With fatigue weighing her down, Koriand'r listened to the high spirits of those whom she considered her children. Damian was a wildfire at heart, sweeping up those around him in to his flames without ever realising it; now he brought them in to his blazing desperation. Raven matched his unbridled urgency with measured reason. Her effect on his fire was telling if Raven's subtle, empathic nature: she both reduced the heat of flames but allowed the wildfire to spread further, engulfing all in its red glow.

"I will abandon my father to die!" Robin shouted.

Donna looked first to Kori in deference, then to the floor in shame. Similar expressions painted the faces of her teammates.

The one to pick up on this emotional undercurrent was Raven. Folding her arms, she pinned Conner with an almost accusatory cat over her face. Quiet and startling, she asked him specifically, "Aren't you worried about your father." Not 'Superman', but 'Conner's father'. She had to make this personal.

"Or your sister?" The witch raised an eyebrow at Wondergirl.

Donna looked at her hopelessly and answered, "Of course I am but-"

"But what?" Robin snapped and Donna recoiled, not finding the words.

The Justice League had been battling Darkseid for a half-hour of pain. From Jump City, the Titans had watched with despair. A warning had been issued to them minutes before the heroes had stepped on to the battlefield, flanked by Donna's Amazon sisters: all other heroes are not to intervene until or unless they were directly told so by the core Leaguers. Donna had watched many of her sisters perish nobly in blood and anguish by Darkseid's hands- she hadn't been able to embrace them again after so long away from home; now she wouldn't be able to face so many of them again.

Starfire, fingers pulling endlessly on the ends of her hair and eyebrows constantly downcast, had refused her childrens' demands and cries for the Titans to join the fight. She'd subdued them- all of them- but Damian. And now Raven prodded the ashes purposefully.

In a corner, Khadija al-Azraq watched impassively. She was occupied by a string of pea-sized, jade coloured beads that she clutched loosely between her fingers, shifting them around the loop every few seconds, muttering beneath her breath, as if it were a rosary. Koriand'r wondered how she could sit when all forces of nature called upon the heroes to stand and fight. She regarded the ancient warrior move her beads and the witch caught her eyes knowingly. Koriand'r saw dynasties in her eyes and thought that Raven must see the Earth in her soul.

Khadija al-Azraq was a frightful, mighty thing. When she stood and said that she would accompany and protect the children on the battlefield, the room was silent and Koriand'r was immediately ready to surrender them to her.

Sense found itself to the Tamaranian a moment later and she rejected the idea with a tremor in her chest.

Khadija held forth the beads and pulled the string so that it snapped. The bouncing, chiming sound expected never occurred- the jade spheres hovered before Khadija. She needed not a hand to guide them, only looked between the children and Koriand'r and each one found it's mark.

Garfield held out his hand and a bead fell in to it. A current of something passed through the skin of his hand and resonated in the rest of his body. He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and squinted, holding it up to the light.

"Hmm..." Raven felt the ebbing magic within hers. "Compact."

"What are these?" Jaime asked, doing the same.

Khadija answered the scrutinisers in her immediately reassuring, beautifully accented manner of tackling the English language.

"Spells of my own devising, contained within these beads, Ayoun Khadra', I have called them-"

"Green eyes." Damian translated.

"-sah ya albi-" Khadija nodded to her grandson. "These Ayoun Khadra' are a protection to their wearers. The spells within serve a number of purposes. The primary -and most difficult of them to master- is a powerful enchantment to dispel wraiths. Death cannot touch you if fatally wounded until the spells are drained by the effort of sustaining life." She met the scepticism with wizened humour. "Provided certain conditions are met- a chopped off head won't be protected I am afraid. But baseline cell regeneration and strong physical damage shields are also within." Khadija knitted her fingers and rested them over her Amazon armour. As if sharing a saucy secret, she added, "And perhaps I tempted the Winds in to lending us some of their children that the breeze might blow in our favour. You need only place them upon your person- a pocket perhaps."

Raven looked up at the sorcerer in wonder, "But the energy- the effort needed for this...to keep wraiths at bay... I..." she was lost for words.

Out of them all, even Damian, Raven was perhaps the sole person who understood the mastery of Khadija al-Azraq. Certainly, the spells seemed to have left her pale and weary, but Raven would've been knocked out cold. The demon wondered at her own lifespan- might she live as long as the warrior-witch to attain such a level of oneness with the magical forces?

Khadija said, "There will be time enough to teach you the old ways when this Darkseid is no more, my dear cambion." She looked to Koriand'r and the Tamaranian was weighing the situation.

"I think these are hella sweet." Superboy threw his bead and caught it.

A screen behind Koriand'r projected the bloody path of Darkseid. Donna watched, pain etched across her face, as he blazed through a fawn-haired Amazon (Wondergirl thought her to be her Levantine sister Sama) with an omega beam, striking through her shield.

Koriand'r caught the fiery water in Donna's eyes and conceded, "Very well, Titans-" she might've said 'Titans Go!' but felt that she must say something more to them and continued, "anyone who wishes to stay, please, remain, safe." The resolve in their eyes rejected the idea outright. "But for the rest, we might not all emerge from the fight. It is the right thing to do- to fight for the Justice League and for Earth. And...and you are all my children and I love you so, but I must let you walk headfirst in to danger. Remember that we are a family, and that we will always be there for each other, and that we must always be as one. Divided we are conquerable. I love you all." She readied her troops for doom, " Titans, go!"

