4397/ZZGU: Stronger Together

ZZGU: Stronger Together
Date of Scene:	13 December 2020
Location:	Another Earth
Synopsis:	The Justice League, The Titans, SHIELD, and the DEO enter another Earth to fight a space horror named Zhed'Zhud'Ger'Uth before it can launch a full on assault against our Earth. One niggling detail, there's another Kara Zor-El and she's a bit insane in the membrane. The heroes fight on both fronts and win the day. For some measure of win. (kaboom x many)
Cast of Characters:	Kara Danvers, Jacqueline Falsworth, Clark Kent, Maxima, Karen Starr, Siobhan Smythe, Donna Troy, Caitlin Fairchild

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Kara Danvers has posed:
    Security at the hanger is tight. SHIELD has guards everywhere. In its center is what could only be described as a star gate, hooked up to lots of power banks and computers. SHIELD engineers are moving around rapidly making lasting minute adjustments. There are also missiles. Lots of missiles. Their payload? A special aerosolised concoction to cure the parasitic mind control of Zhed'Zhud'Ger'Uth. The black ooze that the monster leaves behind in its wake is what makes up most of its body mass.

    The gateway will take the heroes to another version of Earth. An Earth that has been at siege with a gigantic tentacle monster from space for 39 years. When the monster first appeared on their world, it was much smaller. As it conquered and consumed in its endless quest for its twisted version of love it grew to the size of a small city.

    It's other most deadly weapon? Psychic attacks. Thankfully Iron Man aka Tony Stark has provided the heroes with stylish yellow rimmed glasses that cancel out the psychic attacks. If the other Earth had these technologies 39 years ago they might have survived. Our Earth does. We save them, we save ourselves.

    Those that are surviving over there are thoroughly controlled by ZZGUs mind control. The mission is simple though - destroy ZZGU. The rest of the planet can be helped once that is done. There is a wrinkle though. The chosen champion of ZZGU is none other than an alternate version of Kara Zor-El herself. This mission is personal for Supergirl and Power Girl.

    The other Earth tried everything in their arsenal to defeat ZZGU. The Kryptonians who arrived on Earth to help also tried everything they were capable of providing to defeat ZZGU. They all lost. Now we know, that stripping it of its ooze, then cutting its long tentacles off.. and finally taking its core back in to the cold of space is the only way to rid Earth of its presence.

    The mission briefing had been given. Now the heroes are assembling. Soon to step through that gate and fight the largest tentacle monster most of them have ever seen.

    Kara paces. Her hands behind her back. She is nervous. This is a big and important fight. She knows if they can't stop ZZGU now, it may conquer this Earth too. Her eyes glance around at the assembling heroes and she smiles to them, appreciating their attendance. "Hello friends. No. Super Friends."

Jacqueline Falsworth has posed:
Spitfire can't do much about taking anything to space, but the English woman brings two particular advantages with her to this fight: Superspeed and a superior resistance to mind control. She has superstrength, too, mind, but it's the speed and psychic resistance she expects will be most useful once they're on the other side of that stargate.

As Kara begins to speak, the experienced speedster leans in a deceptively relaxed stance against an equipment crate, listening to the final briefing.

Clark Kent has posed:
Superman's here.

He's not thrilled about a lot of this; SHIELD having as much to do with this operation as they do, the uncomfortable Starktech goggles, the fact that there's an alternate universe that eats other timelines and a dark mirror of his cousin is its foul herald. Clark is practiced with keeping his feelings obscured; he feels like any real sense of how unsettled he is would be a blow to everyone's morale at a crucial juncture. So the Man of Steel crosses his arms and floats off the ground a little bit, peering into the unknown.

They have a plan, at least. This is very much Kara's case and Clark's comfortable letting her take the lead, as much of part of him would rather be doing this with the Justice Leaguers he's comfortable working with. He sips a soda, fingers itching to get to work.

Maxima has posed:
Maxima has arrived. Maxima is not happy. Maxima would like very much to tear Zhed'Zhud'Ger'Uth apart. The Almeracian Crown Princess wears an expression of impatience on her face, arms crossed imperiously in front of her chest as she waits for the portal to be ready.

In their previous encounter ZZGU managed to make her bleed, if just a tiny bit from the nose, but for Maxima, this was enough to declare war on creature. Hopefully the planet will survive.

And so, she waits and she fumes, though Supergirl's greeting does earn a small nod and the fleeting ghost of a smile.

Karen Starr has posed:
    SHIELD and Power Girl are not friends. Hell, they flat out don't get along. Something about demanding that she reveal her identity to them as part of being in the Avengers. Something about needing control. Still, though, when all this was revealed- when it became evident that on the other side of this portal was a renegade version of herself, the former Kara Zor-L had to go.

    Chomping, idly, at the bit for it- Power Girl slips her glasses on before the thing's even powered up. She isn't talking to anyone. She's just standing there, watching where the portal currently isn't- but hopefully soon will be- and waits.

    God help anything that gets in her way.

Siobhan Smythe has posed:
Siobhan arrived as she had last time, simply by appearing in a strange dark cloud. She is seething. It is difficult, harder than before to keep the Banshee in line. There's a seduction to its words, a strength that wasn't there before now that a greater aspect of what she is has opened to her.

