The thing about fighting an alien invasion force led by a psychotic space princess with family issues is that it *really* helps if you have someone on your team who can fly, shoot lasers from his eyes, and has been personally trained by Superman in the art of "punching things that really deserve it."
Hadrian Kent—callsign Solaris, currently very angry Kryptonian teenager with extremely valid grievances—hit Governor Komand'r with enough force to create a sonic boom that rattled windows in three counties.
They crashed through the air like a meteor shower having a philosophical disagreement about gravity, trading blows that would have leveled buildings and were definitely going to show up on seismographs and cause awkward conversations with USGS scientists in the morning.
"You're *weak*," Komand'r snarled, her violet eyes blazing as she blocked his punch and countered with a starfire blast that would have vaporized a normal person. "Playing hero with these children. Pretending you're something more than a weapon someone created in a laboratory!"
"Yeah," Hadrian shot back, catching her wrist and spinning her into a throw that sent her careening into the wreckage of one of her own ships, "but at least I was created to *save* people. What's your excuse?"
He followed up with heat vision—twin beams of concentrated solar energy that turned the night sky red—but Komand'r rolled aside with liquid grace, her own starfire meeting his beams in an explosion of light and sound that was absolutely going to end up on YouTube within the hour despite all their attempts at secrecy.
"Brave words from someone who doesn't even know what he *is*," Komand'r said, launching herself at him with renewed fury. "Tell me, little Kryptonian—does it hurt, knowing you're just a copy? That everything you are, everything you'll ever be, was already done better by someone else?"
Hadrian's jaw tightened, but instead of rising to the bait, he did something Komand'r didn't expect.
He smirked.
"You know what the funny thing is?" he said, dodging her strike and countering with a combination that had absolutely been learned from watching Batman train Robin. "You're so focused on what I *am* that you're not paying attention to what I can *do*."
His emerald eyes flashed—but not with heat vision.
With something else.
"*Protego maxima,*" he whispered.
A shield of shimmering golden energy erupted between them, and Komand'r's next blast hit it and just... *stopped*. Not deflected. Not absorbed. Just stopped, like reality had decided to take a coffee break right at that exact spot.
Komand'r froze mid-attack, her expression shifting from confident superiority to genuine confusion in approximately half a second.
"What—"
"*Incendio!*"
Fire burst from Hadrian's outstretched hands—not heat vision, not Kryptonian energy manipulation, but actual honest-to-god *magic* fire, conjured flames that wrapped around Komand'r like a very angry and extremely hot blanket.
She shrieked, stumbling backward, beating at the flames with starfire.
"That's—that's not possible!" she sputtered, genuine shock cutting through her usual predatory confidence. "Kryptonians don't have magic! You're a *Kryptonian*! You can't—"
"Half Kryptonian," Hadrian corrected pleasantly, his emerald eyes sparkling with the kind of satisfaction that came from revealing your secret weapon at exactly the right moment. "The other half is considerably more complicated and involves a lot of my mom's side of the family having *very* strong opinions about proper spell pronunciation."
He spread his hands, and golden runes traced themselves in the air around him, glowing script that looked like someone had taken Latin, ancient Greek, and Kryptonian and mixed them in a blender until they achieved aesthetic perfection.
"*Ventus maximus!*"
A cyclone of wind erupted from his palms, catching Komand'r mid-recovery and sending her spinning like a very undignified purple and silver pinwheel.
She crashed into the ground hard enough to crater it, groaning, her carefully maintained composure completely shattered.
"You—you're a *mage*," she whispered, staring at him with something approaching actual fear. "Kryptonian *and* mage. That's—that shouldn't be *possible*. The genetic incompatibility alone should have—"
"Yeah, well," Hadrian said, landing gently beside her crater, "my parents don't really believe in 'impossible.' They're funny like that. Also, you *really* shouldn't have threatened my girlfriend. That was tactically inadvisable and personally offensive."
He raised one hand, gathering energy that flickered between red heat vision and golden magical fire, creating something that looked like it couldn't decide if it wanted to be science or sorcery and had decided to be both out of spite.
"Last chance," he said quietly. "Call off your ships. Leave Earth. Or find out exactly how creative I can get when someone makes me *angry*."
Komand'r stared at him for a long moment, her violet eyes calculating odds and not liking the math she was finding.
