cause more than a thirty percent drop in power to start with and one percent every few seconds afterwards. At the rate the power drop was occurring, he'd wind up crashing to the ground in six minutes or less, taking both of his passengers with him. Spotting the wide open stretch of space in front of the Washtington Monument, he chose accordingly.

"Where are you going?" Green girl asked, no doubt interested in his change in direction.

"My boot's losing power," he explained as he watched the power continue to drop. "I won't be able to fly for much longer so I'm heading for the closest landing zone."

This appeared to satisfy her and, when they arrived at their destination minutes later, he immediately directed what was left of his emergency repair nano-machines to his right boot. He didn't carry a large supply of the micro-machines due to the fact that they were prototypes and had the potential to go AWOL but he needed his flight capabilities back. While agile in the air, his suit was nowhere near as good at dodging on the ground and he seriously didn't like the odds his scientific mind was coming up with regards to taking one of Helspont's blasts dead center.

"HAND OVER THE KHERABIM COMPUTER, HUMAN." Helspont commanded in a way that made it clear only one answer would be acceptable. "DO SO AND I WILL GRANT BOTH YOU AND YOUR COMPANIONS A SWIFT DEATH."

He prepared to give the understandably confident villain a piece of his mind when he noticed something that did a better job of catching and keeping his attention. Looking up the sky that moments ago had been a clear, star-filled night was quickly changing as dark storm clouds began to form at a clearly unnatural speed. It wasn't just happening over the Washington monument, either, but the entire city was quickly becoming covered in a blanket of storm clouds, with thunder booming ominously and a random lightning bolt crackling down to the Earth below. However the big showstopper happened a minute later when a single impressive bolt of lightning dropped from the clouds to strike Helspont, sending the high and mighty alien down into the crater forming around him. Judging from the angry growl that came from the crater, it didn't sound like Smokey the Bear's natural enemy was out for the count but the mere fact that he was knocked down was a good thing.

It was then that he saw what looked to be a hammer shoot up into the sky that he got his first clue as to what had caused the severe weather anomaly. He got the second one a few seconds later when a figure descended to the ground clad old Viking armor, with a winged helmet and a crimson cape fluttering behind him in the wind.

"Fear not, brave warriors of Midgard!" declared the blonde Viking as he glared defiantly at Helspont as the fiend rose from the crater. "Though it hast been long since I walked amongst thee, I recognize true evil when I dost see it. I will stand against it with thee and together we shall be victorious. So says Thor!"

Hearing a man in outdated armor proclaim himself to be the mythical Norse god of thunder and lightning was a bit much to take but, based on what the guy had just done, he'd put off recommending that he see a shrink until later. For the moment they had a new ally to help them against Helspont and that ally looked to be powerful enough to turn the entire tide of battle in their favor.

"Glad to have you with us, Thor," he said as took up a supportive position to the left of the man. "Now how about we show this guy how we feel about aliens attacking defenseless cities?"

A warrior's grin was the only response he got and, with a miraculously well-timed attack, they struck Helspont, showing the villain that victory for him was not as certain as the arrogant asshole had probably thought it was ten minutes ago.

Wonder Woman's POV

Can't even get near one of them! She thought as once more she was forced to veer off from an attack run on the main alien ship to avoid being hit by one of their energy cannons.

Ever since Dr. Fate had successfully helped her defeat the monster harassing her friends, all of them had done what they could to direct their energies towards fighting the alien ships that were determined to destroy the city. Sadly only she and Black Canary had the range to attack the ships since none of the others had abilities that would aid them in reaching the spacecraft. She had tried twice so far to carry them up to the mothership but, much like moments ago, she'd been forced to break off or risk a direct hit. Knowing that they needed help, she'd tried to contact other members of the Justice League but, no matter which nearby embassy she tried, no one responded. She knew for a fact that her communicator was working since she could still contact the Washington embassy but, as far as she could tell, the rest of the world might as well not exist for her communicator. With no new aid from the League coming as far as she could tell, she'd been forced to make do with what she had and it was not enough.

Despite these discouraging facts, she couldn't help but feel a mysterious optimism about how the battle would turn out and for some reason she believed it had to do with the blanket of storm clouds that now hid the stars from sight. Had Zeus chosen to render aid?

No, this did not feel like the Olympian lightning wielded by the ruler of the Greek Gods, but there was an otherworldly feel about it. Whatever the source was, she believed that it was here to help them and to one for whom gods and goddesses were as real as the sun itself it was reassuring.

It was as she was about to make another more complex run on the mothership that she heard the whine of engines and turned to see thirty F-15s flying in formation, approaching the battlefield. While she had no doubt they were there to render aid, she did not believe that they would be able to do any good. With her ability to fly, she was far faster and more maneuverable than any machine flown by the armies of man's world and she was unable to get close to the mothership. If they attempted to take it down, she had little doubt that a great many of them would be destroyed before they got off a single shot. She couldn't let them throw away their lives no matter how much she desired reinforcements against the alien ships.

"This is Wonder Woman of the Justice League to approaching F-15s," she said, using her communicator to broadcast a signal straight to approaching soldiers. "Break off your approach. I appreciate your desire to defend your city but the enemy vessels are simply too advanced for you to handle. I repeat: break off your approach."

"This is Captain Trevor of the United States Air Force. That's a negative on the break off request Wonder Woman," came a man's voice from her communicator. "All of us took an oath when we signed up to defend this country from enemies both foreign and domestic and that includes alien spaceships. We appreciate your concern but we are going in whether you like it or not."

"Even if more than half of you die in the process?" she asked, trying to make the captain see the danger he was flying into even as his last name brought forth a memory of the past.

"Every soldier knows there are no guarantees when they put on the uniform and if it's our time to die, then it's our time," Captain Trevor said as the F-15s passed the point of no return. "Now howsabout we quit arguing and give these something else to worry about? Guardians, follow me in. Eagles and Vipers go after the support craft. Attack!"

With that command the F-15s increased their speed significantly and began launching their own offensive against the alien ships. Not happy about seeing soldiers with insufficient equipment take on a superior force, she decided that she'd do her best to make sure as few died as possible. Diving towards the mothership herself, she noticed that one benefit she'd not foreseen concerning the arrival of the American aircraft was that it gave the aliens more to think about. With the firepower no longer concentrated on her alone, she began to believe that she might very well be able to make it all the way to the hull of the spacecraft. Seeing a chance to end this fight sooner rather than later, she poured on the speed, weaving through both enemy and ally fire alike until, victoriously, she landed on the hull of the mothership. Immediately she made her way to the closest energy cannon and, after digging into the metal with her fingers, brought all her strength to bear in order tear it from its housing.

"HERA! GIVE ME STRENGTH!" she called out to the queen of Olympus as she put forth one mighty grunt of effort.

With a screech born of metal being pushed past its tolerance levels, the barrel of the energy cannon was ripped from the surface of the ship, with small explosions coming from the parts embedded in the spacecraft. Not taking more than a few moments pause, she then threw it as hard as she could at the next closest weapons port, demolishing it before triggering an explosion that took out the entire area around it. She was about to move onto the next one when a section of the hull slid back to reveal an opening that likely led to the interior of the ship. Out if it came what appeared to be humans clad in armor and wielding weapons similar to what she'd seen when fighting the forces of Apokalips. She did not know if these were humans who were being forced against their will to fight for the aliens or were in fact the enemy disguised as normal humans in order to deceive her. Whatever the case, she would try to be careful with them while attempting to get to the access hatch they'd come from. If she could get to the bridge of the spaceship, she could take it out of the battle a great deal more effectively than simply demolishing the cannons one at a time.

Deflecting the energy blasts from their weapons with her silver bracelets, she waited until the first of them reached her before bringing the fight from one of long range attacks to close quarters combat. While she had not believed that they would be human in their physical abilities, it was something of a surprise to see them move so swiftly and prove strong enough to flip a car over. Nevertheless she quickly showed them that however strong they might be, they were no match for a warrior of Themyscira. One by one she defeated them, either throwing them to the side or letting them drop to the hull beneath her feet. With the path clear and the access hatch still open, she began to make her way towards it in the hope of ending the battle as soon as possible.

Hearing a large explosion above her caused her to look upward and she saw that one of the F-15s had been destroyed by enemy fire. She could see the pilot floating down to the city below in his parachute so, for a moment, she believed that there was no need for her intervention. However it was just before she was about to turn away that she noticed smoke coming from the surface of his parachute. Smoke soon became flames and she knew that if she did not act, the man would fall to his death on the streets below. For a moment she was torn between proceeding to the access hatch to end the fight or rescuing the pilot that was less than a minute away from death.

In the end there was no real choice.

Taking to the air she flew towards the imperiled pilot and managed to reach him just as his parachute failed. Grabbing onto him with both hands, she began to descend to the streets below and, once she felt she was close enough, let him drop the rest of the way to the ground.

"Thanks for the save, Wonder Woman," the pilot said as he removed his helmet. "My granddad always told me he'd been saved by an angel but I didn't quite believe him until now."

Seeing the man's face for the first time, the memory that had been pulled at before by the F-15 leader's name came all the way out as she was immediately reminded of the man she'd met undoing Vandal Savage's changes to the time stream.

"Steve…?" she gasped, unintentionally voicing the connection between the man before her and the old man who now resided in a retirement home for veterans.

"Heh, guess the resemblance between me and Granddad is stronger than I thought." The air force pilot extending his free hand with a smile, "Captain Steven Rogers, Junior, m'am. At your service."

What are the odds that she'd meet the grandson of the man she'd formed a connection with five decades ago? She wondered if the Sisters of Fate might have had a hand in this but dismissed it in favor of more important things.

"Pleased to meet you," she said, shaking his hand before turning her gaze back to the fight going on above her. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get through that hole in their defenses I created before they find a way to seal it up again."

"Need back up?" Captain Rogers said with an inquiring look.

For a moment she considered politely turning him down but then she thought that if he was half as capable as his grandfather, then there was a chance that he might be able to fare well enough against the aliens to accompany her. With a nod of acceptance, she picked him up and ascended into the sky, once more only experiencing a little more difficulty getting to the mothership's hull since there are fewer F-15s to keep it busy. Once she arrived back on the hull, she picked up one of the energy pistols her attackers had tried to shoot her with and tossed it to the captain.

"Thanks, Wonder Woman," he said giving it a once over. "Time to make a house call."

Nodding the two of them moved for the access hatch and entered the ship, being careful all the while.