She hears Kara talk and a part of her angers at that voice. It isn't the same. She can hear the difference but it is subtle. Subtle enough to remind her and her eyes flare. She glances at the others only briefly before she is again looking forward. Though, those with the ears for it can hear something strange. Nothing. The true sound of nothing coming from Siobhan at all. Absolute silence.

Donna Troy has posed:
    It's amazing just how much you can miss out on when you're stuck inside a pocket universe for a few months. Since arriving back, Donna Troy has been spending her time trying to catch up with what's been going on in Themysciran and Titans affairs, as well as the world in general. There's a lot to catch up on, and a lot of details are still missing.

    One detail that is clear though is that some of her team mates have got involved in something serious and dangerous with this ZZGU affair. That's enough to bring Troia out. Not that she's exactly looking like Troia at the moment - she has come without the armor that was her trademark as Troia of the Titans and is dressed in a distinctly civilian-looking outfit, with the exception of the shield on her back and the sword and lasso at her hip.

    Troia accept the psychic-shielding glasses with a slight expression of bemusement, but puts them on with a faintly self-conscious shrug and beams an encouraging smile at her team-mates, and waves to those not in her team who she knows. Kara gets an additional thumbs-up -- this is Kara's party, after all. It's going to be different having Kara take the lead on an operation, but Troia's proud to see her team-mate taking charge of things, and just wants to give her support.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's support comes in the form of a big smile for Kara and two approving thumbs up. Unlike Donna, 'full kit' for Caitlin comes in the form of a large backpack and a belt with some utility items and tools on it. Her hair's pulled back and tied off in a warriors' braid to keep it out of her face if things start going sideways, but aside from that she's not carrying anything particularly lethal-looking. Her fists are her best weapon.

She is drinking from a large plastic cylinder, nondescript with no writing on it. It smells of strawberry and vanilla. A large straw's pushed into the lid.

While everyone's focusing and getting their game faces on, Caitlin accidentally hits an empty pocket and there's a loud slurping sound. It takes a second for her to realize shes' doing it.

"Oh, uh. Sorry. Needed a snack," she mutters apologetically.

Kara Danvers has posed:
    The gate activates. Like a cut through reality, it peers through to another world. This one the hanger once existed, but was blasted away by weapons and heroes and monsters all fighting each other. The cement floor remains, the walls are crumbled wrecks. In the distance is the remains of Metropolis. Bits of skyscraper still stand, but mostly its rubble.

    For those with super sight they can see that much of Metropolis is covered in jagged Kryptonian crystals. Like someone grew a new Fortress of Solitude right in the middle of the city.

    Kara grips a syringe of the cure from Agent Jemma Simmons in her hand. She pushes it in to her belt. This is for her third doppelganger.. may be she can be saved. But to be able to inject her they'll have to wear her down to the point where she's as weak as a human. She doubts there'll be any other choice.

    Kara nods to the group, "This is an odd assemblage. Justice League, Titans, SHIELD, DEO, and Super Friends I've made along the way. We're going to liberate this other world from ZZGU, so that ZZGU cannot take our world from us." She puts on the Starktech glasses and taps them, "Glasses on people. If you haven't had the cure and need it. Agent Jean over there can give you a quick jab ..Here we go." She nods, short on words, she turns and lifts off the ground and flies through the portal.

    The other side of the portal opens up in to an immediate battlefield. ZZGU looms behind, almost too big to conceive of how to fight it. It has thousands of tentacles, each tentacle covered in gnashing beaks and inside each beak, an eye. The tentacles wave about in the air and it is launching chunks of its goopy ooze toward the portal.

Clark Kent has posed:
Clark feels bad for Siobhan, but has absolutely no idea how to address the issue. 'Hey sorry I fight your mom sometimes and also you were sucked into hell', how well does that go over? Superman can't keep a laugh when Fairchild's...is that gogurt? Gogurt's still a thing?

"Alright." Superman says, sounding like himself as he steps forward, tossing his can into the recycling bin. He doesn't even look at it, it's amazing. "Blast a path to the core, got it. Let's hope we don't have to break this place too badly, then. Up!"

Superman sends a blast of Super Breath through the portal; he hasn't chilled it enough to freeze, instead focusing his breath like buckshot, sending the grasping, flinging tentacles flying for just enough time to kick into the air and leap through the portal.

"Up and away!" Superman shouts, spinning mid-air to grab one of the greasy awful tentacles and start to drag it in the opposite direction, looking to trap several of the beast's tendrils into some great, awful knot.

Maxima has posed:
Maxima puts on the yellow glasses, having experienced their effectiveness in the last encounter with this space monstrousity and a psychic power that threatened to overwhelm even the most powerful of resistances. Besides, their color works well with what passes for her outfit.

When the gate activates, Maxima lifts off from the ground, rising straight up to hover a few inches above it. She at least waits until Kara has finished her mission explanation before flying towards the portal. She might even have listened, certainly she doesn't feel like letting this space parasite have this planet even if it isn't hers. Or perhaps because it isn't hers and if she can't have it no other conqueror can either. But really, for Maxima, this is about the blood that was drawn and a declaration of war against this parasite, to destroy it, and she flies through the portal hellbent on accomplishing just that.

