Justice League_The Gauntlet

by Simonson, Louise

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the Author

  “Remember! We don’t act until we know what we’re up against!”

  Wonder Woman brushed her long, dark, wind-blown hair from her eyes and grimaced, glancing over toward the dome of the National Gallery of Art, where Green Lantern and Hawkgirl perched, surveying the Washington, D.C., skyline. GL is giving orders as usual, Wonder Woman thought, acting like the rest of us are rank amateurs.

  Their silhouettes were clear against the night sky, and she saw Hawkgirl ruffle her wing feathers in a half-insulted, half-amused gesture. “To do otherwise might make matters worse, Green Lantern. You don’t need to teach me my business.”

  Through the communication device worn in her ear, Wonder Woman could tell that Hawkgirl’s voice was chiding. Hawkgirl had been a top cop on her homeworld, Thanagar. She knew what she was doing.

  Wonder Woman could also hear the murmuring voices of Superman, Batman, and Martian Manhunter. They were at the end of the long park known as the Mall, standing atop the Capitol Building, discussing the Justice League’s options.

  Batman had picked up vague rumors of a planned attack on Washington, which he had traced back to a member of Intergang, one of the human thugs allied with the other-dimensional ruler of the New Gods, Darkseid. Batman wasn’t sure—none of them were sure—what was going to happen next. Or if anything would happen. But the members of the Justice League planned to counter any threat to the safety and security of the United States and its citizens.

  From atop the roof of the cylindrical Hirshhorn Museum, Wonder Woman scanned the heavens.

  The Flash crouched beside her, polishing off his first sizzling slice of ham, sausage, and pepperoni pizza, then reaching into the box for a second slice. The red-suited superspeedster, who expended enormous amounts of energy when he ran, had to refuel constantly.

  He bit into the gooey mound and yelped. “Hot! Hot! Yikes!” Then he glanced up at Wonder Woman. “Want some?”

  “Hush!” Wonder Woman hissed. “I thought I saw something.”

  “Don’t get your tiara in a twist, your royal highness!” Flash mumbled sarcastically, his mouth full. “With all humility, Princess Diana, you don’t know what you’re missing!”

  I sounded like my mother in one of her stressed-out moods, Wonder Woman thought. What’s wrong with me?

  She stared intently into the night sky. Her people believed the stars held answers. She could use some now.

  What am I doing here? she asked herself. Exiled forever from the Amazons and Themyscira, our secret island home?

  She told herself it was her own choice to live here in what the Amazons called Man’s World. She truly believed that the larger Earth needed her special abilities. And yet, away from the miraculous island of immortal warrior women and their queen, her mother . . . without a place among her people, who was she?

  As a child on Themyscira, Diana had once tried to hold water in the cupped palms of her hands. But no matter how tightly she pressed her fingers together, the water trickled away.

  She was grown now, but she was clutching just as tightly to her Amazon identity, she thought. And, like the water, she felt it slipping through her fingers.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Wonder Woman spotted a wavering shimmer in the starlight.

  “There it is again! What is it?” She flew a few feet into the air, straining to get a closer look.

  Flash grabbed the golden lasso that hung from a loop at her waist. “Wonder Woman! Wait!” he said.

  She turned in midair and hissed. “Let go! There’s something there!”

  “Maybe to your goddess-like eyes, Princess, but I can’t see—”

  “Obviously,” she whispered. “You see as humans see. But Darkseid is one of the New Gods and has the tricks of a god. And we Amazons deal with gods on a regular basis! Now let go!”

  She jerked free and whirled up into the air.

  “Ever hear of teamwork?” Flash began, but she was already gone. “Might as well save my breath to cool my pizza,” he muttered to himself.

  I know the Flash thinks I can be a royal pain, Wonder Woman thought as she flew up toward the faint shimmer. I guess I can, but— Oh, how can I expect him to understand when I don’t understand myself? This isn’t what we planned, but how else can I be sure?