Then she smiled—but this time it was strained, forced, the smile of someone who'd just realized they'd dramatically miscalculated and were trying very hard to pretend they'd planned this all along.
"Well," she said, slowly getting to her feet with as much dignity as she could muster while covered in scorch marks and dirt, "this has been... educational. But you should know, little mage—I don't need to beat you personally. I just need to keep you *busy*."
She snapped her fingers.
And every single one of her remaining ships opened fire at once—not at Hadrian, but at Mount Justice itself.
At the mountain base where civilians could be sheltering.
Where his teammates had been fighting.
Where innocent people would die if he didn't—
Hadrian cursed in Kryptonian (which was apparently very creative based on Komand'r's expression) and launched himself toward the base, abandoning the fight to save lives.
Exactly as she'd planned.
"Predictable," Komand'r murmured, brushing herself off. "Heroes are always predictable."
She activated her personal transport, a shimmering field of violet energy that would get her back to her command ship before anyone could stop her.
Except someone did stop her.
Not with violence.
With a sword through her transport beacon.
Lena Luthor stood there, her silver armor gleaming in the firelight, her moonlight hair falling around her shoulders, her expression absolutely serene as she calmly withdrew her blade from the smoking remains of Komand'r's emergency exit.
"Going somewhere?" Lena asked, her voice carrying that perfect blend of aristocratic politeness and subtle threat that only a Luthor could truly master.
Komand'r stared at her—really *looked* at her—and for the first time, something other than confidence or rage crossed her face.
Uncertainty.
"That armor," she whispered. "That sword. I know those. I've seen Admiral Hokum's files. Joan of Arc. The Maid of Orléans. The girl who heard divine voices and led armies against impossible odds."
She took a step back.
"You're not just playing dress-up. You're *bonded*. The armor chose you."
"Yes," Lena said simply. "It did."
"But that means—" Komand'r's eyes widened. "That means you have *faith*. True faith. The kind that can turn aside my—"
"Your powers?" Lena interrupted gently. "Yes. It appears divine providence has opinions about alien invasions. And those opinions are... unfavorable to your continued presence here."
She raised her sword, and it *sang*—a clear, pure note that made everyone on the battlefield pause and look, that cut through the chaos like light through darkness.
"Surrender," Lena said, her voice carrying absolute certainty. "Or learn why saints are traditionally depicted with swords for a reason. Spoiler alert: it's not just for the aesthetic, though that certainly helps."
Komand'r looked at the sword. Looked at the girl holding it. Looked at the absolute conviction in those silver eyes.
And made a tactical retreat.
"Another time," she said, and before Lena could stop her, she *exploded* into violet energy—not a transport, but a personal starfire burst that launched her into the sky like a very angry firework.
She was gone in seconds, streaking toward her command ship which was already pulling back, already repositioning for—
*CRASH.*
Maya's vines—which had apparently grown to absolutely ridiculous proportions while everyone was distracted—wrapped around the fleeing command vessel like a very aggressive botanical hug and *squeezed*.
"OH NO YOU DON'T!" Maya's voice echoed across the battlefield, amplified somehow by her connection to every plant in a five-mile radius. "NOBODY THREATENS MY FRIENDS AND JUST *LEAVES*! THAT'S RUDE! WE HAVEN'T EVEN GOTTEN TO THE PART WHERE I MAKE YOU APOLOGIZE TO EVERY TREE YOU'VE EVER BURNED!"
The ship struggled, engines screaming, but the vines held. More sprouted—impossibly fast growth that shouldn't have been possible but was happening anyway because Maya had apparently decided that the laws of botanical growth were negotiable when she was *angry*.
"MAYA!" That was Alex's voice, his scarab armor's speakers amplifying it. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
"AGGRESSIVE GARDENING!" Maya shouted back. "IT'S THERAPEUTIC!"
---
In the chaos of holding down alien ships with weaponized plant life and trying very hard not to die, Maya had a moment of terrible, wonderful clarity.
She'd been so focused on not dying that she hadn't really *looked* at the other heroes. The ones in matching uniforms with the glowing gold symbols. The ones fighting with moves she *recognized* because she'd seen them before in—
"Zatanna?" she breathed, staring at the girl in the black and white uniform who was currently turning enemy weapons into rubber chickens because apparently that was a valid combat tactic.
