Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 13, 2022 15:23:38 GMT -5
Previously, in OMEGA CRISIS…
It was supposed to be the wedding of the decade when Barbara Gordon and Dick Grayson had finally decided to get married! The heroes of the world were invited, and as a special gift to the happy couple, in one night, every wanted criminal, every supervillain across the world, was taken down! With this new era of peace established, the wedding goes forward, but they don’t know what’s coming next…
“Come on, people, there has to be something we missed.” Tim Wayne stared intently at the holographic readouts projected over the table in the center of the room, his eyes beneath his Batman cowl flicking from one set of numbers to the next. “A trace amount of energy, a radiation signature, an echo bouncing across what’s left of spacetime...”
“May as well start a door-to-door search at this point,” Green Arrow quipped, then hitched a thumb at the young man standing nearby. “Let’s put Magnet Boy in charge of that, since he’s been sooo helpful so far.”
“I told you, my name is...”
“Both of you, shut up!” Tim rubbed the heel of his hand against his temple: he felt a piercingly-sharp headache coming on all of the sudden, which wasn’t surprising, considering the stress he was under. Quite a few other people gathered in the room weren’t doing so well either, going by how many of them were also cradling their heads. There’d even been reports that some of the Green Lanterns maintaining the shield were beginning to falter, forcing the Corps members around them to redouble their efforts. “It’s not possible for Krona and Libra to have vanished without a trace, not when the universe has shrunk down to pretty much what’s visible outside our window, both in terms of physical and temporal space. They went somewhere, and dammit, we need to figure out where!”
In a far-off corner of the room, Renee Montoya said quietly, “Should we try telling them again?”
“There’s no point to it,” Victor Charles Sage answered just as quietly. Had anyone been looking their way, they likely wouldn’t have even realised the two were talking, thanks to the featureless masks both of them wore. “None of them have been able to hold the information in their heads for more than a minute. We...” Sage paused as both of their smartphones beeped -- in unison, they held them next to each other, looked at the screens, then Sage continued talking. “We may as well let them have the illusion that there’s still a way to stop this.”
“It seems so cruel, though.”
“You’re too young to remember ‘duck and cover’, aren’t you? The idea that hiding under a desk or a blanket would save you from an atomic blast?”
“You’re kidding, right? People really thought that would help?”
“People like to feel that they can control the uncontrollable. If they believe a desk can save them of getting their face melted off, then maybe they won’t live in constant panic about the nukes being stockpiled by both sides.” Sage nodded towards the various heroes assembled in the room. “Right now, we’re letting them sit under a desk, because telling them the nuke is on its way won’t change anything. At least they can go out believing they did all they could.”
“I still think it’s cruel.”
Their phones beeped again. “Go tell ‘em, then,” Sage said after they had looked at the screens once more. “This’ll only be...what, the eighth time or the ninth? Maybe this time it’ll stick.”
Montoya seriously considered doing it just to spite him, but before she could, the Watchtower was buffeted heavily, and the inertial dampeners whined to keep the team members on their feet. Krypto barked loudly, confused by the sudden tilt, but Lena Luthor knelt next to the Dog of Steel and got it to calm down.
“Jesus! I thought we’d turned the proximity alarm back on!” shouted Oliver.
“I… I did. Whatever hit us wasn’t a solid...” Cyborg stopped as an intense green light filled the observation window. They all turned to look, though many of them feared the worst. Had the shield fallen? Were they all about to be erased? But instead, in the centre of what was left of their solar system, a glowing emerald sphere had manifested with such force that it generated a shockwave, shunting any nearby satellites and ships away due to its wake. The sphere itself was the same colouration as the shield keeping them all alive, but it glowed brighter than any of them expected after staring at the tide break for the last few hours.
“What happened?” Dawn Makes-Strong-Move asked as she came into the room, Kid Eternity and Constantine right behind her -- all three came up short upon seeing the sphere outside. “Are the Lanterns planning something? Building something? An escape hatch or whatever?”
Before anyone could answer, the sphere zipped towards the Watchtower in the space of a second, phasing first through the space station’s shields, then through the observation window. Those standing near the window backed away, uncertain both of the sphere’s intent and their own ability to stop it. The brightly-glowing object came to a halt near the center of the room, then began to elongate, its contours changing until it became a six-foot-tall image of a man in a Green Lantern uniform.
“Hal?” Oliver stepped towards the image, a look of shock on his face. “It can’t be...”
<I don’t know who’s seeing this,> the image of Hal Jordan said, <but I figured it was best to send this message back to the Watchtower since it was the most likely place to be found. I also don’t know how much time has passed since I left, so I’m going to get right to the point: Krona is back. He and Libra are the ones behind all of reality crashing down, but I think we still have a chance at stopping whatever it is they have planned.>
Over in the corner, the two Questions looked at their beeping phones. “That’s it,” Montoya said quietly, “he’s gone. It’ll be over any minute now...”
“I know how to contain the Infinite Man. I have future knowledge I can share with you, snatched from his timeline before it fell...we need to trap him, to stop his movements. If we don’t...this timeline will die in flames!”
The figure garbed in white and black before them called himself Equinox. He claimed to not only be the brother of Libra -- the person who’d killed Rip Hunter, then tried to do the same to the Atom -- but that he also knew what causing all of reality to collapse. When Hal Jordan first saw Equinox, his instincts immediately went on high-alert and he readied himself for a fight (not surprising, since the figure’s arrival had not only been literally explosive, but it also disrupted an important message being transmitted by his fellow GL Kyle Rayner). When he saw Guy Gardner and the other heroes gathered around him doing the same, he was glad to know that his reaction wasn’t unique. Admittedly, this newcomer might’ve been someone he just didn’t know yet, seeing as how he’d been out of the game for a while. Raising his daughter while his wife played super-secret agent across the globe meant that he’d hung up his ring, and it was a choice he’d happily make infinite times over. The past decade or so had been the happiest of his life. But with Jess’s move to San Francisco a year or so back when she’d joined the All-Star Academy… it meant he suddenly had a lot of free time. He was no longer chaperoning a burgeoning cosmic superhuman on a day-to-day basis. Instead, he suddenly found time to fly again. To charge up his ring, to say his vow, and take to the skies...and when space and time had begun to warp, he’d been at the forefront, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with old friends and new ones as they saved the world once more.
And now there was another new friend: Equinox. The more he spoke, the more Hal could feel all the tension and uneasiness within him drain away. He could see the posture of the others begin to relax as well, and why not? It was an incredible stroke of luck, having someone who could solve this crisis literally arrive at their doorstep just when they needed him the most. Besides, there was something about the man...something in Equinox’s voice...that convinced all of them that what he said was the truth.
“We need to hurry. Here, let me upload the information I have into your computers.” Equinox began to move towards one of the consoles in the Watchtower. At first, no one even thought to object, but then Batman jerked his head slightly, as if he’d momentarily nodded off, followed by him leaping in front of Equinox to block the man’s path.
“Not going to happen,” Batman said. “You may be here to help us, but we still need to maintain some level of security. Vic?”
Cyborg understood what was needed without it being said, and began to manifest a silvery cube about the size of a grapefruit in his outstretched mechanical hand. “Totally solid-state,” Cyborg explained as he gave it to Equinox. “Only one who’ll be able to read what you put in there is me, and that’ll only be after I run it through every virus and malware test I can muster.”
Equinox nodded, saying, “Very wise. You and your people have earned your reputation.” He pressed one of the bands on his wrist against the cube, which soon produced thin metallic leads that plugged into the near-invisible ports on the band. As the data was transferred, Equinox continued to talk, telling them all how Libra had tried to kill him as a sacrifice to the Infinite Man. Looks of sympathy washed over the faces of all the heroes present. Hal himself found his thoughts drifting towards his own brothers, and the fights they’d had when younger. The feeling of empathy he felt towards this newcomer was incredibly strong, and he found himself getting so wrapped up in the words that it took a moment for him to realise his ring was vibrating. He thought at first that it was Kyle trying to reestablish contact, but this felt different than any other signal Hal had ever received. It was a feeling foreign to him -- this particular power ring was his. Purely his. It had been destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed, rebuilt, all down to his potent vein of willpower. He’d plumbed the depths of this tool, and never felt this kind of thing before. So he did what he always did when faced with the unknown… he met it head on.
Uh… hello? he asked, mentally.
<Hal Jordan of Earth. We have not spoken in some time. Not since our ascension out of the physical universe. This is the collective voice of the Guardians of the Universe. And we have need of you -- our greatest champion -- one final time.>
“Oh, boy,” he whispered. The Guardians of the Universe had exited this physical realm of existence over a decade ago, and to Hal’s knowledge, nobody had seen hide nor hair of them since. If he remembered rightly, they left to reclaim some semblance of their former life with the Zamorans, the females of their species that had evolved on a divergent path. Hal had hoped that when they returned it would be followed with peace and goodwill across the cosmos, but unfortunately, with them speaking directly to him on the sly, it seemed like it was more of the same. Secrets. Manipulation. But if he wanted to get to the truth of the matter, there was only one thing he could do. After moving away from Guy to find a quiet corner of the room, Hal said to the Guardians, “So, long time no speak. What’s the deal?”
<Since our ascension to the immaterial, we have watched the universe grow in ways that astound and inspire. While we may not act ourselves, we trust our agents to do so in our stead. We trust in the Green Lantern Corps and their allies.>
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Still, glad that you’re willing to pitch in at a time like this. With literally everything collapsing all around us, we could use some extra help.”
<You misunderstand. We have no interest in ‘pitching in’. Your world has triumphed over many crises without our assistance, and we believe it shall do so again. There is, however, another matter that needs attending.>
“I’m sure it can wait!” Hal said, not hiding his exasperation at all.
<A veil has fallen across the anti-matter universe. We are unable to pierce it, but even blind, we can sense the immense energy spikes emanating from that grey rock. A threat grows inside there that eludes even our gaze, but it is there. We know that much. You must journey there to verify our suspicions… and if they are proven to be true, you must marshal your forces, and remove the threat before the entirety of the Multiverse is consumed by it.>
Hal considered tossing another barb at his old bosses, but he held his tongue for the moment. With everything else that had happened so far in the past nine hours, the possibility that the warmongering inhabitants of Qward would take advantage of the chaos was a very real one. They’d been quiet for close to a decade, focused more on fighting amongst themselves than on attacking the Corps or anyone else, so little attention had been paid to them as of late. As long as the Qwardians didn’t bother anybody, there was no need to bother with them. But what if that had been a mistake, one that was now ready to bite them all in the ass? “If the threat is as big as you think, why all the secrecy? Shouldn’t you be calling up every member of the Corps so we can go in all guns blazing?”
