Wednesday. Twenty-three days since the Omnitrix. Silas was at his desk doing AP History when the emergency broadcast alert came through on every device in the apartment simultaneously.
His phone. His laptop. The television in the living room coming to life on its own.
APOKOLIPS INCURSION DETECTED. METROPOLITAN AREA. ALL CIVILIANS SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY.
He was at the living room window in four seconds.
The sky over downtown Metropolis was wrong. Not dark, not stormy. Wrong in a way that had nothing to do with weather. A deep violet bruise spreading across the atmosphere above the financial district, and within it the specific geometric shapes Silas had seen in news footage and hoped he'd never see from a window.
Boom Tubes. Three of them, opening in sequence. Each one a tear in space that disgorged Parademons into the Metropolis skyline. Not a probe. Not a supply run. Maybe forty, maybe fifty Parademons emerging from three entry points, moving in formation toward the city center.
His mother's bedroom door opened. Denise came out already in her coat, hospital bag over her shoulder.
"Metropolis General called. All available staff," Denise said.
"I know. I saw the alert," Silas said.
"You stay inside," Denise said.
She said it the way she said things she knew he might not follow. Not a request. A statement she was making so that if he didn't, he'd have to choose not to consciously.
"I'll stay inside," Silas said.
She looked at him for one more second. Then she was out the door.
Silas went back to the window.
....
Superman arrived eleven seconds after the first Boom Tube opened.
The news had been covering the Apokolips energy signature before the incursion began. apparently, the detection systems had given 40 seconds' warning. and the first camera caught Superman coming out of the northeast at an angle that suggested he'd been somewhere over the Atlantic when the alert triggered.
He hit the lead Parademon formation at full speed and the formation broke.
It was not like watching a fight. It was like watching a force of nature that had been given a direction. The Parademons were not small. Each one was the size of a large man, armored, equipped with Apokolips weapons. Against almost anything they would have been overwhelming. Superman moved through them like they were standing still.
'He's not fighting them. He's taking apart the formation. He knows exactly where each one needs to go to collapse the whole structure.'
Silas watched and tried to understand what he was seeing at a tactical level. Superman was moving in patterns, not straight lines. Every impact redirected a Parademon into the path of two others. He was using their own formation against them, patient and methodical.
'Fifteen years of doing this. That's what fifteen years looks like.'
....
Silas had switched to the feed with the best aerial coverage by the time the rest of the League arrived.
Wonder Woman came from the west. She hit the second Boom Tube while it was still cycling and drove her sword into the geometric structure of the opening itself. The Tube collapsed inward. The news anchors went silent for five full seconds before anyone spoke.
"She closed the Boom Tube," Silas said, to nobody.
The Flash cleared the street-level chaos. Parademons that had reached ground were being handled at a speed the cameras could barely track. A red streak between buildings, a Parademon suddenly on the ground, another, another. Civilians running on the same street apparently unaware of how close they'd been to something that should have killed them, because the Flash had already been there.
'He's not fighting. He's getting people out. He trusts the others to handle the Parademons. That's knowing your role.'
Green Lantern, John Stewart, constructed a containment barrier around the third Boom Tube before it fully opened. A geometric cage of green light that compressed the Tube's geometry until it folded shut. He did it with the focused expression of someone solving an engineering problem, which was apparently what it was.
Batman was not visible on any of the aerial feeds, which meant he was at ground level and intended to stay invisible. You didn't see Batman. You saw what happened after Batman had been somewhere.
Hawkgirl was in the air with twelve Parademons that had broken toward the harbor. Wings spread, the Nth metal mace moving in arcs the cameras couldn't track cleanly. Not redirecting. Not containing. Working through them with a directness that was almost personal.
'She's angry. That's what it looks like when someone is very good at something and also angry about having to do it.'
Martian Manhunter phased through the underside of a Parademon formation and emerged from above it simultaneously. Not physically possible. Demonstrably happening. The formation scattered.
The harbor cameras couldn't follow what Aquaman was doing below the surface but the water itself was doing things water didn't normally do, and whatever it was, it was going the right direction.
....
He opened his notebook.
Not Omnitrix documentation. League documentation. The same systematic approach he'd applied to his own transformations, applied to seven people operating at full capacity against something that would have levelled a city block without them.
*Superman: formation disruption. Not straight-line combat. Uses their momentum and spacing. Does not fight. Redirects. Their own formation did half the work.*
*Wonder Woman: direct structural intervention. She didn't fight the Boom Tube. She unmade it. His is force. Hers is precision. Different thing entirely.*
*Flash: civilians first, always. He trusts the others to handle the Parademons. That's not cowardice, that's knowing your role in the team.*
*Green Lantern: engineering. The ring builds solutions. He didn't overpower the Boom Tube. He out-thought it.*
*Hawkgirl: direct and aggressive. The Parademons avoid her weapon. She's the one you send when you want something stopped completely.*
He looked at what he'd written. Added:
*Seven people, seven completely different approaches. They don't operate as a single unit. They operate as seven distinct philosophies that trust each other enough not to get in each other's way. That coordination looks invisible because it's been built over years. You can't shortcut that.*
'Twenty-three days. Seven named forms. Four operations. You are not this. Not yet. Know that every time.'
....
The last Parademon was contained at 9:47 PM. Fourteen minutes after the first Boom Tube opened.
Silas watched the post-incident coverage. Superman's statement on the City Hall steps was brief. Calm. Specific. No unnecessary words. The kind of statement you gave when you'd been doing something long enough that the drama had worn off.
The Flash had apparently stopped for coffee and was giving an impromptu interview to a reporter who'd intercepted him outside the shop. He was laughing about something. The reporter was laughing too.
No civilian fatalities. Forty-three Parademons contained. Three blocks of financial district damage.
Fourteen minutes. Fifty Parademons. Zero deaths.
'That's what they built together. Fourteen minutes.'
His phone buzzed. Devon.
"yo you good," Devon texted.
"yeah watched from the window. you?" Silas typed.
"hid under my bed like a person with self-preservation instincts. also the flash was on my street, apparently?? my neighbor said he waved at her kid," Devon replied.
"That tracks," Silas typed.
"bro waved at a random kid while handling a parademon incursion," Devon sent.
"That's kind of the whole point of him though," Silas typed.
"...yeah, okay fair. wild wednesday," Devon sent.
"wild wednesday," Silas agreed.
He put the phone down. He'd stayed inside. Right call. This was not his level yet, and he'd known it and made the right decision without having to argue himself into it. That felt like its own kind of progress.
'Not yet. But you're building. Every operation. Every form. Every time you make the right call.'
He turned off the news. Went back to his desk. AP History essay, due Friday. The Justice League had just handled a Parademon incursion in fourteen minutes. Both things required his attention.
'History essay. Then sleep. Then whatever Thursday decides to be.'
He picked up his pen and started writing.