"Diana!" yelled Captain Marvel. "Behind you!"

Diana spun to see an immense chunk of pavement hurtling towards her. In the same instant, she cocked her fist back and pulverized it with one blow. Shards blew everywhere, but any bystanders who were within range of their main battle were already dead. "My thanks, Captain," said Diana.

"My Queen," said Artemis, Diana's Royal Chancellor and former bearer of the Wonder Woman title herself for a short while, "We are minutes away from defeat. We need assistance!"

Explosions sounded from up above as several of the robots blew apart. Diana gave a small smile of gratitude. "Help has arrived, Artemis," she said.

Above them, several figures began to appear. Superman, the Martian Manhunter, Steel, Green Lantern, Supergirl and Firehawk were doing their best to clear the sky of the cloaked attackers. On the ground, Batman, Plastic Man and Flash were making their moves.

The Justice League of America had arrived.

Phillipus, Leader of the Amazonian Military Forces, ran down the hallway of the collapsing UN Building with the UN leader, Kofi Annan, in her arms. His head was bleeding badly and he was unconscious. Phillipus made it into the UN infirmary where others had been brought. The usual exits had been blocked by collapsing rubble, effectively stranding many of them inside the building.

"Mr. Annan needs medical attention!" yelled Phillipus into the crowd of injured. Immediately, a nurse approached her.

"Set him over here, we will make him our first priority," said the nurse.

"No," said Annan weakly. "See to…the others first." The nurse looked hesitantly at Annan, and then moved to the next patient, but not before handing Phillipus a field dressing kit.

Phillipus began to treat Annan's head. She saw that it was not as serious as it had seemed, but the threat of concussion was obvious. She finished dressing the head wound when one of the opposite walls blew open. She could see nothing that could have caused the damage, until large footprints began to crunch into the masonry and drywall. One of the cloaked attackers had decided to come here personally.

Phillipus set Annan aside and made her way to the attacker, careful to watch where the footprints were tracking. The attacker was large enough that its head was scraping the damaged ceiling. This was all Phillipus needed to zero in on her opponent.

"Everyone, get out of here!" cried Phillipus as she drew her sword and lance. An injured patient seemed to float in the air and then twist horrifically in two different directions before dropping to the floor. Phillipus screamed an Amazonian battle cry as she leaped at her invisible enemy, blades moving faster than the eye could see.

The battle was truly joined.

Superman was able to get a handhold into one of the robots and was determined to not let go. Holding physical contact with it, he shot an intense burst of heat vision at it. Its image seemed to flicker as if it were a TV channel getting bad reception before it coalesced into one steady image. Superman had melted a hole clean through the right half of the robot and could now see exactly what it was.

He recognized this particular robot.

He turned to look at the battlefield around the UN Plaza and activated his Infrared vision. Suddenly, he could see each and every one of the robots attacking the plaza. They were all identical to each other.

Superman punched one of the robots into the pavement below as it tried to do a sneak frontal attack. Now that he could see them, he had a definite advantage. Problem was his friends had no such advantage. He needed to even out the playing field…and fast.

"J'onn," he said, "I need an emergency telepathic link to Batman and Steel now!"

Diana was slammed into the ground again by an unseen fist. She was preparing herself for the next inevitable hit as she got herself up when Artemis leaped over her, slamming into her opponent. The large mass of the attacker made a humanoid imprint as it landed. Artemis leaped atop it and began to flay it with her sword.

Diana went to assist her when she noticed the condition of the UN Building. She knew not everyone had been able to escape before the carnage ensued and was horrified at the idea of the building collapsing with all the people inside. Something needed to be done quickly.

"Green Lantern!" yelled Diana. Kyle Rayner, the Green Lantern assigned to the Justice League, heard her in his mind as well as his ears thanks to J'onn J'onzz's telepathic link. Kyle sped down to Diana.

