| Issue 1 | Issue 2 | Issue 3 |

PREVIOUSLY… Jaime Reyes received what he thought was a mystical scarab, giving him unbelievable powers, and becoming The Blue Beetle. A year and several months pass, and the Green Lantern, Hal Jordan accidentally revealed another scarab to extreme-climbing Crystina Barr, who bonded to become the deadly Scarlet Scarab. The Scarlet Scarab battled the Flash, infesting him with his own scarab – and sent him to infest the world with The Swarm and assist in the defeat of the world's threats.
Meanwhile, Blue Beetle, Black Adam, Fire, Guy Gardner, Booster Gold, and the First Daughter and the President – Anissa and Jefferson Pierce also known as Thunder and Black Lightning, escape the near-destruction of the White House and move to Metropolis to rescue the Justice League, where they discover the city had been infested and the Justice League has fallen. Chased into the sewers, with Fire lost behind them, Blue Beetle deserted them to save his family in El Paso .
And the story concludes.

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This story is like a thousand stories before it. The world finds itself in terrible peril, and the heroes have to mobilize to save it, managing only in its darkest hour. By the end of the tale, there are many heroes that have died, and even more that have had their lives changed by the results of this horror, with an incredible price paid for their success. All of life builds on the understanding that it is darkest before daylight – and that desperation leads to innovation. Necessity is the mother of all. However, the story is in the telling.

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Issue 3 of 3: PESTILENCE

[written by Bowie Sessions]

 

And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
REVELATIONS 9:5-6

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[ Dallas ]

He was terrified. Harley Vince, bargain-basement detective novelist and useless metahuman, ran for his life as the city surged with deadly beasts that defied convention. The fiction-writer panicked, while throngs of men and women screamed in terror as Dallas was overrun. They were swarmed.

Ducking into an alley, he paused to take a breath, eyes fixed open as the sight of glimmering silver-armored men covered in inhuman carapaces rushed by. He was frozen in place, and gasped suddenly – not having noticed that he'd been holding his breath. From above him he heard a loud vibration and glanced upward, seeing one of the winged bug-things dropping out of the sky in front of him.

It raised a bladed arm towards him dangerously. “WHERE?” the thing asked, in its scratching voice. It moved forward on him, threateningly, causing him to take quick steps back in terror, avoiding its viciously serrated limb.

Desperate and dumbfounded, the fiction-writer summoned up his will and attempted to use his only hope. A weak ability to control insects. He imagined the same thing he did when he'd make butterflies perform a beautiful ballet, and forced the influence into his voice. “Get – get away from me!” Harley ordered, praying for a miracle, and … the creature stepped back and flew away. Harley blinked twice, and let the gravity of the situation sink in.

“Oh my god. My metagene works on them,” he whispered to himself, in shock. He stared at the disappearing dot that was the scarab, and allowed the miracle to register. “No more ant-farms and beehives for me!”

Harley rushed into the street and yelled angrily at the sky. “COME HERE, YOU UGLY SILVER FREAKS!” It was an order responded to with lightning speed by a large contingent of the Scarab-bonded symbiotes. He forced himself to take a deep breath, and not panic as the murderous things appeared before him subserviently. “Tell me who you're looking for.”

The fifteen creatures gathered before him took only a second to process his request. Then, as one voice, they responded clearly. “It has designated itself ‘Blue Beetle'.” This made fine sense to him, and he let it slide, watching the things carefully.

With a nod, Harley accepted that answer, and made his next order. With a clear voice and intense concentration, his eyes bored into the one closest before him and he, the master of crime novels, decided to ask the most important question to the plot, and smiled brightly.

“Tell me. Where would I find the one in charge of you?”

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[ El Paso ]

Only one thought pounded through Jaime's head – they knew who he was. If they didn't before, they do now that Fire and other heroes were absorbed into it. Black Adam stated that the epidemic has surely crossed the world by now… and he knew immediately where he needed to be. His family was endangered.

As he flew, he abandoned Metropolis for his home of Texas , his massive wings like the blur of a bee or a hummingbird – so fast as not to be seen but as a stroke of broad azure color hung amidst the air. He raced to his old homestead faster than he thought was possible; crossing the state lines in minutes. He imagined he must be moving at about MACH 2 from how things blurred below him, and had no idea he could move this quickly. Still his mind raced with irritation, however, fully aware that the Bug could've gotten him there long ago; the thing's ramjets can reach escape velocity without any assistance.

The city lights of El Paso cleared before him after about fifteen minutes of flight; he rushed with a rabid determination above the streets he knew. The city had action in it, and he avoided it in his zeal – the action, however, was nothing compared to the armies within Metropolis. Finally, he spotted his house from above, his massive wingspan pulling into him as he dropped like a stone from the sky. Jaime landed with an audible thud on the floor as his armored bulk made impact with the Earth, and he hastened for his home. “Mom! Dad!” he yelled through his suit's garbling bio-organically armored vocal chords, as he raced for the front door. Without waiting for an answer, he tried the doorknob and found it locked. With a much firmer twist, he tried it again and ripped the door open with his superhuman strength.

Moving inside, he called out again to them, “Dad! Mom! Milagro!” He was responded to quickly as his father turned and forced a shotgun in his path.

“Are you one of them?” he asked, fearful, trying to discern his son's features beyond the symbiote.

“No! I mean, yes, kind of – it's Jaime!”

“How do I know? You could just be – a sick trick! They're crawling here, an' I ain't lettin' you take me too, with your sick little eggs…” he began to threaten while sweat beaded off his forehead. Jaime rushed forward and slammed his hand into the underside of the shotgun – lifting it upward, and when his father pulled the trigger, the buckshot scattered through the ceiling. He ripped the shotgun out of his father's hands and ripped the barrels and the handle apart.

“Because if I was one of them, I'd infect you now. Get mom! Get Milagro! I need to take you somewhere safe, before they get here, before they find you here! They know who I am. They will be coming!”

