Justice League of America - Batman: The Stone King (24 page)

They're here, J'onn!
Manhunter felt a surge of pleasure as Batman broadcast the thought.
They're trapped! I'm going to try to release them.

A high-powered laser from his Utility Belt was already in Batman's hand. He snapped it on, guiding the deadly beam up and down the mass of stone that surrounded Superman. It bubbled under the intense heat where the beam struck it, tiny fracture lines branching out from the main central cut.

Batman worked with the beam for several minutes. Finally satisfied, he laid the laser aside and took several small compressed-air pellets from a pouch. He crammed them into the deep split in the rock, wedging them between the rock and Superman's body. He turned away as he waited for the five-second delayed fuses to ignite. Superman's invulnerable body would suffer no harm.

The pellets detonated simultaneously with a soft pop, sending up a puff of dust as several large chunks of stone broke off. Batman seized a loosened section and pulled with all his strength.

The rock imprisoning Superman shattered in a dozen places, falling away to reveal his costumed body. But the liberated hero didn't move. His eyes remained closed, and he showed no sign that he was aware of Batman's presence.

What's the situation, J'onn?

Manhunter's gaze had never left the stricken Stone King. He was motionless now, as if cemented to the spot where he remained kneeling on the hard-packed floor.

No
change. He still seems unaware of our presence. Whatever he's doing, it's absorbing all his attention.

I could use you here. Superman's free, but he doesn't seem to know it.

J'onn threw one last, lingering look at the Stone King, then crept past him and joined Batman in the depths of the cavern.

Gods of Mars!
J'onn was shocked to see his companions, three of them still entombed in the rock, and Superman lying sprawled on the floor.
What's happened to them?

I'm hoping your telepathy can discover that,
Batman rejoined.

J'onn hesitated. Back in the days when he had first perfected the telepathic link to keep his fellow Justice League members in contact during times of crisis, there had been a certain amount of concern. Most heroes had a secret identity, a disguise they wore that allowed them to live some semblance of a normal life.

And every hero had secrets he or she preferred not to share. Those identities and secrets could easily be compromised if anyone–even one of their own number–discovered what they were.

J'onn had promised that he would never probe any of their minds without prior permission, and he'd kept that promise. But now, it seemed he had no other choice.

Batman watched as Manhunter consciously narrowed the focus of his thoughts. He directed his mind toward Superman's, waiting for the strange, alien feeling that would tell him he'd achieved contact. But contact never came–

A flash behind them alerted them to the danger.

They turned, but it was already too late.

A pulsating ball of plasma slammed into them with the force of a locomotive. The Kevlar lining in Batman's costume absorbed and redistributed the blow, but even so, the impact was so great that the vigilante was thrown face-first against the cavern wall. He was out cold instantly.

J'onn J'onzz managed to get both arms out in front of him to break the impact as he was hurled against the wall. His hands, however, sank up to the wrists in the solid rock.

Before he could wrench them free, the rock closed around them like granite handcuffs. J'onn tugged frantically, but the rock wouldn't budge. He heard a groan as Batman started to recover, pulling himself to his knees.

"The cycle will be complete."

The Stone King's words hung in the air, at once a promise and a threat.

He stood behind them, fully recovered now from his mental war with Peter Glaston. The unexpected attack had taken him off balance, fouled up his carefully constructed ritual, and blemished the purity of
his
thought processes.

It had taken a lot out of him, but he had eventually managed to repel Glaston's manic assault. And now he could concentrate again on the task at hand.

The pupils of his eyes began to enlarge, and he stared hard at the duo who had dared to invade the sanctity of his lair.

Batman and Manhunter were in no position to resist the shaman's mental bombardment. Pictures leaped into their minds, vivid visions of horror and death that would linger for a long time.

They saw the sacred sites of the world ablaze with energy.

Machu Picchu, the Incas' mysterious mountaintop sanctuary, belched sulphur and lava from a yawning crater that opened in its summit.