The girl—*Enchantress*, her costume had a little name badge thing, which was very organized of her—turned, and their eyes met through the chaos.
"Maya?!" Zatanna's voice cracked with shock. "MAYA SULLIVAN? You're—you're *GAIA*?"
"YOU'RE ENCHANTRESS?" Maya shrieked back. "YOU'RE A SUPERHERO? SINCE WHEN?"
"SINCE FOREVER! YOU'RE THE ONE WHO JUST SHOWED UP IN NATURE GODDESS COSPLAY!"
"IT'S NOT COSPLAY, IT'S A LEGITIMATE MAGICAL ARTIFACT FROM—" Maya paused, her brain making connections at light speed. "Wait. If you're Enchantress, then that means—"
Her eyes swept the battlefield, her new nature-senses letting her feel the heartbeats and life-forces of everyone around her with crystal clarity, and suddenly names were snapping into place like puzzle pieces she'd been trying to force together wrong.
The warrior girl in black and silver, moving with Amazon grace and fighting with a lasso that glowed like captured sunlight—Donna. *Donna Troy*. The girl who always looked like she was about to either save the world or judge your essay formatting choices.
The blonde girl in Kryptonian colors, currently punching through a ship's hull like it was wet paper—Kara. *Kara Kent*.
The younger redheaded girl in armor that glowed like captured flames—Roslyn. *Roslyn Kent*. Hadrian's little sister who was *way* too smart and had definitely known about this whole superhero thing because of course she had.
The massive dark-haired guy in black and red who was literally bench-pressing a crashed ship—Neville. *Neville Kent*. Hadrian's twin brother who everyone thought was the quiet, sensible Kent sibling but apparently "sensible" included "part-time superhero who lifts alien spacecraft."
And the one fighting Komand'r with a combination of heat vision, super strength, and actual literal *magic*—
Maya's brain short-circuited so hard she almost dropped her connection to the vines.
Solaris.
One of the members of Justice League's younger team.
The guy she'd been reading fanfiction about for *three months*.
Was.
*Hadrian.*
*HADRIAN KENT.*
The farmboy from Kansas with the impossibly green eyes and the smile that made her forget how to form coherent sentences.
The guy she'd had a crush on since approximately five minutes after meeting him.
The guy who'd helped her with calculus and had never once made fun of her for needing five attempts to parallel park.
Was a *superhero*.
Was THE *superhero*.
Was currently flying through the air shooting magic fire at an evil space princess while his cape billowed dramatically and he looked like every romance novel cover ever printed had formed a committee and decided to create the perfect male specimen.
"Oh my *god*," Maya whispered, and her vines went momentarily slack because her brain was too busy having a complete existential crisis to properly coordinate plant-based warfare. "OH MY *GOD*. I've been writing *fanfiction* about my *lab partner*."
"MAYA!" That was Sarah—*Nine-Tail*, her costume said, and YES that was absolutely Sarah because nobody else had that particularly anxious quality to their voice even when fighting aliens. "THE VINES! FOCUS!"
"RIGHT! YES! VINES!" Maya snapped back to attention, her plants tightening around the ship again. "SORRY! HAVING A MOMENT OF EXISTENTIAL HORROR!"
But now that she'd seen it, she couldn't *unsee* it.
The way Troia—*Donna*—fought with that particular blend of grace and controlled aggression that was exactly like how she moved through crowds in the cafeteria.
The way Supergirl—*Kara*—grinned when she punched things, that same slightly manic enthusiasm she had when talking about literally anything she enjoyed.
The way Solstice—*Roslyn*—coordinated the team's movements with the same organizational skills she used to manage the school paper.
The way Sentinel—*Neville*—protected his teammates with the same quiet, unwavering loyalty he showed when his siblings needed backup.
And the way Solaris—*Hadrian*—moved, fought, *existed* with that same effortless confidence that had made her heart do stupid fluttery things every time he smiled at her in physics class.
"This is fine," Maya said to herself, her voice climbing toward hysteria. "This is totally fine. I am absolutely not having a complete breakdown about the fact that my entire social circle is apparently made of superheroes and nobody thought to *mention* this during any of our study sessions."
"GAIA!" That was Alex—*Gold Scarab*, and YES of course it was Alex because nobody else could pull off 'arrogant genius with ancient alien technology' quite like Alexander Luthor. "STATUS REPORT!"