<While the future is not clear to us, we know the direction the universe is going in. The Green Lantern Corps are needed to provide a beachhead for the future, to protect life to the best of their ability on this side of the matter/anti-matter divide. You must go alone. The Corps cannot afford to spare any more of their number on this.>
“And because it might just turn out that you’re being paranoid?” said Hal with a smirk.
<Impudent as always, Hal Jordan. While we do not believe ourselves to be paranoid, with the future being a blind spot, and with the anti-matter universe opaque to us… it is best you proceed as requested.>
“Okay, so if they’re closed off right now, how do I go about getting to the anti-matter universe?”
<You will it.>
A moment later, Guy Gardner turned, the tingle of the Starsoul’s voice in the back of his head telling him that something had just happened, but it was unsure of what. He searched the room for Hal, but his old friend was suddenly gone, and the Blue Lantern had no idea as to where…or when he had managed to sneak out from the proceedings.
Reality warped inside out as Hal Jordan spun from the positive matter universe into the anti-matter universe. He’d journeyed from one reality to another previously, but that was when he was a younger man, before he hung up his ring to raise his daughter. Thing was, it was like being back in the Air Force, experiencing the kind of G-force that a civilian would never, and he immediately felt like a cadet again, like it was second nature. Pulling Gs was like a warm embrace to him, and this was even better than that! He laughed as his body shuddered from one side of a wormhole to another, but his ring kept him safe, his focus was square.
Then he realised this trip was taking a little longer than he remembered.
He opened his eyes to the twisting tunnel that bore through reality and witnessed events streaking past him at random. He saw lightning travel from the future to the past, carrying Barry Allen -- his oldest friend in this business -- and family back to the present day. He saw the wall of entropic energy engulfing the universe, obliterating everything it touched. He saw heroes fighting in both Heaven and Hell and everywhere in between. He saw a figure robed in gray and black, another in purple, both their faces obscured, along with a third whose form seemed to be composed of entire galaxies. He saw Libra’s attack on Equinox, just as described, then Libra appeared to become Equinox, the implication of which wasn’t lost on Hal, but there was nothing he could do about it. More events shot past him, sights and sounds blurring until it became one gigantic, blinding scream of information and he couldn’t control it -- couldn’t slow it -- he was caught up in this thing, moments were escaping him, and then -- without warning -- he was spat out into the real space once more as he completed his journey.
Before he could even begin to get his bearings, diamond-hard bolts of golden light struck his aura, and he was thrown backwards. The entire black abyss of space around Qward -- recognisable from its mottled, crater-ridden surface -- was suddenly illuminated by a thunderstorm that zeroed in on the Green Lantern exclusively, hitting him again and again without respite. He spun and twisted, trying to escape the attack, but he couldn’t tell exactly which direction it was coming from. His aura was beginning to crack, letting in microscopic particles of qwa energy that jabbed at him like high-velocity sewing needles. There seemed to be no telling when the onslaught would end.
“Ring! What are we dealing with here?” shouted Hal, concentrating on survival, on shields, on not dying. He hadn’t come this far, hadn’t resumed wearing the ring, just to die so far from home.
<Multiple offensive micro-satellites in place around Qward. Ring sensors did not detect them, suggesting they lay dormant until activated by proximity. 99% chance of fatality if you remain in high orbit.>
“Yeah, well, okay, that makes complete sense… Weaponers of Qward and all that…” said Hal.
<Repeat, 99% chance of fatality,> repeated his ring.
“Aww, c’mon, it may have been ten years, but I live in that 1%,” said Hal.
First things first, Hal willed his ring to slow down his perception of time -- the way his mind processed visual and auditory input. An old trick, but a useful one, and the entire world began to move in slow motion, and he was struck by how beautiful the deadly solar system was when it wasn’t actively murdering him. Bolts of lightning moved slowly across the inky blackness, and he could see the pattern of their attack, how the energy formations sprung from countless fist-sized orbs riddling the high orbit of the planet. He mapped his descent, and then, with the click of a finger, his perception snapped into real time and he darted through the onslaught, and zig-zagged down into Qward’s atmosphere, where the attack ended abruptly -- the orbs must have been programmed to not target objects closer to the surface to avoid any “friendly fire” incidents.
“Okay, that’s one thing down, but that’s pretty damn deadly,” he said, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead as blood threatened to trickle into his eyes. The injuries weren’t life-threatening, but they certainly didn’t feel good. “Ring, find me a place to hunker down for a minute so I can get patched up.” The A.I. guided him across the desolate landscape, occasionally passing by the ruined remains of spaceships that presumably got caught in the killbox surrounding Qward, until he came to a small complex that had taken some damage of its own -- a derelict energy-production facility, from what the ring could suss out. After doing a quick scan of the area to make certain no one was around, he flew through a hole in one of the buildings and sat cross-legged on the floor. He instructed the ring to get to work on patching up his wounds while he pondered what he’d seen so far. While Qward was never exactly a vibrant, friendly place, it seemed as though the past decade had been less than kind to it. The killbox was a new thing: Qwardians prided themselves on facing their enemies head-on, and the approach of a Green Lantern usually resulted in squadrons of Thunderers pouring out of the woodwork. So far, though, he hadn’t seen a one. “Something’s going on here. Definitely. Ring, generate an energy buoy.” He held out his hands and above his palms formed an emerald sphere about the size of a softball. “Hang back invisible, mapping everything that happens. I want a fully-detailed recording of all audio, visual, and data input. If I should become incapacitated, immediately send this buoy back to the positive matter universe, back to my point of departure, okay?”
<Affirmative.> The sphere levitated up towards the ceiling and began to emit a stealth field, making it virtually undetectable to both the naked eye and most tracking systems. With that out of the way, he ordered his ring to scan the planet for any life signs, plus he told it to compare all readings that came in to those already on file from ten years earlier, and to alert him to any anomalies. There was a mystery here, and he was going to uncover it, because that meant he’d be home with his family sooner rather than later. And if he saved the universe in the interim? Well, that would be the icing on the cake.
The ring made fast work of his wounds, healing them with such efficiency that it no longer appeared that he’d ever been injured. A special gift of the ring...one of many, of course, but a very appreciated one. As it finished up its work, Hal looked over a projected map of Qward that the ring was building right before his eyes. It seemed as though nearly the entire population was now concentrated in a single, massive city just 100 miles northeast of Hal’s present position, which was apparently the source of the energy spikes the Guardians detected. It also seemed -- going by what the ring was telling him -- that there were a little less than 20,000 people on the entire planet. “That can’t be right,” Hal muttered. “Ring, what was the population of Qward ten years ago?”
<Population during last survey scan on rec->, the ring began to say, then suddenly let out a discordant tone. <Anomaly detected. Records on file do not correlate to current scans. Cannot reconcile error.>
“What’s the error? Are you saying this isn’t Qward?”
<Geologic samples indicate planet to be Qward, but decay-product ratio of samples indicate time since last survey on record to be longer than ten years. Cannot reconcile error.>
Hal frowned. Measuring the age of an object by the decay of certain isotopes present was usually pretty precise. “Ring, comparing the results of the last survey on file to the current one, how much time has passed on Qward?”
<34.18 years.>
“That’s impossible,” Hal said, but then he thought of all the other anomalies that’d been cropping up since this crisis started. Could it be that whatever was causing those also sped up time here in the anti-matter universe, to the point where decades had flown by in a blink? The laws of physics had always behaved strangely in this place, but so far as he knew, time passed at the same rate on both sides of the matter/anti-matter barrier.
The ring didn’t give him much time to contemplate this, as it soon alerted him to multiple vehicles closing in on his position. Hal contracted the map to show only the immediate area: a single aircraft was landing nearby, while further out came five more aircraft from the direction of the city, each larger and armed more heavily than the single. He presumed the first to be a scout ship for the others, and wasn’t surprised at all when fifteen lifeforms -- represented as indistinct bright-green figures on the map -- disembarked and began to fan out around the area. “Put the kettle on, company’s coming,” Hal said to himself, and made ready to blast out of the building. But before he could take to the skies, a verdant missile streaked across the map, destroying the scout ship as the figures ran for cover. Then Hal saw the waves of small figures flying out from the larger crafts. Thunderers, he thought, and wasted no more time deciding which side he should be fighting against.
The Green Lantern streaked out of the building like an emerald comet, taking aim at the jetpack-wearing Thunderers and blasting them out of the sky. The people who’d flown in on the presumed scout craft were firing upon the Thunderers as well. A quick glance at his new allies revealed that a few of them appeared to be human, which raised a few questions in his head, but now wasn’t the time to ask them, not when there were enemy aircraft lobbing missiles at him. He disabled most of them, but one slipped past, impacting with the building he’d occupied only moments earlier and causing part of it to collapse. Hal redoubled his efforts and began tearing through the aircrafts one by one, while his new allies took down the remaining Thunderers.
When the final aircraft hit the ground, Hal landed next to it, intent on getting some answers out of whomever might remain within. A Qwardian was pushing his way out of the shattered canopy, and when he saw the Green Lantern, he immediately began to grope for the rifle slung across his back. Raising his ring hand, Hal was about to relieve the alien of his weapon, but a blast of qwa-powered energy suddenly flashed out, ripping through the Qwardian and killing him instantly. Hal turned in the direction the blast came from to see a blonde-haired young woman lugging a similar rifle as she stepped out from behind some nearby debris. “Oh, wow,” she said with a grin. “I’ve never gotten to see a superhero up close before.” She stuck out her hand. “Stella Borsten… I’m from Earth. It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”
“I’d introduce myself, but it appears you already know who I am,” Hal replied, shaking her hand. Others began to approach as well: two Xudarians, a Talokite, and a thin, yellow-skinned humanoid from a species unfamiliar to Hal. There was also a Qwardian among them, but he seemed to be more intrigued than hostile. “I’ve got about a dozen questions, starting with how the heck you all got here. Qward doesn’t exactly have a lively tourist trade.”
“We were kidnapped,” one of the Xudarians replied. “The Qwardians back in the city wanted to use us for slave labor, but we escaped and banded together with his people to fight back.” She indicated the lone Qwardian standing with them.