His father stared in rage. “Where have you been? This has been Hell here! And Milagro is gone! She has been missing two days! TWO DAYS! We had dinner, she disappeared!” [ed: see Blue Beetle: DCI #5]

“What? WHAT? Where did – did they get her? Why didn't you tell me?”

“I DID! I called you! I called and called and called – you never answer! You, I call your ‘secretary', she says you're not there, hangs up. Maybe if you listened, maybe if you cared, Milagro would be here too! She is gone! She is gone because of this, and of you!”

Jaime raised his hands to his face and buried his head in the carapace-covered palms. “We have to go,” he whispered.

“Where were you?” he heard asked, and turned his head to see his mother, stepping out from the bedroom to see the front door, where her son and her husband stood. She looked scared, and very quietly furious.

“I was trying to STOP all this! I was busy! It doesn't matter right now, we have to go, I will find Milagro as soon as this is over! I swear to God!” he called out, desperately trying to persuade them to come with him.

She narrowed her eyes, and looked away from him as she whispered her contempt, “You tried? You failed. And she is gone. And the world dies. Because of your ‘gift'. They have this gift, now, too. See the good it does, hm?” she snapped, rhetorically, as she moved for the door. Jaime snarled in frustration as he followed them out.

“I know you guys are disappointed in me. Don't approve. Maybe think this is my fault. But trust me. I just want you to be safe, then I have to go save the world. When I'm done, I – I swear. I'll make this better,” he whispered, darkly, even as he saw smoke plumed into the air of the city ahead of them. He reached out his arms and grabbed them both around the waist, hefting them up easily despite their size.

He watched, and waited for them to argue. They didn't say anything, and so he began to prepare for their exit.

“Grab onto my shoulders,” he said, and his wings emerged from his back again. With a gust of wind, they rose into the sky and he rushed forward through the air. The speed would silence their ability to make him feel any more worthless than he already did.
“I won't let anything else happen to you.”

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[Meanwhile]
[Metropolis]

“The Beetle leaves us to die!” Black Adam warned, threateningly. “Khafre lives strong in him still,” he continued, furiously, even as the black ichor from within the shells of the Beetles shattered on his fists that struck like hammer to anvil. The powerful scarab-adorned warriors were swatted, as if the mere insects they resembled, with his massive swings.

The sewer was filled with the sound of suffering. Massive blasts of energy mixed with a clash of organic metal. The silver-skinned alien symbiotes tore forward against a mass of heroes as they struggled to keep what footing they were able. Black Adam had waded forward into the melee, in this confined area, as Booster Gold protected himself – and Anissa, who was left feeling rather impotent. Outside the bubble he formed protectively, Black Lightning – better known perhaps of late as President Pierce – and Guy Gardner - one of the most prominent and disrespected Green Lanterns in the universe - fought for their lives and those around them. Light flashed through the dark whenever Gardner or Pierce released their massive blasts, or the thrumming scarabs released their own electrical current.

“We have to get above ground – we need space!” Black Lightning yelled out, as Black Adam crumbled underneath one of his blasts of electricity. “We're too cramped – we can't pick our battle!”

“Hey, I'm right with you, Prez! Let me just open up the door…” Booster Gold agreed as he prepared to release a bolt of energy above them to open the street above.

A massive blast of emerald energy coursed out past Booster Gold, striking another scarab as it came from the opposite direction of the tunnel while the humming pounded in his ear. “No! We stay and fight. It's a bottleneck! This is the way to take these jerks down.”

“If you want for death, Green Lantern, then you will find it here. But we must make haste in our departure. This is not a mere bottleneck; this is a cage. And we will die within it.” Black Adam ignored the rest, and their complaints, as he rushed skyward, two of the scarabs grasped in his inhumanly strong arms, even as blood poured from his flesh in the many cuts that crisscrossed his body. He exploded through the ground above, and crushed them as he went skyward, leaving two more corpses behind him. “Stay if you wish no more assistance of me,” he called as he left. Already the battle above seemed clear in his tired, righteous voice that echoed below.

Guy Gardner , furious, looked amidst the crew assembled and yelled out his orders loudly, “Get above! We'll take advantage of the 360 – those of us who fly, we do, and we get some space. I'll cover your exit!”

Your power is at 52% and rapidly lowering , his ring warned as he approached half-power. He knew it and still he kept going. “MOVE!” he roared as they raced past him for the opening Black Adam presented, energy flashing as they escaped the sewers below.

Above ground, they find only about ten of the scarabs, versus the hundreds that poured below; all in the area diverted subterranean. “We've got a head start!” Booster cried, cheerfully, and used his fields to reinforce Black Adam's ‘door' to the sewer. “Clean it up!” he encouraged, loosing Thunder from his shield to focus on the street's security below.

All around them, the battle raged efficiently and viciously. Innocent men trapped inside the armor of an inhuman beast screamed as Black Adam tore them apart; and quieted as Green Lantern and Black Lightning made similarly short work of them, taking a slightly less lethal approach. Booster presented what protective fields he could, and shortly the handful of scarabs found themselves completely still.

They breathed a sigh of temporarily relief. Guy stared at the sky expectantly, waiting for the reinforcements that had still not arrived. While the group tightened up, watching warily for any signs of movement on the eerily desolate streets of the battle-ravaged once-grand Metropolis, he dabbed at a deep cut that bled freely over his chest. Focusing his ring, the green energy formed over the slice and sealed the injury, at least temporarily. “They cut deep,” he whispered, glancing over to Black Adam, whose body seemed painted in a mixture of his own red and the scarab's deep navy-blue viscous ichor. After he really saw just how much damage Black Adam had received, Guy quickly stopped mentioning it – God forbid he let someone think he's whining.

“Do you hear that?” Anissa asked, quieting the rest.