Emerging from the other side and seeing the tentacles and ZZGU in the distance, the war has begun. Focused laser-like beams of optical force shoot forth from Maxima's eyes, strafing across the tentacles before her, even as blades of crackling energy manifest in her hands and the battle is joined.

Karen Starr has posed:
    In no way is anyone likely too well prepared for Power Girl's response to the portal finally being open.

    It is as if, in that hangar, someone fired off a single high-caliber shot. She is not going to wait around. She's not going to even contemplate that they've got work to do. She knows the plan- she memorized it the first time she heard it. She also knows it's not going to survive contact with the enemy.

    That's why she shot off like a bullet, surging through the portal and passing her cousin from another universe who stops to fight with tentacles. This is personal. She isn't going to let the one force of unbridled chaos stop them from saving this world... And she damn well hopes that this other version of herself, another younger doppleganger, isn't too far gone.

Jacqueline Falsworth has posed:
As a precaution, and since there's enough for everyone, Spitfire did avail herself of both the cure and a pair of goggles to replace the ones she usually wears. But, really? It's probably overkill. It's amazing, really, how useful those subtle vampiric traits that make her read as a bloodsucker to the magic types can actually be.

She studies the open portal and the monster behind it. It occurs to her that what she really should have brought to this fight was a sword. But maybe claws will do.

There's a streak of fire that leads from the crate she had been using as a leaning post, to the mouth of the portal and beyond. The speedster is now a blur that only similarly gifted individuals will clearly see. Claws extend from her finger tips and fangs lengthen in her mouth as she streaks amid the tentacles, deciding it's time to see how a little slice and dice action works.

Siobhan Smythe has posed:
Others have their idea of helping. Siobhan was...well, she was angry. Upset. Pissed off. Slightly scared. She was also a different person than she was. A different Banshee. Something Donna and Caitlin, hell even Kara, might not be ready for is Siobhan not teleporting. She takes off long a shot, too. She's gotten faster. Far faster. The moment she's through the gate, she goes straight up, flying high, fast and as soon as she reaches a height she has chosen.

She.
Screams.

"KARA!!!" Her warbling, Irish, otherworldly voice rocks the sky and likely hurts the ears as she screams and then her glowing eyes look in the direction of where ever she senses and hears the sound. The sound she seeks.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Innoculations and magic glasses - the operation seems to be well prepared. Better prepared than Troia is. She didn't even think to bring some snacky shakes. No matter - if there's one thing the Titans are used to it's winging it.

    Troia unslings her shield and draws her sword, then tilts her head towards Caitlin. "Priorities," she says. "Deal with the immediate threat, I guess. Ensure those missiles can get through."

    She takes off into the air and flies through the portal to engage tentacles at short range, hacking away with Themysciran steel, weaving rapidly through the air from target to target, and using her shield as much to bash as to block as she concentrates on the tentacles closest to the portal, trying to keep the way through into the other universe open and relatively tentacle-free.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"I'll take the low road," Caitlin agrees, and breaks into motion with Donna before even formulating their whole plan. They'll figure it out.

She's got the goggles on, and grateful enough for them. Without the instruments Caitlin's presence on the mission is a non-starter. With them, she can really throw down.

Siobhan's screech provokes a wince and makes Caitlin stumble once.

"I should have brought a sword. Why didn't I bring a sword?" Caitlin inquires over the comm net. Her drone flits off her shoulder and buzzes overhead, providing a bird's-eye view of the battlefield.

A quick stutter step and Caitlin grabs a piece of debris off the ground, winds up, and flings it with a softball pitch. It flies like a bullet with no detectable arc and smashes straight into one beak, the eye behind it, and out the back of the tentacle. "Anyone see a weak spot? A bigger looking tentacle, or something marked with a bright red 'X'?" she inquires.

Kara Danvers has posed:
    Four dozens missiles suddenly shoot through the portal in to ZZGU's World. They fly up high in to the air and twirl around seeking out targets on ZZGU and begin their dives. It is then that Another Kara Zor-El appears. She wears all black, her hair is black and her lipstick black. Her eyes slice through several of the missiles. The missiles explode regardless and rain down a mist of the anti-ooze formula from SHIELD. The remaining missiles hit their targets and explode the same mist upon the creature.

    Dark Kara doesn't wait though, she sees (and definitely hears!) Siobhan, the skull headed toy she annoyed last time that escaped through her portal. She sees Supergirl and Power Girl and shoots away to her Dark Fortress of Solitude.. aka, ex-Metropolis.

    A wild howl from thousands of beaks fills the atmosphere of Earth and tentacles flail about wildly. They move fast. Very fast. The creature shakes and twists and wrists, shedding off an oceans worth of its goo. It's all tentacles and an inner core. The tentacles are wrapped about itself like a bundle of elastic bands in a ball. Slowly, the tentacles start to unwind and its thousand limbs begin to elongate.

    The tentacles begin to strike and whip about at the heroes. Each strike carries with it a sonic boom as the tip of the tentacle whips to an end in the air. The creature itself lifts up on hundreds of tentacles and begins to move. Move at speeds that for such a slothly slug like creature moments before seemed impossible. Each tentacle is made up of an extremely dense material, like a rock. Some of the tentacles have sharp points and attempt to skewer the heroes.