  Wonder Woman heard Superman speaking over the communicator. “Diana, what—?” His voice dissolved in a crackle of static.

  “Superman?” she said. But he didn’t seem to be able to hear her either.

  Whatever is up there is interfering with League communications equipment, Wonder Woman thought. I wonder—

  Then suddenly she slammed into an object that should not have been there.

  For an instant it flickered into almost-visibility—an armored, brick-colored creature with rudimentary wings, holding a gleaming bomb-shaped canister as long as her arm. Its demonic, helmeted face snarled rage through inch-long fangs.

  A jumble of monster voices surrounded her.

  “We’re cloaked!”

  “How’d she see us?”

  “Who cares! Destroy her—and get on with the mission!”

  “Deliver the cylinder—”

  Something struck her from behind, and for an instant, she was immobilized. Then she fell. Above her, the sky looked empty. But Wonder Woman had seen the monster. Smelled it. Knew its size and the faint sounds of its flight.

  She fought off the paralysis, righted herself, and snatched her golden lasso from its catch at her waist. She whirled the rope overhead and flung it toward the spot where she expected the invisible monster to be.

  The loop settled—and the rope went taut.

  “Got you!” she muttered.

  Energy blasts flew at her, apparently out of thin air. She held the rope tight with one hand and deflected the blasts with the bracelet on her other wrist. She heard muffled oaths and several screams as the ricocheting energy struck her assailants.

  Serves them right! she thought grimly.

  Suddenly, from all sides, invisible clawed hands delivered a barrage of blows. The air reeked of monster breath.

  There are dozens of them, she thought.

  A blast of heat vision scythed upward from below, and a monster voice screamed, “It’s Superman!”

  Superman! Wonder Woman thought. Her struggle had taken mere seconds, but it had alarmed the League. They knew she was in trouble, even if they couldn’t see the cause.

  Wonder Woman jerked the rope with all her strength, pulling the invisible monster toward her.

  He slammed into her. And again she saw him. When I’m this close, she reasoned, I must be inside the invisibility field with him.

  The monster clutched the cylinder protectively. “Sorry, Charlie!” she growled, and wrenched it from the monster’s hands.

  “She has the Brain Binder!” a voice cried. “Get it!”

  Another moaned, “No time! Superman’s almost on us!”

  A roaring vortex, appearing out of nowhere, encompassed them. “Desaad has sent a Boom Tube!” a gargoyle voice shouted. “Take her with us, back to Apokolips!” />
  Wonder Woman could barely hear their voices over the roar that surrounded her. Invisible hands dragged her toward the vortex.

  “We failed to deploy the Brain Binder!”

  “But others will succeed!”

  “Not a chance!” Wonder Woman yelled. Fighting the inexorable pull of the Boom Tube, she wrenched her arms free and hurled the canister downward.

  “Superman!” she shouted. “Catch!”

  Then, as the clamoring darkness enveloped her, she realized, That might have worked—if the canister hadn’t also been invisible!

  Wonder Woman tumbled upward, as if she were being sucked into a tornado. She was too numb with shock to shake off the invisible assailants who clung to her throughout their interdimensional journey.

  Then, with stomach-lurching suddenness, they emerged high in the air above a dark and sprawling megalopolis.

  The churning Boom Tube disappeared.

  Wonder Woman knew she wasn’t in Washington anymore. The city below, partially visible through the sulfurous smog, was large, utilitarian, and completely without grace or beauty.

  “Where am I?” she asked. As if I can’t guess, she thought. These creatures are Darkseid’s minions.

  “Apokolips,” snarled the voice beside her. “We have our orders. Lord Darkseid will welcome you personally to our great capital.”

  She glanced toward the voice. “What—who are you?” she asked.

  “Parademons!” the Captain’s voice said. “Reveal yourselves!”

  As one, they became visible. Wonder Woman studied the gargoyle-like creatures speculatively. She might be able to overpower them, she thought, now that they no longer had the advantage of invisibility.

