41

Disclaimer: I do not own DC. But I do have, like, $500 to spare. How much of a piece of the pie will that buy me, huh? Oh, who am I kidding? That won't even buy me a corner of a page for an ad.

Chapter 41: Nuclear Option

Having gone to the Justice League Watchtower for treatment after his ride came down with a sudden case of 'the explosions', Blue Beetle was left with some downtime for some introspective thinking.

Blue Beetle thought of himself as a bug, but also a man... if that made sense.

He was an individual that relied on science, logic, and reasoning. He was a man with smarts and skills. More smarts and skills than the average Joe, but what he had was nothing that couldn't be obtained by anyone else given the time and opportunity.

He wasn't like Superman, or Captain Marvel. Or the goddess in the flesh that had come to check on him; Wonder Woman.

The only good thing about losing the Bug? Getting sympathy from Wonder Woman.

"You were fortunate," The princess of the Amazons said with a smile, "Your injuries appear minor."

"Thanks," Blue Beetle mumbled in return. Fortunate? Not a word that Blue Beetle would associate with himself as of late.

Wonder Woman seemed to sense Blue Beetle's beleaguered temperament. Trying to take a load off of his mind, she engaged him further, "Tell me about this investigation of yours, Ted."

The offer was casual and conversational, but it left Blue Beetle surprised, "You know about it?" He'd been asking around for help, but he hadn't thought that anyone cared enough to keep note.

Wonder Woman nodded and leaned against a nearby bed in the medical bay, "I know enough to believe your suspicions have merit. Certainly, the theft of the Kryptonite is alarming."

Finally. One of the Justice League's major players was willing to hear him out and wasn't being dismissive or skeptical. He had to stop himself from bombarding the Amazonian with more info than mattered, "I don't know if it's a villain, or an organization, or what. The Madmen attack, then what happened at my house..."

Whatever path he tried taking, it seemed like he just kept getting stonewalled at every turn. It was enough to make most people want to pull their hair out.

Most people, but not Blue Beetle. He was just beginning to get tired of the whole rigmarole. Pulling the top of his costume back onto his body didn't make him feel much like a hero. Especially not when he was sitting in front of one.

Unable to keep his dejected demeanor under wraps, Blue Beetle gazed down at the bandages on his arms and body. Physical evidence that something was going on. Yet, no one cared.

"Everyone thinks I'm making it up. You all think I'm on some wild goose chase," He said, miserably, "The only help I've been able to get so far, I had to make it worth his while."

Wonder Woman reached out and put a reassuring hand on Blue Beetle's shoulder, "I don't. I believe you."

In the recent past, Ted might have amassed a reputation as a bit of a goof-off. But when it came to crime-fighting, he didn't screw around. He was just as capable of getting to the bottom of trouble as anyone else. He wasn't an idiot, and he wasn't the type to jump at shadows.

"You said you had help?" Wonder Woman asked, trying to keep things positive.

Blue Beetle breathed out a laugh in confirmation, "Yeah, this kid. Null. You've heard of him, right?"

Wonder Woman felt she'd heard the name before in passing. Nothing concrete though, "I'm vaguely aware of him, I think. He's the one helping you? Where is he then?"

"Had to take off to handle some personal business yesterday," Blue Beetle told her. Though he held the feeling that Null would cut him loose like everyone else had thus far, there was a part of him that cast the thought aside, "I don't know why, but I feel like he'll be back though."

He couldn't say how or why. It was just a feeling, even though they hadn't been in touch since splitting up.

It was then that Wonder Woman ended the conversation in a way that left Blue Beetle at a loss for words, "I have to head back to the embassy. Please keep me posted on what you find, okay?"

As Themyscira's ambassador to the rest of the world, she had plenty of real work to do. But the fact that she even bothered saying as much meant something.

In Blue Beetle's mind, this could have been taken one of two ways. Either Wonder Woman only offered him such a thing in order to be polite, and really didn't figure he would find anything else, or she really believed him and was offering to lend a hand if something concrete came up.

Down on his luck as he was, Blue Beetle really hoped it was the first one.

XxX

(With Null - Fisterra, A Coruña, Spain)

It had been quite the day.

After his latest brush with the wrong end of justice, Null had to take a little time to unpack everything that he had absorbed over the last twelve or so hours. To that end, he had to admit something aloud.

"This is too big for us," Null said, more to himself than to his present company of Anarky, "...This is too big for Blue Beetle."

He was supposed to get back in contact with Blue Beetle once he had seen to his business with Anarky. Now though? He was afraid that if he gave him a call, the poor guy would be obliterated from space before he even hopped into the Bug to come and meet up with him again.

Hell, the moment they wandered back into civilization, there was always the chance that he could get obliterated.

Null and Anarky made a temporary stop just before reaching the Atlantic Ocean. A cliffside in Spain overlooking the sea served as their point to regroup.

Anarky was eager to get some kind of direction as to their next move, "So, what do we do now? You don't want to go to the Justice League, do you?" He tried to joke. When Null didn't immediately shoot such an idea down, Anarky realized that it had merit in the thief's head, "...Seriously? Did you miss the part where I told you one of their charter members made Brother Eye in the first place?"

No, Null had not forgotten. It had stuck in his craw ever since he'd first heard, "Yeah, which means he'll have the best idea of how to stop it," He fired back as justification, "It's not like I want to talk to the guy either, but look at what we're dealing with here."

Null was powerful, but he wasn't strong enough to brute force his way through any opposition on his own. He also wasn't sly enough to come up with a stratagem that would dislodge a man running an entire intelligence agency like Checkmate. Anarky wasn't either, otherwise he'd have spent most of his time doing things like that instead.

They couldn't take it for themselves. That avenue had been attempted, and had failed thoroughly. Maybe the man behind the technology had a better chance of wresting the A.I. back into his control.

Besides, if Brother Eye decided to try and torch Batman from space, he would only feel mildly put off by it. As opposed to if it happened to someone he actually kind of liked, like Blue Beetle.

Anarky had been around Null enough to know that changing his mind was a difficult process. Even though, he still attempted to voice his dissent, "What are the chances he'll even believe us?"

The last time he checked, Batman thought poorly of the both of them. And that was a generous way of looking at things. The more realistic way of looking at things was that Batman saw Anarky as a menace, and Null as a liability.

Null tapped his own temple, illustrating he'd thought of this, "Batman is a reactionary dick. Bring up something sensitive, and he'll get nasty about it," He said, "You told me no one's even supposed to know about Brother Eye. Well, that would make it one of those things."

It surprised Anarky at how proactive Null was being. He wasn't entirely caught off-guard, as he himself could attest to how determined and resourceful Null could be when he was properly motivated.

"You know, I didn't expect this out of you," Anarky said, speaking on his thoughts, "What, did you go and put fertilizer on your balls or something?"

At that, Null paused. Granted, he did feel he had been getting bolder in his chosen courses of action. But he had chalked it up in the past to simply adjusting to the lifestyle.

