Justice League of America - Batman: The Stone King (27 page)

This time, though, the Stone King was ready for him. He gestured with one hand. The heavy boulders strewn across the pyramid top levitated instantly, shooting up at incredible speed. Manhunter rocked as a granite slab that must have weighed five tons slammed into his legs. He spun to the side, out of control.

The Stone King opened his massive mouth wide, exhaling a gusher of white-hot lava that engulfed the falling Martian.

Where it touched J'onn, the lava cooled instantly, forming into a rapidly hardening shell. Although vulnerable to flame, J'onn's body was impervious to great heat. But as fast as he battered his way out of the lava cocoon, the shell reformed around him.

It's impossible to keep flying,
J'onn broadcast.
I'm going down.

He hit the ground with a force that disintegrated the lava cage, but left Manhunter himself unconscious.

Down on the fifth course, Batman and the Flash had pulled Green Lantern out of the ruins of the chamber.

Pity you knocked him out,
the Scarlet Speedster flashed at Batman.
We could sure use his power ring now!

Batman made no reply as the Flash picked up the still unconscious hero and ran and leaped down the pyramid's buckled side. It was ironic that this integral member of the Justice League would take no part in their final battle.

The Flash was several hundred yards away before he stopped and set Green Lantern down on the grass. He glanced up at the mighty figure of the Stone King atop the pyramid in triumph. The flickering aurora that surrounded him was spreading, sending tentacles miles long into the sky.

A heartbeat later, he stood beside Batman in the rubble of the pyramid.

The telepathic link is broken," Batman told him. "J'onn is either unconscious, or . . ." He didn't finish the sentence. "We have no way of knowing how Superman and Wonder Woman are faring."

"Just you and me now, buddy." The Flash nodded. He tilted his head to stare up at the Stone King. "And that is one awesome dude!"

Sixty miles beneath the surface, Superman and Wonder Woman reached the Moho discontinuity. Here, at the bottom of a deep layer of basalt, the earth's crust met the more solid, rigid mantle. Crustal slip, as the layers slid over each other, was a major source of seismic energy.

A massive finger of denser mantle projected upward, impaling the layer of basalt, preventing it from moving. Already kinetic force was building up, a slow, unstoppable pressure that would be released as a massive shock wave when the mantle finally broke.

Wonder Woman tried to send a telepathic message reporting on their progress, and realized that the link was down.

"I hope everything's all right on the surface," she said.

"J'onn's the ultimate survivor," Superman replied. "He'll be okay."

They couldn't allow themselves to think any other way. They had a task to accomplish, and worrying about their comrades would only impede them.

Superman used heat vision to excavate a spherical chamber in the outcrop of mantle. Wonder Woman took up a position in the center. She inhaled deeply, then suddenly brought both arms swinging up above her head. The silver bracelets crashed together, and there was a blinding white light as the power of the gods themselves was released.

The dense outcrop of mantle disintegrated completely, allowing the layer of basalt to slide smoothly onward.

But already, Superman and Wonder Woman were heading deeper: four hundred fifty miles through the mantle, to the planet's outer core.

"We may have one last chance, though it's a slim one." Batman motioned toward his Utility Belt. "My fear gas was tailored to affect the Stone King when he was still human-sized. It's concentrated, but chances are it won't affect him now."

"Only one way to find out." The Flash scooped Batman up in his arms. "Let's go deliver it."

Consciously controlling the molecules of his body, Flash went from standstill to superspeed in less than the blink of an eye. His momentum was so great, he was able to run straight up the behemoth's leg as if it were a level track.

But with his increase in power, the Stone King's sensitivity had also been magnified. He looked down at the red blur, and his massive hand shot out at blinding speed.

The Flash had no time to brace himself for impact. The Stone King's hand swatted him like a fly, sending him soaring high in the air, unconscious from the impact.

