Mira shook the sand out of her gloves only to feel even more invade her boots, she sighed, as she tossed out her gloves and stashed them in her bag, letting her palms feel the cold sand beneath her. 

Pushing herself more, she kept her crawl forward, reaching the peak of a sand dune. She could see it now, the whole army, she was glad she was not part of the assault teams but then again most of those were brutes—Wonder Woman, the Hawk couple, Shazam, people like them, who could go in a dick measuring contest with the Man of Steel and not get out steeled. 

But it was not like she was home free. She had one too, a small one and a safe one, one she could hardly complain about—pulling off the massive sniper rifle off her back she set it straight and planted its feet, the bipods, on the ground. She was the sniper. The gun was tall, very tall and the weight of the full metal construction was crushing for any man, good thing she was not a normal human. 

Still gripping the charging handle for the .50 calibre shooting Anti-Material rifle she smiled, today her job was to partake in a turkey shoot, and as she pulled out her bags and started stacking one magazine after another to her side, she felt a certain sense of security before a sense of quiet set into the empty empire of sand and that housed their enemy. It was calm. 

And that calm chilled her mind, all they had to do was beat Trigon and then all her goals would be achieved—she had a substantial role in these events after all, her words would have considerable weight, it would help save her ass in the future and she would become a forever good girl in Batman's heart, that is so say if she ever fucked up, he would cover for her, after all he loved his family right?

But alas to set herself up for the rest of her life she had one hurdle, just one problem, and as she aligned her sights with the scope of her gun it came into sight, a girl in purple robes sitting in an almost trance like state Raven was the centre of two stone rings revolving around her, with a purple formation like pulsating off the etchings carved into those etchings. No she was not the problem, it was her Father. Trigon. 

And even if she were, killing a Hero could have…disastrous consequences. 

She drew herself back, removing her eyes from the glass, keeping one hand on the grip she used the other to pull out her PDA and place it next to her, quickly tapping away that screen with practised movement, she called her team leader, "Nightwing, I'm in position." 

"Zing, fingers off triggers until the fight starts. Copy?" 

Sighing she pulled off her index finger from the trigger, "...Roger." 

"I heard the sigh, you know?"  

"Dear brother you are supposed to ignore it," She scowled back at the phone, though there was no face cam on it, so it was a meaningless gesture—force of habit.

"Ignore what? Your temptations of insubordination?" 

She rolled her eyes and then had an idea, pulling herself back onto her scope she quickly flicked through the Battlefield, if Nightwing was in the mood for this, he must have been in his designated position too so, she sighted her scope on him, he had his PDA next to his mouth as he stood with Robin, Red Hood, Black Canary and Constantine…? What was that twat doing here? Well whatever it was, it was probably good. He was an anti-hero of sorts, right? The Bastard with a heart of gold. 

Regardless, she retranied herself on Nightwing and barked back with the most deadpan, cold voice she could pull, "Tell Robin to shift a little right, I almost have a clear short of your head." He jerked back but the rest just turned towards her general direction, it took a moment for her to realise why, "You have the loudspeaker on…not zing, not zing at all." 

"Shooting me is also really not zining!" He bitched but Mira just brushed it off, "The safety is on, the gun is not loaded and my finger is off the trigger." 

"She remembers what I taught her," The words came a little bit faint but she could tell it was from Red Hood, "Yep," She replied. 

Damien shook her head and jacked the call, "We a mission you two, Mi—Vandal stop using your scope as a binoculars and get it back on target. And Nightwing, it would be much appreciated if you stopped trying to rattle her." 

"Funny never hurt anybody Robin…" And the connection was terminated. 

She followed her brother's advice and swung the gun around, glueing her sights to the army. 

Eyeing all the targets of value she could see, she quickly decided that really there were none, only Aquaman. But she was not discouraged, sniping was not why she was here, at least not entirely. She was the fire support of team Bat+Arrow couple and Constantine, not because she had a sniper but because the league had found itself two mortar batteries available, from the local National Guard. They were the real fire support, she was here to click the screen of her PDA and mark shit down for them to blow up. A point and click adventure where you murder demons…where did her life go wrong? 

As her PDA displayed a map of the entire battlefield she knew exactly how much fun she was going to have. A very poor amount, after all, the fact that Superman was underneath the ground and could come at any moment did not fill her with any confidence. 

Finishing the set up for her bigger gun, she gripped the handle of another gun she had on her—the MG3 which she dragged out of a bag and placed alongside her sniper, quickly opened the upper catch and seated a long necklace of bullets dangling off the bag into it. 

1,200 rounds per minute and enough firepower to tear most fleshy things apart.

