Chapter 39: Earth wasn't invaded in One Day Part 4

[AN: Grammarly is glitching right now, I tried to make sure there was no grammar errors but they might be. Also for those that are wondering, there is roughly 1~2 chapter left before "Earth wasn't invaded in One Day" comes to an end.]

[Third Person's Point of View]

While Death sat on a comfy chair, the Team was looking at her while being on guard. Nobody spoke for about a minute until Kid Flash could not help it and spoke to the rest through Miss Martian's telepathic link.

'Okay, she can't seriously be Death, can she?'

Upon hearing his question, Robin decided it would be best to inform them of what he knew.

'I think she is, Batman has a file on her though it's pretty much empty.'

Hearing that the information on her was scarce, Aqualad read between the lines and understood that Robin at least knew something. He decided to inquire about the information Robin had and was hoping it was relevant.

'Pretty much empty entails that it is at least not empty. Robin, what does the file say, any information no matter how scarce it is, would be welcomed.'

As Robin was about to tell them what the file entailed, Death spoke.

"Death, the second oldest member of the Endless, a group that comprises several Nigh-Omnipotent aspects of reality that view each other as family. Not much is known of her outside the fact that she appears to remain neutral in almost every conflict that spanned through the universe.

She is among the more reclusive members of the Endless when it comes to meddling with the lives of humans..."

The Team saw that Death was currently holding an open file, made of paper, in her hands as she was reading it though she stopped for a moment to look at the shocked teens to add her thoughts on this.

"Well that part is wrong, it is not just humans but everyone."

She then returned to the file and continued to read.

"... Outside of this, not even the extent of her abilities is known but if we are to base ourselves that the age of an endless is equivalent to their strength amongst each other then she is weaker than Destiny but stronger than Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium."

As she finishes reading the file, she turns to the young heroes once more and then speaks.

"Wow, don't let Desire hear about this or he might set his eyes on making Batman his new toy. Speaking of whom..."

*Snap*

She snaps her fingers and a phone appears in her hand as soon as the file that was in her hands turns into smoke. If one were to look around Death, they would see that everything was frozen in place even time. She puts the phone near her face and starts speaking as if someone is on the other end of the line.

"Hey Dream, how is it going? hm... Hmm..."

She nods a few times as if listening to the phone then speaks once more.

"Yeah, you are right, I didn't call you just to catch up. I need you to do me a favor, nothing to serious just keep Desire away from you know who. You know how our little brother gets when he is bored out of his mind."

After this, she threw the phone which vanished in the air then looked at the young heroes before snapping her fingers and time resumed.

*Snap*

Most of the young heroes were at a loss for what to do but not Supergirl. She approached Death and spoke.

"If you are an Endless then that means you know Despair, right?"

Death saw her angry eyes threatening to launch heat vision and though she seemed unbothered by Supergirl's heat vision, Death still answered the question in the same casual tone that she had used since the beginning of their conversation.

"What you are really asking is if I know why Despair caused you to get stuck in the Phantom Zone instead of arriving on Earth with your then-baby cousin, right? Well, the answer to that question is yes, I know why she used the favor Rao owed her to make Krypton explode later than it should have."

Supergirl started to scream at Death but stopped when the latter's words were registered, then her tone weakened.

"WHY DID SH- wait you said later... then it should... Th- That means that...."

"Yep, Krypton was going to explode regardless of the fact that Despair had Rao destroy the planet. Fun fact, well not so fun for you so interesting fact would be more accurate... So... Interesting fact, your cousin was the only one who was supposed to survive Krypton's demise in this universe.

I mean, he generally is the one that survives Krypton's demise through the multiverse the most though sometimes others survive along with him or instead of him. It all depends on which universe you're in."

Upon hearing Death's words, Supergirl could not help but bite her lip as she muttered to herself.

"Why... why was I the one to make it? Why did Krypton have to explode?"

Death sighed as she stood up and spoke.

"I won't completely answer that first question just know that Despair simply wanted someone that remembered how Krypton used to be to exist. Your cousin was too young for that. As for your second question, Krypton's destruction is sort of a canon event across most universes."

She turned to Robin and then continued.

"Before you ask, no Destruction was not involved with Krypton's destruction. Nowadays, E.N.D is the one that manages those things."

Seeing Robin visibly shaken that his thought was easily read, Death turned to look at Aqualad and then resumed.

"You must be wondering what is a canon event, well it's something E.N.D came up with to describe events that tend to happen in most if not all universes in the multiverse like say for example, the beginning and end of each universe. The rest of the Endless just started using that term after a while."

