Young Justice: Brightest Day [Solstice Book Two]

Three

Guys, getting to write Kiran again is honestly magical for me, there's no other word to describe it.

My gift couldn't have come a moment too soon. Shortly after Triton was happily settled into Kaldur's Amnesty Bay apartment (now covered in newspaper and dried sheets of seaweed), Wonder Woman, the acting chairperson of the League, convened a meeting to elect the next chairperson.

Wonder Woman herself was off-world, had been for the past two years with a good portion of Leaguers. She and those with her, like Superman, Ice, Black Lightning, and the Green Lanterns, were represented by holograms in their respective seats.

Kaldur and I sat down on one end of the table, next to Raquel and Zatanna. Katana, Hardware, and Batwoman, three other new heroes who had been specially trained by Batman, sat in the three chairs next to him. Black Canary sat next to her husband, opposite myself and Kaldur, and gave me a little wave.

I squeezed Kaldur's hand beneath the table. He was an incredibly competent leader for the team, but here he was one of the youngest heroes in the League.

"Do you want to be the League Chairman?" I asked him.

"I have trained my whole life for this, it seems fitting."

"No," I scolded as he danced around the question, "Whether or not you're prepared, do you want it?"

"Kiran," His voice was firm, but soft. "Neither of us has had the luxury of being able to decide much of our lives for ourselves. I am still adjusting to this."

That left me with something to think about, but I wasn't able to process it before hologram-Wonder Woman stood up, and I had to pay attention like a good little hero.

"Before we get down to voting, there are certain issues we must discuss," She said, hands folded in front of her chest.

"There is no point in avoiding it; The Justice League's Tour of Peace is not going well."

The Leaguers that were physically present groaned in frustration, while the seated holograms seemed to slouch from the weight of disappointing their comrades--us.

Wonder Woman fiddled with the computer on her end, broadcasting them to the screen in the middle of the horseshoe table. "Our efforts are still being sabotaged by the Parademons and other strange creatures."

The video feed from the Javelin played. Hundreds of identical, gargoyle-like creatures swarmed cities and alien dwelling areas with laser weapons, and every so often another grotesque beast of a unique kind popped up with some sort of superpower, whether it with shapeshifting, blowing stuff up, or throwing lava everywhere. But they weren't demons. I had seen demons before, and these weren't anything like the demons of the underrealm.

"What's even more disturbing is our latest discovery," Superman looked to Guy Gardner, youngest of the League's three Green Lanterns.

"The ring discovered Earth DNA from the last few attacks. Human DNA," Guy clarified, uncharacteristically serious.

"How?" Batman asked, "No one else has our zeta technology, and we would sense a ship powerful enough to get that deep into space."

"What of Boom Tubes?" Kaldur pointed out.

"That is what the Parademons use to get around," Black Lightning mused.

Black Canary and Green Arrow whispered something between themselves before Arrow finally stood up, both hands fisted on the table for support.

"Arrowette and I stopped a trafficking deal from going down last week. We thought it was your usual trafficking deal, but these weren't normal traffickers."