Chapter Three
Title: Truth and Justice - The Third Year
Characters: Bruce Wayne/Batman, Dr. Martha Kent/Superwoman, Alfred Pennyworth, Lian Harper/Quiver, Roy Harper/Arsenal, Wally West/Flash, Clark Kent/Superman, Lois Lane, Green Lantern Grendel Gardner, Midori, Meera Buhpathi, Linda Park, Clay Kent, Dick Grayson, Koriand’r, Harvey Dent, Hal Jordan/Parallax. Special Guest Hero: Diana Prince/Wonder Woman.
Rating: R, primarily for violence and language, sexual situations
Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Dr. Martha Kent, Roy Harper/Midori, Clark Kent/Lois Lane, Wally West/Linda Park. Bruce Wayne/Roy Harper friendship.
Summary: Wonder Woman fills in for a lost teammate, Gren, Lian and Meera tread separate paths to peace and Batman finally allows himself to be happy. There’s also a wedding. Action/Adventure, Drama, Angst, Romance, Humor.
Disclaimer: I don't own any character trademarked by DC Comics or characters in this story that are derived from or inspired by them.
Chapter Three
The Javelin-12 was hurtling over west Texas when Meera gasped loudly enough for Arsenal and Wonder Woman to interrupt their subdued conversation and look at her curiously. Before either of them could ask if she was all right, the telepath’s face grew almost frenzied and she started clawing her way out of her seat restraints.
“Get back in your seat!” Gren yelled as Meera nearly toppled onto Wonder Woman, who was sitting directly across from her. Diana grabbed the younger woman by her elbows and tried to settle her back in her seat, but Meera began struggling as she blurted a series of disjointed words that no one in the cabin could follow.
“You’re.... How can you…?” she babbled. “How… oh, I’m so sorry….”
“Meera, what’s wrong?” asked Roy, wondering if the sorrow and stress of the last six weeks had overwhelmed yet another member of his team.
“They’re back in the crater,” she gasped, “They’re not… they’re back.”
“Who?” he asked, as Batman, who had been sitting alone in the rear of the shuttle, stared at Meera with a look of stunned comprehension.
“Martha…. Parallax,” Meera sobbed.
Gren tore off his own restraints and shot to his feet. “I thought they were fuckin’ dead!”
Meera’s face grew distant for a moment, as if she was listening to someone miles away, and then her eyes became sharp and lucid.
“She will be,” she said. “If we don’t hurry.”
Despite his threat and the fact that his intentions appeared to include mass murder, Martha didn’t think Parallax seemed eager to kill her. The emerald projectile he’d fired at her when they landed was narrow and ill-timed; the second blast of solid light hit her just as she became airborne. It was strong enough to knock Martha shoulder-first into the ground, but lacked the force she might have expected from a man who once overpowered her father.
She did not delude herself into thinking his halfhearted resistance meant she could stop him alone. Meera had responded to her distress call in seconds - to Martha’s surprise, the League seemed to be headed toward the crater - but the telepath could not seem to focus on the looming danger inherent in Parallax’s return to Earth, a reality that, at present, overshadowed Martha’s own homecoming.
We can talk about how alive I am later, Martha told her impatiently. Listen to me.
She had prepared for this moment; she’d had weeks to work out what had to be done. It did not matter that what had seemed like a workable strategy when she conceived it in the middle of an endless and unforgiving sandstorm now seemed whimsical and more than a little flaky. Conventional tactics had failed to finish Parallax. There was little to lose in taking a less straightforward approach.
Martha relayed her plan to Meera as Parallax absently bombarded her with a barrage of tiny green comets. He was plainly scanning the crater, looking, Martha assumed, for the fault he’d alluded to when they were trapped together on the hostile desert world.
She swooped after him, adrenaline mixing with a surge of vitality borne from the union of her body with pure Terran sunlight. Parallax spun toward her from halfway across the crater, hitting Martha with an explosion of energy that sent her careening into the crater wall a mile and a half away. As she pried herself from the depression her body had made when it slammed into the stone, she noted grimly that Parallax had stopped holding back.
“We have to get to the crater now,” Meera told Gren breathlessly, as her disbelieving teammates stared at her. “And on the way, you have to call the Green Lantern Corps.”
