Central City — S.T.A.R. Labs
Dr. Silas Stone was desperately trying to save his son.
While analyzing a Mother Box that The Flash had delivered, Silas's son—still locked in conflict with his father—stormed into the lab.
Then the Mother Box activated.
The resulting blast wave hit the boy directly, leaving him on the edge of death.
They moved to a sealed "safe" laboratory, but even there, the heavy doors were being battered relentlessly from the outside by Parademons.
"The doors won't hold much longer," one of the researchers reported. "The monsters keep coming. Flash is still on his way."
Silas shoved his dying son into an experimental pod.
For years, he'd studied advanced artifacts collected from around the world. He believed—no, needed to believe—that his research could still save his child.
"He's alive," a technician said, eyes glued to the live readouts, "but some unknown energy is eating him from the inside. He's about to stop breathing."
They could hear the boy's pain from inside the pod.
Silas's face tightened, almost breaking.
"I promised his mother I'd protect him," he said, voice shaking with stubborn conviction. "I will protect him."
Even though many of his procedures had never been properly tested, he treated this as his final straw. He had to try.
"The rejection response is spiking," another researcher warned. "If this continues, he'll die even more painfully!"
Silas's chest clenched. Then the monitors showed it—his son's heart stopped.
Regret hit like a hammer: all the time he hadn't spent with his family.
And then—
The pod changed.
It warped into something like a cocoon. Data streams went chaotic. The room snapped into panic as everyone scrambled to trace the source.
"The corrosive energy is… fusing with the pod," someone gasped. "The experiment's out of control—"
Before anyone could celebrate the possibility of a miracle, the reinforced door was smashed open by Parademons teleporting in.
A massive mechanical hand thrust out from the pod.
A half-man, half-machine Victor Stone surged forward and attacked the Parademons head-on.
His mechanical body reshaped into weapons. Thunderous bursts of gunfire tore through the incoming swarm.
But more Parademons flooded in.
One of them nearly slipped past Victor to seize the last remaining researchers—
—when a red streak flashed through the lab and yanked them all to safety.
"I think I'm not too late."
The Flash set them down and stared at the figure tearing through Parademons in the lab, genuinely stunned.
"What the hell happened here?"
Metropolis — A Construction Site
Back at the worksite, Ben's plan was still in motion: Parademons flying out of the Boom Tube were being funneled into a neat line—straight into Superman's fist.
But everyone noticed something new.
This wave of Parademons wasn't made from one species.
These were victims from all kinds of alien races—converted into Apokoliptian weapons.
Maybe their earlier interference had alerted Darkseid…
…and Apokolips had decided to stop probing and start invading openly.
Worse: because many of these captives had been altered and brainwashed for too long, even when Ben repaired their genetic changes, most were barely clinging to life.
Batman's voice cut in—cold, clipped, operational.
"More Parademons are pouring out from other Boom Tubes. Some are moving toward us. We have to speed this up."
Through Wayne's satellites, Batman was already seeing the scale of the catastrophe:
Enemy swarms, worldwide, tearing through cities.
Saving them one by one wasn't a solution. It was a losing war of attrition.
Then Superman's head snapped slightly—listening.
"The President is under attack," he said. "I have to go."
His super-hearing had caught the White House distress calls.
With Green Lantern and Batman stabilizing the two immediate portals, Superman could—and had to—move to protect more people.
As Superman launched away, Hal gritted out a complaint without stopping his ring output.
"The big guy leaves. Got any worse news?"
Batman had already mounted the Batwing and taken over part of Superman's former workload, blasting at incoming Parademons with the craft's weapons.
Ben, meanwhile, was still trying to touch downed Parademons and trigger the Omnitrix's DNA repair function.
He didn't have voice access or master control—so his attempts to manually force a mass "repair all" were basically the functional equivalent of a monkey slamming a keyboard: not completely useless, but painfully inefficient.
Then Ben felt it.
The Boom Tube was changing.
"Hal—do not jinx us," Ben snapped. "The Boom Tube is expanding! My earlier adjustments are starting to fail!"
Apokolips had noticed the anomalies and was remotely fighting for control of the Mother Boxes.
And Ben was no longer Grey Matter—back in human form, he didn't have the processing power to contest the permissions war.
Hal's voice tightened under strain.
"What do we do? I can't hold it much longer!"
His ring was burning hard, trying to suppress the expansion.
Ben kept fumbling at the Omnitrix, frustrated.
"If I could just activate master control… why didn't Azmuth build a user manual into this thing?!"
The expansion finally became unstoppable.
More and more Parademons poured out.
Elsewhere in the city, additional Boom Tubes opened—new swarms converging toward their position from multiple directions.
Hal couldn't keep suppressing the original two portals and defend against incoming threats at the same time.
Batman's orders came fast.
"Focus your will. Full offense on the Parademons coming out of the portal. I'll handle the ones approaching from other directions!"
They had expected more than two Mother Boxes.
But not this many.
Not this fast.
At this point, "holding the nearby portal" was meaningless if enemies could pour in from everywhere.
Batman swung the Batwing's weapons toward the incoming waves.
"Green Lantern—move!"
Hal roared, and a blazing green construct took shape—an enormous mech, hammering the portal's output with overwhelming force.
Ben finally understood: this was no longer the moment to play medic and repair DNA.
This was survival.
Parademons were already closing on him.
The Omnitrix core popped up on its own.
When the wearer's hiding place was in immediate danger, the Omnitrix's autonomous defense protocol activated—overriding cooldown limits.
Ben didn't even have time to check which alien had been selected.
He slammed the core down hard.
"Hero—coming through!"
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 50)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 50)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 50)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 54)
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