They were in enemy territory now and surrounded by technology they were unfamiliar with. Both knew that mistakes would be fatal from here on in.

Willow's POV

Mental note: do not do that again without a lot of 'get ready' time. She thought as she surge of energy she'd felt moments ago faded along with the sense of change.

Opening her eyes, it took a few seconds for them to get everything in focus but, once everything was back to normal, she could see that she was in some kind of alleyway amidst buildings that reminded her of those post-apocalyptic movies she'd seen. Damage and debris was everywhere, nothing looking like it'd escape repair or replacement once the chaotic battle was over and done with. Dismissing such thoughts from her mind, she focused her thoughts on her primary objective, her only objective if she was being honest, and that was finding Xander. Looking about the immediate area, she didn't see him and, considering what she'd heard from the two people back at the Embassy, she was fairly sure that she'd notice a giant green mountain of muscle. Walking in a randomly picked direction, she cringed each time she felt a tremor in the ground that she presumed was coming from the bombardment being done by the alien ships. This was SO above her and Xander's head that the second she found him, she was dragging him away from it and leaving it to the professionals. She knew that as the Hulk Xander was as strong as Superman but everything she had learned about the Hulk said that the giant was out of control and dangerous.

No, better for them to get back to normal stuff like vamps and demons. All they'd need to do was have Giles research how to get Xander back to normal and then everything would be fine.

It was after her second corner that she finally spotted what looked like an ordinary human foot with presumably the rest of the human body obscured by the pile of rubble between her and it. Moving around it quickly, she almost jumped for joy as she spotted Xander lying on the ground unconscious wearing badly stretched pants and nothing else. Dropping to her knees once she reached his side, she tried to shake him awake perhaps with a little more urgency than usual but it got results as her best friend groaned and his eyes fluttered open.

"Uhhhh…Willow?" he asked as his eyes focused on her. "WILLOW!"

Faster than she could react he wrapped his arms around her hugging her for all he was worth and she soon found herself doing the same, overjoyed at being reunited with her friend. They stayed that way for several minutes until another tremor reminded them that the middle of a battlefield might not be the best place to stay.

"C'mon, Xander!" she said, trying to drag him in what she hoped was the quickest direction out of the battlefield. "Let's get out of here before we get atomized."

"Atomized? What's going on, Wills?" Xander asked, sounding like he only had a partial idea of what was going on.

"I'll explain later. For now, though: alien ships, shooting up the city, big booms everywhere." she said, breaking down what was happening into the simplest terms possible.

"O-kay! Well since I'm not Hulkified at the moment, I'd say getting someplace safe is probably a good idea." he said, sounding almost like he had actually considered staying.

"Yep! Let's go!" she said as the two of them began to run through the deserted streets looking for someplace safe to be.

Carefully, yet quickly, they navigated what remained of the streets while keeping a close eye on the ships overhead in an effort to get any kind of warning that there'd be incoming fire. It was probably only for this reason that he spotted something strange going on with one of the support ships, like they were attempting to project some kind of hologram, and this caused him to come to a stop just in case it was something not to be missed.

"Xander why are you-?" Willow asked before a loud electronic screech echoed throughout the area just before the hologram snapped into clarity.

"People of Washington DC and heroes present… my name is Hightower." Spoke a man with black hair, big muscles but with a look in his eyes that could not have come from a human. "Lord Helspont has come to this primitive city for one reason: to claim the Kherabim computer known as Void. He cares nothing for this city or its people. Had you allowed his operatives to acquire it, you would have been free to live out your meaningless lives uninterrupted. Instead your 'heroes' have chosen to cause my Lord a great deal of trouble by standing in the way of his mission. Even now they fight him, provoking his fury and leaving him much less inclined to leave this planet untouched once he has what he desires.

"Thus our hand has been forced and an example must be made in order to educate you on the price of such defiance," Hightower said before the holographic image changed. "Five of your greatest heroes are now our prisoners and believe me when I say that it is well within our ability to kill each of them."

One by one, images of Superman, Batman, Steel, the Martian Manhunter and Captain Atom were displayed in holographic form for all to see. They seemed to be restrained with some sort of techno-gear that appeared to be tailor made for each of them. Some were unconscious while others were vigorously trying to free themselves but to no avail.

"There is but one way you can save their lives and stop our assault upon Washington DC," Hightower said as his face returned to the holographic projection. "Cease any and all resistance immediately. Allow us to take what we will and who we will without any further defiance. Do this and your night of terror will end and your heroes will be returned to you relatively unharmed. Continue to resist and you will witness their deaths one by one and then we will unleash the full power of our ships and reduce all of Washington DC to ash in an instant! You have five minutes to choose. Choose wisely."

With that the hologram vanished and, surprisingly enough, the bombardment stopped however just as she thought that the aliens might have made an error, the air around all three ships began to shimmer before solidifying into what could only be called a force field. She didn't know anything about it but what she did know was that it was likely decades ahead of anything the military and perhaps even the League could penetrate. Why else would the alien be so confident? Whatever the case, it had nothing to do with her and Xander. Let the Justice League or the military handle it. If this Lord Helspont wanted some other alien races' computer then maybe they should just let him have it so he'd go away. Tugging on Xander's arm, she began to resume making her way out of the city so they could get on a bus and get back to Sunnydale.

However, despite her tugging, Xander wouldn't move an inch.

Turning back to look at him, she saw him looking up at the alien spaceships with a look she'd seen on his face many times before. It was the look he wore when he'd made a decision and would not back down for anyone or anything. It'd been on his face when he'd made the choice to help Buffy however he could to fight the demons and the vampires. It was the look that had been on his face the night that they'd all learned that Angel had become Angelus once more.

"No, Xander! You're not going to try and rescue them!" she exclaimed loudly, causing him to turn and look at her directly.

"Why not? Why can't I try to rescue them?" he asked her, sounding like he was daring her to come up with a good reason or at least a good argument.

"Well, for one thing you're not a superhero and the only power you have you can't control." she pointed out, reminding him that he couldn't control himself when he was the Hulk.

"Yeah, well… that might've changed." he said, sounding unsure of the facts he had.

"What do you mean?" she asked, hoping that she could poke enough holes in his position to get him to back down.

"I kinda had a chat with Gaea while I was unconscious and I think I convinced her to put Soldier Boy in the driver's seat of the Hulk," he replied, a look of recollection on his face. "All she said was 'acceptable' so maybe I missed something but if she is willing to put Soldier Boy at the helm then the Hulk could do some real good here."

"And what if she didn't? What if she changed her mind?!" she asked, a bit doubtful that he actually spoke to the goddess of the Earth.

"Then I guess I'll just have to make sure I'm pissed enough at these aliens that the Hulk will do some damage before getting distracted." He said before he closed his eyes and a look of growing anger began to appear on his face.

"Xander, you—" she said, trying to stall him until she could think up a better argument that'd get him to flee with her.

"Enough! I'm doing this Willow so either help me or get out of my way!" he yelled at her as he opened his eyes to glare at her allowing her to see a faint neon green glow in them.

A bit shocked that he'd raised his voice to her like that, she looked into his gaze and realized that he was beyond reason now. He meant what he said and that meant there was only one way this argument could end.

"Fine, but I think I have a better way of getting up there then you going Hulk and trying to punch your way in." she said, remembering how she'd managed to teleport herself to Xander's rough location.

"If that is so then you will need assistance with your rescue attempt." Came a cold female voice from a nearby alleyway.

"And as luck would have it, you got two volunteers right here." A scratchy male voice said from the same place as two figures emerged from the darkness, "So let's get the show on the road."

Thor's POV

"COWARD! Thou would stoop so low to gain victory!?" he yelled as the ghostly images faded from the sky and what appeared to be magical barriers enveloped the airborne craft.

"DO NOT THINK TO LECTURE ME, WORM!" spoke the villain Helspont in a superior manner. "THERE ARE FEW RULES IN WAR. ALL THAT MATTERS IS VICTORY! NOW STAND ASIDE OR WATCH AS THE WORLD IS SHOWN THAT EVEN 'HEROES' CAN DIE."

For a moment he did pause in his actions as he considered all that he knew of the situation so that he might make the right decision.

While new to the battlefield, he knew without a doubt who the enemy was for who but a true villain would order his warriors to lay waste to an entire city. Indeed, in the few minutes he had been fighting the being of darkness, he had only had his original impression verified as the lowly being did use many an underhanded tactic against him. He also knew who the valiant heroes were as he had watched the human clad in armor of crimson and gold do all that he could to protect the three maidens in his care. Impossible would it be to make any clearer the landscape of the battlefield and to whose side he should render aid to and so he had acted as honor dictated by throwing Mjolnir at the foul being pursuing the airborne quartet. From there the battle had been joined and, while he did do most of the fighting, his armor-clad ally did provide timely blasts of potent energy when needed to keep their mutual foe off balance.

Now, though, a new but foul element had been entered into the battle and he had to choose how best to deal with it.

The villain known as Helspont had apparently captured five of Midgard's champions and threatened to slay them unless the malicious being was permitted to claim that which he sought to take. He knew little of this world being so new to it but he recognized the man with the S on his chest as being one of the mortal world's greatest heroes and believed he would not be held in poor company by the remaining four heroes. At present he knew not if there were heroes enough to free the captured so that he might smite the enemy before him unhindered but there was another matter to consider.

This foul being, this Helspont, had committed considerable forces to this attack and had himself descended from whatever place of power he possessed to handle the matter directly. That implied much about the importance the villain placed on acquiring what he sought and how far the filth was willing to go to make it his. Would such a being truly leave this city without further destruction should he gain what he desired? Or would he continue to lay waste to everything that could be seen laughing at their foolishness? There was only one choice for him to make and he sent a prayer to his father, Odin, that it was the right one.

"I say thee NAY, villain!" he said as he charged Helspont, his hammer raised to strike. "Though those champions of Midgard will be mourned should they perish, I have little doubt that each of them would lay down their lives in an instant should it be required of them. You shall have no reprieve from battle Helspont! You shall have no reprieve from my THUNDER!"

He brought his hammer down on his foe, with the latter barely managing to evade a direct hit but still being affected indirectly as lightning and stone were sent skyward by his attack. Changing his grip on his hammer, he brought it upwards and across the face of his enemy, staggering Helspont and inspiring him to deliver yet another blow, a downward strike. The arm holding the hammer was caught before the attack could land and he watched as his foe prepared to unleash a blast of energy at him. Thrusting his right knee forward, he buried it deep into the stomach of his enemy, disrupting the concentration needed for an energy blast as well as loosening the grip on his hammer arm. Pulling his arm free, he did not wait long before building upon his momentary advantage, charging Mjolnir with lightning and then unleashing that heaven-born energy upon Helspont at close range. As expected this did stagger the foul being even more than the hammer blow moments before and did even succeed in provoking a cry of pain from his enemy.

