DC2 Most Wanted #4 (of 5)

Last time, in DC2 Most Wanted…

After being accused of murderingAMANDA WALLER after plans for her anti-human suppressing weapon known as Project: Twilight were leaked, BATMAN was targeted by a vengeful and sadistic SUICIDE SQUAD in Gotham City!

When the going got tough, SUPERMAN arrived and whisked his comrade out of the fire, and they retreated to the ruins of old Arkham Asylum… only for the mysterious Project: Twilight to be activated, draining the Man of Steel of all his power!

Nearly defeated, the World’s Finest were saved at the last moment by the arrival of WONDER WOMAN, who put herself between her friends and their enemies!

But unbeknownst to any of them, WALLER lives, and she’s in the custody of the Secret Society of Super-Villains! PSIMON has been tasked with picking through her brain for information, and he’s been told to get what the Society need, no matter the damage done to her…

With all this in mind, please join us now as the adventure continues…

El Diablo conjured a massive golem made of fire that licked and lashed at the air in front of it, and watched giddily as it surged forward, making an inhuman noise that should have been impossible, considering its lack of discernible vocal chords…

The pyrotechnic villain had puffed himself up, all attitude and bravado, and said-- his eyes slits and his mouth twisted into an angry smile-- “Pinche puta, you need to--”

Wonder Woman shot the young fire starter a look that shut him up and then shook her head in disappointment. “El lenguaje, jovencito.”

She slammed her thick Amazonian bracelets together and a small, compact shockwave flew forward and extinguished the golem, as well as knocked El Diablo backwards. The criminal’s feet spun over his head and he landed in a heap against one of the collapsed walls in the ruins of Arkham Asylum, instantly knocked unconscious.

“Trust you boys to be at the centre of trouble,” said Wonder Woman, looking back at where Batman and Superman were huddled together, having both been battered left, right and centre by the forces of the Suicide Squad.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes-- in more ways than one,” replied Clark, pulling himself up with help from the Dark Knight. He was pale, like he’d been out of the sun for years, and his costume hung looser on his frame than it should have.

“There’s been a power outage at Belle Reve. The Justice League are on-site, but I thought you two could use a hand here-- Kal-- what’s wrong?”

He shook his head, not knowing entirely what had happened, just what the end result had been. “I’ve… they’ve sapped my powers… only felt… felt like this a few times before… feels like I’ve gone a few rounds with the Parasite.”

Batman looked at him for a second, considering the statement. As this happened, before he could say a word, a boomerang cut through the air and headed straight for Wonder Woman. Without paying much attention to it, she raised her arm slightly and the bladed weapon clashed with her braceleted wrist, ricocheting it away and embedding itself in a nearby wall.

“And how are you holding up, Batman?” she asked, nonchalantly.

“Been better,” he finally replied, having thrown a batarang with such force and intent that it caught Captain Boomerang in the shoulder, and sent him screaming into a writhing pile on the floor as he clutched at the wound.

There was another explosion of a gunshot from a ways off, and Wonder Woman displaced the bullet with another wave of her wrist. She focused her hunter’s eyesight onto the sniper’s nest a mile or so away. “It’s Deadshot.”

Batman’s jaw set in aggravation. “We need to shut this down. It can’t spill back into Gotham. I won’t let it.”

“Let me take care of it. You need to get to the bottom of this while--”

Enchantress reared up, blackened blood leaking from a wound in her head, and she hissed monstrously at the trio. “That-- hurt--!”

Diana looked back at Bruce and Clark and winked, then dove forward, lasso taut between her hands, as she prepared to grapple with the witch.

The Dark Knight was amazed, in awe of the sight, but the Man of Steel nudged him hard in the ribs to get his attention. “Stop staring, she’ll notice.”

“Come on. I know a way out of here,” replied the Caped Crusader, as he supported his teammate toward the edge of Arkham’s ruins. He ignored his comment. But Wonder Woman was magnificent, wasn’t she?

DC2 MOST WANTED

The following takes place before Justice League #41

PEÑA DURO PRISON, SANTA PRISCA:

“It’s okay to scream, Amanda. I am rather literally picking your brain.”

Struggling as best she could, Waller was strapped to a chair that looked to have once been used for electrocutions. Her head was pinned back with one leather strap, and there were others at her elbows, wrists, stomach, thighs, shins and ankles. They didn’t want her escaping, and more than anything, her interrogator wanted her to see what he was doing.

There was a mirror situated in front of her, and as she sat there, she had seen Psimon peel back her scalp, and with a scalpel and surprisingly still hand then removed the top of her skull so that her brain was exposed. She couldn’t feel the pain, and he had assured her that was by design. He’d psychically turned off the receptors in her brain that linked pain response and experience, but if she wasn’t careful he might slip with the scalpel and cut something out that she needed.

“No? Nothing? That’s disappointing. What if I tweaked your pain receptors… around here?”

She felt everything the cut of the scalpel and the peeling back of flesh and the grinding motor of the drill excavating skull and popping of the seal as he prised it off the rest of her head and it hurt and she wanted nothing more for the pain to end even though--

“That’s enough of that,” said Psimon. He clicked his fingers, and the pain went away. He smiled, and placed his spindly fingers on her shoulders, jarring her so her eyes opened and saw him looming over her. “We’re almost twins, aren’t we, Amanda? We have the same cerebral aesthetic, most certainly. I could get you a plastic cap like mine, and then we’d be two peas in a pod.”

