บท 55: Chapter 49: Aftermath 3

"talking"

'thinking'

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Lian Yu (10 days after the mission)

In Lian Yu's meeting room, the entire Justice League plus the Teen Titans were having the long-awaited meeting after the all-important rescue mission had been a success.

It had been 10 days and this was for nothing other than to tend to the wounded. Oliver Queen was well, and his critical moment had passed. Thanks to the advanced technology of the island, his wound had closed completely and only a scar had remained. He was still sore, but he could move on his own.

Clark Kent, after some recovery time in the solar chambers, was as good as new. Sure, he still looked thin for the big, muscular man he was before, but at least he looked like a healthy man, and that was a big plus.

The problem was that, said man, he still had a rather large pang of conscience. From a young age, his adoptive parents had always inculcated him with values such as that every person deserved forgiveness, and that justice always acted on those who broke the law. But now... his thinking had changed radically.

He had killed Sivana, and although his conscience told him he had done the right thing, his morality was quite questionable at the moment. The first thing he did when he arrived and regained his consciousness, since he had fainted from exhaustion on the road from the effort he had made, was to tell his mother everything and ask for her forgiveness.

Martha, like the great woman she was, didn't even care about that, she was just happy that her beloved son was safe. Lois the same. Since he had arrived she hadn't let go of him. The big man of steel was being rather spoiled by his fiancée, and it was something he frankly didn't dislike.

He still had his pangs of conscience, but little by little, he was trying to live with that. He would not become a mass murderer because of this, but he would now be more aware that there are people who do not deserve or want salvation.

However, it wasn't all good. Right now, in the room, there was a 16-year-old teenager who had been unable to sleep due to many nightmares he had had from accidentally killing Polaris.

Billy Batson kept reliving in his mind everything he had done and looking for explanations that what he did was right and for the good of the world. And so far, he still couldn't find one that would help him feel less guilty. At this point, Billy looked haggard and with big dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. Both his friends and the adults were quite concerned.

Dinah, who was an expert in psychology, had offered to talk to him in a therapy session, but he hadn't wanted to, so she hadn't forced him. For a therapy session to work, he had to be willing to do it.

The atmosphere was relatively cheerful, with touches of bittersweetness. But, a slight tension was felt stemming from two people. Jefferson Pierce, and Selina Kyle.

Jefferson had been a 'traitor', compelled by threats to his daughters. And, even if the League understood his circumstances, it had not been easy to come to terms with all that he had done. Jefferson sat there and, although he talked to everyone cheerfully, he could sense that they were more wary of him. The trust lost because of this would take time to regain.

His daughters, at least, had acclimated well to everything. For them, it had all been quite new. Sure, they knew their father was a superhero, but not that they were being threatened. But when it was all explained to them with evidence, they understood and supported their father. They were not present, but they had still made friends with the Titans and were having a good time on the island.

Selina brought mistrust because of her ties to The Light. Some still thought she was a spy and that it had all been a ruse by Vandal and his team to find out their location. But J'onn had already analyzed her mind in depth and Cyborg had analyzed whether spy devices existed and had tested negative in both tests. In short, she was there by choice. She even agreed to be considered a prisoner to lower the suspicions they had on her.

She was sitting alone, drinking some milk in a lonely corner. No one deigned to greet her. No one, until Dick arrived and greeted her, then Barbara, then the other Titans.

Sure, she was an enemy, but Dick, living with her in the same house with Bruce, saw that the woman was actually quite funny, with a touch of flirtatious humor, like that aunt who embarrasses you at Christmas by asking you about love. And also she had some very good stories to tell. Now, he understood why Bruce liked this woman.

The Titans, being close to Dick, broke their stereotypes and got close to the woman, and grew fond of her. She even taught them several fighting techniques that were quite useful for the less experienced. Selina was slowly gaining the trust of the place.

Finally Bruce arrived dressed in a smart trench coat and they started the meeting. In his hand were several files that then with some commands and a special device he projected on the main screen. The title of the files was none other than 'Project Cadmus'.