"Kyle, that building cannot be allowed to fall," said Diana. "Whatever else happens today, that cannot happen." Her face, covered in scratches and flecks of blood, was as serious as Kyle had ever seen her.

"You got it," said the Green Lantern with a sly smile. He arced into the sky and surrounded himself with an emerald shield to protect him as he concentrated his will into the ring. Emerald energy poured out and formed into versions of the Rescue Heroes action figures, only dozens of stories tall. Construction equipment formed beside them as the ring creations began reinforcing and supporting the structure.

"Flash," called Diana to the fastest man alive. Wally West sped towards her. "Wally, we need everyone in the immediate area evacuated, in the building and without."

"I'monit," said Wally as he sped away. All that could be seen was a crimson blur as he made his way in and out of the rubble strewn building.

Diana knew they had to do more if they were to prevail today. The attackers still had the advantage due to their invisibility. Somehow that needed to be negated. Nearby, J'onn J'onzz was enveloping one of the robots with his form, effectively making it visible through the shape of J'onn's body. Not far from J'onn, Plastic Man was wrapping himself around another in the same way, throwing smart-ass remarks as he did so.

Supergirl was using her telekinetic powers to create a barrier from the robots and some injured people she was protecting. The stress of the attacks was showing on her face.

Superman landed beside J'onn and grabbed the robot he had been enveloping. He seemed to grab both sides of it and flexed. The robot split in two as its cloaking device failed.

"J'onn!" said Superman, "I have a plan!"

J'onn assumed his usual form again and seemed to think to himself for a second as Superman relayed his plan via telepathic link. Then he smiled. "I think it just might work, Kal," he said. J'onn telepathically contacted the rest of the JLA and shared Superman's plan at the speed of thought. Instantly, everyone was aware of it.

In the space of a second, Superman's plan was explained. Years ago, he had encountered a robot designed by Lex Luthor and Lexcorp, a robot called Klaash. This robot had worked in conjunction with a satellite that had broadcast solar energy wavelengths over America in an attempt to overload Superman's abilities. Once the satellite was able to fine tune the control, Klaash had been dispatched to take on Superman. The citizens of Metropolis had been led to believe that Superman's powers were going crazy, when in actuality it was an invisible Klaash who was physically making Superman fire his heat vision and use his other powers against his will. Klaash was visible to Superman because it was surrounded by a selective warping field that rendered it visible only in the infrared range of light. Superman was able to see it with his infrared vision while normal people saw nothing. In the end, Superman had found the controlling satellite and disabled Klaash, although any connection to Luthor was quickly dodged with his army of lawyers. Luthor had shown that Klaash was part of a military experiment in broadcast power and fully licensed by the US Government.*

(* It's true! It all happened in DC's Superman # 10 [October 1987] - Has'Em All Mike)

Now, it seemed that someone had mass-produced Klaash and sent them all to attack the UN. Dian knew her presence here today was not a coincidence. Luthor had made public his intentions towards the Amazons, their new Queen and their technologies. Having his robots involved made sense…or did it?

Superman's plan was to have J'onn broadcast Superman's infrared point of view to everyone present. It would be confusing at first, but if everyone could use that view to effectively render the attackers cloaking useless, then they would have a chance.

Diana felt a brief wave of vertigo overtake her as she suddenly saw the battlefield from above. She saw herself being approached by three of the Klaash robots. She gripped the haft of her sword and swung it in a wide arc. Sparks flew off the three robots that then shifted to either side of her. She swung again in one direction and kicked out in the other. Impacts were felt on both ends as two of the robots went flying. Diana leaped up and landed atop the third. Her sword was driven down through its head. Sparks flew as its cloaking device failed and it dropped to the ground.

The robots were being dealt with far more effectively than before. J'onn was punching through several robots himself, as his Martian Vision allowed him to see in the infrared as well.

The Klaash were being defeated.