Hal cocked an eyebrow at that information: historically, the people of Qward were highly xenophobic, more apt to wipe out other alien races than work alongside them. The notion of them allowing non-Qwardians to set foot on their home planet -- even as slave labor -- was unprecedented. “Are you the only ones?”
“There’s close to four hundred offworlders in our group now,” Stella told him. “We free whomever we can, but there’s still thousands back in the city, with more arriving every day. Those bug-eyes have a time machine that can pluck anyone from anywhere and they like. They just zap in, grab people, and zap out before anybody knows what’s going on.” She paused, then said, “I take it by the look on your face that you didn’t know about any of this.”
“No, but it fits in with a few things I already know.” The Green Lantern looked over the scene of devastation around them: burning aircraft, dead bodies, and a partially-collapsed building. “This was just supposed to be a scouting mission for now, but between what you’ve told me and our little firefight here, it looks like I’ll be taking a more active role right away. I presume the rest of your group isn’t here at the moment?”
Stella shook her head. “We were doing some scouting of our own… you coming to this complex set off some of our sensors. Soon as we round up the rest of our party, we’ll take you back to the hideout.”
“I don’t know if there’s anyone else left alive.” The Talokite pointed towards the rubble, saying, “I saw part of our group run in there right before that section collapsed.” The Talokite’s blue skin paled a little as she said to Stella, “I think Jonah may have been with them.”
“Oh my God…” Stella began running towards what was left of the building, heedless of how unstable it looked.
Hal used his ring to scan the rubble. “I’ve got two lifesigns… no, three. The last one’s pretty faint. We need to hurry.” He took to the air and bathed the area in emerald light, lifting away massive chunks of debris while shoring up the still-intact portions of the building. Soon, a pair of battered-but-alive people came into view. “The third one’s over here,” Hal called out, focusing his ring tightly on a deeper pile of rubble, until he’d cleared away enough to reveal the bloodied and broken body of a man clad in a mix of Qwardian uniform and frontier-style leathers. A pair of gunbelts crisscrossed his hips, and as Hal set down next to him, he saw a massive antique revolver dangling from the man’s hand.
Stella screamed, “Jonah!” and ran over to him, while Hal used his ring to examine the man’s injuries. During this, the man tried to say something, but neither of them could make it out before he slipped into unconsciousness. “I’m here, Jonah,” Stella said as she knelt beside him, gently touching his blood-smeared face. “It’s okay, you’ll be okay.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Hal told her. “He’s got multiple fractures, a serious abdominal wound, and his blood pressure is dropping like a stone. My ring can patch up some of this, but not everything.” The Green Lantern immediately set to work, generating an oxygen mask over the man’s face and sealing off the wounds with emerald light.
“There might be something that’ll help, presuming the infirmary didn’t get wrecked.” Stella pointed towards another part of the complex. “I think we skipped over one of the medical pods the last time we raided this place… didn’t have room for all of them in the transport. If we can fire it up and get him in, it should have him fixed up in a few hours.”
“Lead the way.” Hal created a stretcher beneath the man and lifted him carefully into the air. As he did so, he got a better look at the right side of the man’s face. Beneath the blood and the beard, Hal could see an oddly-familiar scar. “You said his name was Jonah, right?” Hal asked the young woman. “As in Jonah Hex?”
“You know him?” she responded, a measure of surprise in her voice.
“Been a long time, but yeah, I know him. Let’s get him on the mend before we delve into that particular story, though.”
After the scientific triumvirate of Lena Luthor, Power Girl, and Superwoman terraformed the planetoid that became New Krypton, they used their “genesis engine” to make Earth’s moon habitable, and later, with J’onn J’onzz at the helm, they did the same to Mars.
While the soil was still a rich crimson, the skies were blue, an atmosphere had developed that once again allowed life to thrive on the once alien world! The buried ruins of Mars’ once glistening cities were raised and rebuilt, bigger and better than before, and colonists from Earth had made the journey via Boom Tunnel to take up residency on the newly available world.
Of course, the world known as Ma'aleca'andra to her people still held her own secrets close to her chest, and when the Key had unlocked every door, gateway and portal across the universe… who could have expected that the mysteries buried beneath the rocky mantle of Mars would rise once more?
After hours of fighting the vicious psychic fires unleashed by the sadistic and sociopathic hordes of White Martians that had been released from their cells during the universal prison break, J’onn had hoped that he might be able to relax after pushing himself harder than he imagined possible, but instead, the entire universe seemed to be collapsing to a kernel of its former glory. He wasn’t entirely hooked into the communications between the Justice League and her extended roster, but he heard fragments, caught snippets from the Green Lanterns, and was struck by the cacophony of voices that were speeding away from the wall of nothing closing in from all directions.
Before he had time to process that information, the last of the Ebony Martians finally dug themselves out of their tombs.
The New Mars colony was occupied by a mélange of peoples: an international contingent of Earth-borne colonists and scientists were established in the southern hemisphere, while to the north, the resurrected Green Martian race thrived in the Barsoomian spires that had risen with their return to the land of the living.
J'onn had fought too hard and for too long to let Ma'aleca'andra fall in the face of the worst that their home world had to offer. His peoples' return had been due to his brother Ma'alefa'ak's machinations a year or so earlier. It had not been the intention for the mad Martian to engineer his peoples return after he himself had been responsible for their deaths, but the net result was one and the same. Ma'alefa'ak died a final, fiery death, and the Greens re-emerged as the dominant species of Mars.
The White Martians resurfaced soon after to tear the red planet from the Greens, but thanks to the allies J'onn had made across the universe in his time as the last Manhunter, the Whites were soundly defeated and imprisoned in the rehabilitation wombs situated beneath the Valley Dor.
Unfortunately, the psychic rehabilitation cycles hadn't reached their end when the Key's release from his celestial coma triggered the opening of every door across creation, and when their wombs hissed open, the White Martians were just as monstrous as they had been the first time around. But with the assistance of the Ma'aleca'andra-based Authority led by the Guardian, they'd been able to prevent the Whites gaining a foothold.
After J'onn managed to project a cross-world rehabilitation aura keyed to the Whites' unique psychic register, they'd won the day, but then, something even worse emerged from the red sands of Mars: The Ebony Martians.
“Jesus! Who knew Mars had so many damn tombs?” murmured the Engineer, weapons sprouting from her arms as she sent concussive blasts into the rampaging hordes of feral proto-Martians that swarmed the surface of the red planet after emerging from their holes.
“I can feel the tunnels under the skin of the planet, pulsing with activity, like veins,” observed Jack Hawksmoor, somersaulting over the heads of the crazed inhabitants of the world. “The planet is like one giant city, and it’s finally woken up after millennia dormant.”
{If not longer.}
J’onn J’onzz’s voice spoke into the Authority’s minds as they fought back against the colossal hordes of his recently risen ancestors. He was using his Martian Vision to scour massive trenches between the oncoming hordes and the new cities that sat atop Mars’ surface, but it was doing little to slow down the thousands of attackers who’d awoken from an ancient slumber.
{Eons before the Burning Martians and their eventual genetically engineered branching into the Greens and Whites, the Ebony Martians were the dominant race on Mars. Primitive… monstrous… their war-like nature eventually led into their evolution into the Burning--}
Behind the trenches, marshalling the remaining numbers of the Earth/Mars Defense Corps, the Authority’s leader-- the Guardian-- looked up to where the Martian Manhunter floated, and shouted, “J’onn, I hate to break up your history lesson, but these things aren’t backing down. Our attacks aren’t deterring them… and they’re nearing the walls. They barely held against the Whites. You think they can withstand these mean bastards?”
“We’re just lucky they don’t come with the standard Martian powerset,” noted Colonel Montgomery Kelly, field commander of the EMDC.
He looked up at the sky, where the shiftship known as the Carrier loomed overhead. Flashes of orange light flickered throughout the twisting streets as the evacuation was underway, the Authority’s site-to-site transportation system known as ‘Doors’ allowing the citizens of Mars to be rescued before the Ebony Martians could reach them.
{They are utilising a form of sub-psychic communication-- a primitive, almost instinctual hivemind. Not fully psionic, but still, quite potent,} J’onn said, wiping blood from his nose. {And loud.}
“We need to get your man Apollo up here. Where the hell is he?” asked Colonel Kelly.
Beneath the surface of Ma'aleca'andra, that question was answered by action. Covered in emerald blood, Midnighter kicked another one of the Ebony Martians in the face, splitting its skull in two, while Apollo kept the young Jenny Infinite close as she worked her delicate fingers across the alien pentecontahenagon they’d found at the base of the ancient tombs.
The shape rotated at odd and sometimes impossible angles. The sides should have ground against each other, sending sparks or shavings of itself out into the world, but instead the material folded in on itself, flowed like waves crashing across an ocean, and from deep inside it a low hum groaned out. Whatever this was, it held the key to saving the Mars colony, but only if they could figure out what it actually was!
“No rush, Jenny, darling,” said Apollo, his aura flashing as he disintegrated a swarm of Ebony Martians that rushed toward them.
“But maybe, if you could try a little harder,” said the Midnighter, throwing a handful of throwing stars down the tunnel that he guarded. Beyond his position, mounds of dead Martians were piled up, with more of their numbers powering through to reach the trio.
Apollo shot his husband a look, then squeezed their adopted daughter’s shoulder reassuringly. “You’ll figure it out.”
“But…I’ve never seen anything like this before,” she said.
Apollo smiled warmly and then knelt down beside Jenny. “But honey, that’s your stock in trade. Ever since we arrived back home, we’ve seen the weird and the wonderful, and we’ve figured it out. This is just a mystery you’ve yet to solve. And you know what you do, every single time you uncover a new mystery?”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“You solve it, love! You always solve it!” shouted Midnighter.
“I mean… it’s… it’s weird… it’s moving so strange, and it’s singing a song I’ve never heard before, in a language… unlike anything… anything I’ve ever heard,” she admitted.
“Singing? Can you tap J’onn into it?” asked Apollo.
“I think so, sure,” said Jenny.
Above ground, J’onn prepared himself for the psychic-auditory input, and was shocked when he heard an ancient Ma'aleca'andrian song echo through his body. “C'eridyall’s Light,” he murmured. J’onn didn’t fully understand it, but he could taste it, feel its age, its purpose. This was the link between the Ebony Martians. This was their hivemind. And he knew how to end their threat!