Gren gave her a dazed nod, grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her toward the airlock. Wonder Woman was waiting for them. She palmed a button next to the hatch.
“I’m going with you,” she said as it hissed open.
Meera asked Roy, “Should I call Superman?”
“No,” said Wonder Woman adamantly, as Arsenal shook his head.
“Not until we’re sure it’s really her,” he said.
Meera nodded. “When you get to there, do everything you can to distract Parallax. Martha has a plan.”
Parallax was on the other side of the crater by the time Martha had pitched herself into the air again. Her left elbow ached where it had slammed into the rock wall and a jolt of pain shot through her neck as she tracked his movements. During the time it had taken her to right herself, he seemed to have found what he was looking for: he was headed for a spot in the northwest crater wall.
He was preoccupied enough not to notice the three airborne forms as they hovered over the chasm for a moment, and then darted furtively toward Martha. It was not until she could actually see their faces - suffused with joy despite the urgency of the situation - that Parallax spun around and hit Wonder Woman with a blast that sent her sailing into the two-story observatory and souvenir shop that had been erected a decade before.
Martha soared toward Gren and Meera, who had plummeted a dozen feet to dodge Parallax’s salvo of jade missiles. As he angled his body so he was holding Meera behind him, Gren answered with a hail of exploding green light that lit up the three-mile basin.
“I’ll take Meera,” Martha shouted, reaching for the telepath. “Distract Parallax. Knock him off course and keep him busy.”
Gren blinked at her in astonishment.
“Gren,” Martha begged, as she wrapped an arm around Meera’s waist and felt her teammate’s nails dig into her lower back. “Please.”
He snapped out of his stupor and headed after Parallax, stopping, suddenly, to spin back toward Martha. She was about to urge him forward, when he reached into the breast pocket of his uniform and flung something at her. Martha caught it with her free hand: Her hologram projector.
Wonder Woman, meanwhile, had extracted herself from the ruins of the observatory and was barreling toward Parallax, a look of outrage distorting her ordinarily placid face. She quickly outpaced Gren and, stretching both arms in front of her, plowed fists first into Parallax, knocking him mere feet from where he’d been hovering in the sky, but still managing to disorient him.
Still in mid-air, Martha seized Meera by both arms.
“You ready for this?” she asked.
Meera looked terrified. “I don’t think I… he’s too strong.”
Martha’s brown eyes locked onto Meera’s. “You’re stronger.”
Meera reached out to the friend she had thought lost forever. “We are,” she said, touching Martha’s cheek.
Nodding, Martha flicked on the hologram. Gren and Wonder Woman, she saw, had ensnared Parallax in a brutal battle that had done him very little harm, but had already bloodied his resolute attackers. They would die, and quickly, Superwoman knew, if this flaky plan of hers didn’t work.
Batman shouldered Arsenal out of his way and gripped the bulkhead above the cockpit windshield. He shut out Roy’s demands that he return to his seat and stared straight through the glass. The crater was now in sight, but they were still too far away to see anything, at least with the naked eye. Without looking away from her instrumentation, Midori keyed in a few numbers on a panel near her right hand and the enormous monitor she’d build into the shuttle wall zoomed into the enormous basin.
“There she is,” whispered Quiver, smearing away tears with the back of one hand while grasping the top of her bow in the other. Batman stepped back to examine the screen as Midori programmed in a course correction that nearly sent him flying across the small craft.
Roy grabbed Batman where his cape met his collar and thrust him into the couch Wonder Woman had abandoned. “Strap. In,” he said through gritted teeth. Riveted by the caped blonde flyer on the screen, Batman complied without any real awareness of what he was doing.
“I see them,” Midori called out, and Arsenal, now the only one standing, leaned over her shoulder to peer through the cockpit.
“Come up behind Parallax,” he said, belting himself into the chair behind her as Midori swung the shuttle around the north side of the basin.
Midori looked back at him from the pilot's seat. “What are we going to do?” Roy put a hand on her shoulder.
“I hate to tell you,” he said.
Parallax flung a lightning bolt shaped blast of energy into Wonder Woman’s chest and twisted toward Gren in time to slip out of the grasp of the young Lantern’s enormous green hand.