As Batman tumbled from the Flash's grip, a grapnel went shooting from his hand. It snared on a tangle of animal hairs, made massive by the Stone King's increase in size. Batman grabbed the Flash's wrist, while his other hand held tight to his line.

Batman extended his feet to break the impact as they swung into the giant's body just above his waistline. Batman scrabbled for a hold on the pelt, quickly lashing the dazed Flash with a length of line so he didn't fall.

"Think I've broken a rib," the Flash muttered through clenched teeth. "Leave me."

"But–"

"Move, man. By my count, there's only three minutes left!"

Across the world, lights flickered and died.

Orbiting 350 miles up, the crew of the space shuttle
Lincoln
saw the cities of Earth plunged into total darkness. Communication with Houston ceased.

All electrical supply lines had been disrupted by the massive energies the Stone King had brought into play. Every generator, every junction box, every circuit burned itself out.

Television broadcasts ceased immediately. The screens that fed civilization its news went dead. The comforting, friendly celebrity faces vanished, to be replaced in a billion homes by blank screens.

Every computer in the world crashed. The Internet went down. All radio transmission ceased.

The disaster movies had suddenly become real.

Tonight, every last one of you will die.

On its own, the Stone King's sinister voice had been frightening enough. Coupled with the total loss of electricity, there was a sudden realization that the prophecy of doom was starting to come true.

Children huddled in frightened silence, seeking reassurances that their parents couldn't give. Men and women in their nightclothes swarmed onto the darkened, alien streets, looking for someone who could tell them what was going on. Was this some mass hallucination? LSD in the water supply? An enemy trick, to be followed by military invasion? An act of terrorism? Some crazed dictator getting back at the world?

Many just pulled blankets over their heads and prayed it would all go away.

In tens of thousands of hospitals, the respirators and dialysis machines and life-support systems crashed. Emergency generators were hastily brought into play, only to die in their turn.

The missile bases and the nuclear submarines, and the aerial reconnaissance planes that never landed, found their weapons could not be fired, their bombs could not be dropped.

In cities, towns, villages, and isolated homesteads, people stood outside and looked at a sky alive with dancing waves of energy, like the aurora borealis on a global scale.

And all across the world, animals howled and people cried.

Batman's foot slithered as he struggled to gain purchase on the Stone King's pelt. He clutched desperately at one of the pelt's massive hairs. It was slick with dried blood, and his hand started to slip. He swung himself around in order to get a better grip, and a wave of dizzying pain swept through his back and right shoulder.

Where the boulder had struck its glancing blow, his skin was swelling in a huge bruise. He wouldn't be surprised if a bone had broken. Every time he flexed the arm, his vision swam red and he felt like passing out.

He closed his eyes for a moment, centering himself, calling up all of his hidden reserves. If ever he needed them, it was now.

Yet it seemed so unreal: in just a few minutes' time, this creature from a bygone age intended to destroy the world. And here was Batman, halfway up a giant's body, in danger of falling off and plunging to his death on the pyramid below. At any moment, the gargantuan Stone King might notice this irritating insect clinging to him and squash him like an unwanted bug.

All who choose the Way of the Warrior know that Death follows at their shoulder, patiently waiting for the right time, the right place, the right circumstance. One slip, one single mistake, and Death always claims its own.

Only a fool doesn't fear death. And such a fool does not live long.

But as well as a messenger, fear can be a springboard.

If it's going to end,
Batman thought, I
go out the way I came in . . . fighting!

Holding back his nausea, doing his best to ignore the pain that was spreading to make his whole torso one huge, throbbing wound, Batman moved. He leaped upward, reaching as far as he could with his left hand, grabbing onto whatever he could.

This time luck was with him. His grip held, and he was able to defy the pain and swing himself another six feet higher.

Around him, the night air felt alive, expanding and contracting with multicolored lights as the Stone King amassed his power, ready for the climax of his ritual. A hundred yards off to the side, a localized electrical storm was raging; a scene that was playing out in a thousand locations around the world.

