Double Doomsday

Air roared as the Batwing settled onto its custom landing pad at the bottom of the Batcave.

A blast of hot air swept through the cavern, rippling the surface of the underground river.

The hatch sprang open.

Bruce strode down the ramp.

Hal Jordan lay across his shoulder, covered in blood.

Hal's green uniform was torn in several places. Medical gel had temporarily sealed the twelve-inch gash across his chest, but dark blood still seeped through.

The broken ends of his ribs were plainly visible.

Barry Allen arrived in a red blur and stopped beside the ramp.

He opened his mouth to ask what had happened, then caught a whiff of something and took an involuntary half-step back.

Arthur Curry followed Bruce out of the aircraft.

He carried a dark-gold Trident, his powerful muscles bare.

The smell clinging to him—a mix of dead deep-sea fish and cheap whiskey—spread quickly through the enclosed cavern.

"Good God, did you spend three days and nights in a fish market?" Barry asked, pinching his nose.

Arthur gave Barry's red suit a cold look and curled his lip. "Shut your mouth, kid. Seawater smells better than the doughnuts on you. When trouble comes, you'd better run faster than you did just now."

"The Medical Pod is ready." Alfred stepped out of the shadows, cutting off their argument.

He carried a tray neatly lined with high-dose cardiac stimulants, hemostats, and drugs to prevent rejection of alien tissue.

The old butler's face betrayed nothing, and his hands were perfectly steady.

Without a word, Bruce went straight to the medical area and laid Hal on the Medical Pod's metal bed.

A green light came on above the Batcave's dedicated access shaft.

The heavy lift descended smoothly.

Diana strode off it, dust and dried blood marking her red-and-blue armor. Magic-Breaker rested in the sheath at her waist.

Behind her came a metal-bodied figure over six feet tall.

Victor Stone.

The right half of his face was human, his expression blank with the numbness of someone who had lost everything.

His left half was clad in sleek silver armor, blue electricity flickering at its joints.

The red energy core in his chest gave off a low engine hum. His glowing left eye swept the dim cavern, scanning the weapons in every corner.

Barry sucked in a breath. His body tensed, and he leaped ten feet back to put some distance between them.

Arthur flicked his wrist, bringing the dark-gold Trident across his chest. Its points aimed straight at Victor as his muscles tightened for a fight.

"Lower your weapon." Diana raised a hand and pushed Arthur's Trident down. "His name is Victor Stone. He's the only survivor of the energy explosion at S.T.A.R. Labs. He's seen true despair, and he's here to join us."

Arthur snorted and slammed the Trident against the ground. Metal struck stone with a dull clang, sending chips flying.

"Half man, half machine. Technology always comes up with freaks like this." Arthur made no effort to hide the hostility in his eyes.

Bruce turned and studied Victor's mechanical body for two seconds.

He could tell at a glance that the metal belonged to no technology on Earth.

Bruce asked no questions. He turned toward the main console.

Inside the Medical Pod, Hal's eyes flew open.

He coughed violently, spraying mouthfuls of dark-red blood across the sterile sheets.

Struggling to sit halfway up, he raised his right hand.

His Green Lantern Ring gave off a feeble glow. Hairline cracks covered its surface, and its energy level was below three percent.

A beam of light projected a broken image into the air.

Against a backdrop of stars, countless Parademons blotted out the starlight.

They had hideous membranous wings, glowing red eyes, and high-energy weapons. Their numbers made the scalp crawl.

Farther out in the darkness, an interstellar warship too vast to measure hung motionless.

"Monsters... are gathering in space." Hal's voice was hoarse, each word thick with blood. "They're coming. The sector defenses have collapsed."

The image flickered twice and went dark.

Hal fell back onto the bed, gasping for air.

Diana walked to the main console and braced both hands on its cold metal surface.

"It isn't just space." She looked at Bruce, her face grim. "The seal on Themyscira broke. The Mother Box went out of control. Steppenwolf's projection tried to force its way through. I drove him back with the Aegis, but the rift had already opened. Apokolips's vanguard commander has caught Earth's scent."

Victor crossed to the holographic display on heavy mechanical legs.

His metal feet hit the floor with weighty clicks.

He said nothing. The red glow in his left eye flared.

A miniature Earth appeared above the display, glowing blue.

Three glaring red beams rose from its surface and shot straight into space.

"Coordinates locked," Victor said, his voice carrying a cold metallic resonance without a trace of emotion. "Location one: Themyscira. Location two: the depths of the Atlantic. Location three: Central City."

He raised his mechanical left arm and pointed at the projection of outer space.

"Coordinates for the Apokolips invasion fleet received. They already have the key to open the door. A spatial passage is forming."

Barry went deathly pale. His muscles trembled beneath his red suit.

Arthur stared at the red beam rising from deep in the Atlantic. His face darkened completely. That was Atlantis.

The countdown to an alien apocalypse was right in front of them all.

Arthur drove the Trident into the ground with a deafening crash that made Barry's eardrums ache.

"Then let them come." A cold smile crossed Arthur's rugged face, full of a sea king's defiance. "Doesn't Gotham have a madman? If alien scum want to claim this planet, let the Tyrant stand in their way. We can sit back and watch them tear each other apart."

He turned to Bruce, mockery in his voice.

"Didn't you say he could boil the sea? Darkseid's vanguard should cool him off. God or monster, an endless alien army will wear him down eventually. Once he falls, we move in and clean up what's left."

Barry's eyes lit up. Following that line of thought, he seemed to glimpse a way through.

Diana did not argue. She stared at the hologram, her brow deeply furrowed.

Victor whipped his head around, his mechanical red eye fixed on Arthur.

"You have no idea what we're facing."

Victor swept his left hand through the air in one sharp motion.

The model of Earth vanished from the main screen. Surveillance footage took its place.

Ten minutes earlier, he had hacked into the Iceberg Lounge's cameras and captured this footage.

In a lavish suite, Chu Men reclined on a leather sofa.

Harleen Quinzel lay across his lap, letting his fingers play with her blue-and-gold pigtails.

Harley's face held an obsessive, almost feverish look, like a docile pet.

In the lower right corner, rows of red data boxes changed at a frantic pace.

They showed the Mother Box's real-time scan results.

[Bio-electric Field strength: unable to calculate]

[Body density: unable to calculate]

[Energy level: data overflow]