“Pssssssimon…” she managed, sweat pouring down her face, her fingernails digging into the arms of the chair.

“Yes?”

“Ssssimon Jones… aka… Psimon… former… former physicist… with a power set that includes… telepathy… telekinesis… and illusion casting. You’re also an utter dweeb, which means I-- don’t-- believe-- this--!”

The sheer force of her will shattered the image Psimon had cast over her perceptions, and her head was intact, no blood, no brain, and she grinned, even though she knew that the psychic pain he was inflicting upon her was phsychically real. It was an assault on her mind, not her body, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less.

“You-- you-- cow!” Psimon growled, slapping her across the face at the audacity of her breaking the psychic spell he’d cast over her through sheer willpower alone. “H-how are you doing that?”

“I’m sorry. This isn’t me. It’s him. I’m just along for the ride.”

It was something, but maybe not enough. She’d had to face off against psychic villains before, those who were sent down at Belle Reve and given an opportunity to serve the United States of America. Whenever they met her for the first time, they’d try to dominate her, take control of her mind and subvert it to their own ends, but she wouldn’t-- no, couldn’t-- let that happen.

Back when they were getting started, Flagg pointed her toward a telepath he trusted, someone she’d vetted thoroughly, a man known as Steve Dayton, aka the Doom Patrol’s Mento.

He gave her a set of tools to keep her mind under wraps, but under duress like this-- Psimon’s knife-like stabbing at her mental faculties-- it was difficult to maintain her composure, so she fell back on one of his first lessons to her-- the creation of a mnemonic closed psychic circuit.

“What do you even mean, Thin Mint?” she’d asked, verbally poking at the cantankerous, eccentric billionaire, as he fidgeted with the device he used to tap into his innate psychic powers.

“You’re concerned about someone climbing inside your head and taking your secrets. I get that. I knew Flagg’s father, you see, and I know the kind of hijinks he’d get himself into. If this is a case of like father, like son, I know that you’re holding some pretty valuable stuff up in there.”

He’d punctuated his point by poking himself in the temple, then smiled.

“So, if all else fails, if you’re at the end of your tether, you focus on a phrase. A sentence. Deconstruct it. Reconstruct it. For example, what I just said: ‘A sentence’ equals three syllables. Two words. ‘Deconstruct it’ equals four syllables. Two words. ‘Reconstruct--’”

“Four syllables, two words, right, right,” said Amanda. That couldn’t be too hard, could it?

“Keep that in your head. Hold it in there. Keep building and rebuilding. You’re creating a closed circuit in your head from that mnemonic. Looping around in your brain like a wall. A tornado with your most private, secret thoughts in the eye of it. Nothing can get in if you keep it up.”

“I’m sorry. This isn’t me. It’s him. I’m just along for the ride.”

Three syllables, two words. Four syllables, three words. Two syllables, two words. Seven syllables, six words, she thought, staring down the barrel of the psychic gun wielded by Psimon.

“I’m sorry. This isn’t me. It’s him. I’m just along for the ride.”

She grimaced, and malice dripped from her words. “You’re… you’re nothing. You were handed your ass by the Teen Titans*, then later on summoned an extradimensional entity to Earth-- only for it to not give a damn who you were**. You’re nothing. You’re a follower. You follow whoever sounds like a sure bet until they aren’t.”


“And you’re a mother who failed her children and overcompensated by restarting a government project that threw convicts to the wolves. We all know about your Suicide Squad, Amanda. And I want you to know-- we’re tearing it all down. Not just your beloved ‘Task Force X’, but we know about Project: Twilight too. So, here’s what I’m going to do: I’ve done my research on you. And Psimon says you’re going to love every second of what I have planned now. You think that mild illusion was something? I know about your daughter, Amanda. Do you remember Damita? Do you remember what the Candyman did to her? I read the police report. I know everything he did to her. When she was alive. And after, when she was dead. Everything.”

“Don’t you dare,” hissed Amanda. She counted the syllables, counted the words, reconstru--

Psimon clicked his fingers. “Too late. Let’s go for a stroll down memory lane, shall we?”


“Wonder Woman! Wondy! I gotta talk to you! It’s important!” shouted Harley Quinn, diving down from where she’d been hiding, wrapping her arms around Diana’s torso.

“What-- what do you want, Harley?” asked Diana, grappling with the psychotic psychiatrist as she also tried to keep out of reach of the razor-sharp tentacles that Enchantress had manifested.

“I’m really concerned that all this testosterone-fuelled fighting between us and Batman means we ain’t passing the Bechdel Test, so I gotta ask you, how’re you doin? What’s going on with you?”

“Bechdel--?” started Diana.

Her hands locked and her arms tensing, Harley squeezed as hard as she could, and Wonder Woman cried out in shock, falling to the floor as her ribs gave way under Harley’s super-strength. She hadn’t anticipated that the woman would be so strong but had remembered the rumours Batman had relayed-- unsubstantiated before now-- that she’d been mutated by Poison Ivy, and that she was exhibiting superpowers beyond what they expected from her before!

Quinn continued to talk, gabbing away as she hefted Wonder Woman up and over her head, suplexing her into the concrete below. “Me? I’m fine! I’m zippy! Gotta admit though, being back in Arkham, it’s bringing back all kinds of memories! You know I used ta work here? I was a career woman! I was damn good at my job? But ya know what? It could get kinda boring! Alez-oop!”

Diana grunted, and with one eye half-open she spotted Enchantress floating overhead, chanting maniacally. All around her, tears in reality were forming, and more and more tentacles flowed out. She meant business, and that meant-- Wonder Woman-- couldn’t-- waste-- her-- time--!