Death then looked at Supergirl and brought her hand to the latter's shoulder before she spoke in a carrying tone.

"In most of the time, Krypton is destroyed because its High Council does not listen to either your father's, Zod's or uncle's warnings. It was the same for this universe, all three tried to save Krypton but didn't... in their own way which led to your father deciding to save you via the Phantom Zone."

"Why exactly are you here?"

Inwardly trembling, Aqualad steeled himself to ask this question as he feared for the worst. To him, the best-case scenario was that Death was here for Doctor Roquette alone and the worst-case scenario was that she was here for all of them.

Neither case was good for him as, to him, it was his duty as a hero to protect everyone. This fact had become clear for everyone outside Supergirl who had been more preoccupied with the reason behind Krypton's demise.

Though the rest of the young heroes, outside Supergirl, had this in mind only one of them was able to look at the bigger picture and it was none other than Miss Martian. Sure, Ivo had been taken into custody by the authorities but that still did not give them the answer as to why Doctor Roquette was there with him.

The Team's initial plan was to wait until Doctor Roquette woke up to get to the bottom of this but now that Death had arrived, even in the best-case scenario, they would not be able to find the answer which is why she had secretly invaded the mind of Doctor Roquette to find her answer before it was too late.

As she was searching through Doctor Roquette's memories, Miss Martian could not help but to remember Acnologia's words about what it meant to be a hero and what he thought about being able to save everyone.

'Thinking you can save everyone often leads heroes into depression. My advice on being a hero is don't become one in the first place since it's a thankless job, not worth MY full-time, and eventually, people will take you for granted which leads to them thinking that they can toss you around like some lapdog.

Don't even get me started on villains, you will gain haters who hate you to the point of dedicating their pathetic lives to ruining yours and as a hero, you are supposed to not end them... Still, if you still want to become one then try to save everyone but never believe you can save everyone.'

One of the things Acnologia did as team leader was to crush the Team's naive notion that they, excluding him, could save everyone, win every mission and everything always turned out okay for them akin to rainbows and sunshine type of ending.

He often told them to steel themselves before every mission as the unexpected always happened when they did not expect it. He was not trying to be wise or anything, he was simply stating it and told them to never let their guard down, a trait that Batman frequently endorse to Team to gain.

He also drilled the concept of efficiency such as avoiding standing where you are after making an entrance and giving your opponent a clear shot at you or time to get a clear shot at you no matter how invulnerable, fast, or intangible you are.

Another thing he drilled into his team was how not to be stupid like not touching everything you see in an ancient Aztec altar since just because you do not believe in magic, does not mean you get to goof around during mission.

Attacking Death was stupid, especially when she had yet to do anything against them or Doctor Roquette. Returning back to the subject at hand, Death simply waved her hands in the air after hearing Aqualad's question before she answered it.

"Don't get me wrong, I am not here to kill any of you guys in fact I am not even here to kill her."

She pointed at Doctor Roquette and then continued.

"Believe it or not but I don't really kill a lot. I just let whatever killed someone actually kill that someone. Like a referee during a dodgeball game, I just make sure that once the ball hits you and touches the ground, you are out... I mean sometimes someone catches the ball and brings you back but that's life."

"If that's the case then why bother talking to us?"

Artemis asked to which Death simply sighed before answering her question.

"*Sigh* Well that is because you kids still have a bit of Life Spirit's magic in your system from when they healed you a couple of minutes ago which has a side effect of being able to see me whenever I am around... As long as I don't mind it that is.

Plus I am not used to talking to people that aren't family, dead or personally seek me out for whatever reason they have... usually its to bring back someone from the dead or to gain immortality.

By the way, you can also passively see magic but don't worry about it since it should be done in about five."

She ended her sentence while looking at a watch that just appeared on her wrist.

"Five? Five what? Days? Hours? Minutes-"

Kid Flash asked but was interrupted by Death who waved at them.

"One."

"Oh, no."

Robin said understanding what Death meant as she faded in front of them and just as she disappeared, purple lightning started to flow through Doctor Roquette for a second before it vanished.

*BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP*

"Argh."

Miss Martian exclaims in pain as the rest of the team minus Supergirl are frozen due to realizing that Doctor Roquette has just died. Robin helped Miss Martian up and could not help but notice that she seemed petrified though he could only guess as to why.

The Team left the room as the hospital staff tried their best to reanimate Doctor Roqutte's heartbeat but all knew that was a pointless endeavor. Once Doctor Roquette's death was confirmed, the Team departed from the Hospital and returned to the Cave after picking their leader up.