"I don't know," Null eventually said, "I guess at this point it's just that… well, I've survived enough by this point to not get rattled so easily, don't you think?"

If he had been building up a proverbial callous to the life of heroes and villains, his most recent escapades with the Secret Six basically calcified him. Doing dirt with as many hardened individuals as he had and coming out on the other end alive basically took away most any excuse he had to cower in the face of just about any earthly threat.

"Hey, I'm not complaining," Anarky insisted, "It's better for both of us that you don't flinch at your own shadow. You're probably going to wind up doing the heavy lifting if things go south again."

There was a part of Null that really wanted things with Batman to go south, just so he would have an excuse. But that would hardly be productive. And speaking of things going south...

"When we were still in the air-," Null started, "-You said something about the database disappearing when you tried to copy it all."

"Outside source," Anarky said curtly, "I'm drumming up a short list of who could have done it."

"Is it a list of one?" Null deadpanned, "Because the only name on it better be Mockingbird."

Anarky couldn't help but breathe out a laugh, "You sound like you hate this guy too."

Null wagged his hand in a wishy-washy fashion, "It's love-hate. He press-ganged me into working for him, but I got out of it in the end. And he paid out the ass after I was done."

Anarky sighed, half in disappointment, half in disgust, "It's always about the money with you," He said.

Null felt the need to correct him, "Not always. Just usually. Come on. We've gotta keep going. We've got a trans-atlantic flight to get through," Which meant hours of hurtling through the sky with nothing else to do but hope nothing came around to shoot them down.

"Got any in-flight snacks?" Anarky quipped as he got back onto Null's Gravboard and felt static stick him to the surface, "I haven't eaten since yesterday."

Null rolled his eyes under his hood as they lifted off, "Let me dig around in my satchel," He said, "You a gum guy? I've got some Stride you can choke on until we land."

XxX

(Metropolis)

It was hard to think that preventing a building collapse that threatened 26 workers' lives could count as something relaxing. Then again, most people weren't Supergirl.

While disasters of that nature were terrifying, and no small thing for the people involved in them and surrounding them, for her, it helped put things in perspective. The worst or most terrifying day of someone else's life would be just another day for her.

Regardless, it was a lot more enjoyable to help people than to investigate people that you considered friends and mentors. Everyone had to find their own ways to get their heads on straight. And fortunately, Supergirl found that Metropolis' primary protector had no problem with her stepping in to take over most of the day-to-day patrolling of the city for a little while.

During a break in his work day as Clark Kent, Superman ventured out to check on Supergirl, finding her hovering high in the air, keeping an eye on things, "Everything's going smoothly, I see," The blue-clad powerhouse encouraged with a big smile.

Supergirl floated over and patted him on the chest in appreciation, "Thank you, Kal-El. I just... whew. I need some time to decompress."

Superman chuckled at his exasperated cousin, "You've been doing me the real favor. J'onn has a lot of us spreading out all over to deal with an uptick in... sensitive incidents."

Supergirl didn't need any further explanation. Martian Manhunter kept himself up at the Watchtower more than any other league member, and had his hands full dispatching personnel wherever they seemed to be needed.

When Superman brought up 'sensitive incidents', Supergirl's demeanor changed. It pushed to the forefront all of the thoughts that she had been having about the Justice League, things that indirectly involved Superman. She had been relieved to find that he'd had no involvement with the mind wipes. But then, that didn't mean he didn't have thoughts of his own.

It was just that bringing it up felt like it would be so uncomfortable, and things were stressful enough for all of them already.

Besides, while it was fine to get opinions and hear what other people's thoughts were, in the end, Max had left the decision of what to do with her. Whether he'd done it because he trusted her judgment more than his own, or because he didn't want to keep his hands on that hot potato, it was her call. It wasn't fair to dump any of this on Superman, to top off what he and the rest of the Justice League were dealing with all over the place.

Then again, how fair was it to put these sorts of things on a teenager either? Whether she'd signed up to be a superhero or not.

XxX

(With Null – Highland Park, Illinois)

Brother Eye could tap into any communication device in the world, according to what Anarky had said thus far. That meant Null had to toss his burner phone somewhere over the skies of France, just to be safe. It wasn't like the thing was in his name, but he didn't want to take the chance that Brother Eye could monitor everything indiscriminately.

With the reality that use of any modern device would hand Maxwell Lord and Checkmate their position on a silver platter, once Null and Anarky made it back to the United States, they had to take great care to stay off the radar. Anarky didn't want to risk going back to his base in Washington, D.C. Null also didn't want to go back to Gotham City. Neither were keen on risking letting the enemy know where it was they chose to dwell.

That left Null with the brainstorm to head somewhere safe. Safe, only by the virtue that it had already felt Brother Eye's wrath once before, and had nothing in it that could be used to monitor them.

Ted Kord's house.

Null and Anarky took up refuge in the burned-out remains of the suburban home. Anarky passed the time taking a look at what was left of the place, while Null kicked his feet up and relaxed among some debris.

Anarky perused through some of Kord's ruined belongings, not finding as much pleasure in standing among the destroyed remains of a former capitalist bigwig's life as he felt he would have, "You think this is smart?" He asked.

"You got any other ideas?" Null responded calmly, "There's no working tech around here, and I'm sure if we hang around long enough, Beetle will show his face here and we can keep going."

Anarky clicked his teeth in irritation, "The longer we wait-."

"-I know, Lonnie," Null interrupted, a hard, meaningful look in his eye, "I know. But any word we try to send to anyone is just gonna get picked up by Brother Eye. So the best plan right now is to plop our asses down right here and chill."

Anarky worked his mouth, still annoyed, but able to see his temporary ally's point, "Patience may be a virtue, but it's a luxury we don't have," He said, "Lord didn't seem that put out that we'd found him. That has to mean that things are to a point where it doesn't matter if he gets found out."

Perhaps. But wouldn't they have seen or heard of something big happening by then if that were the case. It had been over half a day since the fight at the castle. If them crashing his party would have led to him speeding things up, it likely have blown back onto them somehow by that time.

"Maybe you're right," Null said, "Or maybe he's sure he can kill us off before we get to anyone," He offered as another explanation. Null felt like he'd gotten a decent chance to size up the kind of man they were dealing with from the interaction they'd had, "He seems like the type where the longer he goes without catching us, the more he'll start to lose it."

"Control freak," Anarky said, catching on to where Null was going.

"Yep."

"That'll make him more brazen; dangerous."

"And maybe that'll solve our problem of getting ahold of someone capable of pulling the plug on him."

Aggressive moves usually attracted attention. With enough noise and explosions flying around, it was a foregone conclusion that curious capes would stick their noses into it.

Both boys ceased their conversing when they heard the sound of footsteps crunching over the debris on the floor. Peeking around the corner into the room, Blue Beetle caught sight of Null first, "Hey. You came back," He sounded relieved, and a bit surprised. More surprised though that Null hadn't come alone, "And you brought company."

Null hopped up from where he'd been relaxing, brushing dust and pieces of house off of him, "This is Anarky. He's who I went to see the other day. Believe it or not, he's been digging into this too."

