The air, still vibrating from voices, video static, and suppressed fury, thickened abruptly.
Black Adam shot Alex a glare of icy lightning, promising future reckoning. Without a word, he turned with contemptuous sharpness, his figure shrouded in swirling dark energy as he stormed toward the exit. Only the echo of his curt words rolled through the room.
"I'll join the night defense. Expect nothing more."
Doctor Fate—or rather, the Helmet of Fate atop his head—turned its empty, weighty sockets toward Alex.
"My place and role are known. Don't waste breath reminding me."
The space around Fate warped, collapsing as if cloaked in chilling mist, and he vanished silently.
Zatanna Zatara rose, leaning on the table.
"The barrier… demands focus and preparation. Tropelet emoh."
She dissolved in a burst of crimson, crackling magical sparks.
Lex Luthor, maintaining perfect poise, turned with mechanical precision. The glossy-black LexCorp drones' steps echoed on the metal floor, trailing his silent departure. Amanda Waller, the embodiment of unflinching state machinery in her dark suit, cast an appraising glance at the remaining heroes, devoid of doubt or sympathy. A slight nod, and her grim shadow with the briefcase—holding the keys to the Squad's lives—slipped into the corridor's dimness.
The silence left behind wasn't relief but a vacuum where hours of unspoken tension condensed to a boiling point. In this oppressive, ringing void, Superman stepped forward. His powerful frame in blue and red seemed slightly hunched—not from physical weight but from the unbearable burden of moral conflict. The usual glow of kindness and confidence dimmed, replaced by deep sorrow and rejection. His voice, typically warm and inspiring, now carried an unyielding edge.
"Alex… what you did. Threatening to erase an entire nation, to doom Kahndaq's innocents… That's not the way. Not the path we're sworn to defend. It's a betrayal of our very foundations. Of everything we fight for."
Beside him, Wonder Woman stood, a warrior whose soul bore a thousand battles, her gaze not fiery but cold with piercing disappointment and disbelief. Her Themysciran armor gleamed coldly under the lights as she crossed her arms in a gesture both protective and condemning. Her voice was clear, sharp.
"And I can't fathom, Alex, this… this reckless greed for nuclear death. You've amassed an arsenal capable of wiping life from this planet many times over. Did we rise to fight Darkseid only to become world-destroyers ourselves? Where's the line between necessary defense and the madness of absolute annihilation?"
Alex closed his eyes for a long, heavy second. A flicker of bone-deep exhaustion crossed his usually impassive face. Then he inhaled deeply, as if absorbing the bitterness of their accusations, the crushing weight of reality. His voice, low but cutting through the silence, spoke.
"Cruel?" He paused briefly, his gaze sliding over Diana, Superman, every face in the room. "Undeniably cruel, Diana. Immoral? Perhaps. But we…" He paused again, searching for words to pierce their ideals' armor. "…are far beyond the neat categories of 'right' and 'wrong.' We're submerged in the abyss of total, existential war. Here, at this edge, half-measures, moral hesitations, pangs of conscience—they're not virtues. They're a guaranteed ticket to oblivion. For everyone."
He pointed sharply at the Earth hologram.
"Darkseid isn't a hypothetical comic-book threat. He's reality. A reality that's erased four versions of our planet from the Multiverse. Four! That's not just superior force—it's conquest experience paid for with worlds' ashes. He has intel from those four Earths' ruins. Data on our strengths—" his cold, scanning gaze flicked to Superman, lingered on Flash's vibrating fingertips—"our weaknesses." His stare, like a scalpel, shifted to Martian Manhunter, whose clasped hands tightened, and Shazam, whose lower lip trembled. "He's studied us inside out. We're an open book to him, its pages already turned, its ending known."
He turned to Diana.
"Why so many nukes? Imagine Darkseid's reaction—his cold, ruthless mind—when his plan of a thousand portals scattering our forces, turning the planet into a hellish grinder, collapses. When all his gates, all his might, converge into one point in the Sahara. What will he think?" Alex didn't wait for an answer. His voice dropped, quieter, more dangerous, forcing everyone to lean in. "He'll know instantly. He'll know that beyond that portal isn't chaotic, scattered resistance but a focused, prepared ambush. A trap. And what does any rational, experienced, merciless commander with a planet-killing arsenal do, knowing his enemy waits in one place?"
Dead silence gripped the room.
