A grunt of pure pain escaped Utopian's lips. As he forced the cold metal headband onto Flash's forehead, an invisible weight, heavy as an anvil, slammed down upon his own mind. The entire city, through the energy shield, had become an extension of Grodd's helmet, and this crushing mental presence now rushed towards him, seeking to reclaim the control he had just broken.
Flash, freed from the green influence, staggered. His eyes regained their familiar blue, but were instantly filled with confusion and horror at the sight of his friend.
"Utopian! What's happening to you?!"
Utopian gritted his teeth, the muscles in his jaw bulging with the strain. "The control... it covers the whole city... The shield is an amplifier... I gave you the headband... there were only two..." he gasped, the words fragmented. "I'm using Compound V... to boost my defenses... But it's not a gentle process..."
Suddenly, a trickle of bright red blood shot from his nostril, streaming down his chin and staining his pristine white suit. He grimaced, an indescribable agony burning behind his eyes. Then, as suddenly as it came, the pressure ceased. His body relaxed, and a long breath, a deep "Oof!" of profound relief, escaped him. Calm and a fragile serenity returned to his face. The Compound V had held.
"I'll be okay," he murmured, wiping the blood away with the back of his hand. "But Grodd is still playing his game."
Solovar, having returned silently, pointed a claw toward the horizon. "He has left the city. His trail leads to a human installation. A military base."
Their pings on the League's communicators remained dead, the shield blocking all signals. They were on their own.
---
Sierra-Tango 7 Military Base
They arrived too late. From the air, they saw the silos open and four nuclear warheads, traced by plumes of fire, streak across the sky towards Africa.
"No!" Flash yelled.
"I'm on it!" Utopian shouted. His red boots spat flames and he shot forward like a human missile, diving at a terrifying speed towards the deadly projectiles.
---
In Gorilla City
At the very moment Batman, using a microscopic lockpick concealed in his suit, popped his cuffs and freed his companions, the yellowish energy shield surrounding Gorilla City... flickered and died. The constant mental pressure weighing on them vanished.
"The shield is down!" J'onn exclaimed, immediately sensing the difference.
But the victory was short-lived. Shrieking alarms, of primitive simian design but effective, echoed throughout the stone city. A giant screen displayed four incandescent points approaching at a catastrophic speed.
"Nuclear missiles!" N'Jah roared, horror etched on his simian features. "Grodd... he's going to wipe us out!"
"We can help," Batman stated, his voice a rock amidst the surrounding panic.
Their offer was more than necessary. In the sky, a dramatic scene was unfolding. Utopian, pushed to his absolute limits, had pulverized two of the warheads in blinding non-nuclear explosions, disabling them in their flight phase. A massive construct of green will—that of Green Lantern John Stewart, who had just arrived on the scene—intercepted a third.
But the fourth, damaged by the shockwave of an explosion but still intact, slipped through. Disarmed, it wouldn't detonate, but its mass of metal and plutonium became a multi-ton projectile falling straight for the heart of Gorilla City.
"DIANA!" Batman yelled, his cowl doing little to hide the terror that pierced him.
Wonder Woman was already in the air. With a cry of savage determination, she launched herself to meet the missile, her bracelets crossed before her. The impact was titanic. A deep "BOOM" that shook the ancient stones. She couldn't stop it dead, but she broke its mad descent, diverting it, struggling, her divine muscles straining to the extreme, her boots digging trenches in the ground of the central plaza.
The missile, finally, stopped. But with a last screech of tortured metal, the weakened structure of the launch vehicle collapsed on top of her, burying her under a mountain of debris.
"DIANA!"
This time, Batman's voice was hoarse, shattered. He rushed towards the heap of wreckage, digging frantically, joined by Hawkgirl and J'onn, his gloved hands torn by the sharp metal. A cold, familiar dread gripped his throat.
Suddenly, the rubble shifted. A dusty but firm hand emerged. Then Wonder Woman freed herself, shaking her black hair, a slight cut on her forehead but her gaze untamed.
"I'm an Amazon, Bruce," she said simply, with a tired little smile seeing his face. "We don't crush so easily."
Batman's relief was so intense it left him speechless. But his gaze, as piercing as ever, had already moved from his saved friend to the missile's debris, then to the horizon, where Grodd had fled. The battle was won, but the war was far from over.