However this only seemed to feed the fury of his foe that manifested as the form of the flames that enshrouded the hellish being's head.

With a roar of rage Helspont charged forth and, with speed he had not been expecting, struck a fair punch across his jaw that actually succeeded in sending him to the ground. However he was no stranger to this and used the momentum from the blow to bounce from the ground back upon his feet so that he might meet his enemy on his feet. Whirling his hammer in order to build its momentum, he waited for just the right moment before throwing it at the chest of his foe, only to have it dodged. No doubt his enemy thought he had succeeded in escaping the war hammer's bite but Mjolnir was his to command and, with a thought, he ordered it to change its course and return back from whence it came. Completely unprepared for the attack, his hammer struck Helspont with no defenses to soften the blow or minimize the damage done. This time it was the creature before him was the one to feel the ground's hard embrace and, due to the being's lack of preparation, his foe was dazed by the blow.

"Normally I'd never hit a man when he's down but in this case I think I'll make an exception," spoke his armor-clad friend before he unleashed a volley of energy blasts at the unprepared foe.

These attacks did rock Helspont each time they struck his form but, as time passed, they lost their effectiveness and when the being with the head of blue flame rose to one knee from all fours, he knew he must intervene before the creature fully regained his senses. Charging forth, he placed Mjolnir on his belt and, once within range, he grabbed his foe by the shoulders and thrust his knee right into Helspont's face. Bringing Helspont up to eye level, he let go only to deliver a punch to the fiend's face, sending him flying up into the air for a moment before gravity beckoned the unearthly being back to the ground.

He waited, waited for his foe to rise so that they might clash anew, but as the seconds turned to minutes he began to believe that he had misjudged Helspont's strength.

"Thou art beaten, Helspont! Release your captives and leave this city." he said looking down upon his foe. "Do so and your life shall be spared."

"YOU SHOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT MY LIFE, MORTAL." Helspont said as he raised his head to glare. "WORRY MORE ABOUR YOUR OWN!"

Then, without warning, he felt his mind besieged by power most painful and, though it be only peripherally, he could hear the screams of the others as their minds were also assaulted. Barely did he notice when he dropped to one knee but, like ever before when under siege by an enemy, he did bring his will to bear and fought. Bringing as much coherency to his mind as he was able, he looked up and watched as Helspont rose to his feet, confident as tyrants always are in his imminent victory.

"YOU HAVE FOUGHT BETTER THAN MOST, MORTALS, BUT LIKE ALL YOUR KIN, YOU ARE NOT BUT A BUG TO BE CRUSHED BENEATH MY BOOTS." Helspont said as he approached with vanishing disorientation. "I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT AFTER YOU DIE, THOSE THAT YOU TRIED TO PROTECT AND SAVE WILL FOLLOW YOU INTO OBLIVION."

Marshaling his strength, he pushed back the pain, pushed back the power that assailed him, and glared fiercely at his foe as lightning crackled through the air.

"Tis true your strength is great, fiend, but thou hast made a critical error in naming me a mortal." He gathered the strength of the storm in the clouds above him as he spoke and the skies, already dark, grew darker, "For I am no mortal. I AM A GOD!"

With those words he brought down all the gathered power he had placed within the dark clouds above down on Helspont, momentarily deafening all close enough to hear its booming voice.

"AARRRGGHHH!" Helspont cried out in true pain as he was assaulted by electricity unparalleled.

At once the painful power that had assaulted his mind vanished and, while there still was throbbing, he pushed it aside as any warrior would. Pushing off of the ground, he struck his foe with a vicious backhand and followed it with a punch to the stomach that shattered the golden armor that lay there. Even as his enemy was sent flying through several buildings of Midgard, he did feel the need to proclaim himself once more to his adversary.

"I am Thor Odinson, god of the thunder and lord of the storm, and to stand against me is to stand against the heir to the throne of Asgard! Have at thee!"

Within the Daemonite Mothership Behemoth, Xander's POV

"Definitely understanding what you meant by teleportation being rough on your stomach, Wills," he said as he divided his efforts between holding his stretched pants up and steadying himself on a nearby wall. "Here's hoping that once we free Superman and the others, they'll give us a lift back down to the ground."

"Be silent!" Zealot snapped as she looked about the immediate area, "Our only hope of freeing the members of the Justice League is to keep our presence a secret until the last possible moment. Come!"

A little annoyed at her stating the obvious, he followed her, as did the others, as quickly and as quietly as possible down the corridors of the ship. When she signaled them to freeze they did so and when she told them to advance they followed her lead, making slow but steady progress through the ship. For a moment he was tempted to ask her how she knew where to go but then realized that given how long Zealot had likely been at war with the Daemonites, she probably knew what she was doing.

Still, he knew they had to hurry because, once the time limit was up, regardless of what was promised, he knew that Superman and the others would die. It was an unwritten rule of the universe that the bad guys never kept their words and the smart ones made sure to kill those enemies that could prove a threat to them promptly and permanently. Thinking of that, she wished that his friend would pick up the pace despite the fact that it'd likely get them spotted and caught. The last thing he wanted was to be known as the guy that let members of the Justice League die because he was too slow in getting to them.

Through the twists and turns they went until Zealot told them to freeze and the sounds of booted feet could be heard approaching their position. Looking about, he tried to find a door to a room or maybe some sort of maintenance hatch they could all climb into in order to hide but found none. Growling a few unkind words at whomever had designed the ship, he waited for direction from their self-appointed guide when all of a sudden she darted around the corner with sounds of a brief fight following. She returned later dragging the bodies of what he presumed were dead Daemonite underlings in odd looking purple uniforms that she dropped at the feet of him and Cole.

"Put on their uniforms." Zealot ordered before taking up a guard position. "We will be able to move more swiftly if others believe you are guards escorting two prisoners."

For a moment he hesitated, not knowing where Daemonites stood on keeping clean, but then with a sigh did as he was told since it was a sound plan. He had to laugh a bit as Willow turned away when he decided to ditch his stretched pants but, once he was done, he tapped her on the shoulder to let her know he was now decent. Taking out some sort of energy pistol from the belt the Daemonite guard had on, he looked to Cole before the both of them took up places behind Zealot and Willow with pistols pointed at their backs. For a moment he thought they should put unlocked handcuffs or something but then figured that if a Daemonite got close enough to notice they were missing, they'd likely notice a few other things were off as well.

Proceeding with less stealth and more speed they continued down the corridors, allowing Zealot to covertly lead them while looking as though she was being led. This did indeed allow them to move quicker but each time a minion of Helspont walked by them, he mentally held his breath waiting to see if their deception would be uncovered. It was not until they walked past a sturdy door at the same time as a Daemonite minion that their plan came to an end.

"Where do you think you're going with those two?" the minion asked, sounding annoyed at some perceived mistake of theirs.

"We're taking them to the brig." Cole replied taking control of the conversation, "Lord Helspont's orders."

"Then why did you walk right past it?" asked the minion suspiciously as he ventured closer.

"I'm… new." Cole replied, just barely managing to keep it from sounding like a question.

"Damn podheads!" the minion growled in annoyance. "They should at least teach you newbies the basics before they let you wear that uniform."

With those words the minion went over to a panel next to the door and typed in a quick code to open the door. As soon as the smallest gap appeared all could hear what was happening within and it sounded like one person was struggling to remain conscious while the other was struggling against something with great vigor. As the door finished sliding aside, he was treated to a sight that he wouldn't forget for a variety of reasons some of which were traumatic and others… well, for the sake of his well-being, he'd never breath a word of what he saw so long as he lived.

The first thing he saw was a man who looked to be wearing an air force pilot's jump suit struggling to get back onto his hands and knees, dripping quite a bit of blood onto the metal floor and, from what he could see of the floor, he'd been doing it for a while now. The two guards inside had obviously been beating him and hearing the laughter coming from beneath their face masks it was clear they were taking pleasure in doing so slowly.

"Well, I'll say this for you, human: you can take a beating real well." spoke one of the guards within the room. "The last one we had in here gave up in half the time and started begging for his life. Didn't help him but it was amusing to watch!"

"Yeah! I wonder how long it'll be before you start begging." spoke the other guard in the room with equal malicious humor. "How long do you think it'll be, human?"

"W-when hell freezes over, you bastard!" growled the pilot as he finally managed to get on all fours.

"Then I guess we need to turn the temperature way down in here because, as far as you're concerned, human, this IS hell." the first guard sneered before delivering a kick to the pilot's stomach that sent him back to the floor. "Maybe we should ask your lady friend how long she thinks you'll last. Eh! How about it, woman? How long do you think he'll last?"

This led to the next thing he saw which was none other than Wonder Woman, whose arms, legs and waist were bound to the wall using some sort of high tech restraints. They had to be strong to hold someone said to be in the same league as the Man of Steel himself and seeing her struggle to break free made it clear she was not remaining imprisoned by choice.

"Longer than you will once I am free!" Wonder Woman snarled as once more she strained against her bonds with what was likely all her strength.

"Tough talk for someone who looks half beaten already," spoke the second guard with a brief chuckle. "In case you've forgotten, the only reason you're in here is because you took a hit from our plasma cannon to protect this guy here. Not only did it knock you out cold but it seriously damaged your wardrobe, sweet cheeks."

This was the thing he'd never speak a word of for as long as he lived.

Apparently sometime between when he'd seen her in the Embassy and the present, she'd taken a serious blow because he could see some serious bruising as well as a few open wounds. However the thing that he'd keep to himself no matter how hard someone asked was that the blast had also done a serious number on Wonder Woman's uniform. Her top was literally hanging by a thread, leaving her right breast exposed and, in his opinion, all it'd take to make her completely topless would be one good yank on the left part of her top, which somehow was still keeping her torso partially covered despite there being nothing he could see to keep it in place, save friction. Whatever the case, if Wonder Woman was anything like Buffy or his other girls, they'd kick his ass six times around the world if he spoke a word of what he'd seen to others. True, some might say he has nothing to worry about, being able to turn into the Hulk, but they forgot that it took a minute or two to change, in which time any warrior woman of skill would have no trouble kicking his ass.