"Guys, first of all, I think we should thank and congratulate for the successful missions we accomplished in rescuing Superman and Black Lightning. Most of all, to the Teen Titans who worked and improved to accomplish this very difficult mission. For that and more, let's applaud them"

Everyone applauded because of this. The Teen Titans in the room were quite embarrassed. They had never been so well congratulated. Sure, they had never had such a difficult mission, but it still felt good to be recognized.

Bruce raised his hand and ceased all congratulatory noises.

"However, there is still much work to be done, and I'm afraid the information I've recently gathered will make the time to act more... pressing. This what you see on the screen, is called 'Project Cadmus'"

Bruce continued to project file after file on the screen. Notes on Kryptonian physiognomy, how the sun affected their cells, how red light was a weakness, and even how human DNA resembled Kryptonian DNA to a lesser extent.

"From the information retrieved in these files, plus the information gathered derived from Martian Manhunter's mind-reading of our prisoner Cyborg Superman, I inferred that The Light's larger project is related to this project. Simply put, they are building a weapon derived from everything gathered with Superman. My guess, is that they are building a half-human, half-Kryptonian hybrid army. An army with Superman's abilities, but loyal to The Light. If my guess is correct, then all is lost"

With these words from Batman, everyone became solemn. The previously cheerful mood was over. A Superman in itself was already dangerous, but an army of them, this could not even be imagined.

However, Selina, who was in a corner, decided to stand up and cough a little to get everyone's attention. Everyone looked at her when she did this. A bit of hostility from some could be felt as the beautiful woman stood up.

"Bruce is partly right. I don't know in depth how much this project entails, as Vandal had it pretty much locked down, even for us. Perhaps only Thinker, Lex, Zazzala and a couple of other members know what they are looking for. But one thing is clear, the project has actually been a failure"

"That's right, guys" Jefferson interrupted the conversation. "Maybe, I was a hostage before, but I didn't sit idle and also tried to retrieve and observe as much information as I could get, and I remember very much hearing Neal (Polaris) complaining that Lex was tired that day by day there was no progress on this project. I think we're okay for the moment"

"We're not fine"

An ethereal voice interrupted the conversation. At that the whole air in the place seemed to change, as an external pressure began to be felt. Out of nowhere, a large golden portal materialized right in the center. Everyone became alert, but Batman stopped them from doing anything, when he said.

"Wait, don't do anything. They are guests"

From the portal a large group of unknown men and women began to emerge. However, they were not all strangers as from the portal also came out Arthur and his wife Mera, then came out Diana, and finally the last to enter were Doctor Fate and Edgar, who was also accompanied by Raven. She didn't want to stay in the tower and Edgar decided to take her, plus Kent told her that she could meet people her own age. When Doctor Fate entered, the portal closed.

"Diana, Arthur!" everyone exclaimed. They all went to meet the aforementioned, since they hadn't seen each other in a long time. They all hugged them.

"Diana, where have you been all this time?" asked Dinah.

"Arthur, you too, we thought you had-" wanted to say Barry, but Arthur interrupted him with a smile.

"It's a long story, I promise I'll tell you, but right now I think we have more pressing issues to deal with"

"Yes, guys. I'd love to catch up just like you guys, but there will be time later" Diana chipped in. With that, they insisted no more. They were both right, there would be better times to catch up.

However, it was not all joy at the arrival of this new group. At this point, as everyone ceased their greetings, they saw Bruce and the last man to enter staring at each other. Now that they could see him well, they recognized him. It was him... it was the Ghost Rider.

Bruce was looking seriously at Edgar. Edgar only smiled slightly and also 'looked' in Bruce's direction. However, his senses were scanning the entire room. Every detail. The once large room now felt quite cramped due to the arrival of the Outsiders.

A tense atmosphere was felt in the place. Everyone was quietly watching the interaction.

"Bruce"

"Edgar"

"Well, you wanted me to come and here I am. Although, my heightened senses tell me that there is a lot of hostility on your part towards me, Bruce. I sense a part of you doesn't want me to be here"

Bruce, saying nothing, just stared impassively at Edgar, as if trying to find every secret. Only he knew his thoughts at this moment.

