Phantom 34

Acids.

Substances with corrosive properties due to high amounts of Hydrogen ions, or proton-donation. One of the most fundamental concepts in Chemistry. A constituent of things ranging from fruits like lemons and apples to the production of plastics and pesticides. An acid’s pH—the power of Hydrogen that is, ranges from 1 to 7, with 7 being a neutral pH, at which you would have pure water and substances with neither protonation nor de-protonation.

HCL, HNO3, and H2SO4 were the strongest occurring natural acids, formed in the stomach, storms, or oxidation of sulphuric materials respectively. Yet, over the decades, human science had evolved to develop its own acids through advanced processes and catalysts that enabled the production and storage of acids with pH thousands to millions of times greater than that of the Nitric or Sulphuric Acid. Most were used to further the study of Chemistry and its branches, used as catalysts, and to facilitate reactions in high-end studies and industrial, pharmaceutical processes.

One such acid was the Flourosulfuric Acid, used in the study of carbocations, as well as a generative agent in fluorine-based chemicals of high reactivity and volatility. With an acidity about a million times greater than pure sulfuric acid, Flourosulfuric acid was a Super-Acid, aptly named for its ability to melt absolutely anything organic and metallic down to the last atom. And currently, the large chemical factory—a subsidiary of STAR labs and his own Research and Development Division was housing about 700 gallons of the reagent. Given ‘Grundy’s mass, Batman believed it to be a sufficient quantity to dissolve the monster away.

“Scan complete, no lifeforms detected.”

“Initiate autopilot,” he spoke, initiating the targeting system and locking it upon the walls that led directly to the storage room where the Superacids were stored. Carefully firing a concussive blast of energy at the outermost wall, Batman exited his Batwing, looking back at the treeline as the sound of wood snapping echoed from the sparse woods. A moment later, the large form of Grundy flew through the trees on the border, clearing dozens of feet as he skipped and rolled across the ground, his wrathful roar being interrupted by his face slamming into the dirt repeatedly. As the three walls leading to the nitrogen-cooled storage were broken down by his ship, Batman looked at the final wall and zipped up to one of the chimneys, “Appolina, there are two walls between the superacid storage and you. Aim adequately, we can’t have a spillage into the pipelines or the rooms beyond.”

Instead of a response, Grundy was grabbed by a blur and carried up into the air, before being punched several times in a span of a few seconds, the female superhero leveraging her abilities, or rather, Grundy’s lack of flight extremely well as she slowly but surely carried him towards the factory, all the while keeping him dazed and unable to escape.

“His magic better not interfere!” Appolina’s annoyed voice drifted through his ears as the woman grabbed the monster by its arm and slung him over her head like a sack of potatoes, before flinging him with a shout towards the marked walls. Her words made him frown as he considered their implications. Batman’s world had been bound within the four fundamental laws of the Universe for as long as he had been alive. Even the arrival of aliens had not changed that, since as much as Superman stretched them, he still operated within an explainable set of rules and circumstances. 

But magic? At the cost of sounding repetitive, it was a middle finger to those laws. Breaking and molding them to its user’s wishes without the care for what it meant and did to the regular world. And Batman needed to find a way around it, fast. Felix Faust and Phantom had shown the whole world what it meant when magic clashed above mortals, with hundreds dying in Las Vegas—and even now, he had no doubt that magical calamities were going to be something of a growing trend.

Grundy’s emergence all but proved it.

Fumes and steam erupted out of the hole below him as Apoolina flew up towards him, the hissing and bubbling of chemicals drowning the sound of glass and wood shattering as Grundy roared in anger and pain. “Alright, I can see the acids working…but his magic, it's slowing the reactions and the dissolution down.”

“Can your brother deal with this magic?”

“He can, but he is busy himself,” she responded, looking eastwards, and Batman followed her gaze towards the distant Atlantic Ocean—where a large blast of heat energy had been detected by his satellites just a couple of minutes ago. “I will deal with it, just move away. I can hear a robbery happening in that vault we left behind.”

“Very well,” he nodded, jumping towards his batwing as the cockpit opened up and Alfred piloted the craft below him, “Your assistance is appreciated Appolina.”

Raising all of the shattered glass inside the still fuming storage room, Kara joined all of it together into a giant sphere—and at the same time, she funneled the half-melted, half-bubbling remains of Grundy into it. Cursing the yellow sun for her sense of smell as she barely controlled it and her breakfast from escaping, Kara willed the fumes inside the room to vanish away, wrinkling her nose at the sight of what the superacids had done to Grundy's physical constitution.