It was about this time that they noticed the new arrivals, so he did his best to keep his 'loyal minion guard' façade in place.

"What's this?" asked the first guard with a bit of wariness.

"New prisoners brought in on Lord Helspont's orders," replied the minion who'd opened the door for them. "Newbies fresh from their pods! Didn't even know where the brig was!"

"Newbies? There haven't been any newbies let out of their pods in weeks." The second guard said with his initial confusion giving way to hostility.

With speed that surprised him, both Zealot and Grifter dropped the deception they'd been operating under and charged the three guards. In such an enclosed space and with the element of surprise on their side the Daemonite cannon fodder was not even able to bring their weapons to bear. In the brief skirmish that followed it was made clear that the minions weren't all that skilled and probably ranked no higher than human soldiers of moderate experience when it came to their fighting potential. Against Cole, whom he was certain was spec ops, and against Zealot, who could probably teach Wonder Woman a thing or three, they did not last long.

"We must move swiftly," Zealot said as she sheathed her blade. "Daemonite guards are required to check in with the bridge every fifteen minutes. Depending on how long it's been since they last did so, we may have less than three minutes before they become suspicious."

"Then we better spring the Amazon and get the flyboy here someplace safe," Cole said, holstering his pistols and moving to aid the pilot. "'cause one way or another, we're going to have a fight on our hands soon enough."

"Indeed," Zealot said as she began utilizing the controls on Wonder Woman's restraints to free her.

"Xander!" Willow hissed causing him to look at her.

The look she had was pretty easy to interpret as anger and, after considering his recent actions, he knew she was angry at him for not averting his eyes, considering the state of Wonder Woman's uniform. Startled that he'd made such a mistake given how much time he'd spent around beautiful women, he immediately turned to face the door busying himself by being a look out for more minions.

"Heheheheheh! I think it's a little late to be behaving yourself, Xander." Cole chuckled as he threw one of the pilot's arms on his shoulder and pulled the man up from the ground. "I think we all know you stole an eyeful of the Amazon here."

"I… well… I didn't… I mean…" he said, trying to come up with some sort of explanation that wouldn't be lame or dig him an even deeper grave.

"You needed to maintain your cover as long as possible, so I'll let it pass," Wonder Woman said as the last restraint was removed. "Besides, it's clear by how you're acting now that you're a good young man. Let's just write it off as harmless glance."

"Well she's certainly taking it better than you did, Z." Grifter said with his usual cocky grin.

Zealot, of course, didn't deign to reply to this friendly ribbing, choosing instead to look for something to restore Wonder Woman's modesty.

In the end though it was Willow who volunteered the trench coat she'd been wearing and, after buttoning it up a bit and adding a tied cloth belt, the article of clothing did its job well enough for them to move on.

"Now that we got that settled, do you have any idea where they're keeping the other hostages, Wonder Woman?" Grifter asked, still bearing some of the air force pilot's weight. "Daemonite thugs tend to get diarrhea of the mouth when they think they've already won."

"As a matter of fact they did talk quite a bit," Wonder Woman said with a smile of impending payback on her tormentors and all their comrades.

Cole Cash aka The Grifter's POV

RING!RING!RING!RING!RING

And there's the intruder alarm right on schedule! He thought as he kept his pistols at the ready. It won't be long before search teams are everywhere and things start getting serious.

Fortunately now they had a set destination rather than a need to search everywhere on the ship for the captured heroes. While she had been prisoner, the guards had been all too talkative about how her friends were being held on the upper levels in a room near the bridge. Oh, they'd gone on and on about how such big time heroes were helpless before their advanced tech and how 'magic' was just another form of energy to be blocked. With the information gathered, they were on their way to rescue the heroes and once they were free, presuming they weren't all weak as puppies, they'd tear the ship apart from the inside out.

He had to chuckle a bit at the irony of it all.

By holding the heroes hostage, Helspont had given them the means of stopping this attack, if not the entire Daemonite operation, cold. If the Behemoth was destroyed, then Helspont would have serious trouble in more ways than one, not the least of which was his position of authority over the other Daemonites on Earth. Right now old flame face was in the driver's seat because he was among the top three most powerful Daemonites on the planet, with his immediate lieutenants Defile and Hightower being just below him. It also didn't hurt that, when it came to cunning and strategy, the walking fire hazard had a knack for seeing through his enemy's plans and turning them to his advantage. However one thing that was the same for all of them was the fact that weakness could not be tolerated and failure even less smiled upon. If Helspont suffered a serious defeat here, whether it be in terms of a mission or a more personal one, then the other Daemonites of sufficient rank and power would see it as an opportunity to kick him off his throne. Either they'd tried to seize the vacant position for themselves or help those in a better position to do so in return for certain favors or promotions.

The infighting would put any plans for the rest of the world on hold until a new pecking order was hashed out among them.

Another issue would be the fact that, during such infighting, it'd be a breeze for him and Z to inflict serious damage to all sides by playing one against the other. By the time they were done, the Daemonites would be in no position to do anything of note with Earth and could be finished off quickly. That was the end goal for the two of them: defeat the Daemonites and their plans for the planet Earth permanently. While he'd been fine if they all just piled into their ships and left Earth's solar system, he wasn't going to be wringing his hands if they took out each lizard one bullet at a time either. It was one of the big lessons he'd learned as a spec ops solider: sometimes the only way to beat the enemy was to put a bullet in them.

Of course this all depends on us actually beating Helspont today, so I should probably put any ideas of retiring to the Bahamas with Zannah on hold. He thought as he began to hear footsteps approaching their position.

Falling into old habits, Zealot was the one to take the lead, drawing her blade and, as soon as the first search team showed, she darted in and immediately finished the fight before it began. All it took were a few precise blows to the communications gear and their throats to make sounding the alarm impossible. While some might think that his partner was killing them, anyone with real warrior experience knew that she was just dancing on the edge of lethal force. A thrust with the sword to pierce a key component of their communicators and a slash to do just enough damage to the vocal chords of their human hosts to prevent speech. Then all it took was a quick one-two combo to knock them out and a pilfering of their minimal med-kits to keep them from bleeding to death. Daemonites, as a general rule, didn't care what happened to their hosts since there were always more to be had but there were times on important missions where they had to keep the hosts they had no matter what. As a result they were all given minimal med-kits, though if you compared them to their human created counterparts, they would be considered state-of-the-art.

All in all it only took Zealot about three minutes to take care of the search team but he knew she could've done it quicker if they didn't have four extra teammates.

Normally they wouldn't have been so careful to make sure that the hosts survived their actions and simply killed them along with the Daemonites inside of them. Most civvies and heroes like Wonder Woman would think that that made them just as bad as the enemy and therefore they should be locked up for murder. What they didn't know is that when a Daemonite took a human for a host, it was not a nice process and could easily be considered severely traumatic. If the Daemonite could be tricked or forced to abandon his host quickly enough then all it'd take would be a couple of years of therapy for the human to recover mentally. For those who'd been hosts for more than six months… it was often better just to put them out of their misery because they either spent the rest of their lives in a padded room or committed suicide soon after being freed. It wasn't right and it wasn't easy but he'd accepted long ago that the world was rarely fair and you had no choice but to take the good with the bad.

"You have great skill," Wonder Woman said with respect, albeit with hints of disapproval.

"Considering she's older than just about any building in the world, she ought to be," he said as they continued towards their destination.

"You're immortal?" Wonder Woman asked with some surprise.

"No. It may appear as so but that is not the case," Zealot said without any further elaboration concerning her age.

He could just tell from the look on Xander's face that he was about to make a comment about women being touchy about their ages but managed to stop him with a look. While he'd appreciate the humor, he knew that his partner wanted the subject dropped not dragged out more. The truth of the matter was that the Kherabim were simply a very, very, VERY long lived race that aged so slowly that the odds of any other race living long enough to see five years' worth of physical change was slim. The reason why his partner didn't want to elaborate on this was because she didn't want those not involved in her people's war against the Daemonites to get too much info on either side of the conflict. To her it'd be a case of amateurs and newbies getting involved in a fight they had zero intel on and making a rather large mess of things, thus making it harder for the Kherabim to win. While he had a slightly better opinion of the people that'd likely want to get involved in the conflict, he did agree that it'd only get messier if more factions were added to the shitstorm the war had become.

It was hard enough getting her to let me work with her. He thought with a mental groan as they navigated the hallway. Had to pull off some pretty fancy tricks just to get her to consider it.

Putting such thoughts aside, he noticed Zealot's level of caution and stealth went decidedly higher than normal. The way he figured it, they must be very close to the room where the hostages were being held and that almost certainly meant more guards, as well as at least one high ranking officer close by. The question now became: how to get into the room?

"I don't suppose the old 'some distract while the rest sneak in' would work here would it?" Xander whispered as they snuck forward by inches.

"No. As soon as they saw enemies in close proximity to their prisoners, they would seal the room, making it impossible to get in without taking down a wall." Zealot replied without breaking from her careful monitoring of the immediate area.

"And that'd be a problem why?" Xander asked still not quite getting the problem. "I thought it was pretty much a given that we weren't going to be leaving this place in one piece anyway."

"The problem is that any delay in getting into the room could mean death for the hostages." Cole replied so that Zealot wouldn't take the kid's head off for asking a question she saw as stupid. "Standard procedure for Daemonites is that if they're in danger of losing the hostages, they kill the hostages. No hesitation. From the moment we show ourselves, we'd have at best thirty seconds before the hostages die and I don't see us getting through one of these walls in less than a minute."

"Willow? Think you can pull a quick 'port into the room?" Xander asked, turning to his friend who looked to be a little twitchy.

"Uh-uh. The last two were luck more than skill," Willow replied shaking her head in the negative. "I'm not loving the idea of seeing if it's three strikes you're out."

Me neither. He thought still feeling a little sick at the memory of the teleport up to the ship.

Don't get him wrong, he could handle teleporting just fine, he'd encountered enough weird stuff in his career that near-instant travel between two spots didn't faze him, but he'd rather not be the redhead's training dummy any more often than he had to be.

"Then I guess we've got no choice but to use plan H." Xander said with an oddly optimistic look on his face.

"Plan H? What's plan H?" Wonder Woman asked, sounding about as in the dark as the rest of them.

I have a bad feeling about this. He thought as the young man he'd been travelling with began to explain his plan.