Thank God. More support. Blue Beetle couldn't help but think that maybe his fortunes were beginning to turn around, "Well, I hope you've been having more luck than I have."

Both Anarky and Null shared a glance before the former interjected, "Luck is... a relative way to describe it."

As if the universe deigned to illustrate what he was talking about, four O.M.A.C.s crashed through the walls and ceiling in different areas of the home.

Null inwardly cursed. He and Anarky might have known to evade surveillance, but that didn't mean Blue Beetle did. Even if Beetle hadn't known what he was looking for, he'd been pulling at the same thread that would have led him to Maxwell Lord anyway. It stood to reason that when things started spiraling down, he'd make sure to keep a closer eye on the guy who got Null involved to begin with.

There was nothing that could be done about it now though, other than to fight and get away. To that end, Null started flaring up his powers for combat, "Well, Beetle, we've got some good news and some bad news."

Even banged up as he was from the Bug exploding and being beaten by the Madmen, Blue Beetle pulled out his BB gun to defend himself, "What's the good news?"

"We know what O.M.A.C. is," Null revealed.

Blue Beetle reacted in shock, "And the bad news?"

Anarky pointed his baton at the nearest interloper, "That's what O.M.A.C. is," He said, before gesturing with his head from Null to the unit, "Well? Sic 'em."

"Fuck off," Null said, choosing to attack before the O.M.A.C.s could coordinate one of their own.

Taking the initiative, he launched himself at one, blasting it with electricity. When it tried to power through, Null coated one of his hands in ironsand and slugged it in the head before it could get close.

Another attempted to ambush him from behind, taking a swipe at him with sharpened metal fingers. Null felt it coming, and magnetically pushed it back, implanting it into the nearest wall. Quickly aiming his ironsand-coated fist at it, he shot off a miniature cannonball that blew it the rest of the way through.

Blue Beetle had markedly less luck when he was confronted with an O.M.A.C.

A point-blank flare from his BB gun did nothing to damage it. The cyborg minion grabbed Blue Beetle by the arm and effortlessly broke his arm at the elbow, "AHHG!"

A circle-A throwing star was flung into the singular eye of the O.M.A.C., as Anarky swooped in and smashed the offending O.M.A.C. with his electric baton. It took nearly a dozen clean strikes for it to let go of Blue Beetle.

"Null, get us out of here!" Anarky shouted, standing defensively over the injured Blue Beetle.

A preoccupied Null dodged a laser blast from one O.M.A.C. before magnetically pulling it into the line of fire from another, using it as a shield against its comrade, "I think I can take 'em!"

Blue Beetle grit his teeth, holding his broken arm close to his body, "That would make you the only one, kid!"

No matter how things were going, fighting when he didn't have to was the wrong move and Null knew it. Taking the hint, he summoned his Gravboard and allowed the over-matched Anarky and Blue Beetle to get on before mounting it himself. As they took off, he brought the remainder of the roof down to aid in their escape from pursuing O.M.A.C.s.

"Null!" Blue Beetle exclaimed, nursing his arm as the board sped away from danger, "The fuck!?"

"Sorry!" Null apologized. He was used to spending time with people with stronger powers or people better at fighting than he was. It hardly occurred to him that Anarky and Blue Beetle would be outmatched, and thus a liability, "...You alright?"

"No!"

Anarky decided to try and refocus the group, partly to get their ducks in a row, partly to distract Blue Beetle, "Alright, so I hate to say it, but they probably followed you there," He said to the superhero among them.

Blue Beetle furrowed his brow, out of the loop, "What? How?"

Null took over the explanation at that point, "We've got, like, an hour to fill you in before we get to Gotham City, and honestly, we're probably gonna need every second of it."

XxX

(Gotham City – Tricomber Island)

Selina's car pulled to a stop out in front of Max's townhouse. With a sigh, she cut the engine off and went to step outside of the car.

*KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!*

Selina rapped on the front door and waited for a response. It had been a while since she'd checked in on her protege. Not since he'd come back from gallivanting with a pack of dangerous criminals.

Oh, how she had let him have it for that one. Purely out of concern, seeing as how he'd, out of the blue, dropped out of the last leg of their vacation plans, and managed to fit multiple near-death experiences in an extremely short time span. Hearing about half of what he'd gotten up to made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

Max seemed to be making a habit of getting involved in these sorts of affairs more often. As much as Selina would have liked to blame it on his affiliation with Supergirl, things had been trending that way since before he'd started a relationship with that particular Kryptonian hussy.

He was less tentative. Less wary of threats. Self-awareness that he was in over his head, and a healthy fear for the criminal underworld had kept him alive in the past. But now, he seemed more willing to engage in the day-to-day insanity of heroes and villains than ever.

When did it happen? When did her little Maxie, who would cut and run at the first sign of a cowled and caped shadow, turn into the kind of person who would charge a mafioso flotilla in a rage just to pull her out of the line of fire? Where did that even come from?

She'd been meaning to talk to him about it. She just hadn't managed to find the proper words to convey her concerns without getting too touchy-feely. Even if the two clearly cared about each other, that didn't mean they had to pronounce it aloud. The fact was simply that the brave and the bold died horrifically. It was just how things were, and Selina had seen it happen far too often to ignore Max develop habits and associates that would put him in an early grave.

After thinking over all of these things, Selina realized that she had been waiting at the front door for quite some time, without Max ever responding.

"Figures..." She sighed to herself, figuring she should have tried to call before swinging by, "He's probably off getting into more trouble."

Selina was prepared to leave. But before turning to head back to her car, she stopped, eyeing the door carefully. No one had answered, and yet it felt like there was someone or something inside. Right behind the door, in fact.

No one had answered, but that didn't mean she couldn't get in. After all, she'd been given a key to his domicile since back when he lived in his old apartment.

The lock clicked open, and Selina headed inside as though she weren't suspicious of what was inside; as though she were just an unassuming visitor.

Advancing through the foyer, she glanced into the living room where she saw bloody bandages discarded on the coffee table. When she heard the front door close behind her, she fought the urge to jump or turn around abruptly.

Slowly raising her hands above her head, Selina spun around to face the intruder, only to come face-to-face with one of her current lover's old wards.

He seemed to recognize her more than she recognized him, as his face lit up in recognition upon seeing her, "Well, well, well. Selina Kyle. I knew you trained our boy, but still, fancy seeing you here."

It took Selina a moment to recall the name of the once-a-boy, now-a-man, "What are you doing here, Jason?"

Jason chuckled and lowered his weapon, "Oh, come on. That's all you've got to say to me after all these years?" He said, "I know we didn't get on very well back in the day. But that's just because I thought you were no good for Bruce. Now? I don't really give a shit."

There was no sense of malice in how Jason regarded her. Selina had been aware of his activities as the Red Hood, violently lashing out against the criminal elements controlled by Black Mask. She couldn't find it in her to feel much sympathy for his targets though. She felt safe enough to lower her hands.