  “Don’t even consider it!” snarled the Captain. “You’re outnumbered. In the blink of an eye I could call up hundreds more. We’d love to pound you into pulp. But I have orders to keep you whole—unless you try to escape.”

  “Try it!” snarled the monster chorus. “You made us fail Darkseid!”

  “To fail Darkseid is to fail ourselves!” the Parademon she had lassoed earlier snarled, struggling ineffectively to free himself. “May Darkseid spare us long enough to destroy you!”

  They dropped toward the city, toward a building so monumental that Wonder Woman thought it must be a palace. Then she saw the troops, serried ranks of armored figures goose-stepping with military precision down the wide avenues surrounding it. An army, she realized. The building below was no palace, but a vast fortress.

  In the center of the roof below, a huge skylight slid open. The Parademons dragged her through it, into a stone-walled room draped with tapestries. They landed before a massive man seated on a marble throne. His craggy gray face looked as if it had been carved from granite. Wonder Woman would have thought him a statue except for his eyes, which held a flinty intelligence and the unyielding certainty of his own vast power. His watchful stillness contained lurking menace.

  The Parademons fell prostrate, and with the guttural command “Bow before Great Darkseid!” they dragged Wonder Woman down with them. Some slammed on top of her, crushing her to the floor, to make certain she obeyed.

  “Lord! We have shamed ourselves!” the Parademon Captain said. “We have lost the Brain Binder! But we have brought the woman who thwarted your plan! Punish us, Great Darkseid, as you see fit!”

  Wonder Woman had heard enough. She jerked upward, knocking aside the groveling Parademons, and stood. “Abase yourselves if you wish, you cringing gargoyles. But Wonder Woman, Amazon Princess of Themyscira, bows before no man! Nor will she long remain his prisoner.”

  She vaulted into the air, toward the skylight. She heard a yelp of rage and felt a jerk at the end of her lasso. Glancing back, she saw the furious Parademon still struggling to escape the loop that encircled it.

  Darkseid raised a finger, and iron shutters abruptly covered the skylight as if the palace itself obeyed his every whim.

  Wonder Woman whirled in midair, feeling the first stirrings of alarm.

  Darkseid scowled at the Parademons. “That is the second time you’ve lost control of her,” he said. His eyes began to glow red.

  The Parademons gazed up at Darkseid, their faces suffused with terror. “The Omega Beam! Sire! No—”

  A red glow surrounded and consumed the Parademon dangling at the end of Wonder Woman’s lasso. It screamed in agony; then it was gone. The loop of her lasso fell limp and empty.

  Wonder Woman gaped. The remaining Parademons flattened themselves against the floor, afraid to make any sound or movement that might focus Darkseid’s further wrath on them. But Darkseid, his curiosity piqued, ignored the cringing monsters as he eyed the lasso speculatively.

  “Land, Wonder Woman!” he commanded.

  Wonder Woman knew she was trapped, the prisoner of a being who could destroy with a glance. Her lasso was invulnerable. It was a creation of the goddess Hera, spun from her own girdle and protected with her magic. But Wonder Woman knew that complete invulnerability did not extend to her own body.

  She landed.

  She was tall, even for an Amazon, and her bearing was royal. She looked Darkseid in the eye. “It seems that, for now, Darkseid, I am your prisoner.”

  “Desaad, step forward!” Darkseid rumbled.

  A hooded and robed man sidled up from behind a tapestry. He was thin and wiry with a sly, narrow face. He studied Wonder Woman with cruel, greedy eyes. His tongue flicked, snakelike, over his bottom lip.

  He reached out to stroke her cheek. “Exquisite, Sire! Perfection itself! Give her to me, Lord,” he murmured. “Let me break her for you!”

  Wonder Woman felt her skin crawl. She grabbed Desaad’s arm and tossed him across the room. “Touch me, and it is you who will be broken!”

  “Brave words,” Desaad snarled as he struggled to his feet. “Let us see how brave you truly are!”

