asterous

chapter sixteen

chapter sixteen - failsafe
-> happy christmas! i apologize in advance for this chapter!

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MOUNT JUSTICE
OCTOBER 16th — 16:01 EDT

bruce wayne was dead.

one moment, he was there. sitting stoically in the SpaceBat™️, flying straight into the gaze of the giant celestial craft penetrating the earth's outermost atomsphere. and the next moment,

dead.

the team stared at the tv, watching as the people who had trained them, maybe even raised them, disintegrated into nothingness. nearly everyone was gone now. the justice league had failed.

an incoming transmission from zatara pulled dick's eyes from the live footage of space. only one ship remained—the jet-black alien craft ornamented with materials he'd never seen before. even from the far-off vantage point of the camera, the spaceship was moving toward earth at inhuman speeds.

"tornado-"

"all celestial defense has failed," red tornado cut zatara off. "organize terrestrial defense and initiate all measures."

"affirmative." zatara nodded. he hung there for a second longer, as if about to say more, but then cancelled the transmission.

"i must join the terrestrial defence," tornado stated, turning around to look at the six young members of the team. "we will protect earth until we can no longer. if we fail, the responsibility will fall on your shoulders."

red tornado headed for the exit, stopping dramatically right before the zeta tube. he turned around quickly and said, "prepare to be humanity's last hope."

recognized: red tornado-16

and those were them, tornado's last words. no spunk, no thought, just the command that a group of teenagers were to be humanity's only chance at survival.

they knew this would happen. they knew that, should the justice league ever fail, they would bear the weight of the world on their shoulders.

nobody expected the justice league to fail.

"we need a different strategy," kaldur spoke up, turning to the team. "taking them head-on isn't working. our earthern methods are ineffective."

dick nodded, pulling up his hologlove to check the global proliferation of the extraterrestrials. the very moment he turned it on, an emergency alert popped up on the screen.

CODE BLUE—6.83° N 139.44° E
BATMAN-02
HR: 0
SpO: 0
RR: 0

dick dismissed the message quickly. two more alerts popped up immediately after—a list of dead or missing justice league members and some sort of automatic testimonial will from bruce—but dick didn't even bother reading the titles before he dismissed both.

dick's fingers flew over the screen, pulling data from satellites, JLA files, and current newscasts. quickly melding together a map of the world and a diagram of all the alien ships that had descended on earth in the last few hours, dick created a globe that would show them exactly where the aliens were, exactly where the hotspots would be. 

he transferred the map onto the holographic screen in front of them, running his fingers through his hair anxiously. the globe spun slowly, red dots showing where each alien ship had landed. an indiscernable amount of glowing red masses in the united states, china, japan, and england. eighteen in paraguay, forty-two in australia. russia and greenland had six altogether. antarctica had none.

the arctic circle had one. dick recognized the coordinates, but couldn't put his finger on why.

"this is live," dick said, his gaze lingering on the red bloch that was previously romania.