She spun around on her back, her legs kicking up in the air, and was poised for action. “I’m fine thanks. Bit sore. Nothing a good bath won’t fix,” Wonder Woman said, slowly. Her hands moved impossibly fast and she looped her lasso around Harley’s waist, then with one immense jerking motion, threw her up into Enchantress.

Her concentration broken, Enchantress stopped chanting, and the tears sealed, and she tumbled into the rafters of old Arkham with Quinn. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“I was trying ta distract her like I distract myself, by talking too much about nothing at all,” said Harley. She looked down at her waist, where the Lasso of Truth was still taut around her. “If this were any other scenario that would be a turn on. Wait. No. It is. I just realised. Ah, jeez!” She shimmied out of the truth-inducing length of rope just as Wonder Woman floated toward them, reeling her weapon in. “That ain’t fair! I was tryin ta have a real heart-to-heart!”

Enchantress grew irate as she pulled herself up. “What do you think Flagg wants us to do, Harleen? Break bread with the enemy?”

Harley threw her arms up in frustration. “Aww, ‘Chantress, you ruined it! Now we’ll never--”

The Queen of the Amazons grabbed Harley by the scruff of her jacket and threw her into Killer Croc, who’d just managed to pull himself up. On impact he wheezed, collapsing with Quinn on top of her.

Wonder Woman turned all her attention to Enchantress, “Sister, are you sure I can’t convince you to surrender?”

“We need to move, Lawton!” barked Flagg, watching the events occurring a mile away in the ruins of the now gutted asylum through a pair of binoculars.

Wonder Woman danced around the Enchantress, even as the sorceress was casting spells that caused the shadows to come alive and smash at the surrounding half-collapsed walls.

Even with the unconscious body of Harley on top of him, Croc was stirring from where he’d collapsed after being caught under Project: Twilight’s rays, but he was emaciated and weak, his muscles drained of their former reptilian strength.

“No, I’ve got this. I’ve got a clean shot. If Moone keeps up her side of it…”

By the time Deadshot chambered the next round into his sniper rifle and went to take another shot at Wonder Woman-- never say he didn’t commit to killing somebody-- Diana was stood in front of him, having flown the distance between the ruins to their sniper’s nest in an eyeblink. He looked up from his scope and she smiled, before reaching down and bending the barrel of his weapon so it pointed back at him.

“Do you have a permit for this?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow. “I didn’t think convicts could bear arms.”

Deadshot released the gun and pulled a grenade from his belt, then shrugged. “My convictions were overturned. How about yours?”

He pulled the pin and dropped the grenade, and her eyes opened wide like the moon-- she scooped it up and pulled it close to herself-- not enough time to dispatch it into the sky-- and her body acted as at shield to protect Deadshot from the fragmentation blast, even as she was buffeted backwards off the edge of the building.

“Deadshot, are you mad? You could have killed us,” growled Flagg, grabbing Lawton by the shoulder, only for the marksman to spin around and level his wrist-mounted guns at his boss’ face.

“Don’t-- don’t touch me, Flagg,” growled the assassin, his nerves shaken.

“You kill me, your head gets blown off. You know the rules. Let’s--”

His satellite phone began to ring, and he cursed. Deadshot lowered his gun and shook his head, then the pair began to hurry through the building to get to their exfiltration point.

“This is Flagg! We’re on operational standing! No communications! This better be good!” Flagg barked, answering the phone.

“This is Sergeant Ezaki at Staging Area Beta! We just got word from HQ-- there’s been a mass breakout-- the Justice League are on-site, but it’s messy as all hell, sir!”

Shocked, Flagg put the brakes on, pausing in the darkened corridor. “Breakout? Who started it?”

“That’s the thing-- I’m with Doctor Mortensen, and he said-- Waller’s body wasn’t real! It was some kind of bomb! When they started the autopsy, it burst like a piñata, and then the power went out and the doors opened! I repeat-- Waller isn’t dead! We’ve been set up!”

“No… no… that’s not possible…” He turned to Deadshot. “Call the others! Exfil at Gamma, ASAP!” He checked his watch. “We leave in ten!”


It was an all-out riot in Belle Reve, as the prisoners ran free for the first time in what felt like an age. The guards had barricaded themselves in the security rooms littered around the premises and had put out an open call for help. The electronic anti-riot weaponry was deactivated thanks to whatever had happened in the medical wing, so all they could do was wait it out, and hope that their call would be answered soon.

In the women’s wing, the superpowered inmates suddenly had their powers returned to them, and they were causing chaos alongside the unpowered prisoners. In one corner of the wing, further events were unfolding, even as chaos reigned all around.

“Just like they promised… doors open… freedom…” mused the pale woman, pulling herself out of her cell and onto the walkway outside.

She flicked her scarlet hair out her eyes and looked down at her boring orange prison fatigues. Experimentally, she waved her hand around, and her uniform transformed into something a lot more to her liking, and with that, the metahuman known as Shimmer was back.

Meanwhile, an East Indian woman with a blue jewel embedded between her eyes was already waiting outside her cell, her pink iris eyes crackling with power. “What are you waiting for? We need to get out of here!”

Shimmer shook her head. “C’mon, Jinx. You know that’s now how we do this. My brother is somewhere in--”

There was a series of explosions-- gunfire-- screams-- and a wall crumbled as a juggernaut of a man stormed his way into the women’s wing of Belle Reve. “Selinda!” he bellowed.