"STATUS: HAVING A CRISIS!" Maya shouted back. "SECONDARY STATUS: ALSO CURRENTLY STRANGLING A SPACESHIP WITH AGGRESSIVE BOTANICALS!"
"THOSE ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE ACTIVITIES!" Alex replied, which was probably the most Alex thing possible.
Meanwhile, Zatanna had clearly had the same revelation Maya had, because she was staring at her friends with dawning horror.
"Wait," she said slowly, her magic flickering as her concentration wavered. "If Maya is Gaia, and that means the others are—"
She pointed at Raj, who was currently raining golden arrows on enemy ships with the focused intensity of someone who'd discovered violence was surprisingly therapeutic for academic stress.
"You're—you're *RAJ*! RAJ KULKARNI! You wrote a fifteen-page essay on the cultural significance of the Mahabharata last week!"
"I CONTAIN MULTITUDES!" Raj shouted back, his voice cracking. "ALSO I'VE DECIDED TO GO BY ASTRAJA! AND ALSO I'M HAVING THE WORST AND BEST DAY OF MY LIFE SIMULTANEOUSLY! THE ARMOR IS YELLING AT ME ABOUT TACTICAL POSITIONING!"
Zatanna spun toward Ethan, who was currently using an enemy soldier as an improvised battering ram against another enemy soldier because the Nemean Lion's pelt had given him *zero* chill about appropriate levels of force.
"You're—oh my god, you're ETHAN! You helped Maya get pictures of Hadrian shirtless in exchange for some tickets to Hamilton!"
"HEY!" Maya protested. "I AM VERY NORMAL ABOUT HADRIAN!"
"YOU HAVE A PINTEREST BOARD!" Zatanna shot back.
"EVERYONE HAS PINTEREST BOARDS!"
Sarah—*Nine-Tail*—was doing that thing where her fox ears flattened against her head because she was embarrassed and also currently dodging energy blasts, which was very on-brand for Sarah honestly.
"Can we PLEASE have this conversation when we're NOT BEING SHOT AT?" she yelled, her tail puffing out to approximately three times its normal size.
Lena—*Aurora*, apparently, which was very fitting given the whole 'literal moonlight hair' situation—had that expression that suggested she was mentally filing this entire disaster for future blackmail purposes.
"I'm adding this to my 'reasons why secret identities are logistically important' presentation," she announced to nobody in particular. "This is exactly why we should have protocols."
"YOUR BROTHER GAVE US MAGICAL WEAPONS FROM YOUR BASEMENT!" Raj shouted at her. "I DON'T THINK PROTOCOLS WERE SUPER HIGH ON HIS PRIORITY LIST!"
"Fair point!" Lena conceded, deflecting an energy blast with her sword. "I'll add that to the presentation too!"
And through it all, Hadrian—*Solaris*, oh god, SOLARIS*—was coordinating the defense, his voice calm and steady even as he juggled flying, fighting, and apparently being the most attractive person Maya had ever seen in her entire life.
"Supergirl, I need you on that ship's engine!"
"*Shit*," Maya whispered to herself. "That's why you guys disappear so often. Because they're *superheroes*. They're *all* superheroes. They've been fighting crime together while I've been—"
"—writing fanfiction about him," Zatanna finished, having clearly used her super hearing or magical eavesdropping or possibly just basic deductive reasoning. "Yeah. We're definitely talking about this later."
"We are NEVER talking about this," Maya hissed back.
"Oh, we are ABSOLUTELY talking about this."
"I will make plants eat you."
"You wouldn't dare."
"Try me. I have aggressive botanical support now."
Their argument was interrupted by a massive explosion as one of the ships—the one Maya's vines had been strangling—finally gave up and crashed, its crew scrambling out and immediately being rounded up by a combination of Young Justice efficiency and Maya's vines helpfully wrapping them in organic zip-ties.
"SHIP DOWN!" Kid Flash announced, appearing in a yellow blur that made Maya's eyes hurt. "THAT'S SIX SHIPS NEUTRALIZED! ARE WE KEEPING SCORE? BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE WE SHOULD BE KEEPING SCORE!"
"THIS ISN'T A GAME, WEST!" Robin shouted from somewhere.