In their temporary stand-down, the soft buzzing of the attacked city's aggressors was subdued by the sounds of combat. That meant something to them – there was a resistance. Black Adam wasted no time in rushing skyward and soaring for the sounds, with the rest shortly in tow. The President and the First Daughter were grasped in one of Booster's fields and dragged along for the ride, as just beyond the next high-rise, on the opposite street, were three new combatants.

Black Adam approached them first; while the rest rushed over the buildings in their way, he simply bore down and shattered the walls in front of him. Shockwaves of debris followed his wake as he crashed through two buildings, emerged on the opposite street and flew directly through one of the Scarabs just as it brought down a bladed arm towards a barehanded man in a tattered suit. The Scarab exploded in a bloody mess in his dramatic entrance, before he slowed to a sudden floating stop, the bluish ichor staining his torn uniform. “Ah. More warriors.”

His incredible fists crashed in a flurry of destruction, through the nearby Scarabs even before the rest arrived. Green Lantern quickly applied ‘jaws of life' formed of his emerald beams, in a continued attempt to rip the armor off without injuring those within. “I'm running low! I've got to save power or at this rate, I'm going to be spent in another ten minutes!” Guy yelled as a warning while he formed a massive armored glove, which he used to backhand a wave of the aggressors.

“Thanks!” the charming, clean-shaved and TV-good-looks blond in his suit called out to Black Adam and the Green Lantern, with a mock salute before he dropped to a crouch and back flipped right out of the way of a massive energy blast. “We're getting pinned down out here. Name's Peter Cannon, a pleasure!”

The other two of his allies were far less gregarious. One, Vulcan, a black youth with dreds and a massive glowing sword that he used to cut through the beetles like butter, while the other was an electricity-coursed woman who leveled the playing field by draining them of their power.

“That's Livewire!” Booster Gold warned loudly as he arrived, to warn them. The others seemed less responsive. “She's evil!” he added, while energy bolts exploded outward. Dropping Anissa and Jefferson, he played crowd control as best he could, holding back the tide while the others dispensed them.

Black Adam roared defensively, “But she's HUMAN, and they're NOT. Accept your allies and move on.”

“She's a MURDERER!” Booster added, viciously, while the group fought hard against the armored invaders.

“So am I,” Black Adam announced, even as seven beetles swarmed him. Their claws slashed into him and he cried out as he struggled against the crowd, toppled by the immensely powerful enemies that piled on. Their impossibly sharp blades stabbed through him and tears of pain slid down the immortal warrior's face, blood and ichor soaking his untiring body.

Without hesitation, Black Lightning raced to push his hands forward. Dressed in his fine suit, prepared for a public statement at the White House somewhere, he found himself covered in dirt and destruction. He surged them with electricity to shock their systems and then drained , causing the beetles covering Teth-Adam to shriek. Unfortunately, this caused Adam to do the same, the immortal being no less sensitive to electricity. Slowly they stopped, and collapsed off of him, leaving Teth-Adam lying on the street soaked in his blood. He struggled to stand and failed. “Booster, get him safe!” the President called out, as he held the front line Black Adam now couldn't. “Livewire, get on the opposite side. Take down as many of them as you can! We've got to hold our ground!”

“We need to run!” she cried out angrily.

He paused and glanced over his shoulder to stare at her, and caught her eyes. “Where?” he asked, his voice tinged with a similar fury. He returned to the job at hand and screamed with the intensity of the power that flowed through him, fighting for every inch of street.

While Booster corralled the injured Teth-Adam and provided strafing fire for the rest, Thunder and Cannon fought back those that dropped from above, leaving Livewire and Pierce to protect their flanks. Green Lantern let them stall, as he focused his ring tightly. “Come in… come in…” he screamed at his ring, desperate for the promised relief. It'd been almost thirty minutes of battle, he thought to himself – where were the Corps?

But just as he gave up hope and raised in a luminescent field, ready to expend his power and give them an exit… an explosion of emerald light opened in the sky above, followed by a sudden growing shadow. ::We read you!:: he heard through his ring. ::Inbound on your position. Prepare for the Cavalry.::

Guy smirked and decided to get a few more strikes in. His ring formed a massive column of force and he used it to strike the flying beasts into nearby walls. The others looked to him oddly, hearing him hum. And the tune forced Cannon to look up in the sky, where he spotted a massive shadow of flying men.

Cannon recognized the song. Flight of the Valkyries .

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[ Dallas ]
[Blue & Gold Industries Sub-Basement]

Deep in the bowels of a concrete and steel-constructed desolate basement, the lights only dimly glowed. Jaime stood above his family – sadly, only his mother and his father, his sister lost somewhere that his family doesn't know. They were positioned down a flight of stairs, while he stood with his hand pressed to a control panel exterior to the drop-off below. “This place is safe,” he started to explain. “It was built in case of, you know, Darkseid or something. It's completely sealed and will only open from the inside when you press that button,” he pointed vaguely at the side of the stairwell's base. Stepping back, Jaime readied to press the button to seal them in.

“I love you, guys. Mom. Dad. I … mean, I mean, you're… everyone's got family problems. But if … I'll miss you. Don't open this until you're sure, okay?” With a smile he forced on his lips, he slapped his hand down, refusing to have a dialogue between them. The carapace covered him and he rushed out of the building, quickly.

As he moved for the front doors, once he raised up the elevator the five floors it took, he was beat to the punch. A single scarab had entered through the rotating doors. The doors, mind you, were locked; the scarab simply tore the hinge out and hurled the disc into the main lobby at Blue Beetle, who was crushed to the wall on its impact. Shaking himself free of the strike, and of the shattered glass that covered him, he looked back across the way and tried to figure out if he knew this one. “What do you want?” he asked, threateningly.

“Revenge,” it answered and lunged for him. It formed a tendril of barbs from its forearm, which it whipped violently for Jaime. Rather surprised, Jaime raised his arm instinctually. The bladed tendril wrapped around his wrist and the gray scarab yanked viciously, tearing through the armor and spilling ichor and blood on the floor below.