"He won't send Parademons first. He won't throw them to slaughter against Earth's concentrated might. No. He'll do the logical, efficient, horrifyingly simple thing. He'll pull the trigger. He'll unleash everything in his orbital and interdimensional arsenal on the Sahara. Planetary bombardment arrays. Energy rams that can split continents. A single, devastating salvo to turn our fortifications to glass, our lines to smoldering craters, our heavy hitters to radioactive dust. Only then, when our defense is a memory of thunder, will he send his endless hordes to mop up survivors and claim a broken, subdued planet."
He stood taller, his gaze steel.
"That's why we need every warhead, Diana. Not to attack his hordes on our soil. They're for a single, desperate, surgical diversion. On his turf."
Alex paused, his fingers locking tightly before him, as if physically holding the fragile thread of the plan.
"We know he'll strike first with superweapons. We must preempt him. Doctor Fate—or rather, Nabu in the Helmet—knows his role. At the critical moment, when his intel or Nabu's foresight shows Darkseid's superweapons are charged, aimed at the portal, ready to fire… Fate will jump. Not to our battlefield. To the other side of the portal. Into the heart of their strike's preparation—weapon installations, command centers, or energy cores."
The room hung in tense silence.
"And there," Alex's voice sharpened, "he'll open a pocket dimension holding Earth's entire nuclear arsenal. And release it. Directly at the threat's source. At the heart of his strike force. A cataclysmic explosion—not here, not over the Sahara, but there, on his base, at its most vulnerable, when weapon systems are active and concentrated. This isn't just retaliation. It's surgically removing the fang before the beast bites. We'll destroy his ability to deliver that apocalyptic first strike before it's launched. Force him to fight on the ground, on our desperate terms, without that interdimensional salvo."
He scanned the room, seeing shock, disbelief, and dawning comprehension. The heavy silence following his chilling explanation hung thick. Batman broke it, not questioning but placing pieces on the board of impending hell.
"Flash," his white lenses locked onto the jittery speedster. "You're not a frontline soldier. You're this battle's metronome. Your priority isn't attacking grunts. It's the entire battlefield. If a key player—" his voice stressed the unspoken, not all can be saved—"is on the brink of death, if a critical point becomes irreversible, you act. Evacuate wounded heavy hitters, deliver critical resources to chaos' epicenter, strike only absolute priority targets if there's no other way. Your speed is our insurance. Your mistake is death for many. Don't engage without a direct order or clear catastrophe."
He turned to the figures in blue and red.
"The first strike falls to Superman, with Shazam."
At Shazam's name, Wonder Woman stepped forward, her face—moments ago full of condemnation—now etched with sharp concern. Her voice was protective, urgent.
"He's a child! A titan's body, but a child's mind. Throwing him into the first fight, the hottest inferno? He needs time to adjust, to grasp the scale, to not break under the weight…"
Alex, standing aside, subtly rolled his eyes—a quick, hard gesture dripping with disdain for what he saw as dangerous sentimentality at the eleventh hour. He held his tongue, but his silence spoke louder than words.
Shazam, hearing Diana's defense, flushed. His masked face reddened, eyes burning with the offended fire of a teen dismissed yet again.
"I can handle it!" His voice was louder than intended, strained and slightly shrill. He stood to his full, mighty height, trying to look imposing. "I'm strong! As strong as him!" He nodded at Superman.
Batman's tone didn't shift, calm and constructive.
"Exactly why he's with you. Your powers are near-identical. You'll stay by his side, follow his lead, learn from him. The first echelon isn't just strength—it's the shield taking the heaviest blow. Watching Superman's tactics, his composure, gives you precious minutes to adapt. To become what you pretend to be. Throwing you into the fray later, without that buffer or guide, risks panic or disaster."
He gave no time for objections, turning to Power Girl.
"You follow the first echelon. Your strength matches theirs. Your task: amplify pressure, be the battering ram if the line falters, or flank if the enemy focuses on the center. Act as the situation demands, but coordinate with Superman."
Then to Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern:
"Aquaman, you and your army take the night, leveraging underground waters. Wonder Woman, you and the Amazons hold at dawn. Your discipline, speed, and weapon mastery carve through enemy waves. No step back. Green Lantern, support both shifts. Use your ring for barriers, fortifications, weapons as needed. Coordination with Atlanteans and Amazons is key to effectiveness."
His lenses fixed on Martian Manhunter, hovering in the corner.