    The glasses each of them wears feel like they are vibrating a touch as the creature has intensified its psychic attacks to the very limits of what StarkTech can handle. And it is handling them. No doubt the creature is confused as to why its tightly mental barrage seems to have no effect on these heroes.

    The tentacles that Superman grips on to start to whip and pull and push. It's as strong as it looks, but it's a tug of war against Superman and these other strong heroes. Still, as a few tentacles are engaged, yet more try to wrap around the heroes and squeeze them until they go pop, even as the pointy tipped ones whip around to spear them.

    Magic swords, vampiric claws, heat visions and lasers.. they all cut away at the tentacles. The tentacles begin to grow back. They do not grow back as fast as the heroes can probably cull them though. Caitlin's debris to the eyeball past the beak was certainly not appreciated, that part of the tentacle actually flinched.

    Kara is stunned by the transformation of the creature before her, but her attention snaps to Dark Kara and she races after her with Power Girl. The three land in a cave of dark crystals. There's the torso of General Zod on the floor and his head is resting on a Kryptonian computer console. Dark Kara stares at Kara and Karen.

    "I wondered if you would come. Two of you even I'm flattered. Welcome to *my* world," she says with a laugh and from behind her back she lobs a persons leg directly at Power Girl. "Have some Zod!," she declares with glee and then unleashes an intensely hot blast at Power Girl. It's the heat of a Kryptonian who has bathed in the sun to maximum absorption and has zero cares in the world about who she might hurt using it this way.

    Kara says, "It doesn't have to be this way. We have the cure. Let us give it to you," she implores and then feels the anger inside her boiling over and she returns fire with her heat vision at the dark clad doppelganger.

Jacqueline Falsworth has posed:
Tentacles give way beneath her tenaciousness, not the sharpness of her claws, Spitfire soon notices. Were she not as strong as she is, she would not be able to rend the janky limbs that whip about her. Her fire -- heatless and fleeting -- gives some clue to where she is within the rising mass as she ducks under flailing, ropy tendrils of ooze and dodges sharp beaks, skewering and plucking out eye balls whenever the opportunity arrises.

The speedster is certainly capable of exceeding the speed of sound, though not, perhaps, the speed of light. Regardless, she is a fiery blur within the moving mass.

Her mind rejects the pressure of the psychic geas seeking to beat its way into her skull. She gives one baleful eyeball a good look at her fangs as she grins at it. "I imagine you killed my analogue here," she comments almost casually as her claw punctures the sphere and drags it from its socket. "Because my mind does not bend to the likes of you."

Karen Starr has posed:
    Power Girl notes this... Version of herself, and that doesn't stop her from accelerating. This other Kara barely gets time to notice Siobhan and carve through the missiles before Power Girl is at her back, mere miliseconds behind and having little issue catching up. She's single minded, laser-focused on this other version of herself. As if, for some reason, she takes particular offense- even more than Supergirl might- that Dark Kara has become what she has.

    She comes to a halt, and is only mildly surprised that Kara has adorned her fortress with the remains of what was once Zod. Her expression sours. She is taking only so many steps forward with Supergirl before this other Kara lurches a hunk of Zod in her direction. The question of what became of Kal is one that may not deserve answering. Sidestepping the leg, Karen takes another step forward before calling.

    "It doesn't have to be like this. You can fi-"

    Yeah. That's fine. Power Girl braces at the last second when the heat hits her, digging her feet into the ground and holding her forearms in front of her. That's right 'Dark' Kara. Use the heat vision. Drain the battery faster. Power Girl has been doing this for two decades, and a dead Zod can be mostly forgiven.

    She just has to wait for the heat to let up, her gauntlets already just a little bit molten when it does, and for the other Kara to listen to reason. She has to.

Maxima has posed:
As the tentacles close in upon Maxima, she puts on display a synthesis of the varied fighting styles of the countless worlds of the Almeracian Empire, trained by only the finest tutors and honed upon the field of war. She slices, stabs, cuts, and corkscrews through the tentacles, a blur of motion that is difficult for the human eye to keep up with. A few times it seems like a tentacle might actually have managed to catch or skewer her, only to pass through an illusion or afterimage left in her wake.

She watches Kara and Powergirl zoom off to confront Dark Kara and smiles, the smile of someone who loves to fight in thick of battle, her quarry is the massive space creature that dared to pick a fight with her, and she'll be damned if it is going to survive this day.

Flying up higher above the fray, Maxima begins to really cut loose, unleashing her vast telekinetic powers upon the surrounding terrain. The ground begins to shake and fissures form as pieces of the landscape are ripped into the sky, jagged and vicious looking pieces of earth and even the remains of buildings, and flung towards the core like an artificial meteor shower.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Looks like you found a weak spot, Cait," Troia calls into the comms. "Keep pounding those eyes, I'll keep the tentacles off you. Every time it has to grow a fresh tentacle, it's burning energy. Can't keep that up forever. "

    True to her word, Troia flies a combat air patrol around Caitlin, leading with her shield forwards as she plows through the densest concentrations of tentacles, ever alert for any limbs attempting to launch an attack on the heroes on the ground from above. She moves rapidly, constantly changing direction and pausing from time to time to let them start to home in on her, then darting aside when they are extended so she can hew into them from the side, concentrating on severing the spikes of those tentacles equipped with sharp tips.