Pike's POV

"Time's just about up," he said as he walked towards the room where the hostages were being held. "Don't know why we waited this long instead of just offing them the second the guy with the hammer clocked Helspont but it that's the way they want it, I ain't gonna raise a stink about it."

"It is not our place to question the orders of our employer, Pike." Said Devin coldly as she walked beside him.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever!" he said not liking the rigid way the Coda warrior acted.

It was one of the many cons of being a merc that you never got to choose who you worked with and, more often than not, only found out who your co-workers were after you'd signed on the dotted line. Still, he was a professional and that meant that unless something happened that proved to be serious risk to his health or his profits, he'd do what he was hired to do and do it right. For the last day or so that'd been to keep anyone from getting too close to the three Daemonite ships, helping in the capture of the hostages and now executing them because people were still standing up to Helspont. Personally he'd prefer killing them in a more… personal manner, so he could officially add their deaths to his reputation. Sure, he'd be killing them either way but killing them using a special containment tube didn't earn the same prestige as killing them by ramming your energized pike through their heads. True, in this case that might prove a bit difficult and perhaps ineffective in some cases but he always preferred taking care of a mark up close and personal.

As he turned the corner and spotted the guards outside of the room, he wondered if their intruders would get here before he pressed the button. When he'd first heard about them, he'd wondered how in the hell they'd managed to get on board with the shields up. To his knowledge, the only asset the other side had that might be capable of it was still unconscious near the Washington monument. Nevertheless, Hightower had ordered a ship-wide alert and for the guards who'd lost the prisoners to be killed for their incompetence. The number two guy had been the one to choose to adhere to the countdown rather than jumping right to the end but, when the time came to do the deed, the metal-armed freak had passed the buck to the hired help.

Not that he had a problem with that.

Still, the alert made for a crowded hallway since S.O.P was to triple the guards around key areas when intruders made it aboard the ship.

"THEY'RE COMING!" yelled a male voice before a trooper ran around the corner like the devil himself was chasing him. "THEY'RE RIGHT BEHIND ME!"

With that news the guards that had been outside the room holding the hostages moved to set up a defensive barrier in the direction the threat was coming from. It was a sound move that'd make sure that any oncoming force would be force fed energy blasts so quickly they'd be lucky to get a single squeak out before dying. However he wasn't like these grunts and actually had a working brain inside his head that was telling him something was amiss. The first thing that twigged him as being wrong was the fact that there was a trooper running like a coward away from the enemy when, by all rights, he should've fought to the death. Helspont was quite ruthless when it came to impressing upon the cannon fodder that cowardice was a surer way to die then an enemy's bullet and had produced several messy examples to prove his point. It was rare that anyone under that man's command forgot such examples, so to see that this one had struck him as odd. The second thing that bothered him was that the guards that had been standing in front of the entrance to the room had completely ignored their 'comrade' as he ran by them, proving a distinct lack of intelligence. It also meant that someone had gotten past their defenses with only him and Devin between the cowardly trooper and the door to the room. The final thing that bothered him was the ever increasing gap between the trooper's warning and the arrival of the intruders. The guy had claimed that they were right behind him but, as the minutes ticked by without anything, that was proving to be false. Was this guy a distraction so that the intruders could attack from another direction? Were they even coming here in the first place?

"Well? Where are they, trooper?" Devin asked bringing her clef blade to bear on the breathless piece of cannon fodder.

"Right here," replied the trooper in a threatening tone of voice.

That was all the warning anyone got before the trooper began to grow at a ridiculous rate, shattering his armor and tearing clothes until all that was left was the majority of the pants and enough of the shirt to be called a tank top. For him, though, the priority was the mountain of a man before him that barely fit in the hallway of the ship yet was glaring down at them with bright green eyes. He'd heard the stories and read the reports but neither really prepared anyone for seeing the green giant that was the Hulk firsthand. The big guy looked different from the pics he'd seen but that didn't matter.

What mattered was that he had a definite enemy in front of him and there was only one response to that.

With skill born of doing something a hundred times and hitting his desired target a hundred times, he lunged forward with his energized pike, determined to at least hinder the brute before him until someone capable of defeating him arrived. He smiled as he felt his pike make contact and waited for the exclamations of pain that should have followed but, for some reason, all he got was the smell of burning flesh.

"Was that supposed to hurt, brig rat?" Hulk asked in a condescending tone.

Stepping back, he watched as the unnaturally light scorch mark faded away before his very eyes until there was not a single sign that it'd been there in the first place.

This more than anything else told him that he was just a LITTLE out of his league.

"My turn," Hulk said before lunging forward with speed that someone his size shouldn't have been capable of and grabbed both him and Devin.

Devin stabbed downwards with her clef blade in an effort to free herself but the blade didn't even scratch the skin. That was all he had time to see before both of them were thrown down the hall into the guards who were just getting over the shock of seeing someone go from six feet tall and slim to a little over eight feet with muscles as big as their heads. Everyone went down in a tumble of limbs and that's when things got busy as a group of people arrived that included the Grifter and Zealo,t as well as the formerly imprisoned Wonder Woman. Rolling to his feet, he quickly picked up one of the guards to use as a living shield and so was saved from a series of shots from Cash. Tossing the body at his approaching foes, he brought his pike to its ready position and prepared to deal with enemies that he had better chances of killing.

"We meet again, sister Zealot." Devin said as she squared off against the white haired woman in crimson armor. "I'd thought I'd seen the last of you after our dance in Paris."

"It will take more than the blade of a traitor such as yourself to kill me, Devin." Zealot growled as she attacked, clearly with the intent to kill.

"Oh? Still sore about the sisterhood and I striking out on our own all those centuries ago, are we?" Devin asked rhetorically as well as maliciously. "It was just business."

"It was a betrayal of everything I founded the Coda for on this world!" Zealot yelled as her weapon and Devin's met. "The Coda were meant to oppose the Daemonites and block their efforts to conquer this world. They were NOT supposed to become a group of honorless mercenaries!"

He blocked out the rest of the argument since this wasn't the first time he'd heard those two get into an argument over who betrayed whom and what the Sisterhood of the Coda were supposed to be. He had slightly more pressing concerns in the form of Wonder Woman and Cole Cash, both of whom seemed determined to get past him even if it meant taking him out first. In this case, though, he knew he could handle them as he'd kicked Cash's ass on more than one occasion and, while durable, Wonder Woman wasn't invulnerable as the state of her uniform proved.

"Sorry, people, but you're not getting one step further!" he said as he performed a series of moves that stopped the duo in their tracks.

Even as he heard the sound of something metal being torn from its housing, he knew that the Hulk had ripped the door to the room containing the hostages out of the wall. Under normal circumstances that'd be his cue to throw one of his flash bang grenades at Cash and intercept the person about to free the hostages. However these were far from normal circumstances and he knew he stood no chance of stopping the Hulk from doing whatever the giant wanted.

Helspont could deal with the Hulk.

Tony Stark's POV

"Repulsor boot repairs nearly complete, sir." Jarvis said as a timer appeared on the HUD, "Estimated time until completion: three minutes forty-five seconds."

"Good. Maybe we can still save the hostages somehow," he said as he continued to provide fire support for 'Thor' while the guy beat Helspont silly with the impressive looking hammer.

It was a faint hope but a hope nonetheless.

He already knew that the time limit that had been set for 'giving up' had already expired but, for some reason, there'd been no broadcast from any of the ships indicating any executions had taken place. He hoped that this meant Helspont's thugs had encountered some problems of the heroic kind but he was realistic enough to think that maybe they were just going to dump the lifeless bodies off the side of the ship. As he managed to hit the head honcho of this attack with two tank busters right to the face, allowing Thor to bring his hammer down on Helspont's chest, he seriously hoped they'd get some sign of which way the wind was blowing sooner rather than later.

Almost as if answering his prayers, explosions erupted from the hull of the mothership and, a few seconds later, the energy shields that had been protecting it flickered and failed entirely.

I hope that the two lovely ladies back there get a serious case of the hots for me? He thought in the ridiculous hope that some higher being would grant this wish as well.

"Someone's taken down the shields on the mothership!" Mercury Girl exclaimed, pointing out the patently obvious.

"It's Xander! He's alive!" exclaimed the girl who looked like the female version of the Martian Manhunter.

Damn! He thought realizing that one not paying attention to him and the other focusing on Willow's friend pretty much meant God wasn't looking to do him more than one favor.

"THOSE FOOLS!" Heslpont grumbled in annoyance.

Without further delay the villain let out a monstrous telekinetic shockwave that knocked just about everyone but him for a loop before taking to the sky in the direction of the now-vulnerable mothership. It took a moment for him and his systems to regain coherency but, once they had, he got back to his feet and assessed the situation. Xander had somehow pulled himself together and was doing some serious damage aboard the evil spaceship forcing Helspont to flee his battle with Thor to deal with it. While the main ship had lost its shields, the two support ships were still protected and seemed to be moving to protect the main ship from those who might try to take advantage of its weakness. He could only presume that Xander had somehow managed to direct his Hulk side to try and free the captured heroes while causing quite a bit of damage to the mothership.

Now the question became what to do now?

The obvious action would be to pursue Helspont and regroup with Xander so they could bring this fight to a close before Washington and her people suffered any more death and destruction. However getting past those support ships would be difficult, especially since he didn't know if they had the ability to fire their weapons while their shields were up. You'd think that they would be able to do so but he was dealing with aliens here and alien tech, so associating human logic with them might not be the best idea. In any case, they'd likely have to fly through some seriously thick energy anti-aircraft fire to get to the mother ship then who knows what else once they were inside.

In the end the decision was taken out of his hands since Thor wasted no time taking to the air in pursuit of Helspont, leaving him and the three ladies behind.

Looking back at the trio, he wondered if they'd be safe enough here that he could go after the loony to fight Helspont and his forces. He was fairly sure that the lady in the silver bodysuit was the one the villain wanted more than anything so, depending on where the guy had any ground troops deployed, leaving might be a bad move.

"Go after Thor," the Martian Huntress said with resolve. "I can get Cessily and Void someplace safe now that Helspont isn't after us anymore."

"Right," was all he said as he watched the timer on the repairs to his repulsor boot hit zero.

Taking to the air, he accelerated so that he could catch up with the wannabe Viking, soon finding out that, yes, the shielded ships could fire their weapons with their energy barriers up. Fortunately it didn't take him long to realize that once he repositioned himself so that a miss would wind up damaging the mothership, the support ships would have to be a lot slower and more careful with their firepower. Deciding to run a test, he diverted the maximum amount of power he could to his palm repulsors and, with sensors monitoring the shields of the support ship, he was targeting he let loose a volley of blasts.