Elsewhere

He watched the battle play out on the news feeds as well as the cameras installed on the Klaash robots. Everything had been going very well until a moment ago. Something had changed. While some of the Justice League seemed to be awkward in their fighting, most of them had been actually making far more kills than before. Something had improved their tactics…something that needed to be dealt with.

Superman was having the most luck with the Klaash. As a robot approached him, he met it head-on. This meant he was aware of their presence. His super-hearing might have compensated for this…but most likely he had seen a way through the cloaking itself. The cloaking was infrared-based…if everyone else was having better success fighting the Klaash that meant coordination. Most likely from their communicators…or telepathy.

The Martian. It was the damn Martian.

The observer moved his hand to a microphone and spoke. "Take out the Martian."

The tide was turning. The Klaash were getting down in number. Soon, they would be contained.

J'onn J'onzz was restraining one of the Klaash while incinerating another with his Martian Vision. He didn't see the one behind him until it was too late. The Klaash behind him shot out a jet of flame at the Martian. Immediately, everyone on the battlefield fell down in agony as his telepathic link momentarily shot J'onn's pain to them. It only lasted a second before J'onn was able to sever the link. His body was on the ground, losing cohesion as he tried to keep himself together. Two other Klaash fired their own flames at him.

Diana saw what was happening and reacted first. She grabbed her shield and sped to J'onn's side. Using the shield, she kept the worst of the flames away as best she could. Her own skin was searing from the heat. A second later, Superman had torn through the three Klaash, destroying them.

"There goes our advantage," said Diana as she knelt down to check on J'onn. He was unconscious. They were back to square one now.

"We have one last card to play yet," said Superman.

Batman and Steel pondered their next move. They had tracked a remote signal (with some initial location assistance from Superman) with the Watchtower computernet to a location in Manhattan. They were close enough to the fight that they could hear the thunderous explosions. Batman had arranged for WHIZ radio to have their ace young reporter Billy Batson present at Diana's UN speech (an easy enough feat when you owned the radio station) so that if the worst came to pass, Captain Marvel would be there to lend an assist. Diana had refused the JLA's offers of help, but Batman hardly cared for anyone else's opinion. If he thought it was useful to have backup present, it would be there. Good thing, too. Even he hadn't expected a spectacle of this scope. Whoever was behind this was bold, indeed.

Batman and Steel had been told by Superman of his last encounter with Klaash and what he had done to stop it. Whoever was responsible this time had rid them of the satellite relay to hinder discovery, but the trade-off was that they had to send the control signal from a closer location. The signal was cleverly hidden, but not so clever that Steel hadn't been able to track it. They had come to the middle of Central Park, where the signal seemed to indicate its termination. There wasn't a building anywhere near their location. Joggers and passers-by goggled at the heroes' presence.

"Nothing here," said Steel.

"Then we go down," said Batman. He moved out of the way as Steel rocketed up into the sky. Steel brought his hammer up to bear and threw it down to the earth below. Its impact was deafening as it created a crater in Central Park.

The two men entered the crater as the smoke cleared. At the bottom was a dark hole into what seemed to be a tunnel. Cautious, they entered it, Steel's helmet beaming a searchlight into the darkness. The tunnel seemed to have been abandoned for years, with burnt out light bulbs along the walls. A doorway was several feet away.

"And behind door number one is…?" said Steel. Batman shrugged and approached the door.

The door was locked with a keypad for access.

"John," said Batman, "Break it down."

Seconds later, the door flew off the hinges into a stairwell. The lights in here were on. The two men cautiously made their way down the stairs.

Diana tried to protect J'onn as best she could as the Klaash kept coming. Diana's Amazons outside had been mostly slaughtered, with only Artemis and a few others still fighting. Green Lantern was concentrating on keeping the building intact and even that was difficult when his personal force shield was being hammered by Klaash. Superman was the only one who could see them and they seemed to realize that now: Superman was being overwhelmed with a tidal wave of Klaash. He fought as hard as he could, but he was unable to assist with the others. The Justice League was failing at their task.