{Jenny, repeat after me--!}
Jenny’s eyes widened when J’onn brain joined with hers, and her cosmic senses expanded to encompass the pentecontahenagon. Fifty-two sides moving in synchronicity with one another, never touching, never repeating. She placed her small hands on either side of the shape, and then in ancient Martian, whispered “<Please come home.>”
Across the surface of Mars, the hordes of Ebony Martians stopped what they were doing and turned back toward the source of the strange new voice they’d all heard at once. Without hesitating, they began to swarm back toward the holes they’d emerged from, clouds of red dust kicking up as they sped back toward their tombs.
{Apollo! Midnighter! Get Jenny out of there!} ordered the Martian Manhunter.
“Yeah, because we want to stick around,” said the Midnighter, as Apollo bundled up Jenny and himself then shot upwards through miles of Martian rock, using his heat vision to melt through it until they reached the surface, just in time to witness the last of the Ebony Martians returning to their tombs beneath Ma'aleca'andra.
The group quickly regrouped, the Authority standing upon the battlements of the wall surrounding the Mars colony, while Colonel Montgomery Kelly barked orders at the members of the Earth / Mars Defence Corps still positioned nearby.
“So, J’onn, are you saying that all we had to do to stop those things was ask nicely?” said Jack Hawksmoor, as he tried to work the kink out of his back that came with utilising his city-based powers on an alien world.
“There was more to it than that, but yes, effectively,” said J’onn, his ruby-red eyes lifting up towards the smoke-smudged sky, searching for any sign of the entropy wave that, according to the chatter still filling his mind, was inexorably heading for the Sol System. “I only hope this is victory was not all for nothing.”
“That should do it.” Kyu stepped away from the readout panel at the foot of the medical pod. “I do not have much experience calibrating these for Terran use, but everything appears to be reading normal. He should be stable within one-and-a-half segments.”
“That’s about an hour,” Stella told Hal. The two of them were standing beside the pod. Jonah lay within it, stripped of clothing and covered in tubes and wires. A clear liquid filled with cell-repairing nanobots swirled around him. Glancing over at the Qwardian, Stella said, “Thanks, Kyu. You’d better get on contacting the base before another wave shows up from the city.” After Kyu left the room, Stella leaned on the medical pod’s transparent top and looked down at Jonah -- already, his wounds had stopped gushing blood, and the jagged hole in his abdomen was slowly shrinking. “Good thing he’s unconscious. If he’d known we were gonna stick him in this thing, he would’ve freaked out. Just the sight of them makes him uneasy.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Jonah Hex I know,” GL said. “It seemed to me that there was very little that could faze the guy. Robots, time travel, flying people...” He gestured towards himself on the last one. “He just took it all in stride.”
“Okay, you’re definitely gonna have to explain to me how you two met, because I know you and me are from around the same time period. No way you were alive during the 1800s.”
“It was a Justice League mission, many years ago. My friends and I got tossed back in time and separated...Jonah found me out in the desert about half-dead. He kept me safe until we located my friends, who’d lucked into running into some of his friends. Then we all banded together and took care of the bad guy that threw us back in time in the first place.” Hal smirked. “That’s the Cliff’s Notes version. Once Jonah’s awake, we’ll give you the longer version.”
“Oh, I doubt that. It’s hard to get Jonah to talk about anything regarding himself. Took me two months to pry out of him that the scar on his face wasn’t from the bug-eyes.”
“You guys have been on Qward for two months now?”
“Longer, actually. I don’t know how long exactly, since they don’t really have proper days and stuff here, but I’d say Jonah and I have known each other for about six months now. Add on maybe another month or two for when I got here, and Jonah...” She shrugged. “Not sure. Again, it’s hard to get him to talk. The Crone really screwed him up.”
“What’s the Crone?”
“It’s this...I dunno...this thing the bug-eyes back in the city worship. It’s, like, some kind of psychic vampire: it feeds on people’s souls, their emotions. That’s what it was doing to Jonah before he escaped...the thing just about killed him. Some guy named Libra showed up years ago promising them all paradise if they served the Crone, but the group we’re with, they refused, and they’ve been fighting against it ever since. They call it the False God...most of them are too scared of the thing to call it by its real name.”
“I know about Libra,” Hal said, “but this is the first I’ve heard about this Crone thing. I can only presume it has a part in Libra’s plan as well, though I’m not 100% on what that is either. When you and the others were back in the city doing slave labor, what exactly did they have you working on?”
“Some were working in the mines, others worked in factories...that’s where I ended up. There’s all sorts of different ones all over the city, churning out parts to build this big gold tower they call the Spire. The bug-eyes claim it’s a temple for the Crone, but I know the time machine that brought us here is located somewhere inside, so maybe the two things are related, y’know? They say the Crone’s really old, like, existed-since-time-began old. So, like, maybe it feeds off of time too, or maybe the Crone is what makes the time machine work?”
“If it does feed off time, that might explain why the universe appears to be unraveling at both ends, and it would definitely explain the incredible power spikes that we detected coming from Qward,” Hal said. “Punching holes in spacetime is no easy feat, as you can imagine: there’s only a handful of people that are capable of pulling it off, and none of them have ever done anything close to the scale we’re...” The Green Lantern paused, an expression of shock growing on his face, then he put a hand on Stella’s arm and turned her so she was facing him. “This thing...you said most of the Qwardians don’t call it by its real name. But what about you? Is it really called the Crone, or does its name just sort of sound like that?”
“That’s Jonah’s name for it,” she replied after a moment of hesitation. “The rest of us just kinda picked up on it. But yeah, the thing’s real name is Kroner or something like that.”
“Krona.” The word came out of Hal’s mouth almost like a curse. “Dear God...after all these years, Krona’s come back.” His hand still on her arm, Hal pulled Stella towards the door, saying, “Come on, we need to talk with the others right away!”
Behind the false face he wore, Libra smiled at the heroes scuttling about. He’d had to push his abilities a little harder than usual, but in the end, they were just as willing to obey as the fools on Qward. It was in their nature to help, of course, so it was easy to latch onto that and twist it in such a way that they wouldn’t even question him. They were all so engrossed in building the temporal trap that would attract and hold the Infinite Man that Libra was tempted to drop the illusion cast about his true self just see if they’d even notice, but Krona would not be pleased if he disrupted their plans with such a childish game.
It had a been a long time since he’d played any sort of game, actually. He could recall the last game he’d played with his brother, back when they’d been mere humans named Justin and Julian Ballantine, living on small farm in Turk County in the early 20th Century. They were twins, he and his brother, a fluke of birth that brought with it instant closeness, an unbreakable bond...or so he thought. Then came that day of game-playing -- shooting marbles in the front yard, to be exact -- when Julian went from laughing and smiling to a sudden scowl. The hand came up, striking Justin hard across the face, hard enough to draw blood. Justin fell back in shock, and when he looked at his brother, he no longer saw that perfect reflection of himself. Worse yet, he could suddenly see inside his brother, directly at the utter rage dwelling beneath his skin, as if a demon straight from their Sunday school lessons had put on his brother’s face in an effort to fool him. But he wasn’t fooled, not even when the rage within his brother evaporated like water in a desert to be replaced by confusion and guilt so heavy that his brother ran away, vanishing without a trace. That absence did nothing to erase what he now knew lay within his brother’s heart. There was no way to unsee it.
From that moment on, things were different...not just between Justin and his brother, but between him and the entire world. It was as if that single blow across the face had dislodged a veil over Justin’s eyes, and now he could see what lay beneath everyone’s skin. So many false faces, so many hidden feelings. Every smile a lie, every kind word passed from lips ultimately attached to some self-serving desire. The world was a violent sea of emotion, and the little boy soon found himself drowning in it, rendering him catatonic. His parents, already reeling from the disappearance of Julian, left him in the care of medical professionals who plied him with a myriad of treatments, all of them unaware of the true cause of their young patient’s silence and immobility. They placed him in a facility full of people whose emotional states ran the gamut daily, unknowingly threatening to shatter what little sanity he had left...
...until the day he heard the voice of Krona.
Tears spilled from Justin’s eyes that day, for it was the first time since his brother struck him that the emotional onslaught which constantly whirled around him receded. Krona held it at bay somehow, absorbed it until it became the merest nudge upon his psyche. To Justin, the disembodied voice of Krona was the voice of God, exactly like it had been described to him every Sunday. “Fear not,” the voice said, “for I am here with you. I will always be here with you.”
And he was: day and night, Justin felt Krona’s presence, soothing him, sharing with him glorious sights from across billions of years of existence, all the while drawing out of Justin the decades of mental anguish that had built up inside of him. It was painful at first, but it brought such relief that he quickly found pleasure in it. Justin longed to gaze upon his new master’s visage, not merely feel him near, but Krona was not yet capable of manifesting as anything more than a shadow. With Justin’s help, however, that could change.
Within a month, Justin Ballantine walked out of Arkham Asylum under his own power, thanking the staff for all their hard work. It was a lie, of course: it had been Krona who’d given him the ability to block out the emotions that still raged around him, then instructed him on how to turn that ability loose upon others, making them feel whatever Justin wanted them to feel. He’d started small in the asylum -- giving the doctors a sense of pride over “curing” him rather than questioning how it happened -- and after he returned to the family farm in Turk County, he practiced freely upon his parents. Justin vaguely remembered feeling love for them as a child, but that was before he’d spent nearly two decades surrounded by the roiling emotions of gibbering madmen. Now he only wanted revenge on the two people responsible.
He toyed with them at first, pushing his normally-pious parents to lash out at each other with terse words and open palms until it escalated a week later into a feral rage so violent that they clawed and bit each other like wild animals. He then shifted it to pure, unbridled lust, watching with clinical coldness as their naked and bleeding forms rutted for hours with such force that bones began to snap. Even when his mother expired, Justin wasn’t satisfied, so he kept pushing his father’s emotional state so that the man was soon overwhelmed with insatiable hunger, causing him to gorge upon his wife’s corpse until he choked to death upon the flesh. Through it all, Krona urged him to push his abilities even further, the shadows in the room pulsing and deepening as his master reveled in the sacrifice laid before him.