"Status of the target?" he asked as he swerved to evade a joint attack from two separate energy cannon batteries.

"Negligible fluctuations in the energy shields," Jarvis replied, displaying sensor data in the lower right hand side of the HUD. "It's possible that sustained fire from the unibeam could eventually penetrate the barrier to harm the ship itself but it would also severely drain the armor's power supply."

"O-kay! So I won't be putting one downed alien ship on my scorecard," he said as he watched Thor fly high above all the ships whirling his hammer at superhuman speeds. "What is he doing?"

He got his answer moments later when the black storm clouds overhead began to rumble with ever increasing volume and then two separate barrages of lightning bolts dropped down on the two shielded support ships. He was completely shocked to see both vessels actually shudder under the assault and then, without warning, the shields on one of the support craft vanished, leaving it with no protection against the electric onslaught. It wasn't long before the ship was struggling to stay airborne while its partner had ceased firing, likely to divert power to other more crucial systems. Whatever the case, he now had an open route directly to the mother ship and he wasn't about to let it pass him by. Setting course, he flew towards the large ship, specifically aiming for a hole in the hull that looked like it'd give him access to the interior. Landing a minute later, he adjusted the settings on his ocular sensors so he would have the clearest and most detailed visual accounting of his surroundings possible without being ridiculous about it. He felt a thump that let him know that Thor had followed him in but he didn't turn around to acknowledge the big guy. Whether that was because he was focused on getting to the hostages and perhaps the Hulk or because he was just a little intimidated by someone who could call down LIGHTNING like that, he wasn't sure.

"Jarvis? See if you can tap into their internal communications." he ordered his armor's A.I as he progressed down the hallway he'd entered. "We need to get to the Hulk and the hostages quickly."

"I'll see what I can do, sir, but if their systems are incompatible there will not be much that I can do." stated the A.I as a small progress bar appeared on the HUD.

"Just do what you can." he said as he tapped into his suit's external audio receptors.

Normally he just used the receptors so he wouldn't be deaf while wearing the armor but, if he adjusted the settings, he could stretch the range as well as the sensitivity to a level that'd give him a dozen or two feet peak ahead. It was a little weird, hearing things like this, but any edge he could get on an alien ship that he knew nothing about was one he'd take.

It was as he turned a corner that what looked to be some sort of patrol came into view just outside of the range of his external audio receptors. Too bad he wasn't outside of their visual range because that would've saved him from getting spotted and bringing the patrol down on him. Almost immediately he recalibrated his palm repulsors for human sized targets with slightly above S.W.A.T body armor protection and fired at the oncoming hostiles. He smiled as he watched them fall over like bowling pins, since he'd been a little peeved at how little they'd done against Helspont. He'd designed the armor to be cutting edge and capable of holding its own against many of the more powerful members of the Justice League. Obviously, once this was all over with, he was going to have to make some modifications if not build a brand new suit of armor completely from scratch. His scientific mind was already going through possibilities even as he and Thor continued to make their way through the inside of the ship.

BOOM!

BOOM!BOOM!

Feeling the ship shake with each of the ominous impact-like sounds, he thought it fairly safe to say that either Superman had broken free and attacked Helspont or Hulk AND Superman were throwing down with Helspont.

In either case it gave him a far more reliable way of hooking up with the jade giant then having Jarvis hack into the ship's systems.

"Jarvis, forget hacking into their network and calculate the origin of those thumps." he ordered and, less than a minute later, a map plus a green triangle button popped up on the screen.

He shifted to tight space flight in moments and shot off down the hallway towards the triangle, not much caring whether or not Thor followed.

Why care about a man who thought he was the Norse god of Thunder when you could have a green giant with near limitless strength?

Willow's POV

It's official! Superheroes definitely have it worse than we have it back in Sunnydale! She thought as she stuck close to the injured Captain Trevor Jr., who occasionally took potshots at any minion that decided to come at them.

What had begun as a half-planned rescue of her best friend from the clutches of the Justice League had turned into what would probably be one of the biggest news stories of the year, hands down. Considering that the League tended to save countries during the weekdays and the world every other Tuesday and that made anything that stuck out of that crowd pretty impressive. For her, though, she found herself wishing for a swift return to the normal Hellmouth craziness since at least then the odds wouldn't be so very much against them. Sure, they had successfully managed to free the captured heroes but whatever had been used to keep them chained up had left them weak to varying degrees, as well as somewhat disoriented. It'd take them awhile to get back to full strength and, in the mean time, it was up to Wonder Woman, Zealot, Grifter and a surprisingly intelligent Hulk to fight the baddies. She'd pretty much been expecting Xander to have the mind of a five year old when he changed but right now he was talking like a normal person, albeit a bit heavy on the soldier slang.

"I'm going to kick your ass Barney-style, you fobbie!" Hulk shouted as he took it to the second reason she preferred the demons back in Sunnydale.

It hadn't taken long for her best bud to break the captive League members out of their restraints but, just as they were about to make a break for it and escape, something that looked like a cross between a sci-fi villain and a fantasy movie villain appeared. A flame wreathed, skull-like head, golden tubes serving as a sort of torso armor, taloned fingers and a purple cape that, while tattered at the edges, only added to the fearsome look. The villain had wasted no time in attacking Xander, obviously prioritizing him as the greatest threat, and while the hallway left no room to dodge, her friend quickly braced himself for the energy blast. While Xander took relatively minimal damage from the blast, it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that whoever designed the floors on the ship didn't have the Hulk in mind. Sliding back as a result of the power behind the blast had caused more than a bit of the floor to curl back as though it was cloth.

From there things pretty much progressed to where they were at that very moment: Xander gradually getting closer to a decisive victory over the Big Bad and the rest having similar success against the lesser ranked baddies.

That wasn't to say that the Big Bad wasn't fighting impressively himself but the combination of Xander's strength with the efficient moves of military hand-to-hand combat was quickly bringing victory closer to the side of good. Too bad the villain seemed too prideful to admit his inevitable defeat since that'd probably allow him to leave with his ship intact, along with his body.

At the rate things are going 'abandon ship' is going to be pretty good advice. She thought as the amount of damaged ship was vastly outnumbering the parts of the ship that were still intact.

The Big Bad roared as he managed to knock Hulk Xander away, "I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED IN MY OWN SHIP!"

"Yeah, you will be, flame breath!" Hulk said as he got back to his feet. "Because even if you're still standing after all this, it won't mean shit if your ships and everyone on them is reduced to scrap!"

Hulk had a point there.

It was like the old saying 'you won the battle but lost the war', which basically meant that winning now would be pointless if it cost you the entire war in the future. However, judging by how violently the flames of the Big Bad's head were flickering, the guy was too pissed at this point to think all that clearly. His two subordinates, glowing stick guy and spear girl, quickly moved to cover his flank while the remaining minions just stood where they were, with some actually shaking in fear of Xander.

"With all due respect, Lord Helspont, I think we've overstayed our welcome in Washington and should quietly exit the area," Glowing stick guy said as politely as he could. "Losing now might taste bad but revenge will more than make up for it at a time of your choosing."

For a moment she thought that Lord Helspont might vaporize the man on the spot for suggesting retreated but, when his eyes narrowed and a growl of frustration escaped his mouth, she knew the Big Bad had made his choice.

"THIS TRANSGRESSION WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN, HULK!" Helspont declared as stood down from fighting position. "OR FORGIVEN! PROVIDENCE! INITIATE PROTOCOL 10!"

"As you wish, Lord Helspont," came a disembodied voice before as flash of purple light blinded them.

When all of their eyes readjusted, the only enemies left in the room were the cannon fodder grunts, whose agitation skyrocketed as they realized that they'd been left behind. All thoughts of continuing the fight must have vanished from their minds as they turned tail and ran as fast as their feet could carry them. She waited a moment to see what this 'protocol 10' was but, as minutes passed without anything to speak of, she wondered if it was something as simple as deleting everything from the ship's computer systems.

Hearing a familiar whine approaching, she turned her head and watched as Iron Man turned the corner with some guy in a Viking outfit close behind.

"We need to get off this ship NOW!" Ironman exclaimed as he landed. "Someone's raised the shields on this ship again AND initiated the self-destruct sequence!"

"WHAT!?" yelled the majority of the room in complete and utter shock.

"What? Have you all gone deaf!?" Ironman snapped in annoyance. "I said the shields are up, which means we're trapped in the ship and it's set to blow in four minutes, making escape a pretty slim option!"

Needless to say that pretty much had everyone go straight to work trying to figure out a way to fix the situation since none of them were big fans of death.

"Can't we stop the self-destruct?" she asked, hoping that one of them would have an idea about how to do that.

"Disable the self-destruct of an alien ship we know next to nothing about in three minutes forty-two seconds?" a guy in a red and black mask asked sarcastically, "Not a chance, Red."

"Then we need to escape." Batman said in a dark gravelly tone of voice, "That means either taking down the shields or somehow getting out with them still up."

"They said this room is near the bridge. We could bring down the shields there!" Wonder Woman suggested optimistically.

"Shields would be a high level function. Probably password protected and that's assuming the controls there are still functional," Batman pointed out even as his own mind was likely working on a solution.

"What about Red here?" Red Mask asked, sounding like he was cautiously optimistic about his own suggestion. "She managed to teleport me, Zealot and Big Green here through the shields easily enough. Not something you want to do on a full stomach but it's still an option."

"Uh-uh! I'm not sure how I'm even doing it!" she exclaimed not wanting to be their only way off the ship, "All I'm doing is wishing really hard and it happens! I have no idea how many I could take or where we'd end up!"

"Considering what'll happen if we stay here too long, I'd be willing to take my chances." Captain Atom said in a very soldiery tone of voice.

"Perhaps I can offer another option." Came an odd triple toned voice just before a vortex appeared out of nowhere in the hallway and three people popped out.

The first was a woman in a skintight silver bodysuit that only left the face visible and gave the impression that the woman was bald underneath the suit. She also had eerie glowing white eyes that made her seem more like a machine in human form, despite the fact that there was definitely a human expression on the face.

The next was a redheaded girl who looked like a female version of the Martian Manhunter, albeit a lot more human-looking even with the green skin. With a blue cape that went just past her waist, a white T-shirt with a red X on the front, a blue skirt and boots to complete the package, she really looked like she belonged in the League. However, and this could be her imagining things, she looked like she was doing her best to stay behind the other two people and not be noticed.