As long as she wouldn't start anything with him, he wouldn't start anything with her. Live and let live.

"We both know that's not true," Selina said, regarding Jason casually, "And you never answered my question. What are you doing here?"

"Got roughed up a bit last night," Jason pulled up the sleeve of his shirt, showing a bandaged wound at his shoulder, "Just laying low for a bit. Healing. Thinking."

Selina raised an eyebrow and gestured to their surroundings, "And you picked this place for it?"

Jason, not having expected any company, found that he didn't have much of an argument or an excuse, "It was the closest place that I could consider safe," He heard her scoff, and recognized that she probably didn't have the best idea of him crashing at her student's home, "Don't get your panties in a bunch. I'll be gone before sundown. I've got things to do, and I don't plan on bringing my problems to the kid's doorstep."

-Not without paying him, at least.

Selina watched Jason saunter back into the living room and kick his feet up. Max certainly had a penchant for making particular kinds of friends, "I can't believe he let you stay here."

"The kid doesn't even know I'm here," Jason said, "Not that it matters. Even if he did, he'd still let me hang around and get myself together."

Selina readily conceded that point, "Yeah... he would," Which lent itself to why she had come to Max's home in the first place to speak with him.

Jason picked up on the conflict in her tone and craned his head her way in interest, "Hey. What's the matter?"

As much as Selina wished to share her thoughts, she had intended to do so with Max. Not with the vengeful former student of her current lover, "I'm not about to go looking to you for an ear to bend," She said.

Jason looked around the otherwise uninhabited home and gestured with his arms, "Who else are you going to go to?"

"Captain Morgan. He's a fantastic listener," Selina said as she turned to leave the house, "Lock up when you leave, and make sure no one sees you."

Jason saluted her, not that she could see him, "Aye-aye," He replied cheekily as he heard the door close.

XxX

(Gotham City – Batcave)

When Batman had sent Null off to chase after Blue Beetle, the last thing he expected was to see the two of them days later right back in his sanctuary. Lo and behold, they had also managed to somehow rope Anarky into the mix.

Through the headache that began to throb behind his eyes, Batman idly marked down for later that he needed to seal off the entrance they'd used to get in. He'd already had to do so twice after the last couple of times Null had broken in.

In the meantime, he had riffraff to dispose of.

Looming over the trio, he made it known he was prepared to deploy every defensive measure the Batcave had to kick out Null and Anarky (and maybe Blue Beetle, since he'd turned them on to another way in).

"You have five words to explain just what you think you're doing here," Batman declared.

Fantastic. Null only needed two, "Brother Eye."

Batman felt his blood run cold when Null said that. It was close - too close - to what Batman called a certain project of his. One that none of them should have had any inkling about. One that he no longer had control over.

Paranoia mounted, and when faced with the individuals piquing that paranoia, Batman had to fight down the urge to lash out.

Instead, he stepped forward, demanding details, "What did you do?" He demanded. Null and Anarky looked prepared to come to blows with him in response.

Blue Beetle, arm in a sling, moved forward to defend the young thief. If Null and Anarky were going to get heat for this, it was going to be shared between the three of them, "No, Batman. What did you do? What is this?"

Batman didn't want to say anything. It wasn't anyone's business but his. But looking at the three of them showed that whatever Blue Beetle had been investigating wound up putting them through the wringer. And now his A.I. was somehow involved? If they were the only ones on the trail... it was time to share with the class.

Batman stepped down, his posture becoming much less hostile than it had been a moment before. Null and Anarky relaxed in return.

"I remember," Batman's mind drifting back to that day at the JLA Watchtower. The day he came across his comrades in the act of altering a villain's mind, "I saw what they did to Dr. Light. Do you understand what I'm telling you? I know what they did to his mind. What they took from him," He said to Blue Beetle, "I know what they did to him, and what they did to me."

He tried to stop them. He would have never allowed such a thing. He tried to stop them. Zatanna, Hawkman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Green Lantern, Elongated Man, and The Flash. But they stopped him, and he met the same fate as Dr. Light. Not as severely, but enough that the memory of what occurred there left him for years.

Well... not 'left him'. Memories never quite left. 'Buried' was the more appropriate term. Buried deep, behind layers and layers of magical conditioning, courtesy of one of his oldest friends, the magician Zatanna.

"Memory is a slippery beast," Batman continued, "It can't be controlled. Not with drugs, or emotion, or magic. With the right triggers, enough pressure, cracks appear. And each crack raises new questions. And each question creates new cracks... until the last piece falls away, leaving the truth."

The truth that seven people with more power, talent, and skill than 99.9% of the world could even fathom - sworn to use that power responsibly, in a way they would never wish upon themselves in return, decided to use that power to make things more convenient for themselves in the long run.

And now, in one way or another, those decisions had began to come home to roost; namely, in the form of The Society.

Batman locked eyes with Blue Beetle, beseeching the only other hero there with him, "Do you understand, Beetle? They broke the promise. And if they couldn't be trusted, then by extension, none of us could."

Blue Beetle understood where he was coming from, but for it to affect everyone? That was painting with an extremely wide brush, "Seven people, Batman. Seven heroes were involved in the mind wipes. Out of all of us, it was seven of them."

Batman shook his head and walked away, the glow of his supercomputer basking him in shadow, "It didn't matter who was responsible for what had happened. What mattered was that it had happened to begin with. And I was damned if I was going to let it ever happen again."

Now, it was affecting the world. In that moment, Null realized yet another reason why he couldn't be a hero. Everything superheroes did seemed to touch more than just them. Even when friends who were superheroes had a falling out, if they were big enough, it seemed to have wide-reaching consequences.

"Brother Mk I is a semi-autonomous AI surveillance system designed to do what I couldn't," Batman said, bringing up the original specs of his planned satellite for all of them to see, "To watch all of us, all the time."

Blue Beetle noticed that he included himself in that remark, but it served as more of a platitude to his ears than anything else, "Did you ever stop to consider how we'd feel about this? He asked, "What we might think of you spying on us?"

"They stole my mind from me. You think I give a damn whose feelings got hurt?" Batman snapped, "I wasn't going to let anyone else cross the line."

Anarky scoffed, letting his feelings over the concept of Brother Eye be known, "And if they did, then what? You'd just take them out? Is that it? Or is that one of the other things you built your eye in the sky to do?"

A streak of indignance welled up in Gotham's primary protector, until he figured that he had no place to feel any such way. After all, it was his best-laid plans that the rest of them had to deal with after the fact.

"It's irrelevant," Batman schooled his anger under a mask of cold, logical detachment. This was just another case now. He had to treat it like any other to be as effective as he could be, "I've been locked out of the system. I don't control Brother Eye anymore."

Null had no compassion for Batman losing one of his trump cards, because now it was coming back to bite all of them. The road to hell was oftentimes paved with good intentions, after all, "Yeah, no shit. But we know who does," he said, "Checkmate. Anarky says they work for the U.S. government."

If Batman was surprised, he didn't show it, "That organization isn't Checkmate. Not the real Checkmate, anyway."