“He’s stood right there, Shimmer,” said Jinx, grinning.

Selinda approached her brother and smiled. He was Mammoth, and with his burly, muscle-bound frame and shock of hair atop his head and chin, he looked every part the role. “Baran, you handsome devil. We’re free. Psimon came through for us.”

A diminutive man zipped behind Mammoth, flying around thanks to a pair of small rockets mounted on a harness around his torso. They didn’t look like they were fit for purpose, but whenever Gizmo was given the right components, he could make wonders. “You know it wasn’t Psimon, it was the Society. He was just the messenger. Let’s not put too much stock in our old ally’s ability.”

Jinx waved her hand in the general direction of some guards who’d come to subdue the riot that was in progress, freezing them in place with her elemental prowess. “Well, shall we go pay him visit? Gizmo, do you think you could build us a transport?”

“I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere, folks,” said the Flash, stood beside them casually with his arms crossed.

“Get him!” barked Jinx.

Mammoth swung his fists down on where the Scarlet Speedster had been, and then looked down at where he’d smashed his hands down. “Huh?” He murmured, only to be tapped on the back. He turned, and the Flash waved. “Nnnnaaah!” He tried to attack the Justice Leaguer again, but the speedster-- by all definitions-- was too quick.

Instead of managing to connect with the Flash, Mammoth had demolished either side of the walkway he’d been stood on and fell to the ground floor below, like a cartoon come to life.

“I think you should surrender. Fast. But I’m biased,” said the Flash, stood back along with the other villains.

Jinx threw a blast of ice with one hand, and then a plume of fire with the other, but the Flash zipped between both.

“C’mon, Jinx. I face off with Heatwave and Captain Cold every other Wednesday. You think I--”

He suddenly realised that his feet had begun to sink into the walkway, all thanks to the transmutational powers of Shimmer. She grinned as she sealed his torso into the metal landing, so his legs could gain no purchase, and then she approached the speedsters slowly.

“You hurt Baran, Barry. That just won’t do. I wonder what I can--”

The Flash raised his hand, ready to unleash a cyclone at superspeed with a spin of his arm, but instead a series of emerald boxing gloves shot out from the gap in the wall caused by the Mammoth’s rampage, knocking out all the prisoners they impacted with. Instead of attacking Shimmer, he caught her, then lay her on the walkway while he vibrated out of it and landed on the ground below.

“Thanks for the assist, GL,” said the Flash, looking up to the Green Lantern who swooped into the cellblock.

“I wouldn’t hear the end of it if I let my predecessor’s best friend get knocked off by some supervillain I’ve never heard of before,” said John Stewart, landing beside the Flash.

“Shimmer, Jinx, Gizmo and Mammoth have all been affiliated with the so-called ‘Fearsome Five’-- archfoes of the Teen Titans,” said the Martian Manhunter, phasing through a wall to join his comrades. “Along with Doctor Light and Psimon.”

“But that’s… six…” pointed out the Flash.

“I am not the arbiter of numerically correct team names, Flash,” replied the Martian Manhunter, a small smile on his green lips.

John cocked an eyebrow at his Martian comrade, then shook his head, amused at the absurdity of their situation. “Where’s Aquaman?”

“We ran into King Shark down in the lower levels, and he said he wanted to handle it by himself,” said the Flash.

“I have sent out a low level psychic suggestion for the rest of the prisoners to calm down and surrender, and I am currently in the process of psychically communicating with the security staff. I believe we have routed this riot.”

“And without Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, to boot,” replied the Flash.

“Still, would have been faster if they were on-site. Batman could have probably scared them into submission without throwing a punch,” said Green Lantern.

A handful of shark’s teeth were scattered in front of them, and the trio turned to see Aquaman trudging towards them, his fists bloody and his shirt torn in patches. “Who needs Batman?”


Of course there was a hidden Bat Cave on the outskirts of the old Arkham estate. Most of the equipment and vehicles were a few generations older than what the Dark Knight utilised in his day to day, but none of it was useless. They’d taken the high-speed car through the secret tunnels below ground, all the way to the converted grain silos that housed their next form of transport.

“You’re… you’re joking, of course,” coughed the Man of Steel, awakening from the vegetative daze of whatever had been done to him back on Arkham’s grounds.

“I don’t joke about this kind of thing, Clark,” replied the Dark Knight.

In the converted grain silo was in fact a different kind of silo, one with a lot more function and a hell of a lot more form than what you might expect if you’d stumped n expecting wheat by-product. The rocket was sleek and modern, with a cockpit big enough for two.

“…So, what do you call it?”

Clark was helped up and strapped into the cockpit. “It’s a rocket.”

“…Sure, but what do you call it?”

As Bruce climbed into the pilot’s seat, he looked over at Clark and gave him a small smile. “…Bat-rocket.”

Clark laughed and began to cough, covering his mouth with a pale hand. “You are too rich, Bruce.”

“If I was poor, I wouldn’t have been able to utilise my fleet of satellites to track the energy signature of the beam that hit you earlier. If I was poor, I wouldn’t be able to fly us to the location of the signature to its source… via Bat-rocket.”

“Touchy, too. The energy signature… it’s the Parasite, isn’t it?”

Batman nodded. “The energy signature matches his, yes. Someone weaponised his energy and life force absorbing abilities and channelled them through a covert satellite system.”

“Project: Twilight?” offered Clark.