The final arrival was a redhaired girl who looked to be made from living liquid metal that, while presently shaped like a perfectly proportioned college student, could change in an instant. One thing that struck her as a bit odd though was that the girl was, for all intents and purposes, naked and wasn't trying to cover up one little bit. True, the level of detail in the body was roughly what one would expect from a clothing store mannequin, so one could trick themselves into thinking 'spandex' but still the girl's lack of modesty still seemed off.

"Glad to see you're alright, V-girl." Hulk said as he approached the first woman who was apparently named Void, "Think you can evac us all off this sinking ship?"

"I'll need to recharge completely if I'm going to get everyone but yes." Void replied with a look of resolve on her face.

"Anybody see some live wiring or got some electricity to spare?" Hulk asked turning to the others.

"If the lady doth require power then let her partake of Mjolnir, for it has plenty." The Viking offered, bringing an impressive war hammer up from his belt.

Mjolnir? Isn't that supposed to be the hammer wielded by the Norse god of thunder Thor? She thought before casting a brief sensory spell and hastily shutting it down.

The power that the spell had shown her before she'd shut it down had been near blinding and that pretty much made it clear to her that she wasn't looking at some pretender. The man holding the hammer that Void was reaching out for really was the Norse god of thunder and it made her wonder just how much crazier her adventure was going to get.

As Void touched the hammer, they all watched as electric like energy leapt from the hammer into the floating woman and then, like she'd touched an open flame, the lady pulled back her hand.

"Astonishing… such power…" Void gasped before she regained her composure. "Prepare yourselves."

A new portal formed that encompassed the entire hallway before Void got sucked in like liquid soap going down a flushed toilet. The guy in the mask and the lady in the red armor were the first to go through, followed by the metal girl and the female martian manhunter. From there everyone began to run through and, afraid of being left behind, she helped the wounded Air Force pilot to his feet and began to walk with him towards the portal. It was slow progress due to her lack of physical strength and his injuries but both were determined to make it no matter what. It was as they reached the halfway point that a large pair of hands picked the two of them up a good three feet off the ground.

"Need a lift, Red?" Hulk asked with a smile before he accelerated towards the portal and leapt through the portal.

Then the world twisted, the world turned, and when things finally straightened out, they were no longer on the ship but instead in front of the Washington monument.

"Captain Atom? Think you got enough in you to handle one more thing?" Superman asked looking at the silver coated soldier.

"Consider it done," Captain Atom replied before taking to the air and flying straight for the still shielded mother ship hanging in the sky, smoke floating up from various points of damage.

"What's he doing?" she asked wondering why the man would be heading back to the same ship that they'd just barely escaped.

"When the ship's self-destruct initiates, there will be a massive discharge of energy." Batman replied looking on as events played out, "The odds are good that the residual energy from the ship's shield will take the brunt of the attack but that's still a lot of energy coming down on the city. The Captain's going to use his powers to absorb as much of that energy as possible."

"Couldn't Superman or someone just push the ship out to sea or something?" she asked liking the idea of a massive explosion happening someplace else.

"I'm not strong enough at the moment to move something that size that quickly out of the city, much less out to sea." Superman replied, indeed looking quite fatigued.

"Besides, by now the state troopers will have evacuated most of the civilians from the immediate blast area and, providing Atom can take care of the rest, damage should be minimal." Steel stated, working on a panel in one of his wrist shooters.

Then, almost as if to pass the point of no return, the sky lit up like it was suddenly daytime and everyone who'd been used to the night turned away to minimize the blinding effects. However the most they felt in terms of heat was a potent current of air as it passed over them but it didn't last long before things returned to the stillness of before. If she strained her eyes, she could see a figure hovering in the air soaking up energy like a sponge and, when there was nothing more to absorb, the person flew high into the sky before vanishing from sight.

As the people gathered looking at Washington, they realized that while they might have saved the city from complete destruction, there was no denying the shape it was in.

It would be many a year before everything was restored but, as the nation's capital, she had little doubt that it would recover.

Recover and endure.

Iron Man's POV

"Sir, you may want to leave the area shortly." Jarvis said through the helmet's internal speakers, "We have multiple military gunships incoming as well as several aircraft that are not in my database."

"Show me." He ordered before following the indicators his artificial intelligence was putting on his HUD.

It didn't take him long to spot the mass of dots on the horizon and, thanks to a little image magnification, he soon saw the aircraft he'd been warned about. While he'd anticipated the military rushing in as soon as they figured it was safe, he'd hoped that they'd have at least half an hour since that'd be enough time for the jarheads to be absolutely sure they had an accurate read on things. Whatever the case, Jarvis was right that leaving shortly would be a good idea because he wasn't keen on answering any questions or letting anyone in the military get a good look at his armor. For the moment his identity was still a secret and he intended to keep it that way for as long as possible, with that being for the rest of his life if he had any say in the matter.

"Look, it's been fun, but I think it's time for all us non-Leaguers to call it a night," he said out loud to the collected group of people. "Seems like the next shift is here and I'd rather not stick around to chat."

"Ah, yeah, not looking forward to some more army boys." Xander said having since transformed back into his more human looking form, "Hey Void? Still got enough juice to get us outta here?"

"You're leaving? What about your problem with Gaea?" Superman asked, sounding a bit surprised by his choice.

"Well, as you saw on the ship there's, a new personality in the driver's seat of Big Green," Xander replied with a half-smile. "Turns out the deal I managed to broker with Gaea worked out. Assuming she doesn't change her mind, Soldier Boy will be in command every time the Hulk comes out. With that being the case, I'm less of a ticking time bomb and more like the best kept secret of the Harris family."

"What about the rest of them?" Steel asked, finished with whatever maintenance he'd been doing to his own armor. "Grifter and Zealot are still criminals, so there's no letting them go. I'm sure J'onn would like to ask green girl over there a few questions too."

"No. They all go." Batman said, surprising just about everyone there.

Not surprising since, if he had an accurate assessment of the man, the caped crusader wasn't big on trusting unknowns and always liked to have all the blanks filled in before making a decision. That and calling the man a bit paranoid probably wouldn't be too far off the mark.

"With everything that's happened here, the military will have enough leverage to get Harris transferred to their custody, even with Ross' earlier involvement," Batman explained in response to the questioning looks. "As for Grifter and Zealot, I think we can all agree that if the majority of their crimes were committed trying to stop Helspont and his forces, then they can be… overlooked just this once."

This definitely got people shocked but not him because he knew that the dark knight would be something of a hypocrite if he came down hard on the desperado duo for using tactics similar to him. The only thing he'd likely take issue with was the habit both Grifter and Zealot had of being a bit bloodier with their foes than the league tended to condone.

"So long as they show a bit more restraint in the future, I see no problem with letting them go," Batman said with his cape concealing everything below the neck. "As for the rest, I think we can let them go with a stern warning."

"Okay, who are you and what've you done with Batman?" Steel asked, clearly not believing what he was hearing. "No way would the man I know go easy on anyone, no matter the reason if they broke the law."

"The fact that Ross was able to get troops for his little operation means that there are others in the military and perhaps the government who share his point of view. Add to that the revelations about these… Daemonites, and I'm suspicious about who might really be calling the shots." Batman explained without any weakness in his voice. "Letting them go will force these unknowns to take action on their own. Actions I can discover and trace back to their source."

"In other words, we'll be the carrot and you'll be waiting in the wings with the stick when these moles poke their heads out in the open." Xander said with a little sarcasm in his voice.

"Exactly," Batman stated, sounding completely unapologetic.

"What about Pris?" Miss Martian asked sounding concerned about her friend.

"She's committed no crimes and was only being held due to her connection with Harris." Batman replied, turning to the source of the question. "She'll be released within the next twenty-four hours once the paperwork's been filed."

"Yeah! Great! Now can we get out of here because I think the people in the choppers have seen us," he said, getting increasingly nervous at the vanishing distance between them and the military.

"If Batman thinks this is the way to go, then I'll defer to his judgment on this matter." Superman said, sounding like he was acting on his faith in the caped crusader more than his own personal opinion. "Get out of here. We'll settle things with the military."

With that Void opened up another one of her portals and, with speed born of wanting to evade capture, the group of non-leaguers ran through the portal to be spirited off to parts unknown, save Void herself. It took a moment once he reached the other side to reconnect to the Stark Enterprises satellite but he was impressed to find himself just a couple of hours north of Los Angeles. Not even the fastest aircraft on the planet could cross that kind of distance in such a short amount of time and it made him want to sit down and have a serious chat with the 'woman' when they had the time.

"Okay, so we're clear of the military and the League'll run interference for us, at least for a little while, so where to now?" Grifter asked, sounding like he wasn't in favor of standing around in the middle of nowhere all day.

"Well, according to my suit, we're just a couple of hours north of L.A." he replied, getting everyone's attention despite his suit modulating his voice. "If you'd all be willing to follow me, I have a place that shouldn't be too far away where we should be able to make ourselves comfortable while we make up our individual minds."

After a series of nods and agreements, the group began to move as a whole, with people who could fly (or leap really, really far) carrying those who could not.

It's a good thing that I already told Dad I wanted the Powell estate as my own personal west coast home. He thought as he flew at a leisurely pace towards their destination. It'll make it easier getting these guys inside without anyone being the wiser.

It was as he pictured, a relatively remote house filled with people who could easily fit the label of 'superhero' that an idea occurred to him that set his brain a buzzing.

1800 Palos Verdes Drive, North of Los Angeles, Two Days Later, Xander's POV

"What do you think this big meeting is all about?" Willow asked as they walked towards the main dining room where Iron Man, aka Tony FRICKIN' Stark, had called them to moments ago.

Yeah, that had been a shock and a half to find out that the armored hero, the guy who Willow had been chatting with for the past few years, was actually Anthony Edward Stark, son of Howard Stark, who was C.E.O of Stark Enterprises. Willow had fainted the first time the guy had popped his mask off and had a few near relapses afterwards until her brain finally got used to the idea that she'd been talking to and, in some cases confiding, in a multi-BILLIONAIRE who was in GQs top ten. As an interesting side note they'd had ample reason to hasten her into a calm state of mind when she started sparking crimson electricity that fried several nearby electronic devices. He'd asked her what was going on but all she did in her still somewhat shocked state was point to the M-shaped headdress on her head. He decided that it'd probably be best to wait on inquiring further, at least until his best bud had a chance to settle down a bit more.