However, it wasn't Bruce who spoke, but Clark, who had stood up and approached Edgar. Edgar obviously sensed him, but did nothing to prevent it, as he felt there was no hostility towards him.

Clark approached and when he was within inches, he held out his hand to him.

"Maybe Bruce has hostility toward you, but I'm glad to see you. Your help would come in handy at this critical time" Clark said as friendly as possible.

Edgar saw his soul and recognized him as Superman. Edgar held out his hand in a shake and said with a smile.

"I'm glad to see you're free, and to see that you're okay. I really am"

"Thanks, it's good to be back... and maybe when it's all over I'd like a rematch. Maybe in an environment where there's no destruction of the city" Clark said which made Edgar smile.

"Yeah, I'd like that, though I tell you I've gotten better in this time" Edgar told him with amusement.

"That's good. I learn from my mistakes and I'll tell you I won't hold back" Clark replied him also with a smile. An atmosphere of healthy competitiveness was being felt. Both of their blood was starting to boil a little at the thought of a rematch of that big fight they'd had.

"Cough, cough" Bruce coughed a couple of times to interrupt the conversation. Finally, the tense atmosphere was gone. "Well, if you could seat the new group and introduce yourselves to everyone, that would be great"

"Wait, Bruce. I just want to ask what that thing is doing here" Zatara asked pointing his finger. However, he wasn't pointing at Edgar. He was pointing at the purple haired girl next to him, namely Raven.

Zatara being a powerful wizard could sense the girl's very potent demonic energy. But he did not see a girl, he only saw a being of complete darkness. He even began to gather power in case it was needed at this moment. Power that Edgar, Kent and a few others in the room felt it.

"Look, man. I'm giving you three seconds to put that finger down, and stop showing hostility towards Raven, or else we're going to have a problem" said Edgar who didn't even turn to 'look' at Zatara, just stood in front of Raven protectively.

"That thing has a lot of darkness inside, it's a total abomination"

However, it wasn't Kent or Edgar who moved to intervene.

Zatara never reacted when he felt the edge of a sword at his throat. A slight line of blood was beginning to flow from the large blade of this weapon. The cause of it all, none other than Diana, who was looking menacingly at Zatara. Zatara only had a look of disbelief for this action.

"Diana... why?" Zatara asked. He still not believing the hostility.

"I will not allow you to disrespect her, Zatara. You are my friend and for that alone I have not done something more serious. I warn you. Stop showing hostility or I will be seen to act against you"

"Yes, do that Zatara" said Fate who removed his helmet, revealing the elder Kent Nelson.

This sight surprised everyone present who had never seen Kent's true appearance. The most surprised was Dinah, who recognized the old man's features. In disbelief, she said to him.

"Godfather?"

"Hello, little Dinah"

Dinah ran over and hugged the old man. Tiny tears ran down her face.

"I thought I wouldn't see you anymore"

"Impossible, I promised your mother I would take care of you and here I am. I have always taken care of you, my child"

Dinah continued to hug Kent. Many didn't understand what was going on, but it was actually very simple to explain.

Kent, having lived a long time, had been a participant in a group of 'superheroes' called The Justice Society of America. Instead of a group known as the Justice League, this group were more secret government agents who used their special abilities on missions that 'normal' people could not perform.

It was in the Cold War era and many of the missions were espionage or intelligence gathering. Or recovery missions, and destruction of weapons. The group was not large, only about 6 members, and Kent was not actively involved either, as he had other more pressing magical matters. Being a Lord of the Order takes up a lot of your time.

However, he had become close friends with the members of that group, which included Dinah's mother, Dinah Drake. She was a superheroine, or agent named Black Siren. They were such good friends, that Kent was the godfather at little Dinah's birth. When her mother died, she had made him promise to always take care of her daughter. And he had kept it.

One of the reasons for joining the Justice League was precisely to take care of her. Sure, there were other reasons, but there were feelings involved in joining the group. Dinah hadn't seen him for years, so long that she thought he had died. She was very glad to see him.

"And how is my godmother, Inza?"

