Invasion

Getting the Mother Cube to the research lab didn't work out.

I don't know what Bats was counting on, but as soon as Lantern cut out the piece of wall with the device attached to it, it began to glow red again. In an attempt to do something about it, the box was placed in a familiar safe, only reduced in size by a couple times and with stronger walls. Unfortunately, five minutes later, the surface of the safe began to rapidly cover itself with cracks, and Hal looked like he was about to give birth to a hedgehog in an attempt to contain their spread.

"Can't hold..." the man exhaled, and the aura surrounding the ring flared a little brighter.

"Just a second, it'll get easier."

All this time I was not just watching my comrade's torment, but creating a magic cage, and as soon as the spell was ready, I immediately activated it, after which dull blue lines appeared around the green box, serving as a kind of skeleton of the structure. A fragile equilibrium hung, broken only by the concentrated panting of the superhero.

"He's still tearing up."

"Concentrate," Bats ordered, typing something quickly on his wristband.

"Mh... - The lantern strained even more, and suddenly blue lines were absorbed into the walls of the crate, rapidly covering all the cracks.

"Uh... How's that? - he looked at his own creation with shock.

"Oh, that's interesting," I moved closer to the safe, scrutinizing it with my true sight. - It looked like the objects created by the ring could synergize with magical weaves. The safe had complicated its structure on its own, using my spell as a base to create additional energy lines, for more efficient energy distribution and its own reinforcement.

However, this still only indirectly explained the reason for what had happened. It was not just a mutual reinforcement of two magical structures, as, for example, happens when schools of mind and illusions unite, or when a normal magical barrier is formed when reinforcing seals are overlaid on top of a magical shield. Whatever I say, but the objects created by the ring are only remotely similar to sorcerer's weavings and obviously use for their functioning an unfamiliar energy, which has a dark green color in all available spectra of perception, including the visible one. Hmm, Will energy. If you think about it, will is one of the main components of any spell, and here, it appears to have taken material form and then adjusted, or forced the spell to adjust, to fulfill the task at hand: to hold back the energy bursting outward.

"Lantern, just for future reference. Try to create simpler forms, but at the same time... How should I put it, they should have a complex internal filling. Not in the sense of some fancy mechanisms, but something like reinforced mesh and stiffeners inside. Anyway, you learn about resistance and you'll see for yourself. Oh, for fuck's sake! To the sides!"

I was too engrossed in enlightening my comrade and did not notice that all this time the load on the nodes created by the spell was gradually increasing until the magical structure began to degrade rapidly.

Just in time to put up a simple shield, created by the modification of the gait, as a powerful explosion, sending me into a short flight.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha! That's a sting! - I said cheerfully, lying on my back and trying to get my eyes together. It wasn't working so well, so it was decided to bring myself to an upright position in order to assess the disposition. It was a good thing the safe was made entirely of energy, or I wouldn't have been able to pass out alone.

Surprisingly, it wasn't so easy to get up. My eyesight was failing, my vestibular system was going crazy, making it hard to keep from collapsing back into the gentle embrace of the sewage, and my mouth tasted of blood. My hearing was also a bit problematic, hinting that it was still a good idea to open your mouth when there were close explosions. I don't know how long I'd been dumbfounded by the prana, but I came to my senses when the face of a jackal-headed freak suddenly appeared right in front of my nose, clearly intent on reducing the population of Gotham's most stylish superheroes. Naturally, I couldn't let that happen.

"Run-around! - The cane jumps into his hand, and then goes straight into the monster's brain through the open mouth, turning it clockwise a couple of times, turning the contents of the skull into mincemeat.

"Uh? - He groaned resentfully, only to slump to the ground a few moments later, giving him a perfect view of the rest of the collector.

Eh, I wish I'd just kept lying there passed out...

The sewer had turned from a rather cozy quiet place, except for the mutant-cannibals and cannibal rats, into a small branch of Apokolips with a bunch of parademons in bronze-colored armor and a huge portal funnel, from where endless reinforcements were arriving, which were held back by Green Lantern and Bats. Incidentally, this time it was a portal specifically, not a rip in space. My vision had already recovered enough to see the framing of a perfectly round funnel, consisting of interconnected parts with black and green coloring with flecks of bronze tracks that resembled microchips. And the portal obviously used a dimension unknown to me for transportation, because the funnel had a very unusual coloring, consisting of a mixture of dark burgundy and red colors with small specks of black, besides, it smelled of something very bad.