"EVERYTHING'S A GAME IF YOU'RE BRAVE ENOUGH!"
And standing in the center of the battlefield, his armor gleaming gold and silver, his bow drawn, Raj started laughing—the slightly manic laughter of someone who'd just survived something impossible and hadn't quite processed it yet.
"WE'RE WINNING!" he shouted, his voice full of disbelief and joy and terror all mixed together. "WE'RE ACTUALLY WINNING! WE SHOWED UP WITH BORROWED MAGICAL WEAPONS AND ZERO TRAINING AND WE'RE *WINNING*!"
"DON'T JINX IT!" Sarah yelled, her fox senses clearly screaming danger because she grabbed Alex and yanked him aside right before an energy blast would have taken his head off.
"THANK YOU!" Alex gasped.
"YOU'RE WELCOME! ALSO YOUR SISTER IS TERRIFYING!"
"I KNOW!"
Ethan planted himself in front of a group of Zarn's soldiers who looked like they were considering surrender, and his leonine helmet did that thing where the mane flared dramatically.
"SURRENDER!" he roared, and the soldiers took one look at the seven-foot-tall golden lion-man and decided that yes, actually, surrender sounded fantastic right about now.
"I LOVE THIS ARMOR!" Ethan announced. "BEST DAY EVER!"
"YOU SAID THAT RIGHT BEFORE YOU GOT HIT WITH AN ENERGY BLAST!" Maya reminded him.
"STILL COUNTS!"
Lena was herding captured soldiers with the kind of calm efficiency that suggested she'd done this before, which—given that she was a *Luthor*—probably shouldn't have been surprising but somehow still was.
"Please form an orderly line," she was telling them, her voice carrying that aristocratic authority that made people automatically obey. "Surrender is the sensible option. Resist and discover why Joan of Arc is traditionally depicted with a sword. Your choice."
The soldiers chose surrender. Emphatically.
And through it all, Maya kept stealing glances at Hadrian—at *Solaris*—watching him coordinate the defense with that same focused intensity he used when explaining physics concepts.
Except now he was flying.
And shooting laser beams.
And looked like he'd stepped out of her extremely detailed and definitely-not-shared-with-anyone daydreams.
"This is fine," she muttered. "I am fine. Everything is fine. I am absolutely not having a complete crisis about the fact that I've been harboring an inadvisable crush on SUPERMAN'S SON."
"Technically he's the son of both Superman and Scarlett," Zatanna corrected helpfully.
"NOT HELPING, Z!"
"Just saying, if you're going to have a crisis, have an accurate crisis!"
"I WILL PLANT YOU IN A POT!"
"YOU ALREADY THREATENED THAT!"
"I'M EXPANDING MY THREAT REPERTOIRE!"
But despite the chaos, despite the revelations, despite the fact that her entire worldview had just been fundamentally reorganized in the middle of an alien invasion...
They were winning.
Six teenagers with borrowed legendary weapons and zero training were somehow, impossibly, holding the line against an alien invasion force.
And Maya had never been more terrified or more exhilarated in her entire life.
"Okay," she said, taking a deep breath and refocusing on her vines. "Okay. We can process the identity crisis later. Right now, we've got aliens to stop and—"
A massive energy signature flared above them.
Komand'r's command ship, damaged but not defeated, was pulling back but charging weapons for one final devastating strike.
"Oh no," Zatanna whispered.
"OH NO!" Maya agreed emphatically.
"EVERYONE DOWN!" Hadrian's voice cut across the battlefield, amplified by Kryptonian lung capacity and genuine panic.
The ship fired.
And the world went white.
—
The energy blast from Komand'r's command ship hit like the wrath of a very angry and highly militarized god, turning the night sky into something that belonged in apocalypse documentaries and "how did we survive that" survivor testimonials.
The impact cratered the ground, sent shockwaves rippling outward that rattled windows in Happy Harbor proper, and created the kind of explosion that would definitely require awkward explanations to local authorities and possibly federal agencies with acronyms nobody could pronounce.
Maya's vines disintegrated in the blast wave, her connection to them severing with a psychic *snap* that made her stumble. Sarah's enhanced hearing was screaming danger signals so loud she actually whimpered and pressed her fox ears flat against her head. Raj's armor was flashing warning lights that would have been helpful if he'd had any idea what they meant beyond "you are about to have a very bad time."