"She is very well, when this is all over, I promise I'll take you to meet her"

"I'd like that"

"COUGH, COUGH" Bruce interrupted again. "I know you all want to talk amongst yourselves. But this meeting is pressing. The faster we get it over with, the faster you can catch up. And Zatara, they are friends and reinforcements, so let's stop the hostility"

Finally, everyone calmed down and took their seats. Zatara no longer acted and reluctantly sat down. Diana also put down her sword, and sat down next to Edgar and Raven, while holding out her hand to him.

"Well, when I invited you here, Kent, I didn't think you'd bring such a... large group" Bruce said, as he made his way towards the old man. The old man just smiled impishly and said.

"Well, I thought we needed all the help we could get. Let me introduced them quickly. John Constantine, powerful sorcerer and demonologist exorcist. The floating spirit is Deadman, an old friend in life of this old man, next to him is Rex Mason (Metamorpho), someone who suffered at the hands of The Light, who injected him with just one of the first manufactured serums from the Project Cadmus, that turned him, just as you see him" they all felt sorry for the man who was composed of stone, plaster, sand, and granite. They knew The Light did unethical experiments, but this was too much in their eyes.

"Next to him is Patrick Ó Brian (Plastic Man), another who was a victim of experiments. Specifically the experiment to awaken his metahuman character. They put him through inhuman tortures just to awaken his powers. One of the few who have been able to survive, and the only one who was able to escape"

Patrick, however, didn't mind being looked at with pity, on the contrary, he just smiled cheerfully and with his Powers, he greatly stretched his jaw making a big smile and put up two giant hands with peace signs.

"Hello, hello, greetings everyone, it's a pleasure!"

Everyone wondered if the tortures had affected his mind, because they could not believe that someone with such circumstances could be so cheerful.

"Next to him, Miss Tatsu Yamashiro, of the former Yamashiro clan. She lost all her relatives to The Light as they were the main leaders of the Yakuza. Next to her, there are Miss Beatriz Da Costa and Miss Tara Olafsdotter, two powerful metahumans wanted by The Light. Beatriz also saw how the favelas were massacred. Next to her, scientists Martin Stein and Ronnie Raymond, escaped from The Light. Next one miss Kimiyo Hoshi, another important researcher. The young man there is Jaime Reyes, 18 years old. Don't underestimate him. Believe me, he is very powerful. And next to him a friend of this old man, Jason Blood"

Orsi was not present, because he needed to settle Church affairs, but he would help, although it would have to be unofficially from the church, as at this time the church had agreements with The Light not to interfere in their affairs. The Faith is very important to many. The Light knew better not to modify anything so as not to create revolt in the masses.

"Arthur, Mera, Diana, and I believe Edgar you already know. And lastly, this is David Hyde, better known as-"

"Black Manta" Batman interrupted seeing the dark-skinned man. Some stood up and protested at being present before another member of The Light. It was bad enough to have Catwoman, but now Black Manta. It was just hard to understand. They should both be in a cell.

Arthur stood up and stopped the protests.

"Guys, this man has affected MY kingdom. He was judged by MY hand, and I have already forgiven him. He is here to help"

"The Light never liked me. I was only there for personal matters, I was not interested in his other affairs. I never had anything to do with their killing in villages and so on" David said to the assembled group. He was impassive at this point, oblivious to the protests of the others.

And this was true. Manta had indeed done things that could be labeled as 'bad', but not like other members. Mostly everything he did was because of his hatred against Arthur, not because of his loyalty to The Light.

"That's right, Manta didn't care much for them, and sometimes he didn't even attend meetings. The truth is, he's squeaky clean. A lot cleaner than me if I could say" Selina contributed to the conversation. Finally, everyone stopped protesting.

"That's right, guys. All of them, as you can see have something to do to a lesser or greater extent with The Light, but they are all in on the cause to defeat them. They'll be a big help" finally Kent finished with the presentation. Batman continued after that.

"Well, we've already introduced ourselves so let's move on. We already talked about the Cadmus project and its importance, now let's talk about their large troops, and weapons. The problem is not the quantity, it's that they have at their disposal almost all the nuclear weapons in the world. They got it from modifying the Project 'Ghost'. A US government project that Star Labs was developing. My files say it was modified by Thinker and he used it to steal privileged information like activation codes for powerful missiles and so on"

Project 'Ghost' was a project that was stolen on the day of the exposition (AN: Chapter 16), at Star Labs.

