It's The Final Countdown

[cityship]

This was it. Endgame. The crux of the battle, the turning point, those crucial moments that would decide if the crew won or lost, that would decide if the Ohm would reign victorious or go running with their chitinous tails between their legs.

Did the crew have enough grit to win? Could they defeat a full Ohm fighting force?

With the flagging confidence of the GIA forces, it'd be up to the crew to turn the tide.

And one of the crew would pay the ultimate price to make sure the others walked away alive.

[ooc: everything is up!]

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[girl-of-steel.livejournal.com]

She could hear Kal, despite the distance that separated the two of them. She turned to look at Kon for a moment, to see if he could hear Kal too.

"Alright, you monster! If I can't go through you, then I'm taking you to it!"

Kara faltered. To her, Kal sounded as serious as he had when he'd found out what Darkseid had done to Kara. She used her telescopic vision to focus on Kal, to get a good look at him. It could very well be the last time that she ever saw her cousin.

No more innocents dies today! I DRAW THE LINE HERE! The Ohm's reign of terror stops NOW!"

No, Kara realized. Kal sounded even more serious than he had when she'd been taken by Darkseid. She wanted to close her eyes, to put her hands over her ears, to pretend this wasn't happening, but she couldn't. She was about to lose him. She knew it in her gut. She was going to lose her cousin. Her last tie to Krypton. Her last real tie to her parents. The man who, oddly enough, had served as some facsimile of a father figure to her.

She finally shut her eyes as the explosion danced across her vision, a light all too bright and cheery for the death that was taking place at its core.

An inhuman (inKryptonian, even) cry wrenched itself out from her core as she sensed the brightness of the explosion through closed eyelids.

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

Created with superhuman lungs, their twin cries of sorrow and anguish resonated into the broken sky.

Superboy dropped to his knees, still blinking away the afterimage of the explosion.

Gone. He was gone. His cousin, the man whose flesh and blood he'd been made from, his sometimes savior, and ever-present mentor was gone. Just like that. Gone.

"The firewurm's down! ...And the Ohm are retreating!" called out one of the GIA soldiers, and resounding cheers filled the air. "He did it! He did it!"

...No. No, he couldn't be dead. No, Superboy wouldn't just accept it. They had to know for sure. Supers could survive a lot of things. He'd lived through an explosion of similar magnitude himself once, at least for a few minutes. With Stacy's tech, maybe a few minutes would be enough.

Kon cried out to one of the soldiers in charge of opening and closing the shields, "Let me out!"

"Are you crazy? Look, the Ohm are leaving, and the radiation level's going down now that the firewurm's offline, but there's still enough radiation out there to kill most sentients after a few min--"

"I'm not most sentients! Let me out! Now! He might have survived that! I'll be quick."

They just had to find him. Find him and bring him back. That's all.

"Alright, kid, your funeral," said the soldier. "Step through. It'll let you pass."

[girl-of-steel.livejournal.com]

Kara didn't wait for anything more than that. She was a blur of plantsuit, blonde hair, and her bright red cape as she zoomed towards her cousin.

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

"Dammit, Kara!"

Only one of them had to go and he'd wanted it to just be him. He was the one with the medkit and the medical training because of the Paradocs.

But it looked like they were doing this thing together. At least if any enemies were left on the field, neither of them would be alone.

"I'm sorry, dad," was the last thing he shot at Rory before he followed her through the shield, leaving him in the dust--and he didn't look to see the expression on Rory's face as he did it, fearing what he'd see there.

[theboywhowaits]

The look Rory gave the man operating the shield when he could see again could have easily melted glass, the man swallowed and put his hands up, wincing and taking a step away from his control panel.

It had happened too quickly for Rory to react, two dumb, reactive, grieving children rushing off to try to deny the inevitable, with him still blinking the after image of the explosion out of his eyes.

"Dammit, Conner." His voice was softer, and to anyone around him, it would look like he was talking to himself, but if Conner's ears were that good, he rather thought he could hear him. "You get back here, and you make sure she gets back here. I don't want to be forced to explain to your sister that her older brother died doing something pointlessly heroic. Do you hear me? You get her and you get back here and if you ever do something this idiotic again, I swear by the gods that I will find the most frustrating punishment I can think of and you'll be doing it without powers."

Maybe Tim could reverse engineer those power blockers for situations like this when Conner shouldn't be able to use his powers. They could make one for Kara too, it would be wonderful.

He paced to edge of the barrier, trying to keep an eye on the children, eyes hard and firmly focused on their movements. It was one of the few times he wished he was still plastic, still capable of facing the radiation without short circuiting his vital organs.

But for now, all Rory could do was wait, and hope that this stunt didn't end up with more coffins being buried in space.