XxX

(Meanwhile – Somewhere in the Swiss Alps)

Maxwell Lord knew that his best laid plans would be strained the moment adverse conditions were introduced. He was prepared, and knew what his next move would be. Still, now that his moves were beginning to be revealed and his plan was starting to be uncovered in real-time, he couldn't help but feel his heart pound.

This was it. Years of work went into reaching his position in Checkmate, of obtaining a means to strike at the metahumans the way that Brother Eye gave him. Of the justification that the secret wars between the Justice League and The Society gave him.

It was the perfect storm, and there would never be a better time to act than now. It was just a shame that it had taken two children to move things this far forward. He'd expected Blue Beetle to perhaps make it, but not Null and Anarky.

Blue Beetle was smart and driven, as was Anarky, but they lacked the power necessary to truly pose an issue. Null wasn't as smart, but he had power in spades, and even when discovering the human core of the O.M.A.C. units, it didn't keep him from playing for keeps. At least he was intelligent enough to know better than to allow a bleeding heart to guide him.

But they had made it to Batman. And now, Lord already had to take one of his more drastic measures to maintain the initiative.

With a deep sigh, he slammed his hands on the surface of the Brother Eye server, "It's too early. I didn't want to do this yet," He muttered in annoyance.

But now, he had no choice.

Checkmate's Black King took a moment to think things over before making his final decision. Then, he cast it into action, "Locate Target Alpha One. Initiate A/V communication. Encode as previous."

Brother Eye, always listening, was quick to get things underway, "Encoding. Begin recording."

Taking a second to gather his thoughts, Lord launched into a short speech, meant for a particular set of ears thousands of miles away, "You've always been the one we can count on. All of us, we rely on you to protect us. To save us. But you've made enemies, my son. Powerful enemies. You know this better than anyone. They mean you harm. Worse... they mean the people you love harm. And they're on the move, at this very moment, in fact. And unless you are strong, unless you heed my warning and do what must be now be done, all you rely upon you, who trust in you... could perish."

Lord had years of up-close access to the most powerful people on the planet. Years to use his powers to plant his seeds of control. Even though the data was lost, he had most of their identities memorized. With Brother Eye, he could find any of them, reach any of them, and he had his pick of the absolute best to choose from.

So, why not take the best of the best and make the rest sweat?

XxX

(Metropolis – Daily Planet)

Supergirl hanging around Metropolis for a little while had been a godsend for Superman. With her doing the lion's share of work in his stead, it gave him the chance to do a little Clark Kent housekeeping before something big enough happened that required his attention again.

There had been no shortage of work that had piled up for him at the office, and he'd spent the day seeing to as much of it as he could. While tending to his day job, the desktop at his work station suddenly started playing a recorded message, quietly enough that only his ears could pick it up.

...And he found himself engrossed to listen all the way through. Why wouldn't he? Everything in the message made complete sense, as if it were universal truth.

"-Unless you are strong, unless you heed my warning and do what must be now be done, all you rely upon you, who trust in you... could perish."

Clark smiled confidently, grateful at the warning of good faith, "Don't worry, father. I'll keep us safe."

XxX

(With Null – Earth's Moon – Justice League Watchtower)

It was the second time Null had been to the Justice League's most important base of operations. This time though, it wasn't for some metahuman checkup. It was for serious business. Business that, while he was involved with it, he wouldn't be privy to the hows and whys of dealing with it.

...Not that he particularly wanted to be. What he'd signed up for had been something so much more simple. But now that he was in as deep as he was, it was highly unlikely that he'd be able to get out without getting his hands dirtier than they already were.

As he sat in the Watchtower's medical bay with Blue Beetle and Anarky, Null tried to look on the bright side. At least he was going to get rewarded once this was over. as long as his would-be benefactor lived to see the end of it all.

Unfortunately, Blue Beetle had taken quite a beating over the last two days, "You know, I just got out of this place before I met back up with you," He joked, his arm still in a sling, yet having been properly treated at last, "You're bad luck, kid."

Null breathed a laugh through his nose, "Hey, don't blame me. Normally it's me getting my shit pushed in. Kinda weird to see someone else on the ass end of an ass-kicking for once."

The two of them shared a bit of humor at the situation before Blue Beetle's attitude sobered, "I'm still wrapping my head around all of this. Money stolen from my company led to... all of this?"

"It may not have led to it, but it's at least tied into it," Anarky said, very unhappy with his being stuck alongside them.

As much as he'd rather have been anywhere else, he wound up being roped into tagging along with the others. It was safer than letting him go off on his own for the time being - strength in numbers.

The bright side for him was that at least he was getting his hands into busting up this little conspiracy. That, and putting the boots to Maxwell Lord's little attempt at totalitarianism. He lived for things like this, honestly.

"They didn't just rip you off to fund all of this," Anarky continued, "Trust me. Checkmate wet their beaks all over the place. Lots of corpos losing so much money that they wouldn't notice one more person reaching in to get a piece."

Blue Beetle let out a groan, "I helped bankroll those O.M.A.C.s. Fantastic," Helping to pay for the things that shattered his arm was a real gut punch, "I can't believe they were on my tail like that."

Null shrugged, "Well, there are two possibilities more likely than others. Either these things were tracking you the whole time all the way from here, or these things are somehow all over the place."

"Like sleeper cells," Anarky said, getting a hum of confirmation from Null, "What are the chances though? There's no way Checkmate can have that many operatives."

"I killed one back at your place," Null suddenly admitted to Blue Beetle, much to his shock and horror, "We didn't have time to stop and analyze, but... she wasn't dressed like the pricks we fought at the castle. It was just some lady in street clothes," The thief shook his head pitifully, "She didn't look like any kind of fighter."

He wasn't some killing machine, but he hadn't felt bad about putting someone down the hard way before. Not until right then. The people he'd killed up to that point had been killers in their own right, gunning for him. Not necessarily this time though.

When Null blasted this particular O.M.A.C. through the wall with his ironsand with all the force he could muster, the body settled and the O.M.A.C. shell just fell away. After fighting like a superhuman machine, it turned out it was just a random person.

As sad as it was that he'd done something like that, it was somehow even scarier, and Blue Beetle voiced why aloud,

"If this is on some kind of global scale..." The injured hero trailed off. It didn't need to be explained between them how having regular people with access to O.M.A.C. armor somehow fighting against them at a moment's notice could be a problem.

If that was what they were dealing with, how was such a thing even possible?

Null thumped the back of his head against the wall fitfully, "What the fuck are we supposed to do?"

"Whatever we can."

Everyone's head turned abruptly to the new arrival. Despite having never met her, he'd seen enough news to identify the source of the interruption on-sight.

"Whoa. Is that Wonder Woman?" He asked Anarky, who bristled at the sight of the heroine.

Conversely, Blue Beetle smiled at the sight of her, "Yes, it is," He said to the teenagers before addressing Wonder Woman, "Where's Batman?"