They were all unmodded though, a bummer, who would have guessed that Batman would not fund modding of guns, and if what she had heard was correct had to be convinced to keep military grade stuff just in case. 

Well whatever, letting the stock rest on her shoulder she lined herself behind it, pulled the charging handle and flicked the safety. 

The grip felt comfortable, the bipod felt nice and she could rotate the gun easily—this was fine, it was all fine, it was really good, this gun had been in use since when? Made by the Nazis in 1942 now it was going to be used to kill…Hell's Nazis. Werner Gruner invited a sequel to Stockholm Syndrome with the MG42, didn't he? 

Then her PDA buzzed with life, "Initiate operations. Repeat, Initiate operations." 

Despite what the radio said, no one moved, all of them were waiting, the three scores of heroes that were taking part in the attack were all waiting. 

And as the dark sky lit up with blistering bright flames, the sleek metal of the missiles glinted against their own light as they broke through the clouds and like devine punishment they cracked against the sandy ground to bathe it in a booming symphony of blasts and explosions. Sand blew high in the sky and at the epicentres even the silica boiled.

The symphony, though, was still incomplete as the second wave followed the first and crashed into the sand, going straight through into the Earth and a second later the ground erupted.

Dust and bloom rose high into the Sky and it took a moment for it all to settle down and after it all cleared only the sand stood there, all of it stained a reddish hue, the blood had mixed in with the sand and silica. 

But everyone ignored it and all teams moved, the objectives were there and the sights were set. 

And as the Battering Ram of the assault, Wonder Woman, Captian Atom and Shazam rushed forward, the sand shifted away and one by one a thousand demons burst forth and counter charged. 

Then came the flanking teams, the Bat++ team was on the left of the Brutes, and to the east were many many heros Mira did not recognise. 

From the direction entirely opposite Brutes, was another team, they included the Titans and so many more. 

It was a three pronged attack with the North, South and East taken by the heroes, the west was left alone by the request of the National Guard. 

They had the absolute tactical and strategic advantage. A victory was inevitable but the victory had to be achieved in 12 hours, that was the optimistic prediction of Dr Fate for Trigon's arrival. 

So the fight bagan. 

Around 50 or so heroes against one army and the remnants of another. 

———

——

—

A flower of scorching hot fire bloomed at the muzzle of my MG3 as I let loose another burst into the head of a demon trying to give Arrow a body transformation surgery with its arm sized claws. 

Robin struck another down as Nightwing took one off his rear. 

We were barely advancing by inches and the Bat team was showing signs of fatigue—a punch landing a little bit slower, fist not knocking down a demon—it was more an endurance match after all and all of them were human, some with more bells and whistles than others. 

"Nightwing, the Mortars are on the horn." 

"Negative, we will fall back…when we are really exhausted, for now keep up the cover…coverfire." 

"Roger," I reposed and started sending lead down range against the demons a few waves behind him, the gun recoiled against my shoulder but my weight kept it in place. 

These demons were not slowing down, they just kept popping out of the ground no matter how many we killed. 

A larger one popped out of the ground, the sand falling off its scale that hid his pulpy flesh underneath, it was as tall as two Nightwing stacked atop each other. It was thick, with its four limbs looking more like tree stumps than anything and the torso looked like it could fit one of me inside it. 

Still my eyes lashed on it and I let loose a burst into it, and the lead…bounced off its skin, fuck.

It roared a monstrous roar with its leach-like mouth and then started charging, I could see the ground visibly tremble and it even tossed aside a few of the smaller troglodytes. 

"Nightwing, you might have a problem with that." 

"I can see that. Can you do something?" 

I pushed the MG3 aside and pulled up the Beretta and quickly zeroed its sights, and leading my aim about two seconds from its face I pulled the trigger, the bipods pushed back and the stock slammed into my chest as the bullets tore through the air and smashed into the side of its face, going though and ripping a chunk out with it…but that thing did no fall, it kept changing.

"Ah fuck," My jaw slacked, that thing just lost its head and gave no fucks. 

I grit my teeth and quickly cycled another bullet and pulled the trigger, the bullet burst forth again, this time tearing the arm straight off the girdle of the thing. 

It just pulled its other arm in front of itself and kept trampling the ground. The sand offered nothing but open ground and there was no cover anywhere. 

"Ummm…fuck," I quickly readied my sniper again but before I could put another bit of lead out, Green Arrow took aim at the things and planted an arrow stright into the exposed flesh, seconds latter it blew up in a sizzling explosion scorching the flesh with it. 

"Kiddo," The comms rang, "You worry too much," It was Green Arrow on the coms.

I sighed loudly enough to let them hear, "Don't want your deaths on my records."