“You’re Guy’s son?” Parallax taunted him. “You’ve got twice the balls.”
Gren flicked his eyes toward Wonder Woman, who lay on the crater floor, sucking down wracking mouthfuls of air. He glared at Parallax. Gren had a catalog of grudges against his father, but he had no doubt Guy would have fought ferociously against his former comrade. Guy would also have mouthed off to Parallax throughout the battle, draining away the focus he needed to defeat such a powerful opponent. Gren wouldn’t make that mistake. He glanced past Parallax into the sun and spotted a growing silver glimmer. He shifted his gaze a few degrees to the left and saw Superwoman and Meera coming up out of the distance.
Gren raised his ringed fist toward Parallax as though he was aiming a gun and summoned all of his willpower for a final strike. But just as he was about to let loose with everything he had, an emerald explosion sent him painfully into darkness.
Superwoman watched helplessly as Gren plunged towards the floor of the crater. She did not know if he could survive the fall; his ring did him no good if he was unconscious. A true warrior would have let him fall. To break into Parallax’s line of vision and save her friend would risk the mission - and the world. But Superwoman had never considered herself a soldier. She thought of Gren’s radiant face when he saw her alive and, tightening her grip around Meera’s waist, she rocketed toward his tumbling form.
I’m trying to distract Parallax, Meera told her, as Superwoman strained to reach their teammate. He was meters from the ground. A blast of green light whizzed past them. Meera squeezed her eyes together and suddenly the canyon was quiet.
Superwoman seized Gren by the ankle and eased him to the crater floor. Parallax no longer seemed to see them, but this respite gave her no relief: In the seconds it had taken her to save her friend, the renegade Green Lantern had reproduced the pulsing green spherical mechanism Martha had sacrificed so much to destroy.
“What’s he going to do with that thing?” Martha shouted to Meera as the telepath shuddered and Parallax turned back to them, livid now.
His mind…I’ve never felt anything like it. Martha, he’s too strong. I can’t… Meera tensed. Oh my God.
Martha inhaled deeply and reached deeply inside herself for the peace of mind she’d cultivated during her weeks on the desert planet. “That’s OK,” she said calmly. “You’re not going to fight him.”
Suddenly she realized it no longer mattered what Parallax was planning to do with the emerald machine. She could not afford to think about it now; it would not alter her plan. Clutching Meera, she hurtled toward Parallax, weaving around angry volleys of solid light in a last effort to end the madness that had started years before she was born, when Hal Jordan lost himself in the smoking ruins of Coast City.
“Enough!” Parallax shouted and as an emerald halo enveloped him, Martha could see that he truly intended for his next strike to end her life. It might have killed her and Meera, too, had the telepath not managed one last effort to distract him, just as Wonder Woman hit him from one side and the Javelin-12 plowed into him from behind.
Despite his vast power, the combined attacks managed to stagger Parallax. He was not hurt badly, but he was shaken enough to momentarily drop his defenses. As disoriented as he was, he still seemed angry.
In the bare seconds that his defenses were down, Martha sidled up to Parallax, shifting so Meera was nearly touching him.
You can do it, Martha assured her. He wants you to.
Meera laid her soft brown hand against Parallax’s temple and though he tried to jerk away, he did not seem to be able to move.
“Mr. Jordan,” Meera whispered as his eyes became distant. “I’m going to take your pain away.”
This news did not seem to please Parallax; his face contorted in furious resistance and his pupils shimmered green. But as Meera gently touched her other hand to his chest, the angry light faded from his eyes and it again seemed like he was fixed on something very far away.
He had a lot of pain; it had become virtually all he was over the past decades: Hurt and guilt and anger. As it drained away, Martha watched his body slump and realized that she was now supporting him.
With no free hand to reach out, she leaned forward until her forehead was touching Meera’s temple. “Give him this,” she whispered, and closed her eyes.
Meera pulled away with a startled, reluctant look. Then she gave her friend a grave nod and infused the serenity Martha had accumulated from endless hours of meditation into the tortured soul of Hal Jordan.
“What the fuck?” Suddenly Gren, bloody and disheveled, was hovering beside them. Martha looked down and saw that Wonder Woman had rescued the damaged shuttle and was helping her teammates disembark.