That was when Diana had an idea.

"Firehawk!" she cried. "We need a cloud of adhesive powder over this entire area!"

Firehawk seemed to pause momentarily before she realized Diana's plan. She rocketed up into the sky, making herself intangible as she did so, keeping her out of the attack paths of the Klaash. Concentrating, she reached out her hands and blinding light emanated from her.

"Kyle, force fields around all of us, now!" yelled Diana. Deep in concentration with the building, Kyle did as he was told. Sweat rolled off his brow as he created small domes of energy around his assembled team-mates. "They won't hold for long!" he cried out, focussing his will.

"We won't need them to last long," said Diana to herself.

Firehawk transmuted the air around her into a massive cloud of party glitter. She chastised herself for not thinking of this earlier. The Klaash didn't appear to be able to change their mass like she could, which meant they were as solid as anything else. The cloud went up for several hundred feet and encompassed the entire UN Plaza. Diana smiled as the formerly invisible Klaash robots became very visible indeed.

"Kyle, drop the shields!"

Kyle released his control over the extra shielding and put all his attention to the UN Building. Diana waved her sword over her head and yelled a battle cry. Now that her opponents were on a level playing field, the tables had finally turned.

Batman and Steel came to the bottom of the stairwell and to another door. This one was also coded to another keypad.

"Knock it down," said Batman. Steel nodded and brought his hammer down onto the door. It flew off its hinges and bounced off the floor of a huge chamber. As the two men walked in, they saw hundreds of humanoid-shaped platforms which had plug-ins and other cables coming to and from them.

"I think we've found where those robots came from," said Steel. "There must be hundreds of these…this chamber is the size of a football stadium."

"For this to be as large as it is where it is," said Batman darkly, "Implies the government most likely has an idea it exists. This is large scale…even for Luthor."

In the distance, a control area could be seen with a lone figure standing at an immense bank of monitor screens. The figure faced them momentarily and then turned to make his escape.

"Steel, destroy that computer bank!" ordered Batman.

Steel flung his hammer at the control area, picking up kinetic energy as it flew farther and farther. The figure at the console dove for cover. As he did so, Batman threw a batarang that nailed the figure cold. The console and monitors erupted in an explosion of glass, metal and plastic.

Steel grabbed Batman's arm and flew them through the Klaash platforms to the now destroyed computers. The figure had been knocked out, but otherwise seemed all right. Batman turned the figure over.

"Well," said Steel as he retrieved his hammer, "That certainly isn't Lex Luthor."

"No," said Batman. "He isn't. It won't be long until we find out his true identity, however."

Steel consulted his onboard systems. "The control signal has terminated," he said. "If we're lucky, the robots are down and out."

Batman slapped a set of handcuffs on the mysterious individual. "We need to contact the authorities and then get back to the UN. I hope we were in time."

They were down to the last dozen or so Klaash when the robots simply stopped fighting and dropped to the ground. Diana pulled her sword out of her most recent opponent.

"I think Steel and Batman succeeded," she said, breathing heavily.

"I-would agree," said J'onn J'onzz. His form was mostly restored. "None too soon, I would wager."

Green Lantern gave a sigh of relief. He dropped his personal force shield and exerted all of his will on reinforcing the UN Building. Satisfied that it would hold, he landed beside his comrades. "Wow…looks like the invasion of the Christmas ornaments." All around them, destroyed and intact Klaash were glittering in the sun. With their deactivation, their true forms appeared…dozens of the red robots littered the UN Plaza, covered in silver party glitter.

"It seems the attack was contained to the Plaza," said Firehawk. "Surrounding areas have been evacuated, but no significant damage beyond here from what I can see."

Superman landed beside Diana, dropping several Klaash from above as he did so. "I swear, Luthor is going to pay for this."

"This didn't seem like a Luthor-move to me," said Supergirl. "He has brass ones, but this is too…blunt for him. I can't believe he'd use an old idea like this one and expect to avoid suspicion."