But even as a semi-solid sludge—with more liquid than solids—she could feel the magical energy that made Grundy’s core trying to repair him. It shifted like little grains of sands, fighting against the chemical breakdown of his very cells, and she needed something to destroy that magic. A destructive force that would bury it in a blanket of raw magical energy.

‘Why did I use Fiendfyre when the Killing Curse didn’t work? Well, Fiendfyre burns on magic, and it destroys it by converting it into fuel for itself. I had wagered on it burning away Faust’s wards, or even himself…but well, he was much more learned and dangerous than I had estimated him to be. Don’t use it without practice though. I lucked out by having Riddle’s experience to draw on—though, I doubt it's that lucky considering I have his personality traits too. Fucking horcrux!’

She didn’t have the magical control to use Fiendfyre, that too in such a precise manner. And neither did she have a magical weapon like Diana or Donna, which would have made this a lot easier. But Kara had something they both didn’t, she realized with a small grin forming upon her lips. Ever since she had awoken with magic, Harry had made her relentlessly practice its uses. From charms, transfiguration, curses, wards, and combat to exercises that fine-tuned her control like self-transfiguration and elemental magic, he had left no stone unturned in making sure she knew everything there was to know about their kind of magic.

And the one thing it had in spades, was its versatility.

Even Diana had admitted that barring Circe, she had never heard of the kinds of things their magics could do. Oh sure, the Greek Gods could do a lot of things owing to their godhood, but even they had limitations, such as domain infringement or barriers set upon them by higher powers and their own limitations. But the kind of energy that Harry, and by extension she possessed…the only limit was their own imagination and the amount of power they could supply.

Channeling it the same way she had during self-transfiguring her eyes to become fully green, instead of willing a cosmetic change, she willed the magic to merge with her solar energy as heat collected beyond her retinas. It was a tough job, merging the two volatile, and entirely different energies together—especially since it felt like she was burying her head in ice, while her eyes burned like a star’s core. But still, she needed it for just a moment, and a small amount of magic at that. Exercising every bit of control she possessed, Kara slowly opened her eyes, regulating the amount of magic she was letting flow into her eyes as she directed her solar energy reserves with another thought.

Instantly, twin beams of fiery destruction left her eyes, burning brighter and more crimson than ever before, instantly vaporizing the acidic, shivering sludge that was Grundy’s melted remains. A scream of pain ripped out of her throat as Kara felt her eyes throb with burning agony—the strain of maintaining harmony between her solar and magical power hitting her like one of Harry’s punches to her head. Instantly, she almost buckled under the strain, with only sheer willpower making her soldier on as she tightened her grip upon her magic, directing its flow and quantity with a precision that would have made her mother proud. Using every bit of her Kryptonian mind, Kara directed her magical heat vision over the glass sphere, destroying and incinerating every bit of the sludge inside to the last drop, feeling the meager magical presence that had started Grundy’s regeneration, and held him together despite the Fluorosulfuric acid destroying the biological mass that made him up…finally vanish from her senses.

Cutting off the magic to her eyes, Kara blinked rapidly, breathing a cloud of arctic wind before herself before breathing it in, feeling it pass through her nasal passages, and provide a little relief to the ache in her eyes and brain. “Dammit, never doing that again,” she winced, vanishing the remaining, melting glass as she floated down giving one last look at the chemical factory before her, the storage room nothing but a smoking, destroyed wreck. Shrugging as she heard the sound of teeth breaking in the Vault she had left behind, she looked at the giant ‘W’ plastered on the factory’s sides, “Well, he can handle it.”

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“Lor-Father!” Diana shouted with worry as she noticed Zeus stumble, and the next moment, a wave of…something electric passed over her skin. Her eyes widened as she realized what it meant, eyes flashing towards the distant presences that were Poseidon and Hades as they too suddenly flashed brightly, “Are y-”

“Calm, my daughter,” he raised a hand, catching himself upon the balustrade, his eyes clenching shut as he rose to his full height, his grimace dissolving into a painful smile. Electric blue eyes met hers, thousands of years of age covered with nothing but regret as he slowly raised a palm towards her face, cupping her cheek gently, “Oh my daughter…There are still a thousand things I wish to say to you. I know that these meager few moments can never make up for the lifetime of absence, or absolve me of my uncountable sins and mistakes—and neither does this give me any right to command to advise you…but be a better God than I ever was dear daughter.”

There was no great flash of light. No apocalyptic showing of powers. One moment, she was staring at her father, his hand warm on her face as he looked at her with that burning, regretful gaze. The next, she was back in Themyscira before her sisters, her eyes meeting her mother’s as Hippolyta walked up to her.