     Using the blinding reactions and precision of motion that allows Amazons to intercept bullets with their bracelets, she dodges and weaves through the mass of tentacles with her sword a gory blur. During moments of sudden acceleration she breaches the sound barrier with a booming crash, echoing the booms Spitfire's motion on the ground below and the cracks of supersonic tentacles above. The battlefield is getting very noisy.

    The vibrating of the glasses is a fact that lodges in Troia's mind but is quickly pushed aside in her intense focus on the motion of battle. The glasses, it seems, are doing their job. Years of training let her concentrate on the immediate threat of moving tentacles.

Siobhan Smythe has posed:
Finding out where Kara is, Siobhan isn't far behind the other two. She appears above where Dark Kara is, where the other Kryptonians are. She can hear it. Hear all of them. She goes silent mode again. Silencing all sound around herself and then she appears.

She appears directly behind Dark Kara. Her eyes flare brightly, glowing with all the rage she's built up from what she has been through. It's all focused on Dark Kara and then she floats to Kara's side, her left hand and right hand whipping out to grab the laser beaming evil Kara.

"Miss me?" And she screams, right into Dark Kara's ear and she does not hold back. At. All.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin keeps it up as best she can. There's plenty of debris, even if some of it's a little lacking in the realm of ballistic aerodynamics. "Golly, what I wouldn't give for having Thor's hammer sometimes." The grousing comment comes when Donna does a close pass. "This isn't much of a plan, guys, we're barely keeping them back!"

Donna and Caitlin make an effective team, covering each other's backs with sword and stone. Caitlin holds her own until Maxima start rending the very ground underfoot, momentarily robbing Caitlin of her balance and focus. One tentacle dashes a little too close to Caitlin, swiping and striking with that sharp tip-- she steps into the blow to avoid the cutting point but the force of it lifts the redhead into the air with enough force to propel her several dozen yards.

Clark Kent has posed:
Tentacles!

"Stronger than they look." Superman says, a bit distracted by keeping track of his various family members. Has he met Spitfire? She seems familiar, but he is wrestling a monster right now. "Augh, it's getting in my mouth..."

The real problem is that the visors limit Superman's vision powers; he can't really use heat vision, his go-to ranged attack, without breaking them. There's always a way, though, Clark thinks, as he starts to move against the direction of the tentacles...

...it may get uncomfortable for the monster as Superman starts to spin, becoming a red and blue blur.

Kara Danvers has posed:
    Unprotected like the others from the psychic attacks, Jacqueline is fending it off using her natural talents and she can hear it distantly screaming like a million voices, ~~But I *love* you, let me in to share my *love* for you. As I *loved* your other, but she had to be put down. I used my champion, and I shall *love* you to death too~~

    But the creature is losing the fight. It's no doubt been in this situation many times before. It does what it did the last several times. It calls its army. The psychic call echos out over the world. There are no doubt troops on the other side of the planet that cannot respond, but the few remaining under its thrall in the USA are on route immediately.

    Fighter jets and quinjets appear on the horizon. They aren't a huge threat to these heroes really, but they obey. They're not who ZZGU wants though. They hold at the edge of the battle and don't engage. Who ZZGU was truly calling for has not come yet. It was calling for the chosen champion: The Dark Kara Zor-El.

    Dark Kara grits her teeth and holds up her arms to block the blast from Kara as she pushes herself hard against Power Girl. "You know the power too. I can sense it from you, have you truly ever unleashed MHMM?!" She laughs and then her heat ray stops and she stares at Siobhan as she winces from the intense scream. She stumbles a moment and chuckles. Her expression is not one of having lost and she says to Siobhan, "I have something for you pet."

    Dark Kara moves like a blur and returns with a null space projector. It flashes on and in an instant Siobhan is exposed and pulled from this world and in to the phantom zone. Dark Kara's eyes wide with glee and she laughs, "Whose next. You?" She nudges it toward Supergirl, then next to Power Girl, "Or how about you? HMM!" Mad with power is one way to describe her... but then she hears the call of her master and merely drops the device and flies up and bursts through the crystal ceiling.

    Supergirl doesn't hesitate to catch her, she flies up and grabs at her ankle and tries to pull her back down in to the fortress.. but she's losing that tug of war. This Dark Kara is not afraid to let go like Supergirl is.

    The creature is losing tentacles left and right, and as said by Troia it cannot keep up and is losing the power to do so. With its oozy skin shedded away, the spindly creature is spun so fast amidst the sword guts and yanks and twists that its tentacles snap and disconnect. Its meteorite sized core flops about on the ground amidst its disconnected limbs. Its psychic strength is almost gone completely. It has been here before too.

    But the team were made aware of how the heroes before tried to destroy it, even how Dru-Zod and the Kryptonians of Argo City tried to destroy it. It thrives on the heat, it thrives everywhere but the cold of space.

    The so called 'army' turns from the edge of the battle and flies away now that the psychic summons has weakened to the point that they no longer need to listen to it. That cease fire lasts barely a moment before suddenly, the jets and quinjets are shooting at each other in the distance. A war has broken out between them without ZZGUs 'calming and peaceful loving' in their minds.

Clark Kent has posed:
Superman continues to spin.

