Phantom 33

Sweltering heat blasted across his face, and were it not for his Kryptonian constitution, Harry was sure that he would have cooked himself to death with how much fiendfyre he had produced. Even the water around for miles instantly began to boil and steam over, as the Kraken’s warbling shout of pain—massively different than when they had been underwater—pierced through his ears. Ignoring the literal sea boiling beneath his power, Harry grunted as he felt the monster disappear within moments, the cursed fire erasing every bit of its existence, its dark nature swallowing up the necromantic magic like the hungry, destructive force it was.

“Now, about that spirit,” he sighed, casting a massive freezing charm all around him, groaning as he felt his recharged energy drip out of him just as fast—but it was better than him causing hurricanes due to boiling away miles of ocean water. As the evaporating water and rising air currents stopped midway to revert back, Harry apologized to whoever was still going to be harmed by his hasty decision, apparating back underwater.

Instantly, he was buffeted by exploding forces created by Atlan’s and Arthur’s clash, their almost identical tridents spinning and coming together in a deadly dance of enchanted metals, pushing and pulling at the very ocean around them. Taking a moment just to observe the young King of Atlantis, Harry watched him twirl his trident, creating hundreds of vortexes that homed in on Atlan’s spirit, locking in the skeletal, glowing being in a prison. Atlan came out of it easily, for all that he had lost his mental facilities in this…sham of resurrection, he somehow still possessed every bit of his powers and instinct, making him just as formidable as Arthur, maybe even more owing to his experience. While he was not used to using weapons, preferring to leverage his natural durability and strength, Harry could see Arthur’s talent and skill at the trident. 

If he had to guess, Arthur seemed to be physically on par with him, at least in endurance and strength, if not speed. Of course, that meant that Diana eclipsed him easily, and the less said about Kal-El, the better. For minutes on end, he watched the duel in front of him, and as the fight dragged on and on, he saw Arthur slow down just a bit. While the King of Atlantis was in his domain and could draw upon the ocean’s power, his body still had a limit along with his mind. And as much as he wanted to, Harry could not jump in, not without risking Arthur losing his own rhythm, or their coordination not being up to mark and being the cause of an injury or worse.

His parries became sloppier, his blocks became weaker…and then, Atlan scored a wound on Arthur's shoulder, cupping away at his golden, scaly armor with a powerful slash, cutting through his skin and turning the water around them murky crimson for a moment. The blond Atlantean fell back for a moment, even as his blood pulled itself back together before entering his body as the water around him healed him. But yet, Atlan pursued him relentlessly, manipulating the water around them and tearing away at Arthur’s armor with it, making his very domain turn against him. He could feel Arthur’s magic try to counter Atlan, and with a sigh, he swam downwards as he felt the scales tilt. In that brief moment of weakness, Arthur had given away some of that ground in the stalemate of powers, and Atlan had grasped it hungrily, advancing his control exponentially within a heartbeat.

However, just as he prepared a ball of plasma between his hands to shoot at the spirit, Harry felt…something around him shatter. It was barely felt by him, not for its lack of power, he could tell now, that whatever it had been, it had covered the entire Earth…but its nature. Its nature was hard to decipher, especially now that the broken shards of the elusive energy were dissolving away, melding into the natural flow of energy seamlessly. Grasping at the evaporating pieces of the foreign power, Harry blinked as he felt a part of it in front of him, and his eyes moved towards the source, finding Atlan’s skeletal ghost to have stopped completely, as something seemed to contain it in place.

The next second, he dispersed away into tiny little motes of sick viridian light, his presence vanishing from his senses as if it had never been there. “Well, I guess he ran out of juice,” Arthur muttered, sighing as he rose up to his level, and Harry vanished the plasma between his hands. 

“There was something else going on behind the scenes,” he shook his head, clarifying more when Arthur shot him a questioning look, “I felt…some kind energy…break, for the lack of a better word. And I felt the last vestiges of it inside Atlan’s ghost. Whatever that energy was, I couldn’t feel it at all prior to it shattering—but it was covering the entire world.”

“Wait…Atlan emerged once the Cube stopped shaking,” Arthur muttered, staring down at the Abyss below them, the gaping maw of the monster-filled darkness peeking up at them, “and if whatever energy responsible for Atlan has disappeared—then the Cu-”

A massive wave of energy emerged from the city to their East, the visible dome of power pushing them back and burning across their skin, and Harry felt the first of the thousands of presences rush through, alien screeches breaking through the quiet of the Ocean.