Gritting his teeth, the Blue Beetle took the chain in both hands, bloodied or not, and yanked back angrily, pulling the drone to him. As he approached, both arms glowed brightly with a condensing energy and a massive explosion rocked the floor as both arms combined into one blast; leveling the drone and shearing armor from his shell.

The scarab laid out below him, Blue Beetle slammed his boot into its skull, to further silence its movements, and the creature stopped – at least for now. Breathing heavily, he gathered his strength and moved out again, rushing for that now-gaping entrance.

On his exit, the bright sky just visible outside, he heard a distinct whine. He turned his head quickly to see a similar formation of bristling electrical force crackling down the grey scarab's arms. Bringing his fists up, a large shield appeared from where his wings detached, and the blast rocked him backward, sending him flying out into the street. He crashed into the cement and rolled several times. Shaking himself awake, he glanced around to see that they surrounded him now. A veritable swarm of these gray and silver scarabs had arrived while he was inside, and he felt his stomach drop out slightly.

“Hi,” he offered with a light wave.

All around him, their armors formed into weapons. He bore down and prepared himself to die at the foot of the building he had come to call his new home.

With his eyes closed, Jaime began to speak fervently and passionately. He focused on not seeing them, not hearing them, intending to finish as much as he could before the end.

“Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos.
“Santificado sea tu Nombre.
“Hágase tu voluntad.
“En la tierra como en el cielo.
“Danos hoy el pan de este día.
“y perdona nuestras deudas.
“Como nosoros perdonamos nuestros deudores.
“y no nos dejes caer en al tentacion.
“Sino que líbranos del malo.
“Amen.”

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As he finished the Lord's Prayer, his eyes opened to see what had happened – and why the enemy allowed him to finish the long prayer. What he saw puzzled him completely, as a thin white man stood amongst a massive swarm of scarabs, who had their head bowed in what appeared to be reverential prayer. “You looked … well, I didn't want to interrupt,” the fiction writer offered as he walked out in front of the mass of parasitic aliens. “The name's Vince Harley, I, uh, control bees, and um, apparently insect aliens. And I, uh, came to tell you how to save the world. I figured, Blue Beetle, the guy to see.”

Jaime blinked in shock, and promptly took everything he just said in vain. “Jesus.”

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[Metropolis]

The sky was alive with the sounds of battle. Criss-crossing the crimson sky, painted in sunset, was the sudden flash of white from the discharge of the scarab's electricity, and the clash of a vibrant emerald green in return from the furious force of the Green Lantern Corps.

Gardner , reinvigorated, swept destruction on the enemy along with the Corpsmen whom stood beside him shoulder to shoulder, figuratively speaking. The sky was lit up despite the setting sun. On the ground, the sword-wielding Vulcan sliced through the opposition while Black Adam tore them apart. Their concern for life disappeared without the watchful eye of Blue Beetle, while Booster simply chose to avoid bringing up the subject again and did his best not to harm anyone himself. He glowered viciously at the less merciful amongst them, but kept it up, holding them back and protecting the moderately outclassed Thunder and Peter Cannon while allowing Livewire and Black Lightning to sweep the streets clear. They seemed to be tireless; but then again, they were absorbing energy instead of just releasing it. The batteries stayed charged.

As the streets of Metropolis took to the skies, the melee intensified – but it also eased. Though, as a golden rule now being proven yet again, the more soldiers you have … the more soldiers you lose. The lights above burned twice as bright, but as the saying goes, they burn half as long. The Lanterns feared these creatures, their rings made anathema to them and for good reason – they were dying up there.

Out from the sky, however, another shadow appeared to stain the horizon. It was another vast wave of surging carapace-borne men and women, their wings spanned wide as they approached. At its head, one of these exoskeletons gleamed blue. Also amongst the horde, a man in a sweater-vest desperately clung to the neck of a gray scarab.

Unfortunately, Black Adam spotted it first, and declared its presence loudly. “The traitor returns, at the head of his brethren!” and rushed off, with a clear intent: destruction. It would appear Teth-Adam had his own theories.

Black Adam soared straight for him, and Blue Beetle seemed to pick up on his lack than friendly approach quickly. He pulled up his shield again, just in time to stop the blow. The carapace-formed shield shattered upon impact and Jaime quickly started to fall towards Earth. “WAIT!” Vince yelled out loudly, as Adam turned to pursue the plummeting hero.

Black Adam paused, even as the Beetle collided into the earth below with a momentous crash. “On what order?” he asked, condescendingly, his arms crossed as he bothered to make an appraisal of the weak human that clung to the passive scarab, a horde of its brethren similarly still, while combat and death raged around them.

“Mine. They're under my control. He found me so I could help you guys stop all this. Watch.” Vince looked around and concentrated, his eyes clenching and hands tightening. After a few stuttered moments, all of his horde – and approximately twenty others – stopped all they were doing, then turned and assaulted their kin, giving the guardians a reprieve.

Teth-Adam was silent. He dropped to the ground and picked Jaime out of the cement, who was recovering admirably. “You will bring this to an end,” he ordered Jaime as the nearest he could manage to an acquiescence or apology.

Blue Beetle looked up to Adam and held his forehead as the blood washed the street around them all. “It's in Russia . The Mother Queen – the Scarlet Scarab – Crystina. She's in Russia . She's preparing a bomb. One she thinks she'll survive. Because, you know, beetles, ultimate survivors. It's a nuclear bomb. It's a very big nuclear bomb.”

The battle seemed to stop at these words.

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[ Russia ]

The heroes touched down in a frozen wasteland. As they approached where Vince said he felt the buzz of life, the world seemed almost too still. Inside of Booster and Lantern's force bubbles they traveled quickly – impossibly quickly – and still it barely comforted them from the bitter cold when they finally arrived. “Where?” Cannon asked of Vince, his eyes snapped about with a dedicated and watchful gaze.