He lets out a blast of ice cold air through his Super-Breath as he continues to spin, moving so quickly the ichor flies everywhere and tentacles start simply ripping apart as they get close to him. The Man of Steel pours on the speed, focusing his powers as sound starts to pop...

...the winds, finally, relent. Superman's making a controlled tornado! He can't really say anything pithy because, well, tornado, but he does send the whirling, crashing winds roaring towards the core of the beast, Superman trying to expose ZGU's foul heart so they can get started on the important work of throwing it into space.

Clark raises an eyebrow at the fighting breaking out, and takes a quick look over there to see what's up.

Maxima has posed:
Maxima's senses do not miss Caitlin's difficulties resulting from her last attack. She purses her lips, seemingly in agreement with the assessment that this isn't much of a plan, with so many independent agents flying off to do their own thing, herself included. Spreading her mind she begins to create a telepathic network among the combatants, so they can communicate with each other more easily.

"You fight valiantly." She tells Caitlin, dropping out of the sky down to where the other young woman is. Seizing a stray metal girder, she focuses her mental powers upon, rearranging its very molecules into a rather large sledgehammer, with an oversized head. "I know not what Thor's Hammer is, but perhaps this will help you." The large battle hammer is offered to Cait, before her attention focuses on the now exposed core.

"That needs to be taken into space and destroyed." Her mental voice comes across the network, as she takes off again flying straight towards the core.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Power Girl is still reeling from the explosion of heat vision before Siobhan shows up. She blinks a time or two, watching Siobhan get pulled into the phantom zone, and it's in that instant that Karen understands just how far the other Kara has fallen. Fearing perhaps that even with the cure, there may not be a true return for this one.

    Power Girl erupts, bursting from the Fortress with such fervor that a portion of the roof caves in, the crystals collapsing not just by her battering through it, but through the sheer force of her breaking the sound barrier so many times over.

    There are no words. No calls for Dark Kara to fight, to understand. She's slaughtered so many, and without hesitation dropped someone into the phantom zone, for some a fate worse than death. Intended as a last resort, the misuse of a projector like that is the final straw. Power Girl doesn't retrieve it. Instead, she just /moves./

    The speed of when she tackles the other Kara is enough that it is likely to wrest her from Supergirl's grip. For a fraction of a fraction of a second, Karen is there, having hit her headlong. Then, she boosts again, drawing back a fist. It might not look too threatening for Dark Kara- especially with the glasses. Yet, when Power Girl finally -connects-, just that -strike- sends an echoing shockwave over the city, shattering windows and collapsing a building or two near the epicenter.

    The hit, at the last moment, is delivered vertically, spiking Kara like a volleyball, with such force and speed that her passage shatters glass, and the impact of her corrupted doppleganger upon the ground is one that causes tremors throughout the city akin to one -hell- of a quake.

    Now technically on the outskirts of Metropolis, Power Girl floats down into the impact crater that she'd made using her doppleganger as a bludgeon.

    "You're supposed to be stronger than this. You're supposed to be -better.-"

    Though the other Kara might not be conscious to hear it, others with super-hearing will overhear, as long as they can pick up things said from miles away.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Are you okay Cait?" Troia calls through comms - the Titans, at least, have no difficulty communicating in the confusion of battle. It seems though that Caitlin is not only okay, but is newly armed with an almost comically oversized hammer. It's no Mjolnir, but Troia is confident that Caitlin will have fun with it.

    The constant hammering - not just from hammer, but sword, tornado, Almeracian mental powers and firespitting has taken its toll on the creature, deprived of its normal psychic attack and losing control of its defenders. As goo and tentacles sheer away to expose the core, Troia sheathes her sword, slings her shield onto her back, and unhooks her lasso, which starts to glow golden in her hands.

    "It's big," she replies to Maxima's suggestion. "But I can tow it if you and Superman get underneath and push. If the rest can hold off any defenses for a few more minutes, us flyers ought to be able to get this thing out of the atmosphere pretty quickly." She advances on the core, lasso whirling.

Jacqueline Falsworth has posed:
"Oh, shut up..." Spitefire says to the beast as it batters against her natural mental shields. "Your champion is going to end up a pancake before this fight's done." To emphasize her point, she launches at a mass of tentacles with a fallen piece of steel siding, slamming it into the ooze with superspeed and superstrength both.

Of course, the challenge with Spitfire's resistence to mental manipulation is that it's difficult for even a well-intentioned telepath to link casually to her mind. She actually has to consciously allow the contact in. Something made even more difficult by the battering of the ooze monster's mind against hers. So, the brush of Maxima's mind takes a moment for her to register. A moment that includes getting flung back by a black oozing tentacle trying to protect the core that is being inexorably exposed. She slams against the side of a building, brick crumbling with her impact. But, shaking her head to clear it, she regains her feet and becomes a blur only nanoseconds later when that same tentacle lances towards her at sonic speed to impale her against the crumbled brick.

The quake, though? That plays merry hell with the speedster's ability to keep her footing. She tucks and rolls as the sonic booms from Power Girl's strikes shake the world.

She's too much a lady to give voice to the expletives that spike through her thoughts.

"I'll keep the tentacles busy," she tells the alien telepath. "The rest of you do what you need to do."

What else can she do? Unlike pretty much everyone else here... she can't fly.

But if they quit shaking the ground like a martini mixer, she stands a good chance of tangling the thing's limbs up in celtic knots.