Batman had hurried away to the Watchtower, the three of them in tow in a hurry. And the only reason that had happened was the hell Blue Beetle had been prepared to raise if he tried to commandeer the investigation and leave them behind to teleport away. Null was prepared to gleefully act as his muscle in this particular case. It hadn't proven to be necessary.

They hadn't seen him in the few hours since they had arrived, however.

Wonder Woman looked away, presumably in the direction that she had last seen Batman in, "He's... not taking the Brother Eye revelation well. He's throwing himself into this; into shutting it down."

Again, Null had no sympathy for him, 'Good. Fix your fuck-ups like everyone else,' He thought to himself.

"What about you?" Blue Beetle asked, not privy to the thoughts of his temporary teammate, "Do you need any of us for something?"

Wonder Woman nodded and gestured to Null and Anarky, "We have the coordinates, but I need these two to show me where this new Checkmate is. We're taking this deadly serious, Beetle. It will be handled. Thank you."

He'd done it. He'd gotten the big guys to take him seriously and follow up on his lead. Sure, it took a lot of trouble, nearly getting killed three times, and a broken arm, but things were finally looking up.

It had all started with Null, and then Wonder Woman. Whether she'd truly believed him or not, she'd given him the time of day when no one else did.

"I don't want to be the kind of guy to say I told you so, because you actually listened to me," Blue Beetle said humbly, "I'll just say 'you're welcome'."

The moment was ruined by Null, who was not one for empty platitudes.

"You can thank us. We did legwork too," He interjected, rubbing his fingers together in the universal gesture for money, "I take cash and equivalent cryptocurrency. Gimme that Dogecoin stock."

Since talking with Supergirl the other day about how to handle the funds he'd stashed away, he'd started looking into the stock market. As it turned out, there was a lot of opportunity there for someone like him, especially when he had his own special (illegal) ways of manipulating the market if he really needed to.

Anarky looked to be entirely disgusted with Null's apparent interest in stocks, "Tch. Figures, you'd try to graduate up into being a real criminal. I bet you have paper hands anyway."

Joy momentarily filled Null's heart at Anarky's use of meme, until he realized that they hated each other, "Goddamn it! Did we just become best friends?"

"No."

"Thank God, because fuck you."

"Fuck you, you capitalist-."

Wonder Woman interrupted with a roll of her eyes, "Boys," She said, prompting Null and Anarky to stop their budding argument, "A guide for confirmation? One of you? Please?"

Null and Anarky tried to coax the other into volunteering, based off of body language. Eventually, realizing that Anarky wouldn't budge on the matter, Null sighed and raised his hand.

"Fine," He said, choosing to accompany Wonder Woman as she went to leave the room, "Might as well return to the scene. That's a criminal trope, isn't it?"

Someone had to go, after all. He would just chalk it up to the work he had to do in order to earn his reward from Blue Beetle.

"I won't have to do anything, will I?" Null asked as they entered the transport chamber.

Wonder Woman rolled her eyes, "I will handle apprehending and detaining. You try not to die," She supposed Kara would be quite cross with her if something happened to him.

"Cool," Null replied, "The thing I'm best at. Let's get this over with."

As the two of them left, they noticed Superman arrive inside another teleportation tube. Neither thought much of it. At the most, Wonder Woman was confident that he would find Batman and would be informed on the current situation. Either way, she was in a position to act and head things off at the pass before they could get bad. Those opportunities were unfortunately few and far between when they were on this kind of a scale.

As such, that was where her focus lied.

XxX

(A Few Minutes Later – Somewhere in the Swiss Alps)

For the second time in so many days, Null found himself abruptly transported into the mountains, this time with Wonder Woman. And this time, within eyesight of the castle that housed the Checkmate cabal behind the Brother Eye conspiracy.

There was no need to search, but as far as Null was concerned, there was a need to plan.

Rubbing his hands together in anticipation, Null sat down on his Gravboard to start the think session, "So, how are we going to play this?"

Hovering in the air through her own power, Wonder Woman eyed Null strangely, "I don't follow."

Null gestured down to the castle they were set to deal with, "You know. Do you need me to sneak back in and take down the security or something? Do you need me to run a diversion? What do you feel comfortable with?"

Wonder Woman shook her head and chuckled softly, "I don't think that will be necessary," She said, "The quickest path is a straight line. I'm going right in. Keep a safe distance, and avoid Max Lord."

Null remembered the one time he'd gotten within so much as a hundred feet of the would-be ringleader of the current iteration of Checkmate, "Yeah, real piece of work, that guy. He didn't seem that dangerous though. Not compared to the O.M.A.C.s, anyway."

"He can push minds," Wonder Woman revealed, "Make you see things that aren't there. Force you to do his bidding."

Null's eyes went wide upon learning that information. And he had been within the sound of the man's voice. He must not have figured that Null was worth the effort the first time around. That, or a cognizant metahuman probably would have made a good test for the capabilities of his O.M.A.C.s.

"Noted," Null said, standing back up on his board. He pointed at a particular spot on the castle, "...Alright. That's where I think the server to Brother Eye was. Whenever you're-," He stopped talking when Wonder Woman vanished in a flying blur that crashed through the wall, "Whoa."

It wasn't how he would have done things, but then again, he wasn't a divinely empowered being. Economic use of his powers usually required more finesse than that. To each their own.

Despite having the wall to his inner sanctum obliterated by a purpose-driven Amazonian warrior, Maxwell Lord stood calmly, hands behind his back as Wonder Woman confronted him.

He smirked, despite the sound of rubble settling still surrounding him, "You know, I still get a tickle every time I see you in person."

"You should probably be silent, Max," Wonder Woman said, brushing debris off of her shoulder, "You've been very busy. And very bad."

"And you believe that because a thief said so?"

"Hiding yourself away in a castle in the Alps is extremely conspicuous," Despite Wonder Woman's words, the expression on Max's face never changed, though a trickle of blood ran from his nose down his mouth and chin. Wonder Woman quickly realized this was the physical side-effect of Max using his power, "...I see with a god's eyes and understand with a god's wisdom. Your power will not work on me."

"I never thought it would," Lord admitted, "Then again, it wasn't for you."

*THUMP!*

The entire castle shook as another section of the structure wall nearby buckled.

*THUMP*

The same wall Wonder Woman had crashed through violently pushed inward as another hard impact shook the room.

*CRASH!*

A second massive hole was blown through the wall, only this time, instead of Wonder Woman crashing through, it was Null. From the way he lay strewn in the rubble on his back, it wasn't by his own volition.

"Uuuuuugh..." Null moaned, writhing painfully on the ground. He couldn't find enough breath in him to properly speak up in warning, but Wonder Woman could follow the direction of his gaze.

It was there she saw what should have been a beacon of hope, and reassurance that things would be alright. Given the situation however, it looked more like a herald of the end.

Superman floated just outside of the hole he'd created in the castle wall using Null's body. Wonder Woman could see in his eyes that while the lights were on, no one was home.