"Joker, I could use your help!"

Hal turned to me, shouting over the noise of the battle. At that moment he himself created a kind of anti-aircraft gun from the artifact's energy and now he was rapidly reducing the population of arriving enemies. In my opinion, the green superhero acted quite successfully, so my operative intervention was not required. In addition, fired anti-aircraft shells for some reason exploded, despite the fact that they should have no active ingredient. However, now I was more interested in the monster lying at my feet, who before his death had not had time to retract his wings into the hump on his back.

After killing the two monsters that had broken through the dense fire with my revolver, I drew a runic transducer in the air and, energizing it, directed a thin stream of air mana directly into the wing.

The eyes immediately flash with unrealistic enthusiasm.

Think about it! If the wings of past Parademons only absorbed five percent of the air's energy, this place had all thirty! And that's not even mentioning the other ingredients, which should also have a large mana capacity. It's like another Christmas. Well, or New Year's Eve, which is actually coming up.

I carefully wipe away the tears of happiness with my green handkerchief, looking at the ever-increasing crowds of armored monsters, so that I can go into battle in a moment. If I don't, Lantern will kill them all, and I won't get any trophies.

***

"Batman, is your buddy all right? - The superhero, activating the transmitter, cautiously clarified when tears rolled from the psycho's eyes, and then he suddenly burst into the thick of things, laughing happily.

To the man's great surprise, some of the creatures seemed to even try to avoid the madman, well, those that came close enough were sent to the other world in a couple of moments.

"Don't pay attention," Batman replied focusedly, sending three monsters to Valhalla at once with the help of a small bat-grenade. - You'd better think how to close the portal.

It wasn't like that. Bruce's intuition was almost screaming for it. And no, the fact that there was an army of parademons coming through the portal, as strange as it sounded, was of little concern. Their behavior, on the other hand, made one tense. Their previous opponent was determined to finish off their pursuers at any cost, but these ones didn't even use the flamethrowers built into their mouths, and they tried not to attack their heads. It was as if they had the task of capturing them, and it didn't matter how many monsters were killed.

***

The first monster was successfully killed by a lightning spell right in its open mouth, the next two were also killed, this time by hastily consecrated burst bullets, but the next three made me work my cane a little too hard because the distance was too close. Luckily, I had my improved flash spell with me. I cast it almost every ten seconds, hitting the area, so the parademons, despite their powerful physique and strong armor, which the harpoon tip, made from an alloy given by the Court of Owls, could not pose much of a threat.

Really, what's brute strength if you're twice as fast, twice as agile, and your height advantage is easily negated by a step spell? And I can understand if their carcasses were fully armored, since it's not as easy as you might think to pierce armor with a cane to sever a heart or cut tendons, but their muzzle is completely open, giving them relatively easy access to their brains. If the creatures were wearing some sort of steel muzzle, it would be much harder for me to realize my advantage. Though, given the lack of normal ranged weapons, I suspect they should all be able to spit fire... Only for some reason they don't now. Hahahahaha, though why would they turn on flamethrower mode if the back rows are bound to fry their allies and the front rows can't see a damn thing because of the constant flashes with a dash of Light.

My joyful laughter echoed off the walls. My joyful memories not only make my brain work at a hundred and twenty percent, speeding up my reaction time, but also bring an unforgettable feeling of euphoria and happiness. To dive under the outstretched paw, vainly trying to hurt one heroic hero, to push off from the platform created under my feet and completely cut off the head of the blinded creature. Green projectiles whizzed by, turning the nearest enemy into a sieve, and I had a little time to rid the dead cyberbug of its wings.

Somewhere in the back of my mind there is a thought that there was obviously not without the influence of a beautiful girl with multicolored eyes, but I don't care about it, because in front of my face there is a glimpse of future materials for artifacts.

I realized that something was going wrong when I had to constantly switch to footsteps to move normally, aided by the dead monster bodies lying on the floor in almost two layers. The spatial pocket, which was stuffed to the brim and starting to draw additional energy, also hinted that it was worth interrupting the overly active collection of magical ingredients, which didn't even think of running out. Hell, I mostly just took wings, and once I managed to rip out a heart, thanks to Lantern's accurate shot that pierced the armor in the right place.