Thus she begins to literally run circles around the thing.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's crash landing takes down some un-damaged wall but it doesn't knock her out. Caitlin's tough as she is strong. There will definitely be some ribs to tape up later, though.

She gapes in surprise at Maxima when the towering Almeracian nearly crashes to earth near her and casually hands her a ... hammer. A literal, actual warhammer. It's even balanced well.

Donna darts towards the exposed core while the team converges on it. Caitlin looks at the hammer, looks at her friends, looks at the core.

Looks at the hammer.

Caitlin rushes towards the core fast and fearless, leaping up to grab Donna's hand in passing and steal a ride from the Amazon. She bails when Donna peels off, moving under the core of the beast, and holds the hammer by the extreme end of the handle. The most force she can possibly muster takes the form of a golf swing, aimed right for the vulnerable mass of the thing. The force of the blow is enough to crack the ground under her feet for yards in every direction, and a great shout of effort accompanies the impact.

Kara Danvers has posed:
    As the heroes converge on the core. A heavy mass of space stone from the outside, is really just a giant slug brain from outer space. It is far less threatening without limbs. It's hot, radiantly so.. and the closer they get, the less the glasses can protect their minds. They can hear it speaking to them ~I love you. I am love. I am all you need. You will love me. You will obey me. I am love. I love you~ it repeats again and again with increasing intensity. Its last line of defence.

    As the lasso is thrown around it though, the lasso drains Zhed'Zhud'Ger'Uth of its psychic prowess and the voices in their heads fall away. Released from its enticing promises of peace and love at the expense of freedom. If it were a blessed lasso of truth, who knows what could have been learnt. It is indeed extremely heavy and will take several of them to work together to get it up and in to space and away from this world. Hopefully set on a trajectory that will never intersect another living being until the ends of time.

    Sensing that its psychic powers are being stripped from it, the stone begins to vibrate and emits sound in to the air, "You. Must. Love. Me." The awkward speech fights it way in to the air. As Caitlin flies through the air and slams that mighty not-Thor hammer down on it. The hammer itself actually bends and a visible dent is made in to the top of the stone core. The vibrations stop instantly. If it could said to be a brain, to think, then it is certainly unconscious.

    It is then that the first of the big explosions happen. This one from Power Girl, as she slams Dark Kara in to the ground in a blow that knocks her out cold. Kara tumbles in the air a moment as the dust settles and she lands down in the center of the crater next to her newest doppelganger. "I'm so sorry this happened to you Kara," she says and then looks back to Power Girl. Supergirl strokes Dark Kara's cheek, then she takes out the cure and injects it in to her arm.

    "She may be too far gone, but the least we can do is give her the chance to set things right," she says and then draws in a sharp breath, "Oh no.. Silver Banshee." Supergirls eyes dart around for the null space projector, but the entire place is decimated. It is no where to be seen.

    Then on the horizon, a nuclear weapon goes off.. then another. Those with super hearing can hear others detonating around the world. Those followers of ZZGU were left with instructions to fight to the bitter end. Some broke free of the mind control but not the psychosis and now they live in a fatalistic world. The small gathering of planes have destroyed themselves on the horizon.

    This world may be free once more to choose its own path, but that path not be an easy one for some time to come.

Siobhan Smythe has posed:
For Siobhan, it's a strange sensation. Her entire being getting sent to another realm. So to speak anyway. She goes see through. Goes intangile. She's basically not a part of this world anymore. Silver Banshee is lost there, floating in nothing and staring in a bit of a panic.

"No....no!" She screams out and it echoes into the void but then another voice comes along.

"~Foolish girl...~" The voice calls out, "~Ye t'ink you're somewhere else but for you...it's all right dere. Just step back to where ye were...~" Then Siobhan is blinking, confused and she focuses and...she's back. Right after the explosion goes off. Siobhan staring in confusion at what is happening even as destruction happens around her.

Clark Kent has posed:
"Phew." Clark says, wiping his brow. Sure he's picked up on, well, everything...he frowns a bit at Power Girl, but he supposes she's not used to this sort of thing. There's no Bizarrgal that Clark's aware of, at least. It's something he should probably talk to her about, and hope it doesn't turn into an argument.

Then a nuclear weapon goes off. Superman can feel the reaction, the burning impact in the air, the senseless, awful death as soon as these people are freed. Of course the villain left a final, destructive command. 'You didn't win', the heart of supervillainy, no matter how many limbs you've got.

"Enough of this." Superman says, and as the psychic powers falter he takes his visor off; his eyes gleam red, and the ground erupts. Spinning around the exposed core of the monster, ripping a hole in the earth it rested on. He then burrows into the earth, blasting certain important hunks of rock to create a miniature island, to safely lift the monster.

Superman starts pushing, then, lifting the rock, and the core, out of the ground. It's a clear effort, though, and he might need some serious help to get the monster off of the ground and into orbit!

Maxima has posed:
The creature's final psychic thrashings are brushed off by Maxima. Even with the glasses reaching their limits, hers is a mental fortress with few peers. "Love? You are not love, you are a world devouring cosmic parasite and like all parasites it is past time you were destroyed." She informs ZZGU with great contempt both vocally and mentally.