"You don't fight physically. Your war is invisible. You're our shield against mental attacks. Monitor the battlefield 24/7. Every second. Watch for telepathic interference, control attempts, or will-crushing assaults. If a key fighter falls under influence, if Parademons try to break the army's spirit, you block it. You isolate the threat. Your willpower is our collective defense."
His gaze slid to The Atom.
"Your edge is size. You're our saboteur, scout, micro-level sapper. Infiltrate enemy constructs' gaps, sabotage from within, scout weak points. But if you grow—" Batman's voice hardened—"you're a giant, vulnerable target. One stray blast, one heavy weapon's shot, and you're dead, instantly and uselessly. Stay small—it's your armor and weapon."
Finally, he addressed Plastic Man, Green Arrow, Black Canary.
"Plastic Man, Green Arrow, Black Canary. You're the flexible reserve. Act as circumstances demand. Infiltrate tight spaces, stage surprise captures, create disruptions, evacuate wounded from the periphery, execute pinpoint sabotage. Don't seek the main strike. Find the enemy's weakness where they least expect it."
He fell silent. His sharp, gunshot-like orders defined roles, set priorities, and forged the group into parts of a desperate defense machine.
In that tense silence, Plastic Man, ever the breaker of strain, stirred. His body stretched into a comical shape, head bobbing on a long neck, face wearing an exaggeratedly offended grimace.
"What, so we're the… useless benchwarmers now?" His voice was faux-cheerful, fishing for a smile. "Flexible reserve? Sounds like we're sidelined!"
His jest landed in dead silence. No one smiled. Batman turned his head slightly, white lenses radiating icy patience. Shazam coughed nervously. Superman didn't lift his eyes from the map. Only Alex let out a faint, weary sigh.
Each was lost in their role's weight, the plan's fragility. The air hummed with tension, broken only by Flash's occasional nervous finger-tapping. His face was pale, lips a thin white line, as if wrestling an internal storm to accept the inevitable or dare the unthinkable.
He broke the silence, words bursting out as if against his will. He lifted his head, eyes—usually vibrant—now burning with fear and resolve.
"I… I didn't want to say this. Not in front of everyone." His voice trembled, betraying the storm within. "But… now… I can't stay silent. I have… another ability."
All eyes snapped to him. Curiosity, hope, wariness swirled in their gazes. Power Girl leaned forward, expecting something grand. Only Alex remained still, his stone face unmoved, eyes narrowing for a split second. In his mind, the pieces clicked: Time travel, he finished Flash's sentence silently.
"I can travel through time," Barry Allen exhaled, his words falling like stones into the stillness.
The reaction was instant. A murmur of shock rolled through the room. Aquaman straightened, brows rising. Wonder Woman gasped, hand to her mouth. Green Lantern froze, his ring flaring briefly. The Atom and Black Canary exchanged stunned glances. Shazam's eyes widened: "Whoa!" Plastic Man stretched his neck like a giraffe: "Seriously?!" Even Batman tilted his head, white lenses fixed on Flash with new intensity. Only Power Girl voiced the first emotional reaction:
"Awesome! So we've got a checkpoint? If it all goes south—boom!—rewind and try again?"
Flash winced, as if from physical pain. His face twisted with the agony of memories.
"No!" His voice was sharp, almost desperate. "It doesn't work like that! You can't just… change the past! I tried!" He clenched his fists. "I… I broke the speed of light. I reached where I wanted—my childhood. I wanted to save… my mother. But…" His voice cracked. "…I caused her death. The very death I saw as a kid. I went back. Tried again. And again. But nothing changed! Nothing! Just… worse details piled on. Like the past fought back. Like it was… carved in stone."
Batman spoke first, his distorted voice flat, stating fact:
"Novikov's self-consistency principle. Events in time strive for coherence, preventing paradoxes. Attempts to alter key events only create causal chains ensuring they happen."
Alex nodded slowly, his gaze heavy.
"Correct. It fits the observed pattern." He sighed, weary, and looked at Flash. "Flash, you're an idiot."
The words hit like a slap. Barry flinched, paling further.
"Your first mistake," Alex continued, "was risking it. Risking every life born after your mother's death. Every person, event, molecule of this world since that moment. You leaped into the unknown, ignorant of the mechanics, consequences, or any theory beyond blind desire. You could've erased millions. Billions. You could've wiped out everything after that day."
Flash stood paralyzed, guilt and horror etched in every muscle.