  He tossed a glowing ball at Wonder Woman. It unraveled into writhing strips that wrapped themselves around her face and body. Her red-and-gold armored breastplate protected her ribs, but the strands snaked up over her neck and face and around her bare arms and legs.

  She flexed, trying to break them, but the more she struggled, the more tightly they bound her.

  Darkseid glanced at the hooded figure. “You over-step your authority, Desaad,” he said. “You deployed that squadron. They failed in their mission. Worse than failed. Would you share that Parademon’s fate?”

  Desaad cringed backward. “Your pardon, Sire. I thought only of your security. It must be as you desire! But we may yet recover the canister. And snatch from this apparent defeat a far greater victory.”

  Wonder Woman’s bonds had grown so tight now, she could hardly breathe. “What was in that canister?” she croaked. “What is a Brain Binder?”

  Desaad smirked. “The Brain Binder is a sophisticated neurological weapon that I devised—”

  A neurological weapon? Wonder Woman had acted instinctively in taking the canister, but in doing so, she had saved innocent people from a horrible fate. Though she had paid a high price, she couldn’t be sorry.

  “You were going to release this weapon in Washington?” Wonder Woman gasped. “Why? To subvert America’s government?”

  “Great Darkseid has another, vaster aim,” Desaad answered. “Such sabotage would be a useful side effect, allowing us to more easily extend our control over—”

  “Enough!” Darkseid’s voice cracked like a whip.

  Desaad cringed, and for a moment, he was silent. Then he whispered, “Lord, she will make a most intriguing subject to study. Let me Bind her to you!”

  “No!” Wonder Woman didn’t know exactly how a Brain Binder worked, but she recognized the threat in Desaad’s voice. She struggled and the restraint slid up to cover her nose and mouth.

  Her head whirled, and her eyesight dimmed as she heard Darkseid say, “Take her, Desaad. That rope of hers withstood my Omega Beam. I want to know how. Test it, and her armor as well. Test her. Learn exactly where sh
e came from, what her powers are, what protects her! I want to know everything about her that there is to know! Only then will I allow this ‘Wonder Woman’ to be broken and Bound to me!”

  Someone’s screaming. Have to save them.

  Wonder Woman struggled toward consciousness, but her eyelids felt as if they had been glued shut. She couldn’t stand, could hardly move.

  I must be dreaming, trapped in a nightmare of howls and stinks and darkness crowded with monsters. I’ll be okay if I can just wake up, she told herself. I have to wake up! The scream reached a crescendo. Then, abruptly, it stopped.

  The sudden silence shocked her into awareness. She was lying on rough-hewn stones that dug into her back. Her heart was pounding and she gulped great shuddering breaths. Her throat was sore and raw.

  Was that me? she thought. Was I screaming? But . . . why? Where am I?

  In an act of will, she forced her eyes open. Gloomy light seeped through a tiny, barred window and revealed her surroundings—a classic dungeon cell.

  What am I doing here? she asked herself.

  Memory surfaced slowly, like a goldfish in a murky pond.

  The dungeon cell was in the manor belonging to Darkseid’s minion Desaad. And the vile Desaad was preparing to study her as if she were a lab specimen—before he destroyed her mind and stole her will.

  Wonder Woman fought down her panic, practicing the meditative breathing she had learned on Themyscira. Her mind must be free of fear and focused on her surroundings, on finding a way out.

  She struggled to sit upright.

  The barred window was set into a sturdy-looking metal door that would be her only hope of escape, once she freed herself from her wrist shackles. Oddly, they were bound to the wall, not by chains, but by a tangle of thick wires.

  It figured somehow. Apokolips was, after all, a high-tech world. These were probably power shackles. Not that it matters. Neither wires nor chains can hold Wonder Woman, she thought. These, at least, I can break!

  She pulled at the wires. Nothing happened. But that was impossible. She was innately strong, and her magic armor amplified her own power tenfold. It allowed her to hold her own, even against Superman!