“There,” he answered his own question. The groups' eyes followed Cannon's gesture. To their left, out from the clouds dropped a shimmering silver scarab that carried in its hands a golden lasso. Beside her came six more gleaming silver scarabs, including one that's pattern struck a familiar chord – the racing one that took down Fire. Along with him, were another five, one with spanned wings of carapace-covered feather, and one that seemed wrapped in green flame, obviously the converted Fire. The rest seemed less clear, but strode intimidatingly forward through the sky.

“I, uh, think that's the Justice League,” Booster Gold stated the obvious, and fear filled his voice deeply. The rest seemed similarly shocked and silenced by their presence.

“I've a plan,” Black Adam explained calmly as the horde rushed them.

Livewire stared in horror in the distance and asked the only thing she could. “Does it involve prayer ?”

“Silence, harlot,” Black Adam ordered, fiercely. “Booster. Harley. Beetle. You will proceed on Harley's initiative, Booster will provide protection and Beetle is the key to this. Clearly the League proves they act to protect their Queen; the Royal Guard. The rest of us will ensure you have the time to succeed in this.”

As Beetle's mouth opened, Adam scowled certainly. “This is not to be refuted. You must move, now. As for the rest of us, we must prepare our death. You will not make our sacrifice unnecessary, Jaime.”

There was no time for a hush to cover them in hesitation – solemnly, ridiculously, they abandoned their friends as Harley ran as fast he could once they hit the ground. He could … feel the hum of this place, and knew it lead to only one possible destination.

While they rushed across the frozen distance, a sudden explosion of shimmering silvers and grays exploded from the icy floor. It gave Harley and the rest considerable hesitation as dozens and dozens more rushed from deep underground towards the collected group. Vince paused to speak, while the rest readied to fight through the throng. “CALM D—” he didn't have time to finish his sentence, however. Even as their antennae seemed to hum in response to Vince's forming words, a familiarly detailed silver-wrapped scarab sped down from across the snow, dropping itself from its wing-borne approach. A fist reared back and slammed into Vince, sending him funneling deep into the snow-covered earth.

“MOVE!” Booster yelled at Jaime, a heroic bone forming in the glory-hound, using his force fields to hurl the Blue Beetle into the hole ahead and leap in afterwards before the ‘Justice League' had its chance to respond.

“DO NOT kill these people!” the President yelled across the expanse as the blur approached, followed by the small legion of Godly-powered converts to the Scarab's army. “They're the best of us. If we win, these people go back to normal. If we kill them, the world won't survive next time. Do you all understand this?” he roared out across the forming battlefield.

Their silence was an answer. The murder had been downright callous, most of the formed group having survived for that very reason – they were willing to do what one must. Black Lightning, known these days only as President Pierce, let his words ring through their minds as the moment arrived.

The lasso-hurling scarab tossed her Olympian charm towards the President, before Green Lantern brought up a field to protect from the tool. Wonder Woman rushed downward for him, her fists extended, and slammed full-force into the Lantern's field, sending Guy burrowing into the snow under the onslaught of the titanically powerful Amazon turned invader. 32% , the ring warned ominously as he watched the number count down, and sweat beaded his forehead. He surged the power outward to hurl the transformed Amazon backward, the wave of emerald energy slamming back dozens of the approaching Scarabs, both superhuman before and otherwise. Pushing them back, though, did little – they still came, unharmed. “An assist!” Guy yelled, angrily, furious to have to ask for help.

The Flash vibrated between the molecular bonds of the force field and for the Lantern; but before he could, a massive bolt of electricity overtook him and surged the Scarab. “Shit!” Livewire cried out, as the Flash seemed to crackle with electricity now and turned towards her. She turns from give to take, and tried to drain the flow of energy coursing through the speedster. Concentration embodied her face as she fought for control, and watched him stumble to move forward in stops and starts across the hundreds of yards between them. Suddenly, a power seemed to surge in him – she could feel it – and he raced forward again. This time, he didn't stop, and his furious fists started to drive into the electrically powered heroine, taking back power with every slam of his armored fists, while she cried out in her agony.

Black Lightning turned his attention and focused firmly, draining the former hero of as much power as he could, trying to keep him from killing the criminal Livewire. He watched as Flash shuddered and raised his fist again. A moment before it dropped, he paused mid-step. Blood soaked the armored speedster's fist, yet he seized up and collapsed to the ground, shuddering then silent. Breathing firmly, Black Lightning refused to relax as he turned back towards those still hammering relentlessly at Guy Gardner's emerald shield. “Get BACK UP, Leslie! This is NOT the time to quit on us!” the President cried out angrily, trying to rouse their ally of circumstance.

Behind the field, which started to glimmer and crack, Thunder, Peter Cannon and Vulcan stood anxious and ready. They didn't say the one thing all of them were well aware of – that they waited for the Justice League to succeed. They stood waiting for Guy's field to fail, and for their fight to begin. Staring past the translucent defense, their eyes met their enemies, and they readied themselves for the vicious fight they knew was impatiently ticking down.

Booster and Beetle had driven forward while the others occupied Flash and the Justice League-turned-Royal Guard, thanking them for the stolen time. The two heroes dived through the opening in the ice just created by that dangerous outpouring of scarabs. They landed in a steel structure caked with the freshly fallen snow from the break created above. It occurred instantly to both of them explicitly why they were here, in the Motherland.

“We're in a secret underground silo in the desolate ice of Russia ,” Jaime mentioned the obvious clarity aloud as they walked through the halls with celerity. “I'm thinking Nuclear Option.”

Blue Beetle rushed forward, as the words left his mouth, seeking the end of the line. Behind him rushed Booster, while the others kept busy up above. “What, she's the Crimson Cockroach now?” Booster asked, citing Jaime's earlier rant, not receiving even the mildest chuckle from his young compatriot or even laughing at his own joke – he got it. This was world-saving stuff here, now.