Once the time for the mission report came, the Team was greeted by the founding members who wanted to speak to Acnologia, who smirked upon seeing Wonder Woman and Aquaman. Miss Martian insisted on staying behind with Acnologia who agreed since he knew that she would not do such a thing for no reason.

That was the day, the league learned that Red Arrow had probably been cloned by the Light and was acting as a spy. Everyone, outside of Acnologia, was shocked upon hearing Miss Martian describe the events that led to the capture of Red Arrow thought most were obscure due to Doctor Roquette not knowing much and only overhearing it.

Acnologia was not shocked but he was still surpised but for a different reason. During the briefing of the Fog Mission, he remembered that the Life Spirit had described Red Arrow as an overgrown baby but at that time he simply thought it was a description of his personality due to the lack of fuck to give Acnologia had for Red Arrow.

It was decided that this discovery would remained between the nine individual present before Acnologia proceeded with explaining what he found from Parasite which was that Intergang was trying to recruit metahumans for a reason Parasite did not know.

After the meeting was done, Superman went to see Supergirl since she seemed down while Acnologia simply kept a smirk as he looked at Wonder Woman and Aqualad, a full five minute of silence ensued before the two spoke in unison.

""*Sigh* You were right.""

*Click*

As they finished their sentence, Acnologia brought his hand up and showed that he held a recorder which he was recording until he clicked the stop button. He then left and spoke while looking at the recorder.

"I think I am going to make this my, as the surface dweller says, new ringtone."

Acnologia then went to see Supergirl to assess whether she would be fit for duty or not... at least that was the reason he gave himself. Upon arriving to where Supergirl and Superman were, he overheard their conversation and learned that Supergirl was having surviver's guilt. 

She saw herself as worthless and that there was a thousands people on Krypton that deserved to live more than she did. Superman was many things and on many occasions such as this, he would known what to say but any words of comfort he could think of, he knew that it would have the opposite effect right now.

"You are not worthless."

Acnologia said as he came into the conversation. He walked towards Kara as he continued.

"I spend months of my time trying to get you, and you alone, out of the Phantom Zone. Granted at the time, the fact that others were in there was still not known to us and it was mostly to perfect my control on a new combination of magic that I was learning but the mere fact that I spent such much time on something other than myself is worth something."

He brought his hand on Kara's shoulder and then added.

"Months of my time is worth more than any lives on Krypton-"

*BOOM*

Acnologia tilted his head as a fist came down on his head with enough force and speed to create a sonic boom. Kara had just sent a rage-filled punch toward Acnologia and Superman was left to witness what came afterward.

Acnologia continued to taunt Kara which caused her to lash out even more until in escalated into a fight. Superman did nothing because he realized what Acnologia was doing. He was getting Kara mad to vent down all the frustration that came out of her survivor's guilt and stop feeling down.

[AN: Not sure if that is actually a way to get someone out of survivor's guilt but just gonna roll with it cuz that is something someone as prideful as Acnologia would do.]

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Dream had gone to Desire and warned him to stay clear of Acnologia. Death could have done that herself but prohibiting Desire from doing something was the same as daring him to do it. Death knew that her warning Desire would have just made him want to go for it even harder.

However, that was not the case if it was Dream that warned Desire. You see, Desire liked to get on Dream's nerves. He liked it so much in fact that if Dream were to warn him to stay away from Acnologia then Desire would no longer care about Acnologia but simply test the boundaries of Dream's warning to see how far he could go heeding the warning while getting on Dream's nerves.

This is where Maxwell Lord came into the picture, Desire knew that he harbored the desire to control or eliminate, depending on the individual, the superpowered individuals that plague his Earth.

Dream had warned Desire to stay clear of Acnologia but he never said anything about someone that could set his eyes on Acnologia not personally but by association if certain buttons were pushed.

Desire increased Maxwell Lord's thirst for control. This happened right after Brainiac finished tying up loose ends with Charles Brown, making sure that his involvement in Charles' ongoing revenge was untraceable and fully integrated itself with Maxwell Lord.

[AN: That happened in Chapter 37 for those that are wondering.]

The Increase in Maxwell's desire turned in itself into a sort of telepathic virus that affected Brainiac. His goal went from defeating the Justice League to destroy the world to defeating the Justice League to control the world with a hundred percent chance of success.

Should this fail, Brainiac was still programmed to send a signal signaling his defeat. Now with a new goal in mind, Brainiac, now more Maxwell Lord than an emotionless machine, began to create the army that would defeat the Justice League and Batman's contingencies plan would help greatly in his endavor.