"Ha-ha-ha, don't you think it's time to end this balaganza? - I asked my comrades cheerfully, plugging in my earpiece.

"Great. Somebody's back in the real world," Hal Jordan grumbled unhappily. - In case you hadn't noticed, the monsters aren't even thinking of ending, and they'll soon drive us into the tunnels.

"I'll be right there, just cover me."

Since the modified Mother Box created a portal, which was hinted at by the presence of a bloody vortex, it looked like a realistic option to combine the two portals in one point, so that they mutually destroy each other. But someone did not take into account that the cast of the necessary weave takes a really long time, and demons do not even think to end and continues to flow solid stream. And not only that they were becoming more and more, so without my spells, the first rows began to periodically spit fire, and just in their movements finally appeared meaningful.

 - Could you hurry up? Because, you know, even though I'm the protector of this sector of the galaxy and the coolest member of the Corps, the Ring's powers aren't infinite.

I had moved behind my comrades to create the weave, and now I had to listen to Lantern's whining. I couldn't even answer him without breaking my concentration. With a look that said everything I thought about the green-suited superhero, I concentrated on the portal spell again.

Five minutes later, the complex weave was in front of my eyes, shimmering in all the colors of the rainbow, and with it came a small problem. I can't stretch my aura more than half a meter, which means that in order to combine the portals, I need to break through the crowd of parademons, without using spells and while maintaining the necessary level of concentration. Purely theoretically, you can try to curl the charms, stabilize them with small portions of prana in the nodal points and just "shoot" the resulting structure, but there is a high probability that the weave will collapse in the first stages. I briefly described all this to my comrades, who were absolutely not happy about the prospects that had opened up.

"Shit, shit, shit," Hal swore, not stopping to reduce the population of monsters. - We've got to retreat!

"I've got a better idea," a pair of rune-enhanced defensive grenades emerged from my pocket. - Lantern, as soon as the pressure's off, you need to drag me to the portal.

The man opened his mouth, clearly intending to marvel at the incredibly well thought out plan, but ran into a wide grin and a crazed look, and decided to nod silently.

A pair of grenades flew in a small arc and bounced off the high ceiling, landing not far from the climbing creatures. There was a small hope that the explosion would damage the portal, but the alien structure around the funnel only flashed green symbols, creating an invisible shield around itself and completely negating the damage, but the cyberbugs were much less fortunate. Let's face it, only a complete lunatic would use fucking defensive grenades in a confined space, but what an effect! The shards of metal that flew around stuffed almost all the creatures present, and would have hit us, too, if it hadn't been for Green Lantern, who had put up a shield of green energy at the last moment.

"Ha ha ha ha, how lucky! - I flicked at a small shard hovering ten centimeters from my face.

"Psycho," a slight admiration and misgiving could be heard in the superhero's voice.

"Yeah, I am," I said proudly, and then my voice turned serious. - Now, if you would be so kind as to give me a direct route to the portal.

While I was talking to Lantern, Bats was successfully ridding the world of creatures using numerous gadgets. But his arsenal was only seemingly endless, so I had to hurry. A green glow appeared around my body, and in a few moments it formed into a kind of capsule with a comfortable chair, which successfully transported me to my destination, tearing up a couple of non-demons along the way.

What happened next was elementary. Shoot the next monster that appeared from the portal, activate the weave, and then quickly start running away. The funnel began to shake suspiciously, and the pieces of twisted minced meat in bronze armor, instead of monsters ready to fight, hinted that my idea had worked. The green symbols of the transformed box glowed brightly, trying to stabilize the structure of the spatial transition, but it was all in vain, for my weave was powered directly from the source of the Shadow Peak. After a minute of working as a mixer, the framework around the vortex began to deform until it folded into itself, causing a vacuum explosion, from which we were again saved by the Lantern's shield.

"Well, now we just have to finish off the monsters that flew away and we can go home," I said with a satisfied smile, looking around at the carnage and figuring out where to put such a pile of ingredients.

"I don't want to disappoint you, but similar portals have opened up all over the world," Alfred's polite voice came over the transmitter and broke my reverie.