“That tracks. All Parasite wanted was to be left alone, and because he dropped off the face of the Earth, we let it lie. We were stupid. That was a mistake that I believe Amanda Waller sought to rectify.”

“He knows everything about us after he attacked the Question*…”


Batman grimaced. He remembered the state of his old friend, the last time he’d visited him at hospital. “…We have the Parasite’s unique energy signature on file, so it was just a case of triangulating the source of the beam, before it was fed into the satellites. I have a location. It’ll take us 30 minutes to get there.”

“And you don’t want to use the Justice League teleporters, why?”

Batman flicked a few switches and the engines on the base of the rocket began to rumble. “I don’t want this to be linked with them. Clark, I don’t want you to be here, but you’ve ended up down in the dirt with me, so we need to see it through. The League’s teleporters have a traceable signature and it’ll look like they’re cleaning up a mess I put them in. I can’t have that.”

Clark shook his head. “Even now, you’re still refusing to ask for help. Or accept it.”

“Quiet.”

He wasn’t about to be silenced. “You can’t--”

Batman pushed down hard on a lever, and the silo doors opened, allowing the rocket to emerge from its depths in an explosive headrush of sound and fury. Clark was thrown back into his chair and grimaced, no more argument left in him as they headed into orbit, ready to plummet down to the location of Project: Twilight.


“Y’want some too?”

“Uh uh. Got something t’give you!”

Parents shouldn’t have to outlive their children, but no one seemed to tell that to Amanda and Joseph Waller.

Their first child to die was Joe Jr. A mugging gone wrong. He fought back. A mistake.

One shot, so much blood from such a tiny little hole, and his perfect face was forever punctuated in their minds by that eighties throwback Colt Detective Special, purchased from a pawn shop a few days previously by some youths who wanted to make a quick buck further down the line.

“You bein’ a baaad girl, baby! Gonna hafta learn you!”

Their second child to die was Damita as she walked home from church on a sunny Sunday mid-morning. A serial rapist known as the Candyman had recently been released from prison on a technicality, and he was itching to satiate the beast that wanted blood and something else.

Her daughter screamed, but the people who didn’t peek out their apartments for a salacious look at the ruination of a woman closed their windows. It took fifteen excruciating minutes for her screaming to stop.

When the funeral arrived, it was a closed casket. He liked to use a knife, did her killer. He liked to use a knife a hell of a lot more than a man of his disposition should have been allowed. He used a knife to do things a sane man would never occur to do to another human being.

But there were no witnesses. No physical evidence. He’d bragged about it at the local bar, but his friends didn’t give a damn, and neither did the police. If she were white, maybe. If the neighbourhood wasn’t so rough…

“Ssssstoooop thissssss,” demanded Amanda, spittle flying from her mouth.

“But we’re having so much fun,” replied Psimon, tantalising the weaknesses he was exposing in Waller’s psyche.

He’d done all the research he needed to reconstruct the events that led to the deaths of her children, and he hadn’t even had a chance to play out the death of her husband yet. She was shaking, sweating, the experience draining her physically and emotionally.

She turned away from the psychic illusion he’d cast and looked the sadistic psionic in the eye. “What… do you want… from me…?”

“Nothing I haven’t already got, Amanda. I picked the secrets the Society wanted out of your brain as soon as I showed you the death of your son, I’ve just enjoyed letting the psychic scenario run its course.”

Her brow furrowed. “What… what did you take?”

“The command protocol that controls the explosives you insert in the brains of your Suicide Squad, of course. You kept them locked down for too long, and they’re itching to get out. Imagine what it’ll be like to see the government’s dirty laundry flapping around in the public. Your reputation will be in ruins, and the government will shoulder the blame, just as much as you.”

He lingered at the door to her cell and smiled, letting the scenario sink in for her, even while the blood drained from her battered face.

“I’ll be back soon, Amanda. And when I do, we’ll begin your rehabilitation. I hope you enjoy the last hours of your old life. Your new one will be a mind bender. I can twist your brain to believe a whole different reality. I can wipe away your sins and replace them with new ones. You’ll think of things you never thought possible. It’ll be the second masterpiece I perform on this god forsaken island.”


“What the hell was that?” asked Sergeant Hudson, the radar showing an immense blip soaring over their location, then vanishing a split-second later.

Officer Ulrich shook his head, trying to make sense of what they’d just seen. “Looked like… like a rocket, sir. But it’s trajectory… we’re struggling to track it. God, it was moving so fast…”

Hudson wasn’t sure what their security system had picked up, but it didn’t make him feel at ease. “I want armed patrols doubled. I’ll report this to the Acting-Director immediately. It can’t be a coincidence that an unidentified flying object is spotted over our location during the first operation involving the array. I need-- wait-- what is that?”

He could taste something on his tongue, but before he could question is any further he passed out.

“…They’re out. It’ll take a few seconds to clear.”

Batman and Superman clambered out of the air ducts and took off their gas masks. The Man of Tomorrow wasn’t impressed that he’d been forced into a High Altitude Low Opening air drop, but when the Dark Knight started prepping him for the HALO jump, he just rolled with it. His powers had been taken from him, and it made sense, yet again, to put his trust in the most prepared human being the world had ever seen.

“We have control of their main security centre. I’ve routed their protocols through the suit’s onboard computer. I’m in control of what gets in and out from this point on. I told you this would be easy,” said Batman.

“We just need to be careful. These people… they’ve not done anything wrong. It’s a military operation. They’re not the enemy…”

“They stole your powers, Superman. They’re as close to the enemy as we’re going to get in a situation like this.”

