Chapter 55

Chromastone, Vixen and Vigilante glanced at each other, an unspoken agreement made between them. Despite any misgivings, they wouldn't let anything happen to their teammate.

"All we want is Shayera Hol," said Paran Dul, "if you hand her over, the rest of you can go free; even you, shapeshifter. If you choose to fight with her, you will most assuredly die with her."

"Let me think on that." Vigilante stood up and unleashed a fusillade of bullets at Dul, who took cover behind the shield she'd been holding at her side. With a snarl, Dul pulled out an energy-pistol and opened fire, but Chromastone caught the shot on his arm, absorbing it. Shayera grabbed Vigilante by the shoulder.

"You don't speak for the team," she growled, "I do. Maybe I should let them take me."

"Like horse hockey." Vigilante shot back. "Pardon my French."

"We're Justice League," added Vixen, "we don't turn our backs on our teammates."

"We won't let them take one of our own," Chromastone finished, even as he sent blasts of energy at the Thanagarians.

"Kregor!" shouted Dul, "Take care of the freak!"

"Yes…" mumbled the Thanagarian in the exoskeleton. He charged forward and grabbed Chromastone by the face. Chromastone tried to shoot the offending arm off, but the metal was made of sterner stuff. Kregor lifted Chromastone up and slammed him into the ground, then did it over again.

"Ben!" yelled Shayera, "We need to go, now!"

Okay, thought Chromastone, let's see how he likes this!

Chromastone built up his energy and then released it in one blinding, but otherwise harmless, blast. Kregor might have had incredible strength and resilience, but his eyes were still organic, and that meant that they could be blinded. In a reflex, Kregor released Chromastone, vainly trying to shield his eyes. When the light faded, and the Thanagarian's vision returned, the heroes had vanished.

Paran Dul gritted her teeth in frustration; they'd almost had the traitor!

"This is a waste of time," said one of her soldiers, "we should be headed back home to join the resistance."

"Not until the traitor is dead," was Dul's response.

"Or until she kills us." The soldier didn't get a chance to say more, because Kregor wrapped his giant metal hand around his throat.

"No," he rasped, "we're here to kill Shayera."

"Calm down, Kregor, calm down." Dul put a hand on Kregor's metal elbow.

"We're killing her though, right?" Kregor's voice was pleading, like a child that wanted a toy.

"Of course," Dul assured, "now put him down." Kregor threw the soldier to the ground and stomped towards him.

"Don't confuse me," he warned, "my head doesn't work so good since…" he seemed to think about it. "It doesn't work so good! But I remember that it's Shayera's fault I'm this way, right?"

During the invasion, Kregor had been Hro Talak's chief lieutenant; he and a squad of soldiers had stormed the Batcave, but had been defeated by the League. The heroes had needed the security codes that he possessed, but he wouldn't give them up. As a last resort, the Martian Manhunter had taken the information, using his telepathic powers in a violent manner; as an unintended result, Kregor had suffered severe brain damage, as well as paralysis. In order to get him into fighting shape, he had been placed inside of his new body. He was now only a weapon to be unleashed in a direction.

"Right, that's right," agreed Dul, "she hurt us all, and we're going to hurt her back." Kregor nodded, then used the thrusters on his back to fly off, while Dul helped the soldier to his feet.

"I'm just saying," the soldier continued, "Shayera Hol was an instructor in Espionage Wing. She's better trained than all of us put together."

Dul didn't look impressed. "Then we'll just have to out-think her, won't we?"

…

Vigilante spotted one of the Thanagarian soldiers flying just over the trees that they were hiding under and drew a bead on him. Before he could fire, however, Shayera pulled his arm down.

"Hold your fire!"

"What?" demanded Vigilante, "That's loco! I got him!"

"He wouldn't be flying so low unless he wanted to be seen." Replied Shayera.

Vixen walked up to them. "You think he's a stalking-horse to trick us into revealing our position." She said it as a statement, rather than a fact.

"Sounds smart," commented Ben, who'd needed to turn back to normal and allow the Ultimatrix to recharge, "risky, but smart."

"What makes you so sure that's what he's doin'?" asked Vigilante.

"Because that's exactly what I would do," answered Shayera, "and I'm one of them."

"Okay, I'm gonna stop you right there." Ben walked up and looked her in the eye. "You might be the same species as them, but you are not one of them."

"Why's that?" asked Shayera.

"Because if you were one of them, you'd be up there, hunting us down." Ben gestured to the others and himself. "But you're not, and I'm sick of you saying that you deserve getting treated like this, just because you made a mistake. You're down here, trying to keep us all alive. I don't care what anyone else says, Shayera; you are one of us." He glanced at Vigilante and Vixen, who stepped forward.

"Ben's right," said Vixen, "right now, I don't care what you did in the past, and I don't think that you should, either. If you can stop beating yourself up, I'll consider the slate wiped clean."

Vigilante nodded. "I reckon we should save the one hawk worth savin'. After all, ya did help save Earth; I reckon we owe ya for that, at least. Now come on, Miss Special Ops, where to?"

Shayera stared at them, shocked by their support, simply nodded and marched off, the rest of her team right behind her. After a few minutes of walking, Vigilante spoke up again.