After his parents’ deaths, Justin contemplated his next move. His abilities had grown, to be sure, but he wasn’t certain if he was strong enough to strike down everyone in Arkham Asylum yet (his favored goal). Then there was the mystery man called Green Lantern who protected Gotham City: something about that name made Krona bristle, so Justin considered destroying the man as a way of pleasing his master. He was still mulling over these choices when an intense flash of light outside caught his attention. Running out onto the porch, he saw a man garbed in black and white standing in the front yard. There was a mask over his face, which he promptly removed, revealing the same visage Justin saw in the mirror every day.
Julian Ballantine, Justin’s long-lost brother, had finally come home. As he soon explained, he hadn’t run away all those years ago, but rather he’d been so ashamed of his actions that he slipped out of reality and landed in some primordial world. The past, the future, another dimension...after all this time, he still wasn’t certain, but it had been the first step in a decades-long journey across time and space as he tried to find his way back home. It took him that long to master his newfound ability, and to build the amulet that helped him focus it so that he could finally return to his brother’s side. In that time, he’d taken on a new name -- Equinox -- and learned many truths about the two of them: born of flesh they may have been, but they were destined to be more than human, to be a hair’s-breadth away from gods. He then proffered to Justin a golden staff -- a set of scales on one end, a razor-sharp point on the other -- and explained that it would help his brother control his own powers as they ascended to their true place in the Multiverse as Equinox and Libra, avatars of...
Equinox never got to finish his explanation, for Justin had suddenly thrust the pointed end of the staff straight through his chest, just below the swirling amulet over Equinox’s heart. He was barely able to burble out “Why?” before collapsing. Justin felt no need to answer, for the truth was plain: his long-lost brother was an agent of the Devil, and he’d returned to corrupt him.
As his brother choked on his own blood, Justin looked up to see the shadows in the front yard drawing together until he was gazing upon a withered figure that resembled a charred corpse, with eyeless sockets and spindly arms. It appeared to be wrapped in a tattered cloak, but in truth, this was a manifestation of its shadow-form, not yet strong enough to attain true substance -- the bottom of it slithered across the ground to engulf the dying Equinox and draw out the last lingering threads of life. “My child,” Krona whispered huskily, holding out a gnarled hand towards Justin as it approached, “my torchbearer...”
He wept to see the beauty of Krona’s true form, and he cried out in ecstasy when his lord and master embraced him, filling his mind with plans...grand plans...grander than he could’ve ever conceived of alone. Together, they would forge the gifts Equinox brought to them into weapons of conquest. Libra would not become an agent of the Devil like his hated brother, but a divine prophet of the Lord God Krona, who would reshape the world in his own glorious image. Together, they would save reality from itself...
“This doesn’t make any sense.”
The words snapped Libra out of his reminisce. He looked to his right and saw Ray Palmer -- still in his Atom costume but standing at his full height of six feet -- approaching with a tablet in his hand and an expression of concern on his face. “I’m trying to figure out the purpose of one of the components you said we need for this device, but for the life of me, I don’t see how it relates to the rest of it. Why do we need 200 pounds of pulverized silica for the containment chamber? Is it for some kind of filtration, or maybe to create a silicon-based chemical reaction?”
Behind the false face of Equinox, Libra’s mouth twisted into a snarl. It appeared his control over Palmer had slipped without him noticing. This would not do. “Very perceptive,” he replied, pushing his way back into the man’s psyche. “I commend your attention to detail.”
The concern on Palmer’s face dissolved, to be replaced by a small smile of satisfaction. “Thanks. I just...I want to make sure we don’t overlook anything.”
“Of course you do. Let me see.” Libra tilted the tablet, pretended to examine the schematic of the device, then passed a hand over the screen without touching it. “There. That makes more sense now, doesn’t it? Perfect sense.”
“Yes.” Palmer’s smile broadened as Libra stoked up feelings of pride and accomplishment within him. “Yes, that’s perfect.” He then walked away without another word.
Libra glanced around at the other heroes present, gently probing the minds of each of them to make sure no one else was slipping. To his delight, all were just as oblivious as Ray Palmer had become once more. All will be ready soon, my master, he thought, secure in the knowledge that Krona would hear him across the dimensional gulf that lay between them. Your time of ascension is nearly at hand.
“I mean it, guys!” Captain Marvel called out, his eyes fixed on the army soaring towards them. “Even if it’s for a good cause, punching an angel just seems really wrong on a moral level!”
“Just ask God to absolve you when it’s all over!” Wally West said, then rushed forward, leaving behind a crimson streak as he tried to zip past the angelic horde before it could descend upon them. The Gates of Heaven were tantalizingly close, and he was certain he could make it past the threshold in an eyeblink, but even the Flash couldn’t outrace an angel. One of them dive-bombed right on top of him and grabbed hold, literally yanking him out of the Speed Force and tossing him away from the gates. Another angel soon caught him in midair and threw him aside, where yet another angel took hold and batted him about. Though they all remained as silent as the rest of the horde, their goal was clear: keep Wally away from the ground so he couldn’t build up momentum again. As he felt bones inside of him break from the multiple impacts, he began to wonder why they didn’t just kill him outright. Then he realised that, in Heaven, there likely was no death. These angels might eventually pound him into paste, but he’d never die.
The irony of possibly suffering eternal agony outside the Gates of Heaven was just beginning to set in when a streak of crimson and gold rushed towards Wally, taking hold of him and carrying him higher into the rarefied air. “I think we need to rethink this plan,” Captain Marvel said as they fled the throng of angels now pursuing both of them.
“A little late to be bringing that up,” Flash replied. The top of his cowl had been ripped away, and his shock of red hair was plastered against his head as they zipped through the air. “What do you have in mind?”
“Not sure yet. After you took off, I tried flying over the wall surrounding the Gates, but I can’t.”
“Angels blocked your way?”
“No, I mean I can’t. It’s not exactly a force field, it’s just...something holds me back. Think of like when you have a dog that does something wrong, so you tell it NO or BAD in a really loud voice. The dog doesn’t know what the words mean, it just knows it did something wrong because of your tone. I get that feeling when I’m about to fly over the wall. It’s not literally a voice, but...”
“But we’re the dogs,” Wally replied, “and we’re doing something we’re not supposed to.”
“Yeah, and I get the impression that the punishment might be worse than a rolled-up newspaper across the nose.” Billy suddenly changed direction to avoid a group of angels that was descending upon them -- thankfully, the wisdom of Solomon gave him just enough of an edge to predict their movements. “If we want to get into Heaven proper, it has to be through the Gates, no avoiding it. Only trouble is, there’s a bit of a bottleneck there at the moment.”
Wally looked down to where Billy indicated and saw a writhing mass of wings and limbs surrounding a large golden orb. “I take it Fate is in the middle of that angelic mosh pit?”
“She plowed ahead right after you. Believe it or not, she was making progress until she got up to the threshold. They’re literally blocking the way in with their bodies.”
“Scott doesn’t seem to be faring much better,” Wally said as he spotted another crowd of angels. Inexplicably, Mister Miracle had manifested in Heaven at his gigantic “New God” proportions as opposed to the lesser “human” ones that he normally assumed on Earth, but while he was swatting angels out of the air left and right, his movements seemed sluggish, and his knees appeared to be on the verge of buckling. “Okay, I’ve got a new plan, and I hate to break it to you, but it involves angel-punching. Or at least angel-frying.”
A ill look came over Billy’s face. “Flash, I can’t...”
“You can, you just don’t want to. I know you’ve got this pure, innocent heart, and you can’t bear the thought of hurting something you see as just as pure, but they don’t have that same hang-up. They were playing frickin’ dodgeball with me a minute ago! If we want any chance of getting past the Gates, you’ll have to do more than fly circles around these guys.”
Billy didn’t answer, he just kept on flying, shifting direction over and over again to stay out of the grasp of the countless angels that kept getting within a hair’s-breadth of grabbing the two heroes. After a moment, he said quietly, “Okay, tell me the plan.”
Meanwhile, Traci Thirteen -- garbed in the traditional trappings of Doctor Fate -- continued to pour all of the mystical energies at her disposal into the golden force field surrounding her. It was taking nearly all of her concentration to keep the angels attacking her at bay. Before her floated Zauriel’s sword, the tip of which was pointing the way towards where her beloved was imprisoned. From the safety of her golden sphere, Traci could easily see the utterly-blank expressions on the angels’ faces as they assaulted her force field with swords and lances, none of which had made a dent yet, but they had managed to keep her from advancing any further. Whatever force had imprisoned Zauriel had also rendered the entire heavenly host into mindless puppets...meaning that they were facing something with an incredible amount of power at its command. But I’ve got some incredible power of my own, Traci thought, her arms crossed tightly at the wrists as her levitating form pushed ever harder at the wall of angels that clogged the entranceway into the Shining City. I’ve got full might of Nabu on my side, along with every other person who’s ever worn the Helmet of Fate. All of them live within me and through me...and we’re all fighting for the same goal at this very moment!
Out of nowhere, she heard a cry of “SHAZAM!”, followed by an bolt of lightning striking the ground in front of her. A clot of angels quickly fled, and into that brief space flew Captain Marvel, who was holding onto the Flash. “Let me in, before they regroup!” Flash shouted. Traci did as he asked, and Marvel took off the second Flash was safe within Fate’s magical sphere. “Now, get us down to ground level! This idea isn’t going to work with me up in the air.”
“A ‘please’ would be nice,” Traci said, lowering the sphere just as a new wave of angels rushed forward into the gap created by Marvel’s lightning bolt -- the entire sphere rocked backward a few inches from their impact. “What’s this idea you have?”
“I figured you could use an extra push to get through the Gates.” He set his feet against the soft, springy earth they now stood upon, though he knew it was just what his mind perceived this part of Heaven to be. Where he saw a lush meadow, others might see fluffy clouds, while another might see a plain of gold or ivory. Right now, he had his mind fixated on the notion that it was the same consistency as an Olympic-level running track. “I need you to tether me to the inside of this thing, so it’ll move along in synch with me.”
“Done.” Golden bands emanated from the force field and wrapped around his torso to make a harness. “What else?”
“Just make sure nothing breaks off.” With that, he began to run. His feet immediately became a blur, but there was no forward momentum at all, as the sphere was met with the same resistance as before. The harness bit into his skin, but he kept on running, kicking off sparks of lightning every time his feet struck the ground, and soon, the sphere began to lurch forward, inch by agonizing inch. Sweat poured down Flash’s face from the effort, but he didn’t dare slow down.