Above the snow-covered compound, Jefferson gasped as he saw three of the Beetles descend on Guy and decimate the shield with a coordinated blast of concussive force, an explosion of light that nearly blinded many of them on the stark white landscape of ice and mountain. Guy Gardner collapsed from the strain, and the President seemed hardened again as he released streams of lightning to begin a connection to the other Scarabs and then started draining them as they approached, alternatingly overloading others. He bore down into it while the melee combatants now were without a protecting shield and they joined the fight in earnest.

“LIVEWIRE! On your damned feet,” Black Adam cried out angrily. “Pull the Lantern below! They'll need your powers – GO! We'll pull up the rear if we hold!”

Already the reserves had rushed forward to meet the Royal Guard in force, insensible to the outnumbering. Black Adam roared a bloody, primordial fury as he raged forward into the hawk-winged creature, and whispered his apology for the centuries of their brotherhood as he took it to ground.

Vulcan seemed stifled, but tried his best. The capable warrior met the Scarabs with the flat of his sword as he was forced to retreat; his strength for survival was killing the other guys, and he saw the look of war upon Black Adam's face … and hesitated in anticipation of what would otherwise happen if he were to be more finite. Yet one rushed for him and swatted him aside with a blow that, if not for the packed snow to cushion his fall, would have broken more than his ribs. Spitting blood, the young vigilante rose to his feet in time for the flying scarab, weaving her golden lasso forward, to rush the blade forward. He snapped it up to deflect the lasso and as she approached, spun around quickly to let her soar by. She stopped mid-flight to return to him, her fists readied, when she felt a sudden burst of pain – the blue ichors of the scarab and the red gushing blood of a goddess spilled over Vulcan's sword as he buried it to the hilt inside of her stomach, then twisted up, yanked firmly and pulled it free. He looked up promptly, somewhat shocked at his own instincts and rushed onward, not sparing time to think either of his acts or his upcoming punishing were he to survive the battle – his priority was to be able to endure a punishment by living to meet it.

Thunderbolt and Thunder were besieged by the swarms, both trapped on the ground, and Thunder's power kicks allowed only the slightest reprieve from those that found the air too crowded to fly. Black Adam had said it earlier, and they knew it now. With every blow delivered and kick hurled forth, with every heel kick that decimated the ground below, they knew a depressing certainty.

Unless those below somehow shut down the swarm, they were all fighting to the death.

Black Adam roared only louder in this knowledge, excited to meet his end.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Inside]

Below, the chittering noises led Beetle and Booster onward, until they managed through enough scaffolding to see what lay below. It was the most cliché of sights – The Scarlet Scarab and her silvered minions toiled at a monitor. Beetle was sure that those silver creatures used to be technicians. They were preparing to activate the weapon silo, and already the lights began to tick off one by one as systems activated. Red lights warned them of impending destruction – and she wasn't ransoming. She was destroying. “Jaime…” Booster started to warn. He didn't listen much, as the knowledge of death above spurred on the young hero to suicidal intent.

Scarlet turned suddenly at the sound of the personally familiar sound of carapace as it struck echoing steel. Before she could respond to it appropriately, both of Beetle's arms rushed forward, covered in foot-long spikes. It was all she could do to fall backward desperately, blue ichor slipping from the punctures as she collapsed to the floor. Jaime didn't say much, this time, as he launched himself for her, allowing the Beetle to take over for him. “Shut it down!” he warned in a menacing voice that hummed with alien ferocity.

Booster Gold seemed no less in his element, as he brought up a shield to cordon off the two from the other Scarabs – and used the time to launch several blasts at the two technicians. He thanked all the stars that they didn't leave any more super powered types down below. “Keep her on the defensive, kid!” Booster offered helpfully, as he fell under the fierce blows of the two technicians turned armored warriors. He knew he wasn't good enough in this cramped space to take these two without back-up, and knew Beetle didn't fare too well in the last one with Scarlet. He also knew that they weren't exactly the perfect team for this kind of fight. Booster knew a lot more than people gave him credit for – he always knew when a plan wasn't going to work.

But he wasn't really good at coming up with better ones, either way. “One of you two, do the shut-down thing!” he threatened the Scarabs emptily. “If you don't, you'll face all the many powers of the true MAN of TOMORROW!” Booster pompously cried, while holding both arms before him in a defensive terror.

He could hear the Scarlet Scarab laughing in a twisted buzzing hum. “ We will not offer you mercy! We will not offer you the paradise we bring! ” she warned to the Blue Beetle as repeatedly, their blades pierced one another as they flew through the steely corridors, both their wings flapping in a blur of chaos and hatred.

“ We want none! You bring only death – you will gorge yourself and feed upon nothingness,” he ruefully returned, in their alien dialect, as the battle raged forward, the walls decimated in a flurry of strikes and in the crash of explosive force released from their energetic strikes. He tried to reason, knowing it was pointless. He then tried to kill … knowing it had a much sharper point.

Far behind them, the cyan-casted white-skinned electricity-borne villain hauled the mumbling and incoherently half-lucid Green Lantern through the winding underbelly of the mountain, finding the same conclusion the other two had seen – they were in a nuclear missile silo. She pulled harder. “Wake up, you asshole! WAKE UP!” she cried out desperately, her own black eye and broken nose marring both her speech and her appearance, as she looked around rapidly for enemies. She knew, as all villains with a high sense of self-interest would, that she couldn't do this herself, and that they were in a lot of trouble. In the end, criminals liked to reduce trouble as much as they could. It was only mitigated danger that excited most villains – that they could get away with it.

There was no getting away, here.

But then, her heart leapt, as she heard pronounced from the Lantern's ring, :: Guy Gardner! Come in! This is Kilowog - your cavalry is here!::

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Everywhere]

Across the globe, a green light seems to fill the atmosphere. Breaking the stratosphere appear a seemingly countless array of emerald and black costumed ring-slinging guardians. They crossed the surface of the planet, their jade energies pulsating as they besieged every city in the world in force. Scarabs took to the sky in defense of their conquered kingdoms, and the Lanterns ensured that the fight wasn't lost.