A violent electrical storm raged around the giant rocks of Stonehenge, lightning bolts of unstoppable power streaking destructively into the surrounding countryside.

Sections of Black Mesa, in the Hopi heartlands of the Four Corners, burned uncontrollably as the coal buried in the mountainside spontaneously combusted.

Vision followed awful vision with startling speed. Gotham City crumbling and collapsing as conflagration raged. New York shuddering with seismic shock as the bedrock beneath Manhattan turned to a jelloid mass. Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, disintegrating in an explosion that could be heard all around the world. The Orkney Islands, scene of Europe's first Neolithic settlers, sinking beneath the Atlantic waves.

Still dazed, unable to shut the visions out, Batman's heart filled with growing despair. To have come so close, only to see victory snatched away! The whole world was burning. Billions of innocent people had perished. The Apocalypse prophesied by almost every religion was upon them.

And there was nothing Batman could do about it. Fear of failure raged within him, until his very soul felt crushed.

Manhunter felt physically ill under the mental onslaught. The death of his family and friends–his whole planet!–had left him scarred inside forever. To see the same thing happen on Earth was more than he could bear.

Yet he was helpless, as his adopted world faced its own wholesale destruction at the hands of this maniacal monster.

Still the visions persisted.

Tokyo in ruins, the world's most modern city reduced to a barren wasteland by earthquake and volcanic eruption. Russia brought to its knees by plague and pestilence, corpses piled as high as the Kremlin itself. An America they didn't recognize, the land ripped and torn, the people fleeing in panic from a foe no army could fight.

Time and again, history had presided over the rise and fall of mighty civilizations. The Persians, the Assyrians, the Greeks, and the Romans; the Etruscans, Minoans, Aztecs, Maya, Toltecs, and Olmecs; the crazed hordes of the Mongols and Huns, charging through the cities of the world, baying for blood.

Every one of these civilizations had reached its apex, then plunged to its doom. But there had always been other cultures, ready to expand and take the place of those that failed.

This time, the collapse would be total, and planetwide.

Batman and Martian Manhunter saw the few survivors come crawling out of the holes and caves where they'd hidden. The cycle would start again.

The Stone King would lead them into a new life, cleansed and pure. The electromagnetic fields he controlled would be their lodestone, their guiding star. All would be well–as long as everyone did what the Stone King commanded.

Paralyzed by the Stone King's will, wracked with hopelessness, it was all the Dark Knight could do to remain conscious as the horrific visions never faltered for a moment. For once, the message that his fear carried could not be acted upon.

"Peter? Peter, are you there?"

From far away, Batman recognized the female voice.

Jenny Ayles!

Jenny and Cassandra stood in the chamber doorway, Jenny's fingers tightly gripping her companion's arm. Both were filled with terror, made queasy by the disgusting stench that seeped out from the interior.

But they stood their ground, even as the Stone King turned toward them. Peter Glaston's consciousness had been destroyed; the bull's skull still hid his face, and greasy animal hide covered his body. The smell he gave off was almost unendurable.

Repulsed by the foul image, Jenny had to fight to remind herself that this had been the man she cared for above all else.

"I . . . I love you, Peter," she faltered, heart pounding in her breast.

She wanted to turn and flee, to run as far as she could from the nightmare figure who stood before her. She felt nauseated by its monstrous presence, desecrated by the evil possessing her lover.

She pulled herself together, her knuckles white as her grip on Cassandra's arm tightened even more.

Cassandra could feel every nuance of the younger girl's cartwheeling emotions, but she steeled herself. Jenny needed support, and whatever misgivings Cassandra felt, she was the only one who could offer it.

When Jenny spoke again, her voice was louder, firmer. "I've always loved you, Peter," she declared, "since the first day we met. But you know how I hate argument and confrontation. That's why what happened in Peru, with Robert, poisoned everything we meant to each other."

Jenny's eyes filled with tears that began to slide down her cheeks. "I made a mistake, Peter," she went on. "I want you to forgive me."