As Wally pushed himself to the limit, Billy sped over to Mister Miracle and the scores of angels who continued to stab him from all directions like angry hornets. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Billy began to say under his breath, then he flew straight into the fray, striking one angel after another with just enough force to send them flying. He eventually knocked enough of them aside to reach the New God, who’d sunk to one massive knee. Despite knowing this was Scott’s “normal” appearance, it was bizarre to see the man at roughly ten times the size he was accustomed to. “Are you okay?” Billy asked.
“No...I’m not,” Scott gasped in what would’ve been a normal speaking level if he’d been smaller, but at these proportions came off like a distant rumble of thunder. “Think I’m...gonna throw up.” He ripped away his hood, revealing a pale, sweaty face covered with splotches of red. At first, Captain Marvel thought it was blood, then he noted that it looked more like hives. “Something...‘bout this place. Boom Tube can’t...adjust me...like the rest of you.”
Billy flew in tight circles around Scott to knock back more angels, saying, “You look like my mom when she accidently ate some shellfish.”
“Allergic reaction. That’d...make sense. Foreign elements...clashing...old gods and new.” Despite the pained expression on his face, he chuckled. “Should’ve seen it coming.”
“What can we do?”
“Try to...readjust.” With a trembling hand, he reached for the Mother Box attached to his costume. “Find a...compatible shape. Better...move away...might get messy.”
“What do you mean?” He then saw Scott dig his fingers into the Mother Box’s seams to pry it apart. “Wait a minute, is that safe to do?”
Scott chuckled again, and Billy realised the man was bordering on delirium -- whatever was preventing his body from adjusting to Heaven’s realm was affecting his mind as well. “There’s a way...to escape anything. A way over...a way out.” Strange black bubbles -- the human brain’s perception of the mysterious X-Element harnessed by the New Gods -- began to spill out of the Mother Box. “Sometimes...it’s the way through...”
Taking advantage of the distraction, a group of angels swept in and grabbed Captain Marvel, attempting to pull him apart, but he shook them off easily. By the time he’d done so, however, Scott had fully breached the interior of the Mother Box, and the X-Element burst forth in its full mind-bendingly-impossible glory. Marvel sped upwards to escape the sudden explosion of cosmic energy that engulfed Mister Miracle and numerous angels for about a sixty-foot radius. Thankfully, Fate and Flash were far enough away to be unaffected by the cloud of blackness and brightness that now churned in one corner of Heaven like something alive. Billy stared at the eye-searing sight and hoped to spot some glimmer of Scott within, but he couldn’t.
And still the angels came, oblivious to the number of them who’d been consumed by the X-Element along with Scott. They assaulted Billy, who no longer apologized for the blows he dealt them, and they assaulted the shield protecting Fate and Flash, who continued to push ever forward to the Gates of Heaven. It seemed as though the battle would never end, and the three heroes would spend all of eternity trying to breach the threshold of the most holy place in all of Creation.
“ENOUGH!”
A enormous plume of green smoke billowed up out of nowhere, and all eyes turned to see the Spectre -- the embodiment of God’s own wrath -- manifest in the midst of the battlefield at a size that easily dwarfed the proportions Mister Miracle had attained. Despite this, the angels only hesitated for a moment before mounting a coordinated attack against this new opponent. It was a fool’s errand: the Spectre waved a gargantuan hand and turned every angel present into glass. They quickly fell from the sky, shattering upon impact with the ground. This task done, the Spectre began to shrink until he stood at a height the human mind could better deal with.
“Thanks for the assist.” Fate said after she’d dropped her shield. “Glad to see that whatever’s effected all of the Heavenly Host didn’t get to you as well.”
“I have always been...set apart...when it comes to my brethren,” Spectre replied as his gaze cast over the broken remains of scores of angels. “And yet, standing here, I can feel the corruption that has taken over their minds. It still dwells within them, even in this altered state, filling the void where the Presence once was.”
“The presence of what?” Marvel asked, confused.
“The One True God.” Spectre looked at him with disdain, saying, “As opposed to the lesser gods you choose to align yourself with.”
“Hey, no Billy-bashing right now, Spec,” Flash said as he zipped in between the two of them. “We’re all here for the same reason: to figure out who kidnapped Zauriel and turned all these angels into mindless killing machines.”
“I was unaware of the corruption of the Host until my arrival. What brought me here was that monstrosity.” He turned towards the X-Element-fueled inferno that continued to roil not far away. “Even as I did battle all the way down in the depths of Hell, I felt it manifest in this sanctified realm. It must be dealt with.”
“Allow me.” Fate stepped forward, a golden ankh already forming between her hands. “I may be able to force the X-Element back into normal space, where it’ll disperse naturally.” The ankh grew as it moved towards the energy cloud, which began to engulf the mystic symbol like iron filings around a magnet. Soon, most of the cloud was gone, with only a few wisps of X-Element clinging to the twisted and mangled angelic forms that were now revealed. Some had been turned inside-out, others had merged together into shapes that could barely be comprehended by human eyes. “What in the world happened?” she asked Marvel, who was walking up to where she stood, with Flash right behind.
“Scott...he was reacting badly to being here in Heaven. I think he got desperate to fix it, so he t-t-took his Mother Box and...” A pained expression washed over Marvel’s face. “I couldn’t stop him, and now he’s...he’s...” The tears started to come as he said, “I don’t even see a body. He was over sixty feet tall, how could there not be a body?”
Fate shook her head. “I don’t know. There’s so little we humans know about the X-Element, but considering what it did to those angels, it could be that it destabilized Scott’s body entirely.” She laid a hand on Captain Marvel’s shoulder, saying, “Be that as it may, don’t go blaming yourself. We’ve all been doing this long enough that we understand the risks that come with every mission. Sometimes...we don’t all make it home.”
“I know...I know.” He let out a shuddering breath, then looked at Fate and Flash in turn. “You would think a trip to Heaven would be a lot less heart-wrenching, huh?”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting this to go off without a hitch,” Flash replied, “but yeah, it hasn’t been all that much fun so far, considering the locale. How about you, Spectre? Is this typical for...” He paused when he realised the green-garbed spirit wasn’t nearby anymore. He then spotted the Spectre standing just beyond the threshold of the now-unblocked Gates. In a blink, he raced over to there and asked, “What’s the matter, Spec? You don’t look very happy to be home.”
“That is precisely the matter: I shouldn’t be home,” Spectre said, his eyes remaining fixed upon the achingly-beautiful Shining City that lay before them. “I have not been able to pass through the Gates in eons. By God’s own command, I am not allowed to tread these streets, and yet...nothing is stopping me from doing so. This is wrong. Utterly wrong.” Spectre turned so that Wally got a glimpse of the terror in his eyes. “The Presence is not here. The throngs of souls that eternally sing God’s praises are not here. Heaven is...empty.”
“Anybody see where Ol’ Green-Britches wandered off to?” Detective Chimp asked, his voice echoing through the cavern.
“He muttered something about sensing a disturbance.” Dawn Makes-Strong-Move -- known to some as Manitou Dawn -- was double-checking the seals she and the other Sentinels of Magic had just finished placing upon the ancient iron door that led into the lowest depths of Hell. They’d been fighting for hours to prevent the myriad terrors that lay behind it from overtaking the world above, and all of them were happy to finally declare the task finished. “Considering everything going on at the moment, he could be anywhere.”
Dawn’s husband, the ever-youthful Kid Eternity, added, “He probably went off to have a sulk. He didn’t seem happy that I called up King Kong to help him fend off that pack of Hellhounds.”
“Just wait ‘til he finds out Kong was my idea,” the chimp said with a grin.
“In all my years of knowing him, I never found the Spectre to be the sort to ‘sulk’, as you say.” The Phantom Stranger turned his gaze upward, as if to study the stalagmites that hung above their heads. “It does indeed feel as though a new disturbance is growing throughout every realm, but I cannot discern its source.” He approached Dawn, saying, “You wield the True Axe, which gives you a direct connection to the Axis Mundi. That connection should give you better insight than I can attain as to what new threat is upon us.”
“I certainly hope so.” Dawn brought the Axe to bear, holding it before herself so the end of the handle pointed towards her navel and the head of it was centered between her now-closed eyes, with her hands positioned at the halfway point of the Axe’s handle. The Axis Mundi -- even this relatively-tiny portion of it -- spanned all realms, all realities, as well as all that dwelled within them. Since the beginning of the current crisis, Dawn had felt a wavering in the True Axe on a psychic level: just as a seismometer can detect an earthquake thousands of miles away, the Axe was picking up on disturbances throughout the cosmos, but there were so many happening it once, it was hard to pinpoint every single one. Still, if this new disturbance was as big as the Stranger was implying, it should stand out among the rest. “You’re right, something’s different,” Dawn said after a few moments. “It’s like all the threads that bind reality together are screaming from the strain. No...no, it’s not screaming, it’s...it’s a voice. There’s a consciousness behind it.” Dawn’s arms began to tremble as she choked out, “God, it’s so loud!”
Concerned, Kid Eternity reached a hand out to her, but the Phantom Stranger held him back. “What is it saying?” the Stranger asked.
“It’s all a jumble, like...erratic thoughts. I can feel their loneliness, it’s almost unbearable, but there’s also...relief.” Her brow furrowed as she tried to concentrate on the words. “The...pathway...is clearing. Champion...the champion is needed...the champion is gone...the champion must...” Suddenly, Dawn’s posture stiffened and the timbre of her voice changed, so that it sounded like a second voice was now being projected through her. “Where are you, my Beloved? I have dreamed long of your touch. I grow weary of waiting.” The ache in her voice became palatable as she shouted, “Please, my Beloved, come to me! The curtain falls! The trap is undone! The time is... nngh!” Dawn jerked backward violently, tossing the Axe aside, and Kid Eternity caught her. After a moment, she gasped out, “Sorry...had to force my way out. Felt like I was losing myself to whatever...whoever that is. I get the sense that it’s unfathomably powerful, yet...helpless.”
“Maybe it’s the real cause of what’s going on,” the Kid said.
“No, I don’t think so, not exactly. It’s just as puzzled about the situation as the rest of us.” She stood up straight and brushed some stray hairs from her face. “It does appear to be benefiting from this crisis to some degree, but it knows something is wrong with how it’s unfolding. Like...like it’s done this before and there’s pieces missing.”
“Such as the champion it spoke of.” The Phantom Stranger glanced over at Detective Chimp. “Do you suppose they’re referring to...”