With a snarl, she lunged for Maxwell Lord, only for Superman to grab her from behind, one hand around her wrist, the other clutched around her throat. Even as powerful as she was, she struggled against Superman's might, and found herself brought down to a kneel.

The entire time, Maxwell Lord, secure in his position with who he had carrying out his bidding, had never found it prudent to so much as move a step.

"You'll forgive me for saying it, princess, but you look good on your knees," Lord boasted slimily, "And I want you to stay there."

Wonder Woman ignored him in exchange for trying to get through to Superman, "Kal. Kal, listen to me. You can fight him."

Even as she spoke, there was no indication that her words made it past his ears to be processed by his brain.

"No, he can't," Lord said, "He believes what I want him to believe. He sees what I want him to see."

To illustrate this, Superman let go of Wonder Woman entirely. Fixating on another area in the room entirely, he frantically flew over, darting around to seemingly nothing, "Lois!"

Clutching her now freed throat, Wonder Woman rose back to her feet, "And what is he seeing now?" She asked.

"Doomsday. In the midst of murdering his wife," Lord said, as more blood streamed from his nose.

The cruelty and callousness behind Lord's use of his powers appalled Wonder Woman, "Free him! Do it now!" She demanded.

Checkmate's Black King found the thought laughable, "Why? I have absolute control of Superman. That's something even Lex hasn't been able to manage, and he's been trying for far longer than I have," Lord took a step away when he saw Wonder Woman begin stalking his way threateningly, "And before you think knocking me out is the answer, let me tell you, it isn't. Eventually, I'll wake up, if only for a moment. And when I do, Superman will dance for me again."

As they spoke, Superman fell to his knees, face wracked with grief. He reached down and cradled the air, as though he were gently lifting a body into his arms.

"In heaven's name..." The strongest being on Earth whispered, tears pouring from his eyes.

It was the first time Lord had managed to see the effects of his work on Superman in person, and he couldn't have been more pleased with it, "It's taken years for me to achieve this. To threat his mind with the right visions of horror and paranoia. As long as I live, Superman's mind is mine to control."

"And you stole Brother Eye?" Wonder Woman asked, "Tried to murder Blue Beetle?"

Max held up his hands as though he were surrendering, "Guilty as charged."

Wonder Woman shook her head, not understanding his motivations, "Why have you done these things?" He had been an ally at one time.

Lord breathed heavily through his nose, feeling the righteous fire that had driven his actions from the very beginning, "Why? Because what chance does humanity have in the face of-," He stopped before he could truly get going, understanding when someone planned to talk him down, "Damn, you're good. But you're not going to talk this hawk into a dove."

Wonder Woman, with her experience and intelligence clearly recognized when diplomacy could be just as effective a weapon as anything created to do battle. Talking things out, pushing a new perspective onto someone else, even if it didn't work immediately, it could always plant a seed that would later crack the foundation of one's viewpoint.

Whether it worked immediately, or later on down the line, it was the kind of thing that Lord couldn't allow the possibility of to occur. He was going to see this through. In his mind, the world couldn't afford for him to flip-flop. Not then; not ever.

"There's nothing you can say to convince me to let him go," Lord asserted, "I'm not giving you the chance."

Superman's enraged snarl prompted Wonder Woman to immediately move to defend herself. Barely able to get her bracelets up in time to deflect blasts of heat vision, she still found herself grabbed by the flying Kryptonian once more.

"Kal, no! Hrrk!"

"LOIS!" Superman cried out in rage, eyes red as he shot up into the air with Wonder Woman in his clutches.

'He thinks Lois is dead. He thinks Doomsday killed her. And he thinks I'm Doomsday."

Which meant he wouldn't be holding anything back.

Wonder Woman gasped and fought as Superman flew them higher and higher into the air, at speed. Eventually, the skies turned from blue and gave way to the black of Earth's orbit.

'He's taking me to the sun. And he's going to throw me into it,' The red eyes of Superman blasted her with heat vision right in the side of her face. Skin bubbled and melted from the violent attack, prompting Wonder Woman to outright gouge at Superman's eyes to stop him.

It gave her an opening, but just enough to stop him from completing his move of hurling her into the nearest active star. Despite gaining a momentary respite, with no plan on what to do from there, all it did was provide five seconds for her burned face to start healing. In that same time frame, Superman's eyes healed, and the first thing he saw was Wonder Woman as Doomsday.

So he hit her the way he would have hit Doomsday.

One punch from Superman. It landed on Wonder Woman hard enough to make her see black for an instant. It landed hard enough to send her hurtling back in the direction of Earth.

The heat of reentry woke her up, but by then it was too late for her to do anything that could slow her descent. She hit the ground with the force of an asteroid. All she could hope as she made impact was that she landed somewhere deserted.

XxX

(Meanwhile – With Null)

Things had taken such a quick downward spiral, Null didn't even have time to process it happening.

One minute, he was floating safely in the air above the Checkmate castle. The next, he was careening into the side of said castle, courtesy of a punch from a red and blue blur that made him feel like his entire body had broken apart and come back together.

Null had never been hit by a Kryptonian before. He'd been smart enough to avoid such a fate up until that point. Sure, Kara had shoved him playfully a few times, but even those had sent him stumbling out of control. Those shows of casual strength, even when she was clearly holding back so much that he could feel the struggle it took – that had been enough to let him know that taking any kind of real shot from her would utterly ruin the rest of his life.

And Superman was stronger. He had spent more of his life basking in the glow of their yellow sun. He had years of experience. He was a full-grown adult male.

Even with Null's magnetic shield up as strong as he could make it, meant to deflect the blunt force of the punches, one had been all it had taken to leave him helpless. The other two had just been ones to grow on.

As he lay twitching, Null had been witness to everything that led to Wonder Woman being forced to duke it out with one of her oldest, truest friends. All orchestrated by the puppet master that was Maxwell Lord.

Not content enough to know what his actions had done, Lord had to use Brother Eye to see it for himself. He'd pulled it up on the screen of the computer in the office, spectating as though he had paid a ticket for a prizefight at Caesar's Palace.

"Just look at this, kid," Lord said, directing Null to watch along with him once he noticed the boy start to move on the ground, "Ooh, that's going to sting."

Along with Lord, Null witnessed the violent descent of Wonder Woman back to Earth. Were Null more philosophical, he would have made some flowery remark about the fall of gods. Were he a vainer individual, he would have dwelled on the fact that despite his growth over the last year, he would never measure up to them in raw power. As things stood though, at the moment, Null was more concerned with making sure nothing too important inside of him had broken from Superman's punches; and, that he hadn't shat himself.

As the man physically responsible for his latest misfortune was spotted on Brother Eye's surveillance zooming in to explore the new crater Wonder Woman's body had created, the A.I. spoke.

"Alpha two impact site: Interstate 80 corridor, 46.8 klicks west. Rock Springs, Wyoming. Monitoring local and federal emergency response. Multiple activations-."

"And it won't do a damn bit of good," Lord interrupted, shaking his head pitifully.

