Mother Box Out of Control

Heavy metal boots struck something hard.

With each step came the harsh scrape of a heavy weapon dragging across the floor.

"Hiss... hiss..."

An enormous, suffocating silhouette flickered in and out of the darkness within the rift.

The monster stood over three meters tall, its body encased in thick, spiked metal armor.

A pair of curved horns rose from its head. In one hand, it dragged a massive energy Battle Axe.

It had not even fully crossed over, yet the pressure radiating from its silhouette made it hard for Diana to breathe.

This was no Tyrant who simply crushed everything with brute force. This was pure malice, the very embodiment of destruction.

Steppenwolf.

The vanguard general of Apokolips.

"For Darkseid..."

The low, rasping whisper, like rough iron grinding against iron, exploded directly inside Diana's and Artemis's minds.

Artemis dropped to one knee and clutched her head in pain. Her Battle Axe clanged to the floor.

Diana did not retreat.

She pulled the short sword from the ground, then reached behind her with her left hand and took up the round shield inscribed with Divine Power runes.

Step by step, she walked toward the spatial rift.

Fighting pressure that could have crushed an ordinary person to pulp, Diana stopped less than five meters in front of it.

She gripped the edges of the shield with both hands, raised the heavy Aegis high, then slammed it into the ground!

Clang!

A deep metallic boom erupted through the chamber.

A visible ring of golden Divine Power burst outward from the shield and slammed into the rift.

"This is Amazon territory!" Diana raised her head and stared down the horned monster deep within the rift. Her battle cry thundered through the chamber. "Get out of my world!"

The golden Divine Power shock wave struck the rift's edge.

The force seemed to awaken Earth's spatial laws and their defenses.

The rift, torn open by force, began to tremble violently. Spatial currents along its edges slashed wildly at the silhouette.

Steppenwolf's silhouette roared in frustration and swung its Battle Axe, trying to hack the passage open.

But the rift closed faster than he could strike.

Bang.

The spatial rift sealed completely and vanished without a trace.

Gravity returned to normal. Floating stones and debris clattered to the floor.

Artemis rose, panting, her forehead slick with cold sweat.

"Is it over?" she asked.

"No." Diana stared into the air.

The rift had closed, but the Mother Box had not settled down.

The floating metal cube suddenly stopped spinning.

Then three dazzling beams shot from three of its faces at once.

The beams passed straight through the Divine Temple's thick rock and pierced Themyscira's magical barrier, shooting high into the sky.

Diana followed the beams with her eyes.

One shot straight up and stopped above Themyscira, forming a huge red coordinate marker.

The second bent east, pointing deep into the ocean toward Atlantis.

The third bent west, crossing vast stretches of ocean toward the human world.

They were transmitting their coordinates.

The Mother Box was calling the armies of Apokolips.

Diana went pale. The box on Themyscira had gone out of control, which meant something had to be wrong with the other two as well.

She raised her left hand, pressed the miniature computer on her wrist, and opened the Batcave's encrypted channel.

"Bruce! Answer me, now!" Diana spoke rapidly, urgency unmistakable in her voice. "Where is the humans' Mother Box? It's broadcasting its coordinates into space! Alien monsters are coming!"

Alfred's voice came through the communicator.

"Princess Diana, Master Bruce is flying back in the jet. He has a gravely injured visitor from another world with him."

Alfred paused, seemingly struggling to control his emotions.

"As for the Mother Box you mentioned... according to top-secret military data Wayne Enterprises' intelligence network just intercepted..."

"Half an hour ago, a supernatural energy explosion occurred at S.T.A.R. Labs outside Central City."

An underground bunker at S.T.A.R. Labs, outside Central City.

The air reeked of burning and concentrated disinfectant.

Red level-one alarm lights flashed frantically across the ceiling. Each sweep of red illuminated the broken glass and twisted metal wreckage strewn across the floor.

Behind the blast-resistant glass of the control room stood Dr. Silas Stone.

His hands gripped the edge of the Control Console, tears streaming down his face.

Dark red blood stained his white lab coat. His eyes were bloodshot, and the muscles around them twitched uncontrollably.

Ten meters away, his son Victor Stone lay on the operating table.

All that remained of him was a shattered right half of his head and a short section of torso with several broken ribs attached.

Where Victor's left eye had been was a horrifying cavity. Severed blood vessels and nerve fibers lay exposed beneath the surgical light.

The green line on the heart monitor had nearly flattened, and its shrill tone sounded without pause.

"Don't die. Please, don't die. Hold on, Victor." Silas's throat worked, his voice so hoarse it barely sounded like his own.

He spun around and strode toward the separate containment platform in the corner of the control room.

"Doctor! What are you doing?" His assistant Thomas scrambled up from the floor, stumbled over, and grabbed Silas around the waist.

Silas ignored Thomas. He kicked his assistant away and seized the thick lead panel on the outside of the containment box.

His arms strained as he tore off the panel, which weighed dozens of pounds.

The lead panel hit the floor with a dull thud.

Inside the containment box, a dark silver metal cube lay exposed to the air.

Complex geometric patterns unlike anything on Earth covered its surface. It gave off an eerie, high-pitched hum, while a red glow flickered within.

"Doctor, you can't touch that!" Thomas got up and grabbed Silas's arm again, shouting desperately. "It's an unknown alien artifact! The military sent it here for analysis under the highest security classification! It's extremely unstable. It caused the explosion just now!"

Silas backhanded Thomas across the face.

Thomas staggered into a cabinet of instruments.

"Have you seen what that monster Chu Men has done to Earth, or are you blind?" Silas pointed at the surveillance screen on the wall, where footage of the slaughter in Gotham's East End still played on a loop. "The military has gone into hiding. They don't even dare launch a nuclear missile. Earth is already in hell. Why would I care what other disaster this might bring?"

Silas's eyes were red as he turned toward the broken body on the operating table.

"He's all I have left. I have to save him."