A project that Silas Stone was working on behalf of the government. They wanted to use it as a code or machine that would spy on the enemies of the nation and be untraceable. Obviously Thinker modified it and with it he stole a lot of information, including activation codes for the different nuclear weapons in the world.

"The Light has weaponry that can destroy the world if they wanted to"

Everyone snorted coldly at this. It was getting harder and harder to see where to defeat this powerful group.

"However, they don't want it. And that has been seen with Vandal who never attacked with strong troops. Everything has been gradual by bribes or other methods. That makes one thing clear to me. All the resources they had accumulated are not for fighting us. They are preparing for something else. A bigger war.....an external invasion"

And with that, the meeting continued....

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National City (15 days after the mission)

In the orphanage financed by Edgar, as every day, a large group of children could be seen running around and enjoying their day.

The older ones helped the caretakers with the housework, whether it was cooking or washing clothes. It was the least they could do to thank them for taking good care of them.

In the past year, everything had changed drastically in the area of foster homes and orphanages. Contrary to what one might think, that the government would surely take away all the funds from these places, this did not happen.

On the contrary, the government contributed a lot of funds to these places, but in exchange they had to follow the rule that all young people over 15 had to sign up at the Centers of Value. And, if they showed positive attitudes, they would be taken by the Liberation Front. In short, in exchange for a better life, they would be prisoners for life.

Only the orphanages in the private sector did not go through that. Among them, this orphanage. Legally, the government could not take this place hostile because the law strongly protected the Revenger Group and its affiliates. Of course, Vandal could take it by force, but decided to hide appearances. They had to show that everything was 'legal'.

From time to time, one or another soldier from the Liberation Front would drop by this place to see if there were no 'anomalies' or 'problems' that required their attention. But so far, everything had been quite normal, with no inconveniences.

In that place, a rather adorable 6-year-old girl was on a swing with a sad look on her face.

She was Lissy, one of Edgar's favorite children, whom he liked the most. She missed him very much, as it had been a long time since they had seen each other.

Sometimes he was absent for his work, but not that long. Every day that passed, she hoped he would come to visit them. But every day, those hopes died more and more in the little girl.

The matron of the place, Sister Maria, approached the sad little girl.

"Lissy, don't be sad. Surely, wherever he is, he is very busy. But that doesn't mean he has forgotten us. I'm sure he'll be visiting us very soon"

She was indeed aware of Edgar's information. Everything shared by the 'government' of his background and his dangerousness for being the Ghost Rider. But that didn't matter to the old woman. Edgar was Edgar.

He was the main contributor to this place and that was all that was enough. Although, she could get an idea of what business he might be involved in and she understood him not coming to visit, she missed him too.

"It's not that, Sister Maria. It worries me to think that Edgar is bad or in trouble. I don't want anything bad to happen to him"

This frankly surprised the Matron. She was always amazed at the great goodness in this little girl's heart. With a smile, she said to her.

"Don't worry, Lissy. I'm sure Edgar will be fine, and that very soon he will be visiting us"

"Do you really believe that?"

"I do. You'll see that everything will be fine"

Lissy smiled slightly. Her sad mood was beginning to improve.

"Now, what do you say you come over and help me make lunch. We can make the cookies you like"

"Yeeii, cookies!"

With that, they both set off for the kitchen.

What they didn't know was that today would not be like every other day, and that in fact, all would NOT be well. For a girl dressed as a clown and a big crocodile looking man were outside the place.

"Okay you big lizard, Vandal entrusted us with this mission. You know, children are forbidden"

"Don't call me lizard, my name is Killer Croc. And I know. But women are mine" Waylon said as he licked his lips and flashed a disturbing smile.

With that, Harley raised her big Mallet and banged on the door, knocking it down.

"Children, Aunt Harley has arrived. Come and greet her!"

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AN:

My P@treon

TioIroh99 (12 chapters ahead) I'm on chapter 60 in P@treon