In any case, once they'd arrived at the estate two days ago, Stark had advised them to take a load off and try to unwind. The guy had said that he had a proposal for all of them but needed time to prepare and figured that they'd appreciate some down time before he sprung it on them all. While some had just wanted to say their goodbyes and head back to their respective lives, he and Willow had actually been interested in hearing what the young billionaire had to say. In any case, all vocalizations of departure desires were ignored by Stark since he left the room they'd been in post haste. So when faced with the choice of staying or finding their own way to their respective destinations, everyone chose to stay.

Of course in some of their cases, it might have to do with the fact that the place was decked out in all the latest luxuries and gadgets with a fully stocked kitchen and a pool in the back.

The next day they'd been informed that Tony had sent his personal assistant, a Miss Pepper Potts, to pick up Priscilla Kitaen from League custody and bring her to the estate. It had only taken a couple of hours but seeing the joyous looks on the faces of Megan and Cessily at being reunited with their longtime friend made for a very heartwarming sight. With the joy of the reunion and all, no one pressed Stark to fess up about what he was up to and so the group spent more time enjoying the expensive things in life to the fullest. After all, why not enjoy it when it was all going onto the tab of someone who can easily afford a hundred times what was contained in the estate.

Of course his willingness to wait might have something to do with the fact that all of the ladies, including Zealot, miraculously enough, took advantage of the swimming pool in the back. With a specially prepared changing room filled with swimsuits for both genders, no one could say no and, when he saw what kind of ladies swimwear Stark favored, 'no' might as well not have been in his vocabulary. At first he'd thought that it might be dangerous for him to get… excited… by the lovely scenery but apparently when you're not clamping down on your emotions every waking hour, they get much easier to deal with. Plus there was the fact that the few times he got too revved up, Soldier Boy Hulk wasn't all smash, crash and bash but rather a lot like him.

He went through a few swimsuits until they found one that'd stretch far enough.

In the end, though, today was the day apparently for Stark to spring his big idea on them and, while there'd been no solid proof to indicate what it was, he had an idea that connected all the dots nicely.

"I got a few ideas but I think it's best if we wait and see." He said as they entered the dining room to find everyone else already there.

Some, like Cole and Pris, had brought a snack with them while the others just sat with moderate patience, waiting for the meeting to get going.

"Well, now that Xander and Willow are here, I'll get started with this meeting," Tony said from the head of the dining room table. "First off I hope you all have enjoyed your two days off at my expense. I know I did." This he said while looking at the ladies with an expression on his face that had several of the women glaring at him.

"Nonetheless, I know that you don't want to be kept here any longer than necessary so I'll just cut to the chase: I think we should form our own team." Tony said before going silent in anticipation of what happened next, namely a lot of yelling and questioning plus one or two objections but eventually it all died down allowing Stark to continue.

"To what end?" Zealot asked, her voice as cold and professional as ever.

"For one thing, if these Daemonites are as serious of a threat as you've told me, then we can't leave them alone. They've operated right under the Justice League's nose, as well as every other law enforcement agency's nose, for years without anyone being the wiser," Iron Man replied, explaining his reasoning to the collected group of people. "That means they've either got moles on the inside eliminating harmful data or their tech is advanced enough that no one legal can spot them. That has to change or we'll probably find ourselves with more citywide battles in the future.

"There's also the fact that we just proved that we can be just as good as the League and we haven't had a single training session together. If we're this good now, imagine how good we could be if we actually worked at it." Tony said with a proud grin on his face. "Besides, I think it's about time that the League had some actual competition in the super team game."

While he didn't share the man's interest in becoming the Justice League's rivals, he had to admit that if all the diverse people here actually worked to become a team they'd be a force to be reckoned with. The only things he could think of that'd set them apart from the League would be the fact that they had members willing to stray further from the public's perception of a superhero. There was a difference between doing what was right and what was necessary, with most current superheroes being incapable of doing what was necessary if it conflicted with their idea of what was right. He, along with Zealot and Grifter, however knew that sometimes you had to enter the gray area between right and wrong if you were to succeed in stopping evil. Willow, and probably the rest of the ladies, were probably still stuck in the civilian mindset of what heroes should be like but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It'd be people like them that'd keep the rest of them from straying too close to the dark side and remind them of what they were really fighting for.

He didn't know what was going on inside the head of Thor but, if he was anything like the myths said, then he'd likely be in favor of fighting, if only for prestige that came with facing down incredible odds and coming out alive.

"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm out." Cessily said, sounding like being a superhero is the last thing she wanted. "I didn't make it out of that cluster fuck just to dive back in and I know that Pris wants to get back to her life just as much as I want to get back to mine."

"If that's your choice then you can leave anytime you want." Tony said in a perfectly casual tone. "Though you're going to need a new place to live and probably a new job. I was perusing the after action reports on the Washington battle and both your apartment and the club you worked at were completely demolished by Daemonite cannon fire. Sure, both will probably be rebuilt in a couple of months or so but until then you're going to have to bunk with someone and see if any of the still standing clubs have any openings. Assuming your former co-workers haven't already filled those positions already."

This made the liquid metal girl cross her arms and growl a bit, most likely because she realized that the rich boy was right. He'd seen the news broadcasts estimating the amount of damage Helspont and his forces had caused during their one night attack. Optimistic projections put complete restoration of destroyed buildings, infrastructure and utilities at about four to five years and that'd only be the case if the League sent members to help things along.

"If you stick with the team for a while, though, you'll get a steady paycheck, a roof over your head, food and maybe just maybe I can get you a special rate once they finish rebuilding your apartment building." Tony said, offering a compromise of sorts. "I might even be willing to make a donation to your former place of employment to so they can get back on their feet. What do you say?"

For a moment it looked like Cessily was going to resist further but, with a barely audible growl of annoyance, she nodded in agreement to Stark's offer. While it wasn't in his nature to turn away from a fight once he saw the good reason for it, he could understand somewhat where the metallic redhead was coming from. She'd essentially been an innocent bystander dragged into the conflict by association, without possessing any motivation unique to herself. If she wanted to leave the fighting to others, he was hardly going to get on her case for that but he'd be lying if he wouldn't miss her a bit. The last two days had given everyone a chance to get to know each other and he found that he liked all of them and could easily see himself becoming good friends with all of them.

Well, except maybe Zealot, but that was more because of her glacial personality than anything she'd said or done to him personally.

"Anyone else opposed to the idea?" Iron Man asked, looking about the people assembled before him.

Silence was all he got in reply to his question and, looking at the faces of the others, he didn't think anyone was just busy formulating their negative response.

There was one thing that had him a bit concerned so he decided to voice it.

"Assuming we all make it to the big team debut, we're going to need a name for the team," he said, pointing out an important fact. "I don't suppose you have one in mind."

"I was thinking of making it 'The Defenders'. Simple and to the point," Stark declared, sounding quite in favor of his team name.

"Not really. It makes it sound like we'll always be on the defensive and that's not always the best way to win a fight." Cole pointed out, treating the whole discussion very casually.

"How about… The Avengers?" he suggested, remembering a TV show he'd once watched with Giles at his apartment during one of their rare slow weeks back in Sunnydale. "It's got both offensive and defensive interpretations. Plus it sounds cool. Unless someone has something better in mind?"

Everyone in the room looked at him with eyes that were distinctly wide, as though they couldn't believe he'd suggested such a corny name. He knew his tastes were a little different than most peoples but he still thought 'The Avengers' was a pretty cool name for a superhero team. He was just about to withdraw his decision when he saw a big smile on the face of Tony Stark that made him pause.

"I like it. Dramatic, unique and with a bit of nostalgia that the old folks'll like." Stark said before looking at the group, "All opposed?"

Silence.

"All in favor?" Iron Man asked, waiting to see what they'd say.

"AYE!" declared everyone at the same time making it clear everyone was unanimously in favor of the name.

"Then mark it all down on your calendar, people. Today is the day the Avengers step up to the plate and start their journey towards becoming Earth's mightiest heroes." Tony said with as much speechifying grandeur as he could.

Everyone took a moment to soak in the momentous occasion and think about the future that was ahead for them.

No one had any idea just what they were committing themselves to or the marvelous things they would see along the way.

If they did… well, they'd still probably have formed the team but they'd have probably done more to be prepared.

The End?

Epilogue

"STATUS REPORT." Helpont demanded as he fumed upon his throne.

"We have just received confirmation from the last of our new sleeper agents," Dockwell replied as he stepped away from a console. "He confirmed that his insertion succeeded without incident and will follow standing orders until told otherwise."

"GOOD. THEN THINGS PROCEED APACE," Helspont said with at least some satisfaction in his voice. "THOUGH AT GREAT COST. THE LOSS OF THE BEHEMOTH IS A SETBACK THAT SHOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED."

"Perhaps the damage can yet be minimized, Lord Helspont." Dockwell said tentatively, though with a bit of confidence. "The humans are already salvaging what they can of the Behemoth, as well as the support vessel. I believe they will try to make use of it and perhaps use it to build a ship of their own. Perhaps we could help them… guide them… then, when it is finished, we could take it for our own."

"AN INTERESTING PROPOSAL," Helspont said before turning to another figure in the room. "WHAT DO YOU THINK, LIEUTENANT S'RYN?"

Stepping forward into the light was a woman clad in a costume that was a mix of blue, black, white and green that clung to her curves and emphasized her fit figure. With raven hair spilling down her back she was the dream of a great many men and a source of jealousy for many women. However what more important than all that was the fact that her face was known to a great many people and that she was a member of one of the most powerful groups in the world. Or at least that is what could be discerned with eyes alone.

The truth was far more terrible.

"I think it would be quite satisfying indeed to see the humans destroyed by their own creation," S'ryn replied from within his new human host. "It should be almost as amusing as the looks on their faces when I use the body of their ally The Huntress to betray them."

"INDEED. NONE OF THOSE SO-CALLED HEROES REALIZE THAT EVEN AS WE ACTED TO ACQUIRE THE KHERABIM COMPUTER, WE WERE ALSO PLACING AGENTS INTO THEIR ALLIES ELSEWHERE." Helspont said with a malicious delight, "THIS IS BUT THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS REUNIFICATION. IT WILL NOT BE THE LAST."

Brig Rat = person who has served much brig time, a habitual offender.

Barney-Style = to perform an action in sequence and strictly according to regulations, idiot proof, oversimplified for the benefit of lower-intelligence people

Fobbie = A marine who rarely sees combat