“Daugh-”

“Later, the enemy approaches,” she shook her head, unsheathing her blades and flicking her wrist to expand Aegis as she felt the ground rumble beneath their feet once again. Even though she steeled her expression, Diana could feel her thoughts rumble much like the skies above, the lingering vestiges of Zeus’ essence that protected Themyscira. She had seen the memory of the enemy's forces, when Apokolips had attacked the Earth millennia ago. 

Parademons, the regular soldiers were called. Fierce, instinctive creatures who followed and knew nothing but savagery and their commander’s orders. Unafraid of death and injury, they were capable of flight, and based on the last time they had come, their preferred weapons were long-range—much like the guns humans had developed. And above them came the commanders, of whom only one was known.

A New God named Steppenwolf, who had been at the forefront of the last invasion, a being built much like the minotaur, only with alien armor covering every bit of his body. 

The other was Uxas, the leader of the New Gods of Apokolips, a conqueror of worlds who had come to the Earth to subjugate it to his will. Powerful, fearsome and dangerous, he had butchered though hundreds on that day, even defeating a Green Lantern and swatting away Amazons and Atlanteans alike. But despite his powers and strength, Uxas had been defeated by the might of the Olympians, with Ares and Zeus landing crippling blows upon the then Young God. Uxas had been forced to retreat, his forces thoroughly routed and defeated by the alliance, and Earth standing victorious at the end of the day.

But yet, she could feel the presence appearing upon Gaea in that tower, a malevolent, cruel existence that reeked of death and anger. Screams rent through the evening air of Themyscira, shattering the thousands of years of peace upon the island, and Diana saw the marble tower, which had stood there for as long as Themiscyra itself had existed…simply explode outwards in a shower of dust and white stone.

“Amazons,” her mother’s tightly controlled voice echoed over the gathered army as the sound of her sword being unsheathed rang through the air, and Diana saw the first of the Parademons exit the dusty rubble, its black, insectoid form buzzing through the air sharply, a glowing lance in its spindly, crooked arms, “Show no mercy, but leave their leader to Diana an-”

“AMAZONS!” a monstrous, otherworldly voice roared from the dust cloud, a large white ring of crackling energy spewing forth hundreds of shadows within moments as the number of Parademons in the sky increased by dozens within eyeblinks. In that silhouette, Diana could make out a hulking form, standing at a dozen feet with shadowed horns and a glowing greataxe visible. “Submit, and you shall be spared! Your Gods are dead, and the only God you shall know forevermore is the Ruler of Apokolips, the mightiest in the universe, the leader of the New Gods, DARKSEID!”

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“What are these things?!” The Flash shouted, punching another Parademon in its face, and John sighed as he watched the ones the Flash had defeated slowly work their way back into the sky, lances raised for another volley of firing at the scarlet speedster and the two Green Lanterns.

“Parademons, foot soldiers of Apokolips and slaves to fucking Darkseid!” he shouted back, creating a large fist and punching the dozens of buzzing insects before him, splattering them into organic paste and metallic parts. “Don’t hesitate to use legal force Flash! They are just organic robots and will continue to attack us indefinitely. If you let even one leave beyond this block, they will start kidnapping sentients to produce more Parademons!”

“Wait, KILL THEM?!” Barry shouted back, pausing mid-run to stare up at him incredulously as he waved his hands toward the Parademons, “What do you mean kill them? I don’t kill fo-”

“Green Lanterns are not allowed lethal force at all!” he cut the young hero off, pointing at the Parademons destroyed by him, as well as the ones Hal had dealt with, “Yet the Guardians allow it while fighting Parademons and undead. Think of them as zombies Flash. Trust me, any mind they had is long gone. And do it quickly, they will overwhelm us and make for other humans at this rate!”

“Would have loved to have Superman here right now!” Hal’s voice echoed amidst the sound of the Flash going supersonic, running over the walls and jumping between them in a streak of red and blue electricity, striking and burning Parademons in droves.

“He is busy doing what he does best. It falls to us to protect humanity at this moment,” John grunted back, raising his ring and levitating the debris around him, before chucking it all at the Parademons as improvised shrapnel, tearing through their relatively weak bodies and crushing them beneath the rubble. “Fuck! I am still not back at one hundred percent!”

“Happens when you get the shit beat out of you by someone who goes supersonic!” Hal snarked back, creating two palms and smothering the Parademons between them. “So, how long are we supposed to do this?”

“I don’t know, Apokolips has been silent for centuries at this point! The Database contains information only from its early days, when it warred against the New Gods of New Genesis!” he replied back, looking down at his ring before propping himself up against the building behind him, taking a deep breath as he felt the Ring continue to heal his body at a much-accelerated pace than what his species could. “For them to attack a planet out of the blue, and that too an out-of-the-way one like Earth, it doesn’t make sense!”