Null slowly, painfully rolled onto his belly, unable to find it in him to push his way up to his feet, "The hell are you on about?" He gritted through his teeth.

Lord seemed pleased to have another witness to what he felt was an event that proved his point, "This is what happens when the gods fight. You understand? Mortals suffer," A sneer crossed his face, "Can you imagine the devastation if she had come down in San Francisco? The catastrophic loss of life?"

As things stood, from what they could see from Brother Eye's spy cameras, dozens of people nearby had already been hurt. If they hadn't been in the 'splash zone' of where Wonder Woman landed, the force of her crash sent an impact wave that devastated the surroundings, knocking cars, trucks, and tractor-trailers over.

In the middle of a deep crater, Wonder Woman's body lay, cooling from her violent reentry.

Maxwell Lord gestured to the screen as Superman stalked toward the edge of the crater, "These are the people who control humanity's destiny. And this is why they must be eliminated. Look at him. All the punishment he's dishing out on her. Imagine if he turned that power against us."

Null crawled on the ground, inching closer to Lord, "He wouldn't be doing it at all if it wasn't for you!"

Lord spared one more glance at the screen, then turned away from it to deal with the broken teenager by his feet, "What I've done to Superman took time. It took effort. But the mere fact that I could do it at all proves my point. Because if I can do it, someone else can too. And that's the heart of it. Superman... Wonder Woman... the rest of you metas... you'll kill us all if we don't kill you first."

XxX

Wonder Woman counted the seconds she spent staring up at the sky, her head spinning. And yet, she could feel the ground around her vibrate. He was coming again. She knew he was. He wasn't going to stop, not until she was dead.

As she rose, she saw Superman standing at the lip of the crater, glaring down at her as though she were his worst enemy

"Kal... please..." Wonder Woman tried again.

"Never do it to anyone," Superman muttered to himself, "Never do it to anything ever again."

What else could she do to stop him as he was? Help hadn't come yet. Why? She'd left the Watchtower with Null just as-.

She'd left with Null just as Superman had arrived. If Maxwell Lord had his hooks in Superman all this time... what had he gotten Superman to do at the Watchtower? Whatever it was, it had likely been enough to keep anyone else capable of assisting her at bay.

"Listen to my words," Wonder Woman called out to him, "I am not your enemy."

Superman, thinking differently, froze her solid with his breath. Once Wonder Woman was prone, he grabbed a massive chunk of what had once been the highway they were on, lifting it over his head to smash her with, "...Made you smarter, but you're still an animal. Just a rabid animal that needs to be put down."

In the time it took to grab his bludgeon, Wonder Woman had thawed herself out and escaped. Non-plussed, Superman crushed the debris in his hands.

"Nowhere to hide," He warned, "Nowhere I can't find you."

He was right. With his eyes and ears, there wasn't anything he couldn't see or hear. But when he spoke, there was no way he was focusing his hearing as much as he could have. And that was the opening Wonder Woman used to sneak up behind him.

Heart full of remorse, she drew her arms wide apart and smashed her bracelet-clad wrists directly into Superman's ears. Her ears rang from the concussion. No being on the planet could imagine what it possibly did to his.

"HNAAAAAH!" Superman clutched his bleeding ears, leaving him open for a few follow-up blows.

Again, this would only buy Wonder Woman a short window of time. She went for her Lasso of Truth. If she could get it on him, she could clear his mind, if only for a moment. Before she could tie him up, however, he moved.

'What is Max making him see now?' Wonder Woman thought to herself as she tried and failed to get her weapon of choice around the Man of Steel, 'It's like he knows what I'm trying to do.'

She dodged a close-range blast of heat vision and tried to throw the lasso again, but Superman grabbed her throwing arm and snapped her wrist before she could do so.

XxX

These last few days had escalated quickly. Or, more likely, things had been brewing for a while. He just so happened to be around to help catalyze things into finally boiling over.

For all that had happened to him, Null had never sat back and actually watched a fight between beings as powerful as Superman and Wonder Woman. From the beginning, the fight had only lasted ninety seconds up to that point, and it really put into perspective that there were levels to being a superhero/supervillain and he wasn't on theirs.

He didn't ever want to be on that level.

Still, it was clear who was better between the two of them. Wonder Woman could fight as hard as she could and delay the inevitable for as long as possible. In the end, she couldn't defeat a Superman fighting to kill. Not directly.

"When he's finished with her, he'll come right back here," Lord said, moving farther out of Null's grasp, "I wonder how long you can last if he's going all out like that? You a gambler? Over/under, thirty seconds. What do you think?"

The obvious answer was 'under', but Null didn't bother dignifying him with a response. The thief couldn't even stand back up yet. It had been two minutes since Superman had flattened him, and no part of his body was agreeing with his request to work like normal. Even if he was at one-hundred percent, he doubted he'd last thirty seconds.

So how was he supposed to stop this? The guy wasn't going to let Superman go, no matter what they did. He'd also said that knocking him out wouldn't work. The instant he awoke, he could start it all again.

Wait...

He never said that knocking him out wouldn't stop his control at all. Just that it wouldn't keep him from doing it again. To that end, if he never woke back up, he couldn't reactivate his mind freak powers at all.

Null looked at Superman battling Wonder Woman on the screen, then to Maxwell Lord, then down at his own hands. It was then that he made a decision, "...Gordian Knot."

Incapable of physically lashing out due to his injuries, Null still had fine control over his magnetic powers. With them, he drew Lord's handgun from its holster and pointed it at Maxwell Lord's face.

He barely had time to register that his own gun was floating in the air in front of him, let alone time to push an order into Null's head to drop the weapon. The smug grin was hardly off his face before the trigger was pulled.

*BANG!*

Lord unceremoniously collapsed to the floor, a brand new bleeding hole leading from his forehead out through the back of his skull.

Null stared at the open eyes of Checkmate's deceased Black King, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Some sort of illusion to occur that would mix him up entirely and make him forget any of this was happening at all, just like Superman.

It never did though. Blood pooled around Lord's head, then his body. More seconds passed, and in those seconds, two shadows rose to loom over Null's body.

"By the gods..."

"Null, what have you done?"

Null rolled over onto his back to see Wonder Woman and Superman both hovering in the air. The two of them, covered in dirt and wounds of varying severity, looked like they had gone every bit of twelve rounds against one another, but Superman seemed to be clear of the stark-raving madness that Maxwell Lord had driven him to.

Now he seemed beside himself over the corpse currently occupying the room.

Null weakly raised a hand a pointed his thumb in the dead body's direction, "Just so we're clear, you see Lord over there, right? Not your wife... or whoever?" He asked, the silence growing to be too uncomfortable for him, "Because I saw what you gave her, and I don't want any part of that."

Oh man, Null. Killing a mo-fo where big blue can see you? Doesn't matter if you had a good reason, my boy. There will be consequences for this. More than a few. Small and large, good and bad, depending on how you see things. And what of those left at the JLA Watchtower?

Bask in the peace of victory, because it won't last long. But we'll save that for the next chapter. Oh, what will come of this?