Superman shook his head but couldn’t disagree. “We just… need to be careful.”

“Careful not to hurt them, or careful not to get caught?”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Batman didn’t react, and instead focused his attention on the terminal in front of him. “Fine. I’m pulling up the installation’s schematics now. The main bunker is a closed system, I can’t do anything with their security protocols from here. But the anaesthetic gas we released into the remote security locations have taken out their first responders. I’m cloning the camera feeds, so no one notices what happens next, then slaving the camera controls to the suit. It’ll make sure footage of our infiltration doesn’t leak and we can do whatever we want with the feeds after. I can also… there. I’ve wiped their back-ups. They’ll have nothing to begin reconstructing the project when we’re done.”

“Hmm.”

Batman spun around and pointed an accusatory finger at his old friend. “What? What do you mean, ‘hmm’? They took your powers! If they can do that to you, they can do it to any of our people! I won’t lose a life to this.”

“Not what I was ‘hmm’ing about. You think wiping their computers will prevent this from happening again? The scientists, their research, it can all be reconstituted at some level. If we want to stop this from happening again, it’ll take more than just wiping their hard drives. You and I both know that.”

“We do what we can. And if the Parasite is involved… there are ways of taking him off the board.”

“What are you--?”

“S.T.A.R. have ways of containing him, and after that, a public trial, Superman. We finally take him down, and we don’t let shadow agencies sneak off with him. We do what we can. And then we take it from there.”

Superman smiled. For a split second there, he had thought… but no, that was never an option for this man, nor was it an option for any of them. They would do all they could, perhaps reveal the truth of Project: Twilight to the world and save their people time and time again from whatever forces might manifest around them.

“I know how we’re getting into the bunker.”

“How’s that then?” asked Superman.

The Dark Knight gestured down to the unconscious guards at their feet. “Dress up.”


“She’s dead because of you. She’s dead because of you. She’s dead because of you.”

Charles Hardcastle was beyond proud when his daughter Lauren followed his footsteps and joined the army when she was eighteen. She was quickly snatched up for intelligence work, and then bought into the fold of Amanda Waller’s Task Force X to work as part of ‘Overwatch’, the elite reconnaissance team that supported the Suicide Squad on their missions.

“She’s dead because of you. She’s dead because of you. She’s dead because of you.”

The general hadn’t approved, because he knew Waller’s reputation, but Lauren was adamant she was doing good work, though the classified nature of her work meant she couldn’t talk about it over Thanksgiving dinner, the only time he was able to wrangle all five of his daughters back to the family homestead.

“She’s dead because of you. She’s dead because of you. She’s dead because of you.”

He had heard stories about her though, when he was trying to keep his distance but still needed to know she was doing well. She took no shit, that’s what her superiors told her. She had a dedicated drone operator for surveillance under her command, and he’d nearly lost his trigger finger when he’d tried it on.

“She’s dead because of you. She’s dead because of you. She’s dead because of you.”

It took ten seconds for the Parasite to enter their Lagos-based hotel room (and de facto ops centre) and kill the entirety of Overwatch. She had shown fire, bitten off the tip of his tongue, and he’d back handed her, crushing her skull. They hadn’t been able to do an autopsy, because a second later the Parasite had sucked the residual life force from their bodies and left them all as piles of residual organic matter in amongst their clothes.

And that’s when Hardcastle’s programming had kicked in.

You see, he remembered it all. He remembered being cornered in a hotel room like this six months ago by the man with his transparent skull. They wanted him to be their ace in the hole, and he couldn’t say no. He didn’t remember the psychic torture, but after it he was a lot more pliable. He didn’t know he was the leak who would give the Society intel on military operations involving metahumans, but that didn’t stop it from being true.

“She’s dead--”

There was a knock at his door, and one of his military attaché, a young officer whose name eluded him at that moment, leaned forward and asked, “Are you all right, sir?”

Hardcastle looked at his distorted reflection. The mirror had shattered where his forehead had impacted against it, and he was bleeding from a gouge across his brow. “I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine,” he answered, groggily.

He’d leaked the existence of Project: Twilight as soon as he was briefed. The Society wanted in. He’d tried to resist but couldn’t help himself. Deathstroke had been in Lagos, and he’d led Parasite to the Overwatch location without revealing his own location. The psychic trauma had been enough to push the general even further, and now he was broken, shattered, and the service weapon in his hand would come to good use as the night wore on.


“You look like hell,” Bruce told Clark, as the pair entered the main building that comprised of Project: Twilight. They didn’t have long before their deception was uncovered. They were vaguely disguised, enough so that one look at them wouldn’t scream Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent, but not enough make-up to make them self-conscious about the act.

“I feel like it,” replied Clark.

His movements were sluggish, like he was still being drained by the Parasite’s toxic, life-draining touch. He should have been in a hospital somewhere, exposed to yellow sun radiation or being checked over by the best doctors the Justice League could buy.

“B… there’s… there’s something wrong here. Can you feel it?” said Clark.

“…Where is everybody?” replied Bruce.

They hadn’t walked past any security or staff for the last two minutes. A place like this, on high alert, you would have expected there to be patrols round the clock, guards at every corner and door, but there was--

The pair turned a corner and realised why.

Soldiers were slumped over in the corridors, blood leaking out of their bodies to create an immense scarlet slick that lined the 70s style linoleum that hadn’t been cleaned properly for the last fifty years.