"Hey, Vix, why don't you use them animal-powers of yours and give us a leg up?"

Vixen gave him a look. "I live in a loft in Chelsea, Vig, what makes you think I know anything about the jungle?"

Vigilante took off his cowboy hat and rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. Ben sighed and moved forward, before his friend dug himself into a deeper hole.

"Do we actually have a plan, Shayera, or were we just going to walk aimlessly through the jungle for a while?"

"I do have an idea," said Shayera, "I just wanted to get under some deeper foliage first." The other three looked at her expectantly. "We should split up. Ben, you come with me; Vig, go with Vixen. We'll spread out and find their ship. We can either use it to get back to Earth or call for help, whatever we get time for."

"Might be easier if there weren't so many hawks in the sky," commented Vigilante, "think we should thin the herd first?"

Shayera shook her head. "No, we can't afford to slow down for anything. The second they even suspect what we're doing, they'll move the ship into orbit, and we'll never get to it. We'll have to be sneaky and smart about this."

Vigilante nodded, the plan making sense to him.

Ben gave a lazy salute to the pair. "You guys better get there."

Vixen gave Vigilante a pat on the back. "I'll make sure he comes back in one piece."

Shayera gave a small smile. "Good luck."

…

Vixen and Vigilante marched through the jungle, doing their best to avoid branches and roots. For a while, it was silent, but awkward between them. Finally, Vigilante tried to strike up a conversation.

"So, now we know what ol' Ben was doing during the invasion. What about you?"

Vixen shrugged. "I fought them as best as I could. Couldn't do much, there were too many of them for as straight fight, but I like to think I did some good. What about you, what did you do?"

Suddenly, Vigilante regretted bringing up the subject. "I… I fought 'em too, but, well, I got caught; they locked me up in at tiny cell. It was… humiliatin'." He didn't want to say any more than that, and Vixen could see it. She could also see…

"You're hurt!" she pointed at Vigilante's leg, which had a bad gash on the shin, courtesy of a Thanagarian energy weapon.

"I was in a fight, remember?" Recalling his treatment at the hands of his one-time captors had made him a little snappish.

"Why didn't you say anything before?"

Vigilante shrugged. "Didn't wanna raise no fuss."

Vixen sighed. "Men…" She ripped off the torn part of Vigilante's pant leg and wrapped it around the wound. "That'll hold for a while, at least."

Vigilante tipped his hat. "Much obliged." Vixen could tell that the cowboy was smiling underneath his bandana, and she returned it. "So, if ya don't mind my askin' why're you bein' so nice to Hawkgirl?"

"Ben's said it before," explained Vixen, as they continued to move, "Shayera made a mistake, and she's had to live with it. Now she's got another piece of guilt: the end of her species' civilization. I can't be so petty about Green Lantern when the girl's already got all that hanging over her head."

Vigilante nodded, if a little reluctantly. "I guess you're right, darlin'. No need to kick 'er while she's down."

Vixen gave him a smirk. "Darlin'?" she echoed, then laughed as she saw a hint of red on Vigilante's face that wasn't his bandana.

Further conversation was halted when an energy blast ripped forward and struck the spot between them. Vigilante whipped out a pistol and fired in the direction of the offending shot. He was rewarded by a cry of pain as a Thanagarian soldier fell out of a tree, clutching a wounded wing. Another soldier flew towards them, firing his rifle as he moved.

"No time for a shootout, cowboy, we gotta move!" Vixen picked Vigilante up and tapped into the power of the cheetah. In a blur of motion, they were gone.

…

"So, Shayera, what changed your mind?"

Shayera was focused on clearing some bramble in front of them, and didn't think about Ben's question.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, one second you were all 'I deserve everything that's coming to me', and now you've suddenly got this, I don't know, spring in your step."

Shayera raised an eyebrow. "Spring in your step? Who says that anymore?"

Ben sighed. "Just answer the question."

It looked like Shayera was about to, when a blast of energy shot towards them; she managed to deflect it with her mace, but she was put on the defensive. Ben reached for the Ultimatrix, but before he could even activate it, Kregor fell out of the sky, landing in front of him and slammed him away with one mighty blow. Ben crashed into a rock formation and fell still.

"BEN!" Shayera tried to rush to her friend's aid, but she was pinned by the fire coming from the two soldiers attacking her.

Seeing that Ben was no longer a threat, Kregor marched towards her. "You took Commander Talak from us, Shayera, and your friend, the green one, did something to my mind; something bad." He looked down in thought, as Shayera readied her mace. "I miss Commander Talak. I miss being able to think without pain." His head snapped up. "But no one's going to miss you."

He pointed his arm at her, and it turned into a large cannon. Before he could fire, however, an orange-colored blur slammed into him, knocking him off-balance. The other two soldiers scattered as bullets whizzed by their heads.

"You okay, Shayera?" asked Vixen, not taking her eyes off of Kregor.

Shayera nodded. "I'm all right, but Ben's down."

"Okay, I'll buy you some time to get him and Vig to safety; he's hurt too, by the way." Before Shayera could tell her no, Vixen called on the strength of the elephant and tackled the Thanagarian cyborg, slamming him into the other two soldiers, then jumped on top of him. With the elephant's strength also came its weight, so the aliens were pinned.

"I got this, go!"