Batman's right arm felt like it was being torn off. He shifted his weight, taking as much of the strain as he could on his other arm. He'd been running a mental countdown since the last mention Flash had made of time. It was something he'd trained himself to do as a teenager, and it had come in useful dozens of times in his crimefighting career. All he had to do was start the count, and his unconscious mind would keep it going.

Approximately two minutes left.

Kicking away from the pelt's slimy surface, Batman took all of his weight on his left hand, and swung. His body arced slightly away from the giant, to hang suspended for a moment with that sixty-foot drop below. Then his right hand caught around some matted hair.

Batman's arm felt like it had been torn from its shoulder socket. But he didn't pause. Summoning every last ounce of resolve, he swung again, nearly passing out under the pressure exerted on his injured arm.

Perspiration ran down his face under the mask, trickling behind the nightsights and into his eyes. The pain from his shoulder was like a living thing, gnawing at every nerve ending in his upper body. But he had no time to stop for recovery.

The seconds were ticking away on the countdown to the end of the world.

Bone weary, his right side on fire, Batman valiantly hauled himself another few feet upward.

There's no way I'm going to make it in time,
he realized.

His luck had run out–and with it, the luck of the whole world. A black wave of despair swept through him. After everything, that it should all end like this–

I have to try,
Batman thought bleakly.
I have to make one last effort.

But at last the Stone King had noticed the gnatlike super hero intruding on his territory. His hand swept up, gigantic fingers trying clumsily to pinion Batman. The super hero twisted away from them, and the Stone King's finger and thumb snapped shut on the remains of his tattered cape.

Five hundred miles down, Superman and Wonder Woman crashed through a thin shell of solidified sulfides and arrived at the earth's outer core. More than a thousand miles thick, it consisted mainly of a semi-solid mix of nickel and iron.

The temperature was more than two thousand degrees, and the pressure was almost incomprehensible. Despite their powers, neither super hero wanted to spend more time in these surroundings than was absolutely necessary.

Huge currents swirled and eddied in the magma. The kinetic energy they produced was siphoned off upward, to be metamorphosed by the pyramid into raw power for the Stone King.

Superman and Wonder Woman set their sights on what was perhaps the single most difficult task they'd ever faced: to slow these planetary tides, to disrupt their motion, even to reverse them if they could.

Together they plunged into the maelstrom and began to swim against the currents with as much speed as they could manage.

The Stone King yanked Batman violently upward, the giant hand dangling him by his cape until he was on a level with the creature's face.

The stench of its breath was like a charnel house. Batman kept his gaze averted for fear of being hypnotized, but he could literally feel the Stone King's power burn from its eyes as the creature scrutinized him at close quarters.

He could understand why it had once been worshiped as a god.

In the nickel-iron outer core, new currents churned, formed by the super heroes' motion.

Whirlpools swirled in the semimolten mass, cutting across the regular flow. Massive eddies and swirls churned up the metal magma, each one sending out its own concentric ripples.

Incredibly, the tides began to turn.

The Stone King felt the energy that was feeding him flicker and wane.

He lurched unsteadily and almost stumbled forward.

The monster's cavernous nostrils loomed beside Batman, and sudden hope flared from the depths of despair. This
is my last chance!

Batman's left hand pulled the vial of fear gas from its pouch. He kicked back with both feet, then forward, the way an acrobat starts a trapeze swinging. The resulting pendulum motion was all he needed to bring him close enough.

Forget the pain . . . it's now or never!

His left hand extended to its full reach, and he hurled the vial of concentrated gas with all his strength. It shattered inside the nostril, on the sensitive lining inside what once–it seemed aeons ago– had been Peter Glaston's nose.

Nothing happened.

The sickness in the pit of Batman's stomach was a palpable thing.
It's over!
he thought with dreadful finality.
For all of us. For everything.

Then the gas, absorbed into the Stone King's bloodstream, hit the monster's brain.