Ethan planted himself in front of the others and *tanked* the shockwave—literally just stood there like a golden wall and let physics do its worst, the Nemean Lion's pelt absorbing impact that would have turned a normal person into a very unfortunate red mist.
"IS EVERYONE ALIVE?" he roared, his voice barely audible over the ringing in everyone's ears.
"DEFINE ALIVE!" Raj shouted back, his armor's shields flickering like a dying neon sign.
Lena had thrown up a defensive stance with her sword, and somehow—*somehow*—the blade had absorbed part of the blast, golden light streaming from its edge like Joan of Arc herself had decided physics was negotiable when divine protection was involved.
Alex's scarab was screaming damage reports and tactical assessments so fast he couldn't process them, his HUD a mess of red warning indicators that basically translated to "you should probably be dead right now."
Young Justice hadn't fared much better. Kid Flash had vibrated through the worst of the blast but was looking distinctly wobbly. Robin had used smoke pellets and grappling hooks to create improvised cover. Superboy had just crossed his arms and glared at the explosion like it had personally offended him.
Koriand'r was on the ground, one arm wrapped around her ribs, her starfire flickering weakly. She'd tried to shield the others and had taken more damage than she'd admit.
And Komand'r's ship was pulling back, engines screaming, already moving to jump to hyperspace and get the hell out before—
Before two figures dropped out of the sky like divine intervention wearing capes and having very strong opinions about people threatening their children.
Superman hit the battlefield with enough force to create a second crater, his red cape billowing behind him like a banner declaring "you have made a *terrible* mistake," his blue eyes blazing with the kind of paternal fury that transcended species and cultural boundaries.
Beside him, Scarlett—*Lilly Kent née Lane*—landed with considerably more grace, her crimson and gold armor gleaming in the firelight, magical energy crackling around her hands like she was about to demonstrate exactly why being Superman's wife and one of Earth's most powerful sorceresses was a combination that made sensible villains reconsider their life choices.
Her auburn hair was pulled back in a practical style, but there was nothing practical about the *fury* radiating from her. Her emerald green eyes—usually warm and understanding—were currently channeling every angry parent in history and several specific magical traditions that involved smiting.
"*Nobody*," she said, her voice carrying across the battlefield with the kind of amplification that suggested magic and maternal rage made excellent team-ups, "*hurts* my children."
She raised both hands, and golden runes blazed to life around her, intricate spell-work that made the air itself taste like honey and lightning.
"*Protego totalum! Repello inimicum! Fianto duri!*"
A shield erupted across the entire battlefield—not just a barrier, but a *dome*, golden and shimmering, covering Young Justice and the six teenagers in borrowed artifacts like someone had dropped a forcefield designed by someone who understood both defense and dramatic flair.
Komand'r's ship fired again, and the beam hit the shield and just... *stopped*. Didn't deflect, didn't absorb. Just stopped, like the universe had hit pause on that particular photon's journey.
Superman was already moving, faster than thought, closing the distance to the ship in the time it took most people to blink.
He didn't punch it.
He caught it.
His hands closed around the vessel's hull, and he *stopped* its momentum, engines screaming in protest as Kryptonian muscle said "no" to several million tons of metal trying to escape velocity.
"Going somewhere?" Superman's voice carried even through the vacuum, amplified by the sheer force of his presence.
Inside the ship, alarms were blaring, crew members were experiencing the kind of panic that came from realizing Superman was personally handling your spacecraft, and Komand'r was making rapid calculations about whether her pride was worth fighting the most powerful being on the planet.
The math was not in her favor.
"*Release us*," she hissed through the comm, her voice tight with barely controlled rage and growing concern, "or I will—"
"You'll *what*?"
That wasn't Superman's voice.
That was Scarlett's.
And she was *floating* beside the ship now, one hand pressed against its hull, runes spreading across the metal like living circuitry.
"You come to *my* planet," she said, her voice conversational but carrying an edge that could cut diamonds, "attack *my* children, threaten *my* children, and you think you get to make demands?"
The runes blazed brighter.
"*Immobulus totalus.*"
The ship's engines died.
Not sputtered, not failed—*died*, every system simultaneously deciding that operating was optional and shutting down was preferable to whatever Scarlett Lane-Kent was about to do to them.
