The Despero Intersection

His mind found the first one easily, among the millions of insignificant, doomed vermin infesting the planet. He had traveled through countless miles of space from the system's outer planets, and a few tons of brick and metal in his path were as nothing to him.  He stood among the wreckage, his body already  grown to full-power, suckled on the milk of his hate, enormous muscles bulging beneath blood-red skin.  What the sight of his third eye told him just  enraged him even more. The so-called hero named Steel, the Cyborg member of the Justice League, was no more. The spark of stubborn life barely flickered in the remaining flesh hooked to a multitude of machines, like the echo of a forgotten question. No sentient mind answered his probes.  He roared his frustration. The countless others  dead around him were deaf to his curses.  His hate needed expression. The Justice League  had to pay for his defeat, for the agonizing, maddening torture suffered as his mind was scattered across space, almost to the point of oblivion. Only the purity of his hate had allowed his mind to endure, and his lust for revenge had brought him back, but the Justice Leaguer Steel could no longer provide him with satisfaction.  Destroying the life-support machines with  savage fury, he tore apart Steel's pathetic remains. But even as he raged, a horrible smile began to take shape in his mouth, baring the myriad sharp, spike-thin teeth.  The other members of the Justice League were  still there. Alive. He could sense them. And they would not escape his wrath as easily as Steel had.    **************************************   "Oberon, have you seen Sco-Uh, Mister Miracle?"  "Barda called in early to excuse him," Oberon  answered dryly from his monitor duty chair, not looking up from the screens. "Said he'd be busy at home all day."  "Oh," Fire said, nervously. "It's really quiet  here today. Where's everyone?"  "Well, I saw the grocer's truck arrive earlier,  so Kilowog's cooking again," Oberon said. "Max left earlier for Metropolis, and J'onn retired to meditate, to be disturbed only for alien invasions, the end of the world, or tea, whichever comes first. Booster and Beetle went to an United Nations conference..."  "Those two? At an UN conference? Will there be  free food or what?"  "Princess Diana is giving an address there for  UNICEF. On aid programs for third world children, I think-"  "Oh, sure! The Nice Princess will be there, so  they go too! What's next? The opera?"  "Bea?""  "And... Tora?"  "Ice said she had some shopping to do, so Guy  took her to Bloomingdale's or somewhere."  "WHAT? Tora's out with Guy? Why didn't you warn  me?" Fire asked incredulously.  "Bea, she's a grown girl. She doesn't need ya ta  watch over her alluva time."  "She's out with GUY GARDNER."  "Good point." Oberon conceded.   **************************************    "-can be done. If this aid package is routed not through the corrupt and politicized local government channels, but through nonprofit foundations overseen directly by UNICEF, using this allocation plan, we estimate that current efforts can be improved in over two hundred percent, allowing the children malnutrition index in Honduras alone to decrease by-"  Representatives of the world's richest, most  powerful nations sat at the Assembly Hall, their eyes fixed on the young woman dressed in flowing, Hellenic ceremonial robes, who stood before them. Their interest was uncharacteristically unwavering as her melodious voice carefully explained the complex strategies she had helped develop. Most of them nodded thoughtfully throughout, apparently deeply concentrated on the ideas expounded. Others discussed among them in hushed tones with serious consideration.  *Joder, la tia no usa sosten... Y mira que esta  buena...* thought the Spanish delegate.  "No brassiere! Etonnant!" the French delegate  whispered to the Belgian one, who nodded in agreement.  *Assuredly she's not wearing knickers, either,*  muttered the British delegate.   **************************************    The signal device rang insistently.  "Let it ring. You have work to do."  "Answering the Justice League signal device  is a priority action. Hello, I am Scott Free, Mister Miracle, the-"  #For God's sake, Scott! Cut it out!