***
It was to the great relief of the older heroes that they were reinforced when they were, for Darkseid had permitted parademon forces to swarm from Apokoliptian portals and they plagued the Justice League relentlessly. The task of combatting Darkseid was rendered impossible but his onslaught persisted.

The armour cocooning Batman was a patchwork of bulking metal, sparking at harshly frayed corners, and the thin fabric of his suit- the stray flashes of arms and abdomen were scrawny in comparison to the mister he inhabited. Bruce was tired, his moves increasingly sluggish. In the same manner, his teammates were adorned with slivers of red emerging from ripped uniforms. Hal was nearly unconscious; Shazam winced with each shuddering breath jabbing fragmented ribs against his lungs.

Not but a few minutes after the Titans surfaced from a portal of their resident demon's creation, they were joined by other forces: Young Justice, Batman's associates, the Justice League Dark...

Robin shoved his father out of a parademon's path and sliced it's head off of it's stalk before spinning to stab another creature through its chest.

Over the slashing, screaming, roar of battle, Batman gasped, "Damian- what? Get out of here!"

Raven had his back. Eyes red and hands swathed in purple daring black, the witch cleared for her love some quick words with Batman, as planned.

Robin kept one eye on the mass of figures around and the other on his father, "No you must go- with Cyborg and any others useful- devise us a strategy if you can. We need your brain father- go!" And he pushed Bruce away, towards the sparse area of the decimated Hall of Justice's courtyard, where Beastboy directed Victor.

WonderWoman met her sister with a clanging of swords as they doubly slashed a parademon to pieces, deftly dodging one of Darkseid's fists. She needn't speak to Donna, only nodded to her with passion turning the blood on her face to war paint. In this moment, Wondergirl did not need her love, but her trust. Affection could come with peace.

WonderWoman splayed her hands wide, seeing Darkseid distracted by a joint water attack by Aquaman and Aqualad of Young Justice. Kneeling, she brought together her forearms and with a mighty crack of her bracers, send Darkseid stumbling backwards. The force of the collision was directed ahead, at Darkseid. But Diana's back was left open, for an instant, and a ravenous gang of snarling parademons saw its chance...

...that never came, for they were presently swept away by a green fist that seemed thrice the size it ought to have been. The hand returned to it's original size- having crushed it's targets- and its owner was greeted with a relieved, "J'onn!"

The Martian Manhunter acknowledged WonderWoman, slamming in to a gnarly parademon, "Hello Diana."

"Do not forget me, princess!" Halloaed a deep and haughty voice. WonderWoman spun, in the motion of decapitating one of the Apokoliptian creatures, and watched the descending figure of Artemis of Bana Mighdal come to join the mêlée, scythe clutched in hand.

Supposedly out of earshot from the two female warriors, one Jason Todd whistled lowly, kicking down a parademon before planting a bullet where it ought to have had a brain, "That's one badass motherfucker."

"Why thank you, small man." Artemis replied, stomping through the chest of a parademon besides him and slicing off his head.

Engaging with Darkseid at the heart of the fight, Khadija al-Azraq was privy to the whisperings of the spirits aroused by the war, and of the shifting undercurrents of power in the battlefield. The vibrating streaks hidden to the other's sight plagued her with worry as she assaulted the conqueror. She struck at his already present wounds like a viper, with ancients blades forged for her hands in the breath of the last ice dragon.

Khadija al-Azraq commanded the Earth to reject him, but it had to fight the concrete to reach them. So she begged it throw up its rage and split the stifling grey to entangle it's would-be murderer: thus did the tremors begin and the concrete give way to vicious green that sought to drag Darkseid in to its depths. He shook them off with minimal effort, but the grappling roots and vines were a distraction all the same.
Seemingly out of the blue, Superman shoot the dividing earth beneath Darkseid's feet with a sickening punch.

Khadija was drained and the parademon's were streaming on and on, and Darkseid recovered to simultaneously head-but Superman with equal force and fling Superboy in to a legion on Amazons.

There was a cry of pain and Raven felt for Damian with fevered panic, finding him fighting a few metres away; it was Timothy Drake who had been wounded- and instantly flanked by his teammates.

As a great blow from Darkseid left another Leaguer, the Flash, unconscious, Damian felt a flickered of dismay at the odds in the battle.

In that moment, the thought he heard a voice meet his mind, closer than a whisper in his ear. He would recognise it anywhere and hoped in the darkest depths of his heart that it was truly him

Keep your blade true Damian, we are coming.

A.N:

My darlings how are you all? I hope you've been doing well. I don't really know if I have, I don't particularly think so and that's okay. I really hope you all know just how much I appreciate you all, especially you putting up with my sloppy updating and less-than-adequate chapters as of late. I hope I can continue to give you guys something to look forward to at the end of the week.

I'd also like to say a belated but very warm Ramadan Kareem to any Muslims during this Islamic holy month- I wish you blessings and love and banging iftars (the fast-breaking meals).

Thank you all my lovelies!

-Bats :)