“It’s OK,” she said steadily as Jordan’s eyelids fluttered spasmodically and his chin collapsed onto his chest. She nodded toward the ground and Gren followed her to the crater floor. As they touched down upon the brown earth, The Corps’ leader, Kurdoon and eleven other Green Lanterns landed around them in a shower of green and black.
“This is not an arrest,” Superwoman told Kurdoon firmly as Jordon sank to his knees and buried his face in his hands. “It’s a rescue mission.”
“You’ve taken his power?” the gelatinous triped asked in an unnervingly high voice.
Superwoman shook her head. “I’m not sure anyone could do that without killing him,” she said. “It’s a part of who he is. But I don’t think he’s Parallax anymore. And I know he needs your help.”
Kurdoon’s head twitched uncertainly on a short, bulbous neck. Superwoman thought it might be his version of a nod. With a flick of a long purplish limb, he conjured what looked like an ornate sleigh. Two of the Lanterns nervously helped an unsteady Jordan onto it.
“I hope you’re correct,” Kurdoon told Superwoman.
Martha flicked off her hologram. “You tell the Guardians that they’d better treat him right this time,” she said, and stepped toward the emerald sleigh.
Jordan was conscious, but too weak to lift his head from the seat’s cushioned green headrest. His exhausted face was filled with gratitude and remorse.
“Everything I’ve done,” he said. “I can’t make up for it.”
“Get better first. And then worry about that,” Martha told him.
Kurdoon’s head shuddered again and the contingent of Lanterns lifted off.
“And she saves us again,” said Martha, turning to smile at Meera.
Suddenly, it was if Martha was once more under attack; Meera lunged at her, hugging her and sobbing. Gren seized both women and swung them around in the air. He gave Martha a hard, quick kiss that she barely seemed to register as she gazed past him, searching for Batman as her teammates raced toward them from the battered shuttle.
“You’re alive!” Lian screamed, seizing Martha as Roy pulled Meera to one side. “Oh, my God, Martha, look at your hair!”
Laughing, Martha said, “I’ve definitely made it back to the right universe. How long have I been gone?”
“Six weeks,” said the Flash. Tears curved around the line of his jaw.
“A long six weeks,” said Roy, planting a kiss on Martha’s cheek, then deciding this wasn’t enough, hugging her so hard her feet left the ground. As he set her down, the implications of her long absence struck her and, with a troubled face, she started craning her head around her exultant teammates. She was sure she had seen Batman running toward her with the others but he seemed to have disappeared.
“Meera’s called your dad,” Roy told her. “He’s seconds away.”
“We have a lot to catch you up on,” said Lian, vainly attempting to brush some of the sand out of Martha’s hair.
“Roy and I are having sex now,” Midori added helpfully, apparently believing this was one of the things Martha needed to know in order to fully re-adjust to her life on Earth.
“Well, um, that's a good thing, I guess,” said Martha, trying not to laugh.
“It is a good thing,” Midori informed her. “His skill is immeasurable.” Roy covered his reddening face with a hand.
“And guess who’s not having sex?” Lian asked brightly.
“It’s a world gone mad,” said Martha. Her smile vanished and she took Lian’s arm. “Where’s -“
And then, in a burst of blue and red, she was enveloped in her father’s powerful arms. He was crying even before he reached her.
“Dad,” whispered Martha as Superman sobbed into her shoulder. She laid a hand on his heaving back. “Dad, I’m so sorry to have put you through…”
He lifted his head and took her face in his hands, his tears running trickling into his rapturous smile. “I thought I’d never see you again,” he said brokenly. “We missed you… Martha… we missed you so much.”
Then she was crying, too. “Are Mom and Clay OK?”
“Why don’t you go home and see?” Martha looked up at Roy, whose eyes were also glittering. He and the others had stepped back to allow father and daughter their reunion.
Superman took Martha’s arm. “Let’s go home,” he said. He turned to Meera. “Can you get in touch with my wife?” Meera, smiling blissfully, nodded.
Martha took a final, puzzled sweep past her friends and around the crater, then looked up at her father.
“OK,” she said. Clark was still holding her arm when they lifted off together. He didn’t let go until they had reached Metropolis.
(Continued)