Alien screeches echoed amidst the buildings, and John watched as the glowing white portal stood in the smoking ruin of the STAR labs expanded to the size of a skyscraper in an instant, with thousands of Parademons exiting it in a single moment. And as his eyes widened, John saw someone else…just walk out of the portal. 

“Oh fuck,” he breathed, watching the shaggy mane of long hair sway in the winds buffeted by the Parademons, and those gleeful but resolute black eyes on that scarred, ruthless face. Muscles upon muscles built the creature before him, a monster that had no terms like empathy and mercy in its dictionary, and was feared across the universe amongst the likes of Mongul and its father Darkseid himself. The Scourge of Apokolips, Kalibak was here.

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“What the fuuuckk?” Harry muttered as he watched the portal spewing forth the aliens just close up, the Cube returning to its unassuming look as if it had not ripped through space and time just five minutes ago. Around him, the bodies of the insectoid aliens slowly dropped to the sea floor, and he floated closer to the Cube, watching Arthur do the same from the other side as the rest of the Atlanteans watched from a distance. “Can you feel them anywhere else in the ocean?”

“No...they are not coming out anywhere else for five hundred miles at least,” the King of Atlantis shook his head, flicking alien bits away from his trident as he stared at the Cube, before his eyes turned towards the approaching forms of Nuidis and Mera. “Nuidis, Mera! Did the aliens breach through the protections?”

“No, my king,” Nuidis shook his head, his eyes lowering for a moment before they met his, “Master Potter, Atlantis thanks you for your aid, though I am sure, our king has more fitting words.”

“Ah well…, thanks Mr. Potter,” Arthur flushed a little, and Harry watched with a smile as Arthur rubbed the back of his head, giving him an embarrassed shrug before glaring at Nuidis, “and I was going to do it, after well..sorting out this mess.”

“Sure you were,” Mera scowled at the Atlantean, before nodding at him, “and thank you truly for your assistance.”

“It was my pleasure, Queen Mera,” he shook his head, lowering his head in a respectful bow as he felt Riddle’s countless hours of experience with the nobles flow through his actions—as well as Diana’s lessons on how to meet her mother and potentially her divine family. Though, now that he thought about it…that didn’t really pan out like that did it?

“King Arthur, several of these creatures have been sighted spreading across the human country of America, starting from Detroit,” an Atlantean almost crashed into the boulder by them as he swooped down from above, planting his bident into the ground to support himself as he kneeled. “Two Green Lanterns have also been reported on the scene by the human reporters, and we have had a few skirmishes of our own with these aliens.”

“Parademons,” a rough, ancient voice whispered, and Harry turned around to watch a misshapen, crooked Atlantean slowly emerge from the reefs. Casting a lumos above his head, he blinked at the sight of the missing eye, as well as the amputated leg the clearly old Atlantean was carrying. Giving him a glance, the Atlantean slowly bowed towards Arthur and Mera. “They were last here thousands of years ago, when the whole of Gaia united against them. Atlanteans, Amazons, the Gods of Olympus…we all stood together against them. And their master, the New God of a planet called Apokolips. There were two more of these Motherboxe-”

“Where are they?” he interrupted the old Atlantean, reaching out towards the link between him and Kara’s bracelet, and calming down a little as he felt her to be in perfect health.

“One was taken by the Olympians, while the other was left with the Amazo-”

“Diana,” he whispered, his eyes widening as he felt one of the wards he had placed upon her break, and without even wasting a single moment, Harry teleported on the spot, appearing inside Themiscyra’s skies in an eyeblink. Instantly, the smell of blood and dust assaulted his nose, and his eyes followed the smoke and fire to find the fighting going on below him. These Parademons were flying around in hundreds, firing crimson energy blasts at Amazons upon the ground and those upon the Pegasi. Raising a hand, he grasped at the fires burning across the Island and pulled it towards the parademons, sweeping them by dozens into a swirling tornado of fire that incinerated them all on the spot. Ignoring their pained screams as he saw the Amazons catch sight of him, Harry caught a Parademon by its face as the creature swooped up towards him, and he crushed it within his gras-

“Mother!”

Diana’s voice caught his attention, and he instantly found his lover, half buried in the smoking wreckage of the ivory tower that had served as the Amazon’s museum and vault. His eyes followed her wide, horrified gaze towards the training grounds, where he found Hippolyta upon the ground, holding up her sword in her remaining hand with one of her eyes a ruined mess…while a large, armored minotaur stood above her with its axe already at her neck.