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Clark grit his teeth, pushing his body to go as fast as he could, without breaking the plane above him as he flew it to the tarmac, his eyes glowing hot red as he lasered away the broken section of the nose wheel, and froze it with his breath in the same motion. The result? It shattered into tiny, harmless fragments that would barely tickle anyone on the ground. Gently lowering himself as he arrived at an empty place on the tarmac, Clark's eyes widened as he looked eastwards, the terrified screams only being eclipsed by the sound of sand grinding against stone…or the fresh snows grinding against the hard ice beneath.

Making sure that the plane was balanced upon its fuselage, Clark gave a single glance at the arriving emergency services and ambulance, before he rose and shot off, barely controlling his speed from shattering the windows of the airport and beyond. Rising through the sky rapidly, he breathed in the misty, cold clouds, and with a sonic boom that completely cleared away the cumulonimbus, he made his way toward the avalanche beginning in what he felt was North-East Russia. Gritting his teeth, he climbed even higher, his speed increasing by dozens of times as the atmosphere rapidly thinned and he reached the exosphere, the darkness of outer space at his fingertips. 

And then, he was flying at Mach 100 and above, clearing hundreds of thousands of miles in a couple of eyeblinks. 

Alighting above Russia, he stared down at the mountain ranges below, zooming in from the apex of Earth’s atmosphere to the landmass below him, following his ears and catching sight of the avalanche building up speed in the Chersky Range. Dropping down with the speed of a falling satellite, he pushed against the buffeting resistance, displacing clouds as he saw the camp by the small frozen lake at the base of one of the mountains, screams ripping through his ears as the people there saw the impending avalanche crash down towards them in a storm of trees and heavy snows. Coming to a stop where he predicted the snowy debris to reach in exactly two seconds, Clark gave a glance at the people behind him, watching their eyes widen as they caught sight of him. Giving one of the men a small nod, he turned his eyes towards the approaching avalanche and took a deep breath, feeling his lungs fill up with air, compressing it to temperatures unattainable by naught but the most powerful of freezers on Earth. Once he felt like he had enough air and then some inside his body, Clark exhaled forcefully, the arctic breath lowering the temperature of the air around it to dozens of degrees below freezing, causing a domino effect as his compressed, cold breath seemed to envelop the whole avalanche—and literally freezing it in its tracks. Snow, stones, broken trees…everything stopped in its tracks as Clark stopped his breath, taking a glance at the frozen structure before him as he judged whether it would be stable enough for the people to be evacuated safely.

“You are Superman, correct?”

“I am,” he smiled, turning around to face the young child who had spoken, floating down wave at the cheering people as he gave them a once over with his X-ray vision, “Are all of you safe?”

“We are, thanks to you,” a woman who looked to be in her forties answered, her Russian accent pronounced as he pulled her jacket tighter around herself, her eyes looking past towards the avalanche that had nearly swallowed them. “It’s a miracle, that you arrived when you did. Half of us hadn’t even known the danger we were in.”

“I am glad to, ma’am,” he nodded, blinking as the boy who had called out to him rushed towards him with a book and a pen, “Oh..uhm, what’s your name?”

“Andrei,” he smiled brightly, “Andrei Rushman.”

“Well, this is for you, Andrei,” Clark smiled back, kneeling down to sign his name in front of the boy, and ruffling his hair as he stood up, nodding at the men and women before him, “Take care people, and stay safe!”

“We will, Superman!”

Rising off the ground softly, Clark waved at the people below him one last time—and at the same moment, the sound of screams and heavy, steel cords snapping reached his ears. “A bridge,” he muttered, turning south-west and flying around the globe once again, avoiding airplanes and birds in his way with surgical precision as he reached the Himalayas, before crossing through the Gangetic Plains and the Indian Plateau in mere moments. He stopped above the city of Mumbai, before disappearing from his spot to appear beneath a falling car and carrying it away from the water below, his eyes already on the bridge that was shaking dangerously, vehicles teetering and swaying at the edges as people ran in a stampede towards the ends. Gently lowering the four-wheeler upon the road, he took a look at the man inside, a sympathetic smile on his face as he saw the vomit covering the windshield from the inside, before he flew and grabbed the snapping cords one by one in a single moment.

As the public beneath him took notice and began to shout and point fingers, Clark grunted and pulled the bridge cables taut, eyeing the rest of the suspension cables, before he leveraged his flight and stabilized the bridge. Heat vision erupted from his eyes in twin beams of power, and he welded the gaps and cracks in the joints shut, doing a rough patch job enough for the public to evacuate safely. Already, he could hear the whir of choppers and the sirens of police as they came closer, and freeing a hand from the suspension cable, Clark waved at the camera being carried by the reporter to his left, the small white helicopter hovering before him.