“I’d bet a whole box of Cubans on that.” Seeing the confused looks on Dawn and the Kid’s face, the chimp explained, “The folks over in Nanda Parbat have a legend ‘bout some great champion who’s supposed to rise up when the universe is in dire peril. They’ve even been safeguarding an ancient elixir for ‘em, something that’ll basically put ‘em in the peak of health right before the last battle.” As he spoke, he moved over to the iron door, produced a cigar from within his tweed coat, and pressed it to the door so as to light it with heat from the very fires of perdition. After blowing a perfect smoke ring, Detective Chimp said, “Now, I don’t know about you kids, but it seems to me the universe is in very dire peril right now, so maybe we should all make a little trip to Nanda Parbat and see if this champion is hanging about.”
For all their physical similarities, there were just as many differences in human and Qwardian biology. For example, the amount of sedative it took to keep the average Qwardian unconscious wasn’t nearly enough to fully immobilize Jonah Hex, a man who could down a couple of bottles of the cheapest rotgut and only feel a mite tipsy afterward. Kyu didn’t take such things into account when adjusting the settings on the medical pod, and therefore wasn’t aware that Jonah would wake up before the nanobots had fully finished repairing his injuries.
The results weren’t immediate: Jonah’s mind slowly resurfaced from the drug-induced fog, while his body remained numb, making it hard for him to judge his surroundings. After a while, he became aware of the tube down his throat and the needles in his arms. His eyes snapped open, and though his vision was blurry, he recognized the glass coffin from all the other times he’d been placed in it. Panic seized Jonah’s brain as the nightmare he’d been fighting against for months took hold: the bug-eyes had recaptured him, and soon they would drag him back into the Crone’s marble-lined chamber so it could feed. Already, Jonah could imagine the Crone engulfing his body and seeping into his brain like it had done so many times before, his very soul screaming in agony as it drained every ounce of life out of him, yet it still wanted more, it always wanted more...
With the strength of a madman, Jonah began pounding and kicking at the interior of the medical pod until the seal broke open. An alarm sounded as nanobot-infused liquid spilled onto the floor, followed by Jonah himself, who landed with a meaty thud. He pulled out the tube that had been snaked down his throat, then yanked off all the other wires and such. Shivering from both cold and pain, he slowly climbed to his feet, his eyes already casting about the room in search of a weapon. The bug-eyes would be coming soon, drawn to the sound of the alarm like moths to a flame, and he had to be ready for them.
Elsewhere in the complex, Hal was wrapping up his conversation with Commander Vezali, leader of the Army of True Qward, the resistance group that opposed Libra’s forces. He’d never imagined a day would come when Qwardians would fight alongside a member of the Green Lantern Corps, but a lot of other impossible things had occurred already, so why not add one more? “I’ll be sending a message to my colleagues shortly about what I’ve found here,” Hal told the commander, “so hopefully reinforcements will arrive not long after. The more firepower we have when we go up against Krona, the better the odds will be.”
“Agreed,” Vezali replied, nodding her bald head. “I have already sent a message of my own, recalling all our troops to base, save for one transport directed your way. With luck, we will all be assembled back here within three segments.”
“Makes sure that transport is big enough to hold a medical pod,” Stella interjected. “Jonah might not be fully healed by the time it arrives.” Vezali acknowledged the request before cutting the transmission. As Kyu began repacking the communication array, Stella let out a sigh and looked at Hal. “Guess this is it, isn’t it? One last big battle, then it’s finally all over.”
“One way or another,” he replied. As he said the words, he noticed the faint sound of an alarm echoing through the otherwise-silent complex. “What’s that? Are we under attack again?” Hal asked the others.
“It appears to be coming from the infirmary,” Kyu said. “The pod must be malfunctioning.” He and Stella began running down the hall, but Hal quickly passed them, opting to fly the distance. The alarm had ceased by the time Hal reached the medical bay, and though lights in the room were dim, he immediately saw the large puddle of liquid on one side of the closed pod. Presuming it must have sprung a leak, Hal began inspecting the pod, not noticing until he looked directly into it that the pod was empty.
Hal’s brain had barely registered that fact when someone suddenly grabbed him from behind, throwing an arm around his neck in a chokehold. “That was damn stupid, leavin’ muh stuff lyin’ around fer me tuh find,” Jonah Hex whispered in Hal’s ear, right before the bounty hunter jabbed a knife into his ribs...or rather he tried to, unaware of the skintight forcefield the Green Lantern ring was generating around its wearer. Jonah cursed as the blade skittered to the side, then let out a painful wheeze of air when Hal drove his elbow back sharply into Jonah’s still-healing midsection. Distracted by pain, Jonah loosened the chokehold, so Hal quickly slipped free and shoved his assailant to the ground. Jonah had managed to put on his torn and bloody trousers before Hal’s entrance, allowing him some small amount of decorum as he lay on the wet floor in a crumpled heap.
“Christ, Hex, do you greet all of your friends like that?” Hal said, looking down at him.
Jonah fixed a deathly glare upon the man. “Ah ain’t friends with folks thet drop buildings on me,” he growled, then leapt up with surprising agility to renew his attack. Hal backpedaled while silently commanding his ring to wrap Jonah in an emerald straightjacket, which he quickly anchored to the wall with a length of green chain. Despite all this, Hal could feel the strain being put upon the constructs as Jonah pulled against them, every fiber of his being focused on breaking free. This was a test of wills, and the Green Lantern quickly realised he and the bounty hunter were evenly matched.
At that moment, Stella and Kyu reached the medical bay, both of them skidding to a stop at the sight before them. “What the Hell?” Stella said, looking from one man to the other.
“Looks like you were right about him freaking out,” Hal said to her.
“Jonah, stop!” Stella strode right up to Hex, putting her hands on the sides of his face and forcing him to look at her instead of Hal. “Calm down, you’re safe. No one here’s gonna hurt you, I swear, just calm down...calm down...” She smoothed back Jonah’s damp, shoulder-length hair with one hand, her gaze never leaving his. “You hear me, cowboy? You’re safe now.” Slowly, the words seeped through the wall of rage between her and Hex, and he pulled at the emerald restraints a little less intently. “I’m sorry we put you in the medical pod, but we didn’t have any choice,” she continued. “The building you were in collapsed, and you almost died.”
“An’ he’s the one thet done it!” Jonah yelled, his eyes focused once more upon Hal. “Ah saw it! Right afore everything fell in, the same green glow he’s givin’ off hit the building. Sonovabitch is workin’ fer the bug-eyes!”
The Green Lantern stepped forward, saying, “Are you kidding me, Hex? You know me! I’d never go along with what Krona and the Qwardians under him are doing.”
“Ah don’t know a damn thing about yuh, stranger, but Ah do know the folks we’re sided with have some fancy-dan machines thet were tryin’ tuh warn ‘em ‘bout yuh comin’ ‘round here. So don’t go actin’ all innocent now thet Ah’ve called yuh out on whose side yo’re really on.”
Hal let out a nervous chuckle. “I can’t believe this...you’ve forgotten about me? I’ll admit, it was a long time ago for me, but you look to be around the same age as when we met. Time travel can be weird like that.” He shook his head and said, “Come on, Hex, you have to remember something about that day. It was in 1878, near a little town in Arizona called Desecration...”
Now it was Jonah’s turn to chuckle, only when he did so, it had a tendency to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. “Ah don’t know whut sorta yarn yuh was gonna try an’ spin there, boy, but Ah kin already unravel it,” he told Hal with a wicked grin. “Y’see, when them bug-eyes took me, the year was 1875, an’ Ah sure as shootin’ ain’t never been tuh no place called Desecration afore.”
“Try to breathe, Bruce. Please, just try to breathe,” whispered Silver Wayne, clutching the weak, trembling hand of her husband as he strained against the ravages of his ailing body. She wanted to curse him, to tear him apart physically and verbally for going out in that damn costume when he was so sick… but the state of him now, unable to assert command over his body after decades being the premier human, being the best and strongest man he could possibly be… it broke something in her, too. To see the love of her life so damaged, so fractured.
“I’m… I’m okay,” he managed to reply, red in the face as he rocked back and forth on the sofa. “D-didn’t last. C-couldn’t hold it t-t-together. D-damn. Damn this b-body. I thought… I thought I could do some good. With the world falling apart, I thought I could do something about it. But even the… nnn…”
He had been able to do something. With Arkham Island cracked open, her inmates pouring out, Fright’s fear enzyme cloud primed to unleash pure nightmare on Gotham’s citizens, he’d been able to assume the mantle of the Bat once more, journeying to the island institution and assisting in bringing the jailbreak to an end, even if the only person who’d spotted him had been the new Robin.
But due to the toll it had taken on his already addled body, he’d been unable to bring the violent spasms that came with his advanced case of Parkinson’s Disease under control. All that work, the studies, the training, everything he’d undertaken since leaving Gotham with Silver after he received the diagnosis… it had all evaporated a handful of moments after removing that old cowl. He’d put on a brave front when the Questions showed up to speak with him, but not long after they’d left, the tremors took over again, making it impossible for Bruce to sit still.
Silver held his hand to her cheek, and said, “Just breathe, remember what the monks at Nanda Parbat taught you. Remember everything that helps.”
“I’m s-sorry, Silver. So sorry. You d-didn’t deserve this l-life,” said Bruce.
“Hush now, you silly man. Years spent globetrotting with the love of my life? I have no regrets. You’re my everything, and this has been the greatest life I could ever hope to live.”
“L-liar,” he replied.
“Don’t make me beat you up, Mr. Dark Knight. I’d do it, too. I promise,” she said, leaning over and resting her forehead on his. “I love you. I love you so much it hurts. Never doubt that. Never call me a liar. I love you too much for that stupidness to hold an ounce of weight.” They stayed like that for a while, Silver wishing she could imbue Bruce with all her strength, if only so he could know peace for a brief moment. But as she’d come to learn long ago, when it came to life with Bruce Wayne, peace was a fleeting thing. And this moment was no different, for it was soon broken by a bright, vertical line of light appearing in the midst of the penthouse. It quickly grew until it was wide enough for a quartet of figures to step through, only one of whom Silver recognized. “Bobo?”
“Evening, Ms. St. Cloud...pardon...Ms.Wayne.” Detective Chimp smiled at her and doffed his deerstalker cap. “Pardon the intrusion, but we have a bit of business with your better half.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to take that business elsewhere,” Silver told him. “Bruce has been through enough tonight. There has to be someone else who can handle it.”