“Oh. Look, we missed two,” said one of the causes of the bloodbath, his jangly arms slaked red, razor-sharp wires rescinding into all the joints along his seemingly wooden, puppet-like body.

“Hhhhrrr… they smell different. More than human,” snarled a squat, animalistic figure, his razor-sharp canines barred for the interlopers to Project: Twilight to see.

“That’s because they are,” said another one. He was dressed differently to the others. He was dressed like someone very familiar to the World’s Finest. This man, with the two bowie knives in his hands, was dressed as Batman. “Hello, Superman. Hello, me.”

“I know that voice,” growled Bruce.

“That’s not you?” offered Clark.

As ever, Bruce ignored it. “That’s Thomas Blake. Catman. He’s the one who framed me for Amanda Waller’s murder. It was the Society. We were played, and so were Task Force X.”

“You say it like it’s obvious,” replied Clark.

The pair were retreating slowly backwards from the trio of super villains, who were following them closely. The tallest of the them was the faux-puppet Toyman, nine-feet-tall and bent over awkwardly in a corridor not built to accommodate his lanky frame. The shortest one was Shreck, the vampiric assassin that the Society sent in to places to cause a bit of chaos. Just like this.

“You know what to do. Flash them your chest. They always fall in line when you do,” said Bruce.

“You’re sure you can handle this?”

“What are you even talking about?” growled Shreck.

Batman smiled as they vanished behind a corner. “You’ll see.”

When Shreck and Toyman followed after, a split second after, Superman was gone.

And there stood Batman, back in his costume, fists raised.

Catman grinned as he saw the sight before him, his two heavies stood between the man he was impersonating and himself. He wiggled his fingers mockingly. “Oh, scary.”

“Take off that damn costume,” said Batman.

Catman spun his bowie knives around as he raised them to the same level as the Dark Knight’s fists. “Come over here and make me.”


“Amanda? Amanda Waller?”

She opened her eyes slowly, pulled from the haze of the psychic fugue she’d been left in by Psimon. She recognised the man’s voice, and that was enough to yank herself fully out of the pit of her situation.

“What… what’re you doing here?” she asked. The voice travelled from the outside of her cell to her ears, but the acoustics were strange, tinny. Like the fidelity of her own voice, but further away. Another cell, perhaps? Or was he standing outside the door, mocking her?

His voice was low, suspicious. “How long… how long has it been?”

“Since what? Since you decided that breaking bad and joining up with our nation’s greatest enemies was a good idea?”

“That… that actually happened? I thought it was a… a bad dream… they did something to me, Amanda. They made me… made me do terrible things… it wasn’t… it wasn’t me…”

Amanda grimaced. She was still lashed to her chair, but with one horrible, muffled sound, she managed to break her thumb and slip her shaking hand backwards, out of the first restraint. With one hand free and no one watching her, she unbuckled the rest of the straps, until she could stand.

“Jesus Christ,” she whispered, looking down at her mangled thumb.

“What happened? Are you all right?”

She stumbled forward, weak from the interrogation, and gripped the bars that lined the window mounted on the door of her cell with her good hand. She peeked outside, across the hall, and sure enough, there were numerous other cells. She really was in Peña Duro… and knew then, that back home at Belle Reve, her inmates had it easy.

“I’m fine. Where are you?” she asked.

A shape moved across the cell across the way and to the right, and she saw a man who looked like he’d been half-starved to death. His face was lined with a straggly, ginger beard, but his bald head was perfectly pristine, apart from the bruises and lesions from what could only have been repeated beatings and torture.

“My God. You’re--”

“A-Amanda?!” said another voice, joining the conversation.

Thin hands gripped the bars of the cell next to the bearded man’s, and she pushed her face out as far as she could, giving Waller a straight shot at seeing who she was, another face that shocked her to the core.

“June Moone? How are you here? How did they get you? Just—just say the magic word, and we can all get out of here!”

“I-- I can’t! I don’t know where we are b-but it-- it was her! She came for me at night, and then-- then she dragged me here. Oh, God, I thought I’d never see a familiar face again… is-- is Rick okay?”

Waller’s mind spun. She’d last seen June-- no, that was wrong, she’d seen the Enchantress mere hours before her kidnapping at the hands of the Society. That was-- wait, no-- something began to turn in her head, a heavy thought that lumbered in a mechanism that made connections were previously there hadn’t been any-- that was wrong, wasn’t it?

“Amanda?” said June, after the long silence between them.

“You and the Enchantress… you separated, didn’t you? And afterwards, you were both… both MIA…*”


Her hands covering her face, June shook her head. “I-is that what happened? I can’t… I can’t remember…”

“I think now’s not the time to linger on the past, but perhaps concentrate on the future?” said the man in the cell opposite Amanda’s own.

Her head still spinning, Amanda turned her attention back to him. “Oh, and you have a recommendation, Luthor?”

The bedraggled face of disgraced businessman turned secretive super villain Lex Luthor lit up in his cell, and he couldn’t help but smile. “Well, of course. I think it’s probably time for all three of us to escape, isn’t it?”


“I gotta admit, I’m really surprised you carry holy water in that belt of yours,” observed Catman.

Known to others as simply Thomas Blake, the villain looked down at his teammate Shreck, as the vampire struggled to keep the grisly remains of his smoking undead flesh attached to his face, even as it peeled off in sheets. It was a horrible sight, and the sound he was making-- like a dog being throttled-- made it even worse.