“Mr. Superman, thanks a lot for saving the people of Mumbai,” the reporter shouted over the sound of chopper’s blades, “A lot of lives would have been lost if not for you!”

“Just doing a good deed, Mr. Roshan,” he shouted back, remembering the man from when he and Lois had traveled to Mumbai to cover the 26/11 attacks, the man having been one of the first on the scene along with them. Past the giant camera fixed on the helicopter, he could see the surprise on the man’s face, his spectacles eyes widening as he leaned sideways to look at him properly, and he answered the rising question with a soft shake of his head, “I have seen you many times while scrolling through International News, Mr. Roshan, especially your coverage on the drug imports business linked with New York and Canada.”

“Uh—well, it’s an honour Superman,” the aging, bald man stammered out, before looking through the camera, “But we Mumbaikars, and the people of India, wish to know just how were you able to…arrive in such a timely manner. Was it due to your super-sight, as the power is called I believe?”

“My hearing is pretty good too,” he shook his head with a smile, his eyes flicking towards the citizens below. “Enough to hear your wife is currently shouting about how you are a stupid man for flying in a helicopter. I think your food is going to be saltless tonight, Mr. Roshan.”

“Ahem, uhm…that’s—thanks a lot Superman,” the man blushed, shooting a quick look eastwards before he focused back on him with a wry smile. “I hope this national coverage at least gets me a nice dinner tonight from the company.”

Laughing along with the man as he saw the chopped float away to let the relief workers get near, Clark pulled upon the suspension cables, keeping them stable as he focused upon the bunch held between his arms, heat vision welding them together as he lowered himself, welding cables along their length to ensure the cables stayed together and held fast. Twelve seconds and six more bursts of his heat vision later, the knot of the melted cables was melted into the ground, and held in place leveraging it against the weight of three ships right beneath the bridge, their anchors cooling down along with the cables as he lightly breathed upon them, expediting the process.

“-orts of the strange phenomenon being observed in the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, as well as Detroit are worrying nations and experts across the globe,” a female voice broke through his thoughts as he slowly floated up, casting out his ears for any other problems in the vicinity, and Clark’s head whipped in the direction of the studio he could pinpoint the anchor in, vanishing from the road in a barely seen blur as he quickly cleared the Mumbai skyline, before making way towards Detroit, “STAR Labs has issued a statement, that whatever is happening in America is affecting the entire world, due to the ‘anomaly’, as it has been termed by Dr. Victor Stone, being extraterrestrial in origin. Dr. Prabhakar, what are your views on the matt-”

Dropping his focus on the anchor, Clark sped through the edges of the atmosphere like a man possessed, somehow knowing that whatever it was, it was the reason the Green Lantern had come to the Fortress in the first place. Focusing his hearing even more, Clark filtered the noises coming from the whole of the globe, listening to the sounds coming fro-

“Somebody save us please!”

A sound of roaring fire and begging screams came from below him, and Clark paused for a moment, conflict on his expression for just a moment, as at the same time, he heard the sound of thunder and supersonic movements from Detroit, as well as the way the land seemed to shake apart, screams and car horns blaring like a siren in his head. But then, resolve took its place and Clark sped down into what he saw was the state of Turkey, his eyes spotting the gas depot catching fire explosions and bursts of flame rocking the area as workers ran away haphazardly. Determination filling his thoughts and protective worry for Kara and everyone back home, Clark took a deep breath once again.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Need a hand?” she smirked beneath her hood as she broke through the ceiling and waved a hand, clearing away the dust and rubble around her and giving her a clear view of the visibly surprised and displeased Batman—as well as the monstrosity she had heard from two cities away. Eyeing the crumpled vault door as well as the broken pieces of his…shuriken on the floor, Kara gave Batman a glance and floated down. In front of her, the large, pasty white man looked down at the smoking points on his chest, before the bloodless wounds closed up and left blemishless skin behind. Cursing Harry for rubbing his theatrics and sarcasm off on her, kara continued with the same smirk, nodding slowly “Hmm, you definitely do. What is this?”

“He appeared from the marshes out of the city,” Batman answered, swiftly rising to his feet and taking a step back, and she mentally nodded approvingly at him knowing when to step out. “Enhanced strength, reflexes, and regeneration. But his cognitive and reasoning abilities have diminished greatly, if he had any at all, and all he does is recite the Solomon Grundy rhyme over and over again. Doesn’t seem to have an-”

“BURIED ON SUNDAY!” the said creature shouted, punching at her with his right arm, and in response, she hummed and banished him into the vault. The bent remains of the vault door offered no resistance to her attack and its momentum, yet, even though she made it look effortless, Kara was surprised by how much magic it took out of her to push the monster a dozen feet.