"You'd be right," said Batman as he and Steel landed, prisoner in hand. "This was the individual responsible for today's carnage." Batman tossed the man in front of Diana. He was slowly awakening.

Diana reached down and picked the man up. He was bald, wearing a business suit that was now in a state of disrepair. Diana didn't recognize him. "Who are you??" she demanded. "Who are you and why did you do this?"

The man came to full consciousness. It took a second for him to realize where he was, but when it finally came to him, he began to smile. "You will get nothing from me," said the man. His English was heavily accented. "This is what my master demanded. I am bound to do no less. He does send his regards, Queen Diana. And to you, Detective." He looked at Batman, and then seemed to flex his jaw violently. Batman leaped towards the man, but he was too late. The man foamed at the mouth and shuddered before dying in Diana's arms.

"Damn," said Batman. "Cyanide."

"His master sends his regards," said Captain Marvel. "Who the heck is his master, and why would he want to attack the UN?"

"He seemed to know you, Batman," said Diana. "Do you have any suspicions?"

"One," said Batman.

Just then, the Flash came blazing out of the Building, distress on his face. "We need people evacuated as soon as possible in there. We have dozens of wounded, including the UN Secretary General." The assembled heroes sped into the UN Building.

Supergirl, Flash and Firehawk began evacuating people outside as Green Lantern made a makeshift ambulance to take everyone to medical aid. Already, emergency services were arriving at the Plaza. Plastic Man and Martian Manhunter carried the most severely injured, changing their forms to accommodate as mobile stretchers. Diana made her way into the UN infirmary where Kofi Annan had been brought.

As she walked in, she saw Annan lying in a corner, Superman picking him up as gently as possible. Annan was semi-conscious. Superman whispered for him not to speak, but he insisted on it. Annan motioned for Diana to come to him.

"I…am sorry about…your friend…Your Highness. She…saved the lives…of myself and everyone in this room." The effort was too much and Annan lost consciousness again.

"Who…" began Diana. Then she saw her.

Phillipus, her lifelong friend, was lying on the ground. Beside her, one of the Klaash was lying in two pieces, its torso having been cleaved in two. Phillipus's sword was still lying in the lower half of the robot. Her body was covered in blood. Diana could see her breast plate armor had been melted and that Phillipus's torso was badly wounded. Diana went to Phillipus and cradled her head.

"My…Queen…" said Phillipus as blood bubbled from her mouth. Her breathing was barely visible. It was a miracle she still lived at all.

"Don't speak, Phillipus," said Diana as tears began to well up into her eyes. "Help is on the way. We'll get the Purple Ray on you as soon as we can."

"Too…late…my Queen…" whispered Phillipus. "It…has been…a pleasure…to serve you…" Phillipus's chest stopped moving. Her head grew heavy in Diana's arms.

She was gone.

Diana let her tears flow as she held her lost friend. When she had taken the Amazonian throne, never did she expect to have to lose her closest friends. This was supposed to be a golden age for the Amazons, a new time forged in the memory of her mother…not the loss of a trusted and valued sister.

Diana felt a hand on her shoulder. Superman stood beside her, having already taken Annan to medical aid. Artemis, Batman and Captain Marvel stood beside him. "I'm so sorry," said Superman.

"Yes," said Captain Marvel, "She died protecting innocent lives. She died a hero."

Artemis stood silently. She knew no words would suffice.

Diana let Phillipus's head lie back down gently. She stood up, the stress of the previous hour finally getting to her. Superman went to put his arm around her, but Diana gently pushed his arm away. She turned to Batman.

"You said you had a suspicion as to who was behind this atrocity," said Diana, anger radiant through her tears. "Who is responsible for this?"

Batman looked Diana in the eyes. "Ra's Al Ghul," he said.

Next Issue: the fallout of "Predators" hits hard, as Diana retaliates in the most unexpected way possible. Be here for Part One of "Demon's Ruin".