# Oberon's  voice said. #Teleport over here on the double! We have a BIG situation!#  "WHAT? SO I AM NOT A PRIORITY?" Barda cried out.    **************************************    It had seemed like just another pleasantly normal day. She had left school, joked a bit with some friends on the way and finally arrived home. To find her life destroyed.  Gypsy tried hard not to think of what she had  seen. She tried hard to keep back her tears. But some things could not be denied. She saw again her parents, in the wreck of the living room, unmoving. It was too much to bear.  "YOU CANNOT HIDE FROM ME, CHILD," he said, his  voice filling the air like a tangible presence. "I CAN SENSE YOU."  It was her fault, she told herself, as sobs  shook her slender body. She had thought her past forgotten. She had wanted so hard to believe that she could be just another typical teenager. But the past had come looking for her.  "YOU CANNOT ESCAPE ME. I AM HATE. I AM DEATH."  Gypsy's camouflage powers had kept her alive,  aided by the skills she had learned from her time of living on the streets and her brief membership in the Justice League. Her family had not been so lucky.  She had brought him to them. It was all her fault.  "SHOW YOURSELF, GIRL, OR EVERYONE HERE WILL DIE."  He had already laid waste to half the town. The  train she had tried to escape on was now derailed, wrecked. He would get to her friends and neighbors.  She knew that she could not let anyone else die.  She had to do it for them.  "Despero..." she called out with ragged breath,  holding back her sobs, as she let light flow normally around her, her camouflage field gone. "Don't. I'm here. Don't hurt anyone else..."  The hulking creature stood before her, his  massive shape dwarfing her fragile figure. The third eye below his ridged crest glowed with an unholy malevolence.  "Time to die," Despero hissed with a hideous smile.  >>>NO!<<<  Gypsy looked up, and her tears flowed again,  unrestrained, but this time with savage relief, as the echo of the telepathic voice soothed her. Now it would all be alright.  J'onn was here.    **************************************    "This had to happen before we could get to the free buffet, I knew it," Beetle complained, strapping himself to the pilot chair of the Justice League's airship.  "Those robes were really something else, eh?"  Booster said. "She seemed to have everyone pretty well convinced, too."  "You don't skip free food. It's just wrong."  "Come on, man. Sure, we are broke, but we get  all we can eat at the Embassy, specially if Kilowog's cooking."  "It's a matter of principle," Beetle muttered.  "Everyone belted down? Ok. We're off."  "Did he do ANYTHING? Go on, tell me. Anything  at all?"  "Guy took me shopping, that's all, Bea," Ice  said with a sigh. "How many times must I tell you? Why must you get so worked up?"  "How serious is this?" Booster asked.  "Very. J'onn flew ahead on his own. I think he  was really worried."  "J'onn was worried?"  "Yep."  "Oh, shit."  "You managed to contact Captain Atom yet?"  "Nope. The European Embassy's not answering."  "Damn. We could use the reinforcements."  "You don't need that shiny moron," Guy Gardner  cut in. "Ya'll have right here America's greatest hero, remember?"  "Whatever you say, Guy."  "Hello, I am Scott Free, Mister-"  "Put a sock in it," Guy Gardner replied.  "In what?"  "Fuck off, Mister."  "You seem angry."  "I'd almost talked Ice into tryin' on this  lacy little thing and ya jerks hadda call..."  "Would you like to stop being angry?"    **************************************   "YOU! YOU WILL PAY!"  Despero hurled himself at the Martian Manhunter,  his enormous bulk making even the Martian's tall and heavily muscled body seem puny.  But J'onn was ready. His feet were spread wide,  his psychokinesis focused on leveraging him against the ground, as he swung his right arm in a powerful arc, dense Martian muscles aided by psychokinetic enhancement and the shape-shifting of isolated masses contracting to deliver an Earth-shaking punch .  The blow struck Despero mid-air with the sound  of thunder, and sent him to crash against a hill half a mile away, dozens of shattered trees left in his path.  Despero stood up and smiled.  "THIS WILL BE FUN, MARTIAN."