"Hahaha, Bat's right, you are a good kid."  

Cycling another bullet I blew a demon behind him to bits, and he jumped a little at the carnage, "More fighting less talking." 

"Ah, that was too close for comfort." 

I let my gaze wash over them again, Nightwing, Hood, Robine, Arrow, Canary…where is Constantine? 

The connection was cut. 

Right, fuck the Brit. 

Keep your head in the game. That fight was fine, it went…okay. Not well, not at all. My took a second to view the rest of the battlefield, we were making little progress, no casualties but little progress and Superman was still not here. This was bad. Maybe, Batman probably had a plan. Still as more and more of those monstrosities started appearing everywhere, I knew whatever it was, it better come fast. 

Dragging my gun away, I pulled MG3 and aimed at the mass of demons rushing towards them. 

There were so many that bursts would be too slow to be meaningful—time to have fun, I slid my thumb just over the selector switch and flipped it up to full auto. 

As I gripped the small hand grip tight, I squeezed the trigger—it was like a buzzsaw, the recoil against my shoulder became just a constant force as scores of bullets bloomed through the barrel in a second. Insanity. 

It was like a line of fire raining down, they were tracers, streaks of bright fire cutting through the sky, the sound of the bullets melded into a therapeutic melody, it felt like taking a chainsaw to the demon's face. 

It was then that my coms came to life again, "Vandal, this is Huntress, in the South East team, can you see us?" 

Stopping my MG, I swapped to my Sniper and zoomed in on the East, Huntress was there, so was Aqualad and Batman, why the fuck are you there? Shouldn't you be over with the Brutes to stab Superman with Kryptonite? The fuck man? 

How are we going to take him if not that?

Ignoring the Bat, I started marking their enemies, the same as ours but like nine times more, "Roger, I have you." 

"Good, we might need some fire here," She asked as I focused on the distance marker in the scope, "You are too far out for the MG." 

"The sniper then." 

"Roger." 

It took me a moment to help though, I clicked the magazine release with my thumb and pulled off the massive thing, pulling it out and settling it onto the sand, then I took another one from the stack I had made and slid it in. Pushing until I heard the 'click' that the magazine made while settling in place.

It took me a second to pick out my target, before landing on another of those massive chargers, this time rather than blowing its head, I pulled my scope down, aiming at the feet of the beast. 

And then, with the push off my finger blowing them straight off. The creature's pace broke, its body lost any sense of direction as it tumbled sideways into its own mob. Splattering a few in the process. 

It dragged its hands to the ground, trying to leverage them to get up, only to receive an explosive Batarang in its face, blowing it straight off. 

Still the thing hardly cared as its headless body tried to stand up and then another three rangs were lodged into it—all there went off together, taking it with them. 

That was one down and I almost choked, one by one they emerged from the sand, one…two…three…eight, this was not going to go well. 

It was then that the ground tore apart, the sand quickly started falling in as something roared from underneath started rising, no…not one roar, a thousand one going off in such synch that it felt like one. 

It took me a second to realise what that meant. And another to throw myself onto my PDA. I smashed my hand against Betta's body and slammed it away as I gripped the display, my hands desperate—I tapped the point of the ground crack, my voice came out in force, "Saturation, sustained barrage! Please Hurry!" 

The ground shook. 

I turned my head to look, the crack was widening and like a broken dam demons just flooded out of it. 

So fucking many, it was a flood of demons. 

It was ten times the numbers reported…

How? 

How the fuck did we fail at recon so spectacularly!? 

How the fuck!? 

Wait, 'we'? Is it really 'we'...oh, why would the Demon take out all his moles…Am I a fucking IDIOT!? To take A DEMON'S word for it!? 

What the fuck!? 

No Batman probably accounted for it. He probably did, hopefully. 

Please. For the love of God if we lose Heroes here who is going to fight Darkside when he invades?

Then he came to life, the voice that came after was definitely his, the unmistakable low growl, the heaviness, Batman, "Aquaman has engaged us and we have taken him back. Mission is a success—all units retreat," 

My head almost snapped to their direction, Batman was being flown out, the Batwing was there and they were all evacuating. 

…Are you kidding me? We were never here to rescue her but to take him?

And he never told us…did he? 

Why? And where is Superman? Where the fuck is he? 

For the love of God. I stood up as I saw the mortar shells fly though the air and land on the Demon's position. 

And as they exploded on the hideous scene, tearing bone from limb wherever they hit, I sighed and switched to the comms channel for the Motor team, "Ceasefire and evacuate, we have achieved our objective," With a swipe on the PDA, I cut my connection. 

Your plan went off without a hitch didn't it? Just the way you wanted.  

"Batman, you mother fucker."