"Your second mistake—blatant stupidity. After your first jump, after seeing you caused the very thing you fled, what did you do? Jumped again, like a squirrel on a wheel? You should've stopped. Found a physicist, a cosmologist, a quantum theorist. Studied what you were dealing with. But you chose blind, desperate leaps into the void. Which led to your third, fundamental error."
Alex's stare pinned Flash.
"You're wrong to think your mother couldn't be saved. Novikov's principle says observed past events can't be changed. But the question is: why are you sure you saw the truth? That you saw the real cause of her death as a child?" He paused, letting the question hang. "All you needed was not to change her death's event. You needed to change your child-self's perception of it. Convince young you she died. Craft a new identity for her, erase her memories, send her to the other side of the world under tight protection. Then return to now and… find her. Alive. Preserved through an elaborate cover-up. But now—" Alex's voice turned disappointed—"after your reckless jumps, that task went from difficult to near-impossible. You'd have to fool not just young you but every version of you that's already jumped and seen her death. You've created replicas of yourself you now must deceive."
Power Girl shook her head, muttering with faint disappointment:
"No such bullshit in Life is Strange…"
Plastic Man, grappling with the concept, stretched his neck toward Alex.
"Wait… so Back to the Future is total crap?" He grimaced. "But I still don't get it. Why was he the cause? How does that happen?"
Alex sighed, the sound laced with the last of his patience.
"Let's model it simply, Plastic Man. Imagine, as a kid, you saw your neighbor's house burn. It's your traumatic memory. Now you're grown, you can time-travel. You jump to that night to stop the fire. You sneak into the house to find the cause—say, a knocked-over lamp. In the dark, you accidentally knock it over yourself. It falls. Curtains ignite. The fire starts. You, the future traveler, caused the fire you saw as a kid. That's self-consistency. The past demands a cause, and you provide it."
Plastic Man's rubbery face scrunched in effort.
"But… how does the first fire happen? Say we split it into three timelines: Future, Present, Past. If in the Present I learn the house burned because Future Me went to the Past and caused it… what about the Future where that Me came from? There was no one to burn the house then? How'd he even know it burned if there was no fire before his jump?" He stared at Alex with rare, genuine confusion.
Alex allowed a faint, weary smirk.
"You're right. That's a core flaw in the theory. Causality—cause and effect—breaks at its root. In this model, time is a rigid line where past, present, and future are carved in stone. Cause doesn't always precede effect. Sometimes the effect shapes the cause. If you're still lost—" Alex waved a hand—"I won't dive deeper. Half this room would spiral into depression without Darkseid's help." He turned back to Flash. "I suspected your ability because I got… a letter. From myself."
The statement sent a fresh shockwave through the room. All eyes locked on Alex, brimming with silent questions. Even Batman tilted his head slightly.
"From… yourself?" The Atom asked, skeptical.
"Exactly." Alex turned to Batman. "Take a sheet of paper, tear it in half. Write exactly what I say."
Batman, without question, pulled a notepad and pen from his belt. Alex dictated clearly, pausing between words:
Go to Lucifer.
Nightclub LUX.
Los Angeles.
P$@4175KPOFl.!
Batman wrote, his movements precise, unflinching. He tore off the sheet and handed it to Alex. Without looking, Alex reached into his weathered coat and pulled out… an identical sheet, creased, weathered by time. He laid both side by side. Text, handwriting, torn edge—identical. Letter for letter, comma for comma. As if one were a photocopy of the other.
"Here," Alex said, pointing to the papers. "A letter from the future. In Batman's handwriting. Delivered to me… through Flash. That's time travel in this reality. Not change, but predestination."
Flash stared at the papers, then at Alex, his face torn between hope and despair.
"So…" His voice broke. "No matter how I try… to save her… the past won't change? It's… already written? Like those letters?"
Alex met his gaze. No pity, no judgment, just fact.
"Yes, Flash."
"But… how?" Barry whispered, his voice pleading. "How do I save her now? Is there… any chance?"
Alex studied him, his mind racing through impossible scenarios. Finally, he shook his head slowly.
"The only thing I can think of… It's no guarantee. You'd need to jump earlier. Before all the versions of you that already jumped. Replace your mother with a perfect duplicate—a robot, a biological construct, something indistinguishable from a living woman by any measure. So everyone—neighbors, police, young you, future yous—believes she's dead. Only then might you save her. But…" Alex raised a hand, stopping Flash's ready response. "…that's a task for later. If there's a 'later.' Right now, you have a bigger job." He picked up the letter. "Take this and place it on my desk in the past. I'll explain how."