The vessel began dropping, and Superman adjusted his grip with practiced ease, lowering it to the ground like a parent putting a particularly troublesome child in time-out.
"You have exactly ten seconds," he said, his voice carrying absolute authority, "to explain why I shouldn't dismantle this ship bolt by bolt and mail the pieces back to your sister as a very pointed diplomatic statement."
Through the viewport, Komand'r was visible—still beautiful, still regal, but now looking significantly less confident about her immediate future.
"This isn't over," she said, though her voice lacked its earlier conviction.
"Oh honey," Scarlett said, and somehow that made it worse, "it absolutely is."
---
On the ground, a group of teenagers with superpowers were having what could generously be called "processing time" and more accurately described as "complete mental shutdown."
"That's Superman," Maya whispered, staring at the Man of Steel like he'd just stepped out of a fever dream involving excellent posture and perfect hair. "That's actual Superman. And he just—he just *caught* a spaceship. With his hands. Just grabbed it like it was a really aggressive football."
"AND THAT'S SCARLETT!" Zatanna was practically vibrating with excitement and terror in equal measure. "MY AUNT! WHO I LOVE! WHO JUST SHUT DOWN AN ALIEN WARSHIP WITH A SPELL LIKE SHE WAS CLOSING A BROWSER TAB!"
"They're here," Raj said faintly, his armor's HUD probably showing him power readings that were making his brain hurt. "The adults are here. We're saved. Or possibly in so much trouble we've invented new categories of trouble. Maybe both. Probably both."
Sarah's fox ears were swiveling frantically, picking up at least seventeen different heartbeats that were all some variation of "oh thank god" and "we are so grounded."
Ethan just slumped, his golden armor suddenly feeling very, very heavy. "I'm not dead," he said wonderingly. "I really thought I was going to die. Like, sixty percent sure. Seventy percent. Maybe seventy-five."
"We all thought we were going to die," Lena said, though her voice was remarkably steady for someone who'd just survived orbital bombardment through the power of medieval sainthood and superior breeding. "But we didn't. Which is nice."
"Very nice," Alex agreed, his scarab armor finally quieting down now that immediate death was no longer the statistical favorite outcome.
Across the battlefield, Young Justice was having their own moment of relief and lingering adrenaline.
"Mom's here," Hadrian said, and he sounded *young* suddenly—not Solaris the Young Justice nember, but Hadrian Kent, sixteen-year-old who'd just fought an alien invasion and was very, very happy to see his parents.
"They always show up," Neville muttered, though there was affection in his voice. "Right at the last second. Very dramatic timing."
"It's genetic," Roslyn added, looking like she wanted to simultaneously hug her parents and hide from them because they'd just witnessed her fighting aliens with magical fire and there were going to be *questions*.
Kara was openly grinning, relief written across her face. "Clark has the best entrances. Every time. It's like he practices."
Donna was checking her team, making sure everyone was intact, her training kicking in even as her body was screaming for rest. "Everyone okay? Actually okay, not 'I'm fine' when you're bleeding from places you shouldn't be bleeding from?"
"Mostly fine," Kid Flash said, though he was swaying slightly. "Possibly experiencing mild shock. Definitely experiencing major relief. Also hunger. The adrenaline crash is going to require so many cheeseburgers you guys have no idea."
Superboy was quiet, watching Superman handle the alien ship with the kind of intensity that suggested complicated feelings about genetic templates and family dynamics.
Miss Martian floated down beside Koriand'r, her green hands glowing with healing energy. "You took a bad hit," she said gently.
"I have taken worse," Kori replied, though she winced. "But thank you, Miss Martian. Your concern is... appreciated."
Robin landed beside them with acrobatic flair, because even after an alien invasion he couldn't help but make an entrance. "So," he said conversationally, "anyone else think we should probably get our stories straight before we have to explain this to the League? Because I'm pretty sure 'those guys borrowed magical artifacts from the Luthor family's secret basement' is going to require some creative phrasing."
"We can workshop it," Zatanna offered. "Maybe emphasize the 'saving the world' part and minimize the 'completely unauthorized use of legendary weapons' part?"
"That's like ninety percent of what happened!" Maya protested.
"Which is why we emphasize the other ten percent!"
---
Hey fellow fanfic enthusiasts!
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