Cries of hope were joined by those few splintered heroes amongst the overtaken cities, from Metropolis to Paris to Moscow . Chaos reigned in the skies around the world as war was met; rings were sent mad with fury and scarabs frenzied with memory – an ages-old hatred had been rekindled suddenly, a war that lay dormant for millions of years between the Scarab's parasitic swarm and the Oan Corpsmen. Still they rushed across the globe, trying to follow the signs of battle – and the weak pulse of Gardner 's ring hurtled them towards the frozen wastes of Russia , just in time to relieve what few heroes there remained.

Black Adam cried in frustration, and looked down below. “The rest of you, go! MEET THEM! They will need you,” he informed them knowingly, and soared back into the fray, even as the constant rain of green light and bursts of energy scattered and distracted the Scarabs, who launched skyward to meet their sacred foes.

Often, the Scarabs fell; but so too would an emerald guardian collapse into the snow-covered Earth, unprepared for the assault. Each of them was able to endure a grand assault, and it drained the power reserves of each Lantern that assaulted them, leaving them open for the next of their seemingly endless kin. While they provided a relief across the world, it was far from a sweeping glory. Death welcomed both sides, providing perhaps a balance – one that still threatened to overcome the Lanterns' abilities. Cries rang out, and echoed through their rings, Lantern down! as if a broken record, repeating the transmission continuously. The pain of the loss wracked the warriors, but they knew this was to the end; this was a battle written about in annals nearly forgotten, ancient beyond words and savage beyond reasoning. They met their mortal foes – and they were that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Inside]

Laid out on his back, Blue Beetle found himself in an unenviable position, as the Scarlet Scarab knelt over him, twin blades buried deep through his stomach. Both his fists gripped her wrists, crying out his focus as he pulled her forward and kept her arms trapped inside him, not wanting to allow her to finish him or Booster. Finally, she managed to rip one arm free and her arm transformed suddenly into a glowing energy weapon which pointed threateningly for him. With a vicious strike of his arm, he managed to divert the blow into the back of one of the technicians, who was scorched and became unconscious under the strong assault.

With a slight reprieve, Booster Gold seized the moment to focus all his attacks on the one remaining technician rather than just praying for his own survival. He fought fiercely, crying out for his young friend desperately as he saw the blood drip down the Scarlet Scarab's blades. “Hold on, Ted!” he screamed, and found in himself the strangest of strengths. With a massive strike of his field, he hurled the injured scarab he fought into Scarlet, and it bowled both of these creatures over – and in the process, ripped her blades free from Jaime, who gasped and spat out a sickly sap from between his armored lips.

Booster seemed to rage against her almost insensibly, leaving a befuddled Jaime who was barely responsive. After a dozen strikes of his energy-balled fists into the disoriented hide of Scarlet, Gold rushed back to check on Jaime, curling himself over the prostrate young alien-ridden hero. “Stay with me, Beetle, come on… I'm not going to lose you again…” he whispered pathetically, holding down on Jaime's bleeding stomach without any medical knowledge to allow him anything but prayer.

Jaime gasped and wheezed, not in his own mortality, but trying vainly to warn the panicked Booster Gold – but he need not have wasted his breath. He watched as the Scarlet Scarab dragged herself to her feet and then lumbered forward; his breath need not have been wasted. An explosive force was released from across the scaffolded floor. Electricity coursed the room and pulsed through the alien queen, who convulsed and then screamed as her attacker – Livewire – reversed the flow. “Go down, you stupid bitch!” she cried out angrily, a vengeful sense of desperate rage pouring through her, the disoriented Lantern standing behind her.

She continued to stand over the red beetle, furiously ripping free the electricity that pulsed through her shell, a face full of anger and contempt. Guy kicked her in the leg with his boot, aware it'll deflect some of the electricity. “She's down,” he gruffly ordered, and glanced at the others. True to word, her insectoid armor receded, the scarlet colors disappearing, revealing the naked form of the attractive, lean Crystina Barr, not seen since she was overtaken just a week prior. She breathed softly; laboring for each, small cuts and wounds peppered her that managed through the armor from her battle a moment prior.

Gardner looked away from her, and the fallen form of the pale and similarly revealed Jaime Reyes, to address the others already in the room. “I'm linked to the Lanterns. They're dying out there. We stopped this here, sure, what the Hell. But we need to put this down.”

Just as he tried to begin his tirade, they heard approaching footsteps and paid close attention.

Several bodies sprinted through the steel structure, echoing into the silent chamber; staring into this distance, they see those who escaped from above rushing in to join the rest. All but Black Adam limped in to meet them, blood-stained heroes Black Lightning, his daughter Thunder, Peter ‘Thunderbolt' Cannon, and The Vulcan, watching their back as they raced to meet the rest. They slowed and started panting as they stood next to the rest, gasping a little. In shock, Cannon rushed past the others and knelt down beside the prostrate form of the Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes, who lay gasping on the floor. “I need a knife, a clamp and some towels!” he yelled out loudly, to their confusion. They responded in a confused clamor, and shredded their own clothes, trying to offer the cloth for use as a sharp knife Vulcan offered is handed to the skilled salesman that apparently harbored a secret medical knowledge.

He knelt down and started cutting, a multi-tool in hand as he readied to clamp. The surgery continued, while Gardner re-enforced his hard facts. “Screw the kid! He's one life. We got thousands on the line out there. We need an answer NOW, or these things keep gutting our men out there!”

A sharp wince was offered, eyes detaching from the graphic scene on the floor of the nuclear bunker, where a silent Jaime laid pale and operated on in a less than perfect environment. “I've got an idea,” Livewire volunteered quietly. “You said you're linked to these guys. You think they can be linked to us?” she inquired, quietly, scratching the back of her head hesitantly.

Black Lightning looked up, eyes wide and picked up where she left off. “If we can get you synched to us – and your boys are out there fighting them – we can drain them dry remotely. We can end this here, and now.”