With a growl, it burst out of the vault, hand reared back for another wild punch, and she moved to her left, using just a fraction of her speed to evade it, feeling the power behind that fist as it rushed by her face. Creating a condensed fireball in her with a muttered incendio, she slammed it into his chest, wrinkling her nose as the smell of burnt flesh instantly filled her sensitive nose, and the giant roared as his other hand smacked into her within an eyeblink. Stumbling back from the blow, Kara’s eyebrows rose as she realized the true strength of the monster she was facing. It was definitely weaker than her, but not by so much that the surrounding city wouldn’t be destroyed in their bout.

Magic worked on it, but it possessed a remarkable resistance to it—which meant that it had magical origins, and while Harry had taught her a lot about magic, and how to use it its rawest, most potent form; Mysticism, as he called it…She was not sure enough about her own skill at it to attempt something that might very well blow up in her face.

And Gotham’s.

Unraveling enchantments and curses had a way to do that according to her brother.

And how the fuck was she supposed to go about defeating him anyway? Tire out its regeneration? Stun it into unconsciousness? Keep hammering it until it went down? Deciding just to make it on the way, Kara took a glance at Batman, and a moment later blurred into action. One moment, the caped vigilante was standing by the windows, his grappler and a batarang in hand, and the next, she was safely lowering him on a roof a couple of buildings away.

“Try to find out anything that will help put it down faster,” she said, watching his blank eyes stare up into her hood before she turned around and raised her hands above her head, raised the pieces of metal and debris littered on the road below her, grunting as she felt the weight of several hundred pounds of weight. Her eyes shifted to infrared, and she watched as the large heat signature rushed out, breaking through concrete and rebar as if it wasn’t even there, angry eyes flicking across the street before they found her, and the creature issued another roar of challenge. “Fast.”

She hurled every bit of scrap in her grip at Grundy—it was better than constantly calling it a creature or monster everytime, she decided. Molding the pavement around his feet like clay, she bound it to the street, and even before it was completed, Kara was on the move. In an instant, her fist lay across a surprised Grundy’s face, the creature barely able to process its captured feet as the blows rocked his whole body. The molded asphalt shattered as Grundy stumbled back from her punch, a growl leaving his throat—more rage than pain as Kara continued with a flurry of punches, Torquasm Rao’s stances and strikes landing true upon Grundy’s thoughtless defense as the giant just raised his arms before his chest.

Swaying by a haphazard swat of his large, brutish arm, Kara winkled her nose at the smell of rotting wood and water, her palm flying up and striking Grundy’s chin with enough force to stagger him. He swayed back, shaking his head like a wild animal as his arms seemed to lose much of the force behind their attacks, and Kara pressed her advantage. Her hands flew faster and faster, and with how large Grundy was, it wasn’t even difficult to avoid his wild, uncoordinated swings and counter with precise strikes.

The windows around them shattered as her punches gained strength, and Kara ducked underneath a swing, her arm raising for an uppercu–and then the world blurred as Grundy’s foot lashed out at her. Despite blocking it neatly, Kara was still back several feet, her soles digging into the road as her fingers curled back into fists, her ears catching Harry’s voice as he shouted the incantation for that fire spell–-which had destroyed a quarter of Las Vegas, along with the cheers for Superman as he saved another falling airplane.

She needed to end this fast.

Blitzing Grundy as she rocked back her fist, Kara delivered a punch strong enough to lift the monster off his feet, launching him into the Bank behind him. The walls shattered like glass before his heavy, airborne body, and Kara didn’t let him rest for even a moment, reaching just above his head before punting him down with both hands. Feeling his nose get crushed underneath her hands, Kara looked one as he smalled into the floor, the inertia and her blow making him skid along the floor, breaking walls and shattering glass he went out of the back wall and slammed through a department store’s racks.

“Apollina,” she heard Batman’s voice, still in the same spot as she had left him, and she turned her head towards the building, only to find a small speaker fixed upon the corner of the roof where she had dropped him, “There is a chemical factory four miles eastwards, and one of its storage rooms has several superacids in it. I will show the way and mark the chamber.” 

Rolling her eyes as she heard the whine of his ‘Batwing’ the next moment, Kara turned her eyes towards Grundy as the large man got up, shaking his head as if to clear the cobwebs. Sighing audibly, she shot forwards, prepared to give him some more.