The Legends of Forever by Barry Lyga (books to read for beginners .txt) 📕

The next thing Malcolm saw was the White Canary launching herself at him. She landed a punch to his right cheek, then a devastating kick to his jaw. There was a satisfying, bony crunch and Malcolm collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

Nice, Sara thought, commanding the rope to coil itself in her hands.

A new breach opened. Not one of Cisco’s—this was one of the Time Trapper’s. A gaggle of men and women and alien creatures came forth, wearing garish costumes. Some of them wielded lightning. Some heat. Some grew to enormous size. It was the world’s worst cosplay convention, and it was being dumped on their heads.

“The Legion of Super-Villains!” Superman exclaimed from somewhere behind her.

Great. The League of Assassins was bad enough. Now they had to deal with a legion of bad guys with superpowers?

Electricity blistered across the sky, arcing in deadly jagged spikes. Sara hit the dirt, lashing out with her rope. It snaked around the ankles of the guy wielding the lightning. She commanded the rope to tighten, then to jerk him off his feet and spin him in a circle like a lasso wielded by a dogie-seeking cowboy. The magic lasso did as she bade it, with no movement necessary on her part. The lightning wielder yelped and spun around. Blasts of lightning radiated out from him, striking his companions.

That was, by her count, ten down. Infinity to go.

• • •

The asteroid they’d named Globe swarmed with villains. Barry sped through the phalanx of assassins, knocking spears, swords, knives, and throwing stars out of hands. Moving this fast without much gravity was tricky, but fortunately momentum and velocity weren’t dependent on gravity. As long as he didn’t do something stupid like run right off the planetoid, he was okay.

“I am Lazon!” shrieked a blond guy in a skintight orange costume. “Light-speed killer!” He was as fast as Barry and could fly. This wasn’t good.

Barry dodged Lazon’s first attack, drawing him away from where Wally and Superman had managed to huddle in the shadows created by the sphere.

Wally was still too weak to run, but he apparently was vibrating while holding Superman’s hand, making the Man of Steel phase on and off. Superman was using the phase to punch through weapons and armor, knocking out attackers left and right.

Superman stepped back as Lazon flew by, still ranting about how he was the slayer of heroes and made of living light!

“You may be as fast as light, Lazon,” Superman called, “but you’re still as sloppy a flier as you were when we were kids!”

“You’ll never escape me!” Lazon crowed as Barry led him on a steeplechase along the dips, crenellations, and outcroppings of the asteroid. “I’m faster than—”

“Faster than light, right, got it,” Barry said, and suddenly slammed on the brakes. “But who’s trying to escape?”

Unable to dodge in time, Lazon flew face-first into Barry’s fist. His nose crunched satisfyingly, and his entire body flipped head over heels and collided with a slender spine of rock.

“He’s just gonna keep conjuring up people from the past to fight us,” Barry said, skidding to a halt next to Cisco. “We have to cut him off somehow.”

“I have an idea,” Cisco said. “But it’s gonna take me out of action for a while.”

Barry contemplated for a tenth of a second. “Do it.” Then he rushed off into the fray. A bald man in a skintight black suit had just hurled a wicked-looking high-tech mace in Oliver’s direction. It was too dicey to grab the mace, so Barry shouldered Oliver out of the danger path and kept going, leaping to kick a man with a handlebar mustache who wore an animal skin on his shoulders and wielded a wicked sniper rifle.

Someone shouted, “He’s taken down Orion the Hunter!”

Barry figured that was good news and kept going.

Wally pushed himself into a sitting position, leaning on one elbow. The battle was going badly—Teams Flash and Arrow and the Legends had a lot of power on their side, but there were just too many bad guys, with more pouring out of breaches every time he blinked. Aliens and interdimensional wizards and what appeared to be an entire army of cyborgs screaming, “FOR THE KHUNDISH EMPIRE!”

He was feeling stronger, but his speed was exhausted. He didn’t have any more to lend to Superman.

“It’s OK, Kid Flash.” Superman tapped the metallic clasps along his collarbone, jettisoning his cape. He retrieved it from the ground, tore it in half, and wound the fabric around his hands.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Wally asked.

“I’m going to help fight,” Superman said.

“You don’t have any powers, man!”

The Man of Steel shrugged. “Some of my best friends don’t have any powers.”

Cisco found a spot with a clear line of sight to the Time Trapper, then made sure there was a big boulder at his back. Not that this would stop an attack coming from that direction, he acknowledged sourly. With all the superpowers being thrown around on the battlefield, the boulder was theoretically no better than a paper plate as far as armor went. Still, its solidity against his back made him feel better.

“Here goes nothing,” he muttered, and held both arms out, fingers splayed.

48

Caitlin ducked around a corner, checked the corridor, and made a run for Cisco’s lab. She was not exactly thrilled to discover that she was the only person on this level, along with a murderous lunatic like Owlman. When she’d interviewed for the position at S.T.A.R. Labs, Harrison Wells had promised her “excitement and stimulation.” Then he’d grinned and said, “I promise you this much, Dr. Snow—you’ll never be bored here.”

Yeah, well, running from super villains hadn’t exactly been what she’d had in mind at the time.

In Cisco’s lab, she touched her earpiece and whispered, “I’m in the lab. Where’s Owlman?”

“Still in Xanadu’s room, according to Mr. Terrific.”

“Copy.”

“Save a piece of him for me.” It was Supergirl’s voice, filled with uncharacteristic anger. Caitlin spun around, shocked to see the Girl of Steel standing in