The Stone King stood like a statue, making no sound or motion that betrayed whether he had even heard the words, let alone understood them. He seemed to be involved in some inner struggle that diverted his attention from his self-ordained task. The eyes beneath the bull skull blinked shut.

When they opened again Jenny's heart raced.

Those are Peter's eyes!

She hardly dared breathe, her gaze riveted to the Stone King's face. His words came falteringly, as if operating the facial muscles required a tremendous effort. Peter Glaston's eyes held hers, and it was Peter Glaston, and not the Stone King, who said in a thin, strangled voice:

"I . . . love . . . you . . . too . . . Jenny."

Peter Glaston had thought he was finished when the Stone King struck back.

For what seemed like an aeon he had experienced nothing, not even the cognizance of his own thoughts. There was no pain, no regrets, no flashback memories of his all-too-brief life. No heaven, no hell.

Just nothing.

And then, after an eternity of darkness, he thought he heard Jenny's voice.

"I . . .
love you, Peter."

It was as if a dam had burst in his mind. He remembered everything: the first time he saw Jenny, hurrying across the campus lawn, late for a class. He remembered asking her for a date, silently cursing his tongue-tied shyness. The elation he'd felt when she said "yes." Their first kiss, long and sweet and tender, on a warm summer night.

Peter had never been in love before. He embraced the emotion the way he embraced Jenny herself–as if he never wanted to let go.

Her brief affair with Professor Mills had shocked him to his core, hurt him in a way he'd never experienced before. It was soon over, but the damage was done. Jenny said she was sorry; Peter said he forgave her. But there was a shadow between them that hadn't existed before, and the more they avoided discussing the issue, the deeper the shadow became.

From somewhere, the scattered remnants of Peter's personality found the strength to reemerge. He wasn't fighting for himself anymore. He was fighting for the woman he loved.

This was his body. The Stone King had no right to it, no right to steal his life, no right to part him from the only girl he had ever loved.

So he fought back as hard as he could, and tasted victory as his lips parted to say:

"I love you, too, Jenny."

When the Stone King first diverted his attention to Jenny and Cassandra, both Batman and Manhunter had felt the power that held them wane slightly.

He's preoccupied again.
Manhunter flashed the message.

His mind still reeling from the Stone King's mental assault, Batman struggled to gather his thoughts.
I think I know how he's holding the others captive, but it's going to take your psionic powers to free them.

The key was electromagnetism. Batman was certain of it He recalled a scientific journal he'd once scanned, one of the hundreds of items he committed to memory every month.

Volunteers had lain on a gurney, which was rotated at different speeds within a potent electromagnetic field. A surprising number of them, well over eighty percent, had reported undergoing almost exactly the same experience: they hallucinated that they'd been abducted by aliens.

Not just any aliens. There were no postexperiment reports of cosmic octopi with dozens of wriggling tentacles, no little green men with funny ray guns demanding, "Take me to your leader." Every volunteer claimed to have met with the same race, the ones known as "the grays," small beings with disproportionately large heads and black, almond-shaped eyes.

And not just ordinary hallucinations, either: the experimentees claimed the experience was real, as real to them as their everyday lives.

For Batman, the important revelation was that finely tuned EM fields could interact with the subtle fields produced by electrochemical activity in the brain. If it could be done with ordinary humans, it could be done with super heroes.

Now, as the Stone King stood transfixed, his mind overwhelmed by the intensity of Peter Glaston's emotion, his power over Batman and Manhunter decreased.

On my count.
Batman thought.
Three, two, one . . . go!

A snarl rose deep in J'onn J'onzz's throat. The anger aroused by that succession of hellish visions poured out of him. He flexed his arms, bringing all of his fantastic extraterrestrial strength to bear on the rock that held him.

It gave with a loud crack, and his arms pulled suddenly free.

Batman gestured toward their teammates.
I think the Stone King's using electromagnetism to hold them.

I'll let them know what's going on,
J'onn told him.
Green Lantern first. He'll be able to will his ring to alter the EM patterns in his brain.