By utilizing the abilities of the Sentinel and the contingency files from Batman, Maxwell Lord began a project that he dubbed the Omni-Mind and Community Project or OMAC Project. OMACs will be the name of cyborgs who take over human bodies via a nanotech-virus.

They would be secretly introduced into general vaccine supplies, in order to assassinate any and all beings with superpowers when given the orders to do so. To paint a picture, a superpowered hero could one day save a baby from a burning building only to be killed by said baby who is being held in their hands while being none the wiser.

Desire also had a video of Acnologia beating up Parasite go viral just to see how Dream would react. Dream came to warn him once more and Desire simply enjoyed the latest cat-and-mouse game that had just begun between them.

[AN: By this point, it is pretty much clear that an invasion is on the way but that doesn't mean that the start of something else can't happen before that.]

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An orator with incredible persuasive powers, Glorious Godfrey was sent to Earth by Darkseid to spread rhetoric and unrest that would help pave the way for Darkseid's coming. To deprive Earth of its heroes, Godfrey assumed the identity of G. Gordon Godfrey, a GBS pundit, the host of The G. Gordon Godfrey Show.

He often hosts massive smear campaigns towards the heroes, in attempt to have a law of outlawing superhero activities. With the support of his travelling road show, Glorious Godfrey started to secretly and discretly preach the wonders of the Anti-Life, the equation for which being Darkseid's ultimate goal. This led to a cult starting to form.

Now some may wonder why would he be mentioned now, well, he is currently hosting another smear campaign against his favorite target, the Justice League and after the Dark Heart incident, the League lack of explanation about their Headquater in space having pratically a nuclear canon and the video of Acnologia beating Parasite treading, Godfrey had enough ammo to last him for weeks.

"As my source tell me, it is supposed to be a gun with the punch of a small nuclear weapon but folks are we really going to believe that. I mean what even is a small nuclear weapon... I'll tell you what it is... It is still a Gosh darn NUCLEAR WEAPON!"

Godfrey said while being on live television. He than added with a bit of sarcasm in his next sentence.

As if the allmighty Justice League wasn't powerful enough on its own... Now they are using Nuclear Weapons and we are supposed to believe that it is only for our own good, huh? If that was the case then why didn't they come forward with that information.

That their headquarters that is in space- *Gasp*"

he momentarily stopped with a fake gasp before he resumed.

"You heard it right folks, they have a frigging Headquarters in Space! Now am I the only one that see what is wrong with this? Is this not a replication of the Death Star?! Was the Star War series not a clue?

For Pete's sake, the Justice League has their own eye in the sky, a watchertower in orbit over our planet, spying the very planet they purport to protect. Now I know what some of yoy might be saying right now... B-B-But Gordon, the Justice League ish the gwood gwuys."

He misprounounced the name of the Justice League to add in more ridicule to those that had such thouhgts before he clicked on a button and a video, containing the beating Acnologia gave to Parasite, started playing behind him as he resumed. 

"Then tell me where are the good guys in this video? I mean if a sidekick is displaying such degree of violence then what does that tell you about the mentors."

He stopped the video at a point where Acnologia had just smacked Parasite in the face, he rewinded it then replayed it a couple of times as he spoke.

"Look right there, is that anything a supposed hero should be doing? Look at what that Atlantean child is doing? Look at the face of Parasite, It is something one came only make after going through what I can only describe as an absolute disrespect."

Godfrey let the video continue with Acnologia running Parasite's fade as he resumed.

"Disrespect that the Justice League continuously giving to you folks by abusing our your kindhearted belief. Now me personally, I wouldn't take this level of disrespect just like Parasite over their will probably not take it and go on a rampage to hunt that Atlantean child which could cause untold amount of damage and death to you good folks."

Godfrey proceed to continue instigate distrust among the citizen of Earth towards their heroes for a full hour often sugesting that the Watch Tower should be made public. Many seemed to have a problem with the violence that Acnologia displayed against Parasite though some saw nothing wrong with that.

This was excluding Gotham since everyone, especially those that had been beaten by Batman, were confused at what violence Godfrey was speaking about. Parasite had all his limb intact which to them were akin to being perfectly fine.

Batman, Ra's al Ghul and Savage were expecially impressed at the level of effiency that Acnologia displayed. He inflicted enough pain to cause Parasite's resilence to falter enough to quickly spill the beans yet left enough area untouched to intensify the torture if need be.

Those three men being at the top when it came to martial arts and torture, knew with a single glance that Acnologia had purposly attack Parasite's head in a way that would not impair the latter when it came to answering the former's question. From then on, Batman decided to add that to his list of interogating method.

[AN: Want more? Like Thanos, I want those STONES!!!]