Toyman, meanwhile, was in pieces, scattered across the hallway, his carved head slack-jawed and decapitated at the neck, while Batman and Catman stood on opposite ends of the corridor, measuring each other. The Dark Knight was uneasy on his feet, having gone through the wringer fighting the two villains, but he’d come out on top so far. Then there was this man. The one who’d taken on his identity for murder.

Batman said nothing. He dove forward, a black blur as his cape trailed behind him, and at the last minute reached out and grabbed Catman’s wrists, twisting them in such a way as to make him drop his bowie knives.

Blake didn’t cry out. He drove his head forward and down, butting it violently against the Caped Crusader’s. He grinned, ready to follow through, but found that his wrists were still being gripped tight by his opponent, meaning he couldn’t drive his fists down.

Instead, he drove his knee up, taking the wind out of the Batman’s lungs, and giving him the purchase to snatch his hands away from the Dark Knight’s grip.

Catman took two steps back and raised his fists, an old boxing stance he’d learned back in the day. “Y’know, it’s not even personal. It’s business.”

“…Business?”

“Yeah, business. I was given an order by my bosses. Kill Waller while wearing your face. You’re lucky I didn’t come and take that from you to do the damn job. Business.”

Newly renewed with a jolt of anger, Batman growled, jumped up, and kicked Catman twice in the face, while striking with a sharp elbow to the front of Blake’s head upon landing, splitting the villain’s scalp open.

“Business?!”

He pushed forward once more, took a handful of the fake costume Blake wore in his hand, and tore it free, following through with a roundhouse punch that sent Blake scrambling to the ground. Three brown gashes, like claw marks, were visible under where the bat insignia had been moments before, and Blake looked down in surprise when his own costume was exposed beneath the fake one.

“Business?!”

He held up the shredded front cloth from Catman’s fake Bat-costume and scrunched it up in a ragged bundle. “It became personal when you wore this to commit murder, Blake.”

He cast the shreds aside violently and was about to punch Blake so hard his nose would break, when instead Catman caught his fist in his trembling hands, and looked him dead in the eye. Through gritted teeth, the villain said, “I’m sorry. This isn’t me. It’s him. I’m just along for the ride.”

The voice he spoke with was familiar, surprisingly so, and it made Batman hesitate for just a moment. Hesitate long enough for Blake’s other hand to find one of the bowie knives that had been cast to the floor and drive it up, into the Dark Knight’s side, twisting it for good measure.

Batman grunted, staggered backwards, and clutched his side, confusion covering his face. He looked at where blood drenched his hand and side, where it streamed down his leg, and felt his knees buckle. He was on the ground, at Catman’s mercy, with nothing left but a name. He whispered it-- the name of who the voice Blake had spoken with for just a moment-- utterly confused by the hows and whys of the situation: “Q-Question?”


“This isn’t right.”

Lambert and his technicians turned, surprised at the voice that shot out over their heads like a bullet. Stood in the doorway, barely able to hold himself up, was the Man of Tomorrow himself.

“H-how are you here?” started Lambert.

“It doesn’t matter how. What matters is that behind me are some of the deadliest supervillains this world has ever seen, and the only thing standing between them and you is the Batman. The man who will do anything in his power to save you, even while you hate and fear him.”

Doctor Starkey shook his head and took a step forward. “Batman killed Waller, Superman.”

“No, he was framed. And if you spent as much time studying superheroes as you do planning on how best to neutralise them, you’d know that it’s not in his nature to kill. But no, you assumed the worst.”

Superman looked past Starkey and saw what had been done with the Parasite. “My God.”

“Hhhhhheeeeeelppppp meeeeeeee,” drawled the emaciated villain, his body punctured dozens of times over by the containment rods that drew his horrific powers into the Project: Twilight mechanism.

“This is a lawful enterprise, Superman! Everything has been signed off on by the government!” said Starkey, trying to intercept the Man of Steel before he could reach the Parasite’s holding tube.

“The detention and torture of anybody is immoral and wrong. You can’t hold him like this.”

“Yes, we can,” said Lambert. He held up a pistol, his hand shaking nervously, but it was levelled directly at the Man of Steel.

“You know that doesn’t change a thing,” said Superman.

“W-well, I know that you were at ground zero of our f-first salvo. The array recorded massive influx of energies into the control unit. I think it was you, Superman. I think we snatched all your godlike power out of your body and have it bottled up in the system.”

Superman’s brow furrowed. “That may be true.” He looked back at Parasite. Even weakened, even nauseous, he could still see flickers of the interior of the array, his eyes struggling to focus, but still able to access the higher range of vision his people had under a yellow sun…

“Don’t look at him, l-look at me!” said Lambert.

The Man of Steel raised a single finger. “I’ll be with you in one moment, thank you.”

Lambert grimaced and jerked the pistol forward angrily. “N-no, now!”

A single gunshot rang out, and Superman gasped, but didn’t scream. He looked down at his chest, where blood poured from the curve under the bottom of the ‘S’ symbol he wore.

“…Not like this,” he gasped.

The Man of Steel fell forward, going into shock immediately.

The Parasite pressed his hand against the containment tube, where the bullet had penetrated its thick plastics and cracked one of the dampener rods. He was able to move his head, and felt the rods begin to fall away, cracking to the ground as he realised that they had been excised from his body by slight exertions of heat vision from the man now lying in shock in front of him.

Lambert looked at Superman, then at the pistol he held, and awkwardly dropped it. “G-get security in here! Check the--”

The Parasite shattered the containment tube, and alarms began to roar.

He was free.

And the facility fell into chaos.