Guy Gardner looked confused, and thoughtful, then glanced down at his hand and lifted it. 19% it read. “Has to be quick,” he mentioned grimly, and started reading the plan off through the ring. There was a small delay, and then his eyes slowly closed. A green light emitted from his ring and escaped through the catacombs into the sky outside, rushing into the light above the Nuclear Silo, then racing across the world to meet every Green Lantern that crisscrossed the sky, from its brightest sunrise to its sharpest sunset, all around the Earth. A single green line stretched in a web around thousands of men.

“Go,” he issued quickly out and extended his Oan aura to surround the two electricity-draining heroes. They surged electricity through the channel, which converted to light through the green fields… and as soon as they felt that comfortable link, that associated contact they've grown accustomed to since the attacks began… they drained.

Electricity rushed through the field, sparks filling the room and surrounding Livewire and Black Lightning in a growing white buzzing aura, pure and destructive as it completely consumed them. Soon, nothing could be seen beyond the energy pulsating, just a huge orb of glowing white that was firmly held in by the powered field of Guy Gardner, as sweat beaded his brow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Everywhere]

Across every horizon of the world, shadows fell through the sky, before being caught in green nets and cushions. They collapsed, motionless, exoskeletons receding from their body to reveal the humans and metahumans underneath. On the desolate Russian landscape that was struggled over above, a blood-splattered Black Adam stood amongst a massive swath of unconscious bodies. A Thanagarian body, the Flash, the lifeless body of the Themysciran Princess, heroes, villains and unknown faces – they laid scattered around them, breathing but unconscious. “It is done,” he whispered quietly, as the Lanterns above him lowered to the Earth to tend their own wounded and to collect the fallen enemies.

The skies of Metropolis, of San Antonio , of Tokyo and of Paris , were littered with the falling bodies of transformed men and women. Cries echoed out, hidden bodies erupted from their sanctuaries, and slowly, the fallen bodies began to gasp and eyes open, looking around lost and fascinated. They asked simple questions – where they were, what had happened. The world seemed lost and confused to them. The glowing green energy of the Oan Corps crossed the planet and seemed to signal a resolution, a broad sweeping attack that drained the energy – and the fight – out of these beasts, returning them to the men they once were.

It seemed to be over, but even still, electricity coursed back and forth – a flow that seemed to be contracting as if in a cycling stream of energy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Inside]

The two heroes wrapped inside of that bright sphere of energy struggled hard, screams of pain heard over the din of buzzing electricity and panicked work of Thunderbolt Cannon. The light seems to dim briefly, then explode so bright as to cause those watching to see spots – before light can suddenly be seen, with the limp body of Livewire curled on the ground of the sphere. Jefferson Pierce, the President of the United States , stood alone in the sphere, lightning coursing through him and he cried out in agony at the load he had to bear.

He picked up the ambient energy with a great thrust of his chest, and fell to a knee as more coursed through him yet. He drained as much as he thought he could, and then exceeded all his expectations. Not a moment was spent to try to re-awaken Leslie or to get a new grip; he knew there was no time, and there were no second chances.

As the seconds passed, the stream faded more and more – and suddenly it seemed to cease. Guy gasped as he let the field drop, and Black Lightning stood in the middle of the room, pulsating with crackling licks of electricity snapping from his very skin. “ MOVE! ” he screamed in panic, before he bowed his back and forced his hands skyward, and a massive torrent of incandescent light flowed from his arms. There was barely a sound as the concussive force of the coalesced energy exploded through the ceiling and into the sky; a hole as wide as a room opened through three stories and into the snow banks above, that continued high into the sky. It lit Russia 's night sky as if the sun had winked from below; for a brief moment, shadows cast for hundreds of miles, before suddenly blinking out into nothingness. When the light retracted, it became abundantly clear that there were now no lights anywhere. The very world seemed, at least for a moment, to lay in blackness.

Within the steel structure, Jefferson laid unconscious and convulsing, but alive.

The Justice League above laid sprawled and unconscious, both Booster Gold and Blue Beetle barely breathing below the surface, and the President – and former Justice League hero Black Lightning – found himself in convulsions amongst a room that was cast in blackness, without him to illuminate it.

“We did it,” Cannon whispered, wiping free his bloodied hands. They tended to the injured and looked to the sky.

“All that's left is pulling these bugs out of these people… and tending the wounded,” Gardner offered curtly and simply. With a heavy heart, he let the glow weakly flicker around his form and rose through the hole, bringing the group with him in his last act of power on his ring, depositing them on the icy plateau.

All around them, they saw the Oan Guardians tearing free scarabs from their victims, leaving a small scar with the careful incision of the green tools. Beyond them, even more of the jade warriors were seen performing rites upon their brothers, who lay dead in the snow, tainting it red. They did their best to heal this world.

The world was still, silent and black. But the heroes had won, though many grievously wounded, and others gone forever.

If this was what you would still call a victory. Black Adam stood floating imperiously above it all, arms crossed and smiling.

Apparently some would. Though if one would see the body of Crystina Barr, as she slowly woke to this world and stared in horror at the battlefield, white stained heavily with the blood of a hundred species… you might hear her whisper something much different than Black Adam's victorious excitement. “I'm so sorry…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

END

Well, this wraps up the long-awaited finale, for which I regret the time passed. I got a little caught up in my business here in theater, which took me away from finishing the tale.

I hope this leaves you guys with a few more questions – of Jaime, of Scarlet Scarab's future, of what remains of Wonder Woman, Black Lightning's convulsions, all those pertinent loose ends left in the wake of tragedy.

This was the story idea that brought me to DCI, and honestly, I feel like it went about as well as I could've planned it – especially this last issue, which wrote out a little long, and took much longer than I could've anticipated. Besides, it gave me an excuse to write Black Adam, which enthused me to no end.

With that, I bid you adieu.

-Bowie Sessions