She watches Donna wrap her magical golden lasso the core, studying the 'weapon' curiously for a moment, having never seen its like. She then nods her assent to the Amazon's plan. Donna also fought powerfully and bravely, which is Maxima's most basic standard for judging anyone. "Yes, together we can get it into space and end this."

When Caitlin comes running with the hammer and leaps into the air smashing it into the core with such resounding force as to dent the structure and render the thing unconcious, Maxima can't help but smile broadly in approval, it is a display of fierce warrior spirit worthy of the Warriors of the Almeracian Empire. "Well struck!"

Seeing what Superman has in mind, Maxima first reaches out with her raw telekinesis helping to make the massive chunk of earth lighter for superman to lift and then once it has risen above ground level, adding her own massive strength to assist in the combined effort to push and pull it through the atmosphere into space where it can be dealt with. It is readily discernable from her demeanor that she has every intention to finish the monstrousity off once and for all rather than simply propel it somewhere that others might find it again.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Karen lingers there, on her feet while her double- perhaps triple, at this point- lingers unconscious on the ground. The glasses have stopped vibrating, which suggests the truth that the others have knocked out the alien brain. She reaches up and, in silence, removes the spectacles from her face.

    When Kara approaches, Power Girl steps towards the maddened doppleganger and kneels down, waiting for Supergirl to administer the dose, before hoisting this doppleganger up and onto her shoulder.

    "I don't know if we can leave her here. I don't know if we should take her with us, or put her in the phantom zone, but if she regains consciousness and is still mad, this universe can't tolerate it. I won't tolerate it."

Jacqueline Falsworth has posed:
When Superman starts using his heat vision to rip the ground apart, Spitfire streaks out of the way, her trail of fire leading back towards the gate that brought them here. She pauses there. There is absolutely nothing the woman can do now. The other heroes far outclass her and she's no fool to stay underfoot.

Even with nuclear weapons going off and the world falling into chaos... Giving up is not in her nature. But given she is completely useless on this side of the portal?

She retreats to the other side to warn SHIELD about the immininent radiological threat on the horizon, trusting the more powerful heroes to do what needs to be done to protect themselves and those remaining there before they return home.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia holds the hammer-stunned core in the grasp of her lasso, feet planted firmly on the ground, letting the lasso slowly drain the power of the creature away, through her, and into the Earth and the infinite embrace of mother Gaia.

    As the first mushroom cloud blooms on the horizon she frowns, but tries not to let it distract her. This world has problems beyond the creature; all these years of its dominance have left it corrupted and damaged, and those are problems beyond the abilities of a few heroes, however mighty, to quickly fix. Perhaps this alternative Earth's own heroes can help bring peace to this world, freed from the mental influence - if enough of them have survived. Inevitably, she wonders if there is a Themyscira on this Earth, and what its fate must be.

    If there is, she reasons, the protection the goddesses extend to that island would surely protect it from discovery, but its Amazons would not have been able to leave without coming under the creature's influence. If that is the case, then there may just be a small army of Amazons just waiting the possibility that has been presented to them this day. Troia resolves, once the immediate threat is dealt with, to look into the possibility of flying a large container of the cure on a flight to the Aegean - it may be an alternative world, but if it has a Themyiscira, she could probably find it.

    That's something to consider later though. As the core's consciousness drifts away and mental powers fade to nothing, as Maxima and Superman prepare the ground, Troia waits. And once that ground is prepared, and Maxima and Superman have started to lift, Troia raises back up into the air and starts to haul on the lasso, to help drag the mass upwards and away from the life-sustaining warmth of the atmosphere and out into space, where it can be sent drifting further and further from the sun, out into the cold vacuum of deep space.

Kara Danvers has posed:
    Supergirl gasps in surprise as Siobhan simply.. appears. "Silver Banshee!" She lets out a sigh of relief, but also a very puzzled look at how she could have done that. The supernatural creature seems uncontainable - even her mother had to be eaten.

    Supergirl nods to Power Girl with a touch of concern, "I don't know if we can trust her to recover.. and even if she does who she will be coming out the other end of all this violence and death. We should.. take her with us and find a way to imprison her. She's done enough damage in this universe." The council of Kara's has spoken.

    As the mushroom clouds rise and glow in the distance, so too do the heroes rise Zhed'Zhud'Ger'Uth back in to space where it can do no further harm. The fabled creature is extremely hard to destroy. Tossing it in to the sun would only give it strength again. The void of space is the only true place it can sleep harmlessly.

    Supergirl floats back over to the rest of the team and awaits their return back to Earth. She folds her arms. She feels a little colder inside for the battle to have turned out this way. "SHIELD will start the slow task of distributing the cure to all the parts of this world ...that are still safe to do so in. I'm sure they'd love volunteers to help them speed up that task. But for now.. we should go. This world cannot be our responsibility too. They need to find their own way. These door ways are not meant to stay open. We did what we came to do," she says looking up at the sky along the trajectory ZZGU was sent.

    "It was not easy nor did we really expect it to be. I thank you, from the bottom of my heart," she says though her voice sounds sad. All this death and destruction - they put a stop to it, but this was but a small taste of the endless war this planet has fought for 39 years. At the bare minimum, they have stopped ZZGU from spilling its 'love' over in to their world any further.

    Kara, wordlessly, walks back through the portal to their own Earth.