“Not in this case,” the Phantom Stranger interjected. “We’ve just come from Nanda Parbat on a mission of great importance. We were told that you’d visited there recently, and that the monks had passed something on to you. I presume it is still in your possession.”
Silver’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “They told you about the elixir? I was under the impression that it was a closely-guarded secret. Even we didn’t know about it when we arrived there, but after they learned who Bruce was...”
“Word of it has been passed around certain circles over the years,” the simian sleuth elaborated. “This isn’t the sort of thing you’d blast across social media, but awareness of its existence was kept up for when the time came to actually use it. We just got clued in that the time is likely now, so we went to fetch it, and hopefully the champion it’s supposed to go to, only to find that both had left Nanda Parbat recently.”
“So you came here for it...and for him.” She looked at her husband, who’d been listening to the conversation very intently, despite the distress his body was in.
“We’re sorry to do this,” Dawn Makes-Strong-Move said, “but we presume you’re aware of the whole situation going on out there. Despite everyone’s best efforts, it appears that, on a cosmic level, we’re barely holding the line. Any edge we can get over this, we need to take it.”
“I understand.” Indeed, Silver understood all too well: Bruce’s lifelong mission had been the one thing keeping them apart for many years, as she couldn’t stand the thought of the risks he was putting himself through night after night. It had taken much soul-searching on her part to come to terms with it, and not long after she did, Bruce received his Parkinson’s diagnosis, as if the universe was playing a cruel joke on them. Still, they’d resolved to make up for lost time as best they could. That the time would come to an end with the emergence of a universe-shattering crisis which only her husband could resolve surprised her not one bit. “It...it’s in the other room. I’ll go get it.” She began to get up from the sofa, only for Bruce to hold up a trembling hand.
“D-d-don’t bother,” the former Dark Knight stammered out. “It w-won’t do any good.”
“Bruce, it’s okay...I’m okay with it. I do wish you’d taken it a little sooner, but...”
“No. N-no. I can’t. I can’t take it.” He twitched uncontrollably, rocking back and forth as his wife tried to comfort him.
“Bruce, that formula will restore you. Remember what the monks said… it’ll give you back everything…you’ll be in the peak of health again. They’ve been keeping it safe for centuries, waiting to pass it on to a great champion who’ll need it in their darkest hour. If that’s not now, then when is it?” She tried to find his deep, dark eyes, but he was looking down at the floor, trying to avoid the gaze of everyone present. What was it that radiated off her husband now? Shame? “Bruce, what aren’t you telling me?”
“I didn’t… I didn’t tell you… I’ve already t-t-...” He paused as he waited for another spasm to pass. “I already tried to take it. B-before...we left Nanda Parbat.” His voice took on an edge of anger as he said, “I can’t even figure out how to open the damned thing. Me, the so-called ‘World’s Greatest Detective’, and I’m...s-s-stumped by a stupid...little...bottle!” He fell quiet for a moment, then said, “Whoever this champion is that they’re looking for...it’s...it’s not me.”
The weight of Bruce’s confession hung heavy in the air as Silver looked up at the other heroes present, hoping they’d be able to counter what he’d said, but they were all as shocked by the words as she was. It was left to her to break the silence. “Bruce… Jesus Christ… after everything… we came back to Gotham because we had it… a cure…”
“Silver,” Bruce looked at the love of his life, his eyes wet with the tears that had begun to form, “We came back because I needed to say goodbye. My battle… it’s over.”
Her hands slipped away from his. “You didn’t… you kept that from me.”
“If you had your way, we’d never stop looking. But this is my life. And my death.”
“No...no, it’s not...it’s not...” She was crying now as well, and this time, Bruce reached out to her, despite the tremor in his hands, and held her as tightly as he could.
Out of respect for the tableau before them, the Sentinels of Magic moved away from the couple. Once they were out of earshot, Kid Eternity whispered, “Well, this puts a damper on things. Before we got here, I was all ‘Yay, Batman can fix everything because Batman.’ Now I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
“All joking aside, Kit’s right,” Dawn said. “We have the elixir, but still no idea who this champion is. If the monks thought they’d given it to the right person and managed to get it wrong anyways, how can we fare any better?”
“Perhaps the monks were not mistaken, but we are,” the Phantom Stranger replied.
Detective Chimp hissed, “Oh please, now is not the time for riddle-talk.”
“I thought I was being rather straightforward. As the man himself just pointed out, Bruce Wayne is the world’s greatest detective...”
“Human detective,” Bobo interrupted, holding up a hairy finger.
“...so perhaps that’s the reason the monks presented him with the elixir,” the Stranger continued. “He is not the champion, but rather the only one who can help us find the champion. Their identity is unknown to us at the moment, so we need someone who can look at the clues before us and point us in the right direction.”
Dawn glanced over at the sofa: Silver was pressing her husband’s hand against her tear-streaked cheek and trying to smile at him through the heartache. “There’s got to be another way,” she quietly told the Stranger. “I know what I said about taking every edge we can get, but this...”
“Then let me shoulder the burden.” The Phantom Stranger turned away from the others and silently walked back over to the couple. Silver’s gaze immediately went up to him, and for a moment, he saw a blaze of hate in her eyes, as though he was the cause of all that ailed her husband. He didn’t hold it against her, for he knew it was easier to pin the blame for Bruce’s omission upon a stranger than on the man himself. “Forgive me,” he said, and knelt upon one knee before them, his head bowed low -- the gesture took on the air of a servant swearing fealty to the royal court. “For most of my existence, I have offered counsel to those in need, but at this moment, I must ask you to do the same for me. I would not ask this of you if I did not truly believe within my heart that you are the only one who can aid us.” He looked up at Bruce, saying, “Despite the current frailty of your body, I know that your mind is still as keen as it has ever been...perhaps more so, now that you must find new ways to overcome your physical limitations. If there is anyone in this universe capable of discerning the identity of this unknown champion, it is you.”
Bruce said nothing at first, his body twitching and fidgeting just as it had been since the Sentinels of Magic first arrived in the penthouse, but his eyes took on a dark gleam. Silver recognized it immediately: it was how he looked when he put on the cowl. The Phantom Stranger had laid one last unsolved case in front of the man, and the Bat had woken up. “Tell me...everything...you know,” Bruce said, taking his time with the words so as to keep the tremor out of his voice.
“We know no more than what the monks told you,” the Stanger answered.
“Tell me again. As you know it. Don’t...presume anything.”
“The champion will come from afar, to fight alongside strangers in an unfamiliar land. They will have abilities none have ever seen before, and possess knowledge beyond anyone’s reach. In their homeland, there are many like the champion, but at the same time, they stand unique amongst their peers. The very forces of nature bend to their will, and the strongest iron flows like water with a mere wave of their hand.” The Phantom Stranger noted a flicker of surprise on Silver’s face at that last sentence: up until then, everything he’d said could have plausibly described Bruce, but not that. “For all the wonders they embody, though, they are mortal. When the universe needs them most, they will be at the cusp of death. Millennia ago, Rama Kushna herself saw what was to come and wept at the sight of it -- she collected her tears and sealed them in a bottle only the champion can open so that she could lend them her strength.”
“The voice I heard,” Dawn ventured hesitantly, “perhaps that was Rama Kushna.”
“I have my doubts.” The Stranger glanced over at her. “I have been in the presence of Rama Kushna many times. The disturbance I originally felt whilst we were at the Gates of Hell did not feel like her, nor did the voice that came through you sound like hers.”
Now Bruce was looking at Dawn as well. “What voice?”
“It was something...someone calling out for the champion, saying they were needed, but the champion was gone.”
“I think I know why,” Bruce said. “Sage and Montoya were here...a few hours ago. They’d found...inconsistencies...in the historical record. People missing who shouldn’t be. There was one they brought up...the name...I c-c-can’t recall...” A look of confusion passed over Bruce’s face, and he briefly turned to Silver, but she seemed just as puzzled. “N-never mind. Not important. The point is that it appeared people were...being removed from time in order to cause d-damage by their absence. The longer they’re gone, the more damage...it ripples up the t-t-timeline to now.”
Detective Chimp rubbed his chin. “So somebody already knows who the champion is and took them out before they could do what they need to do, but not soon enough for the ripple effect to reach us yet and make us forget they exist in the first place.”
“Exactly.”
“But if that’s the case,” Kid Eternity added, “then this champion could be anywhere and anywhen, not just here and now. That doesn’t narrow things down at all!”
Bruce fixed his gaze upon him and said, “If I understand your powers correctly...this should be narrow enough.”
“Wait a sec...I can’t just call up somebody I don’t know! I need at least a name, an idea of who they are, not a lot of vagaries.”
“No, he’s right, Kit,” Dawn said, laying a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “You do it all the time. When you called up King Kong earlier, what we you picturing? A stop-motion model? A CGI creation? A guy in a suit? Because what you made appear was none of those: this Kong was a living, breathing creature that towered over all of us and smashed through a pack of Hellhounds like they were nothing. The Phantom Stranger just laid out everything anyone knows about this champion, so all you should have to do is hold that information in your head, concentrate on it as hard as you can, and say the word.”
Kid Eternity nervously chewed his bottom lip. “Okay...okay, I’ll give it a shot. Maybe if I was holding that bottle, to give me something concrete to focus on...”
This time, Bruce didn’t stop Silver when she got up from the sofa. She returned a few minutes later and handed a small cloth pouch to Kid Eternity. Inside was an oblong, brightly-polished metal object, about five inches long and two inches in diameter. When he turned it in his hands, he could feel something sloshing about inside, but the outside appeared to be nothing more than multiple layers of interwoven metal bands, each about an eighth of an inch wide, with no obvious seams or hinges. If there really was a way to open this bottle, it certainly wasn’t evident to him. Let’s hope this champion is really all they’re cracked up to be, he thought as he closed his eyes, clasped the bottle tightly in his hands, and took a deep breath.
Cosmic Boy stared up into the sky and watched as his teammates escaped the doomed moon. He held no malice in his heart toward them. He did what he had to do in order to save a child’s life, just as Polar Boy had done earlier when he saved Saturn Girl. He doubted that Brek thought any more about his mortality than Rokk himself did when they’d done their respective deeds. They were Legionnaires: they helped people, no matter the cost.
He tried once again to pull his legs free of his permacrete shackles -- the shattered remains of the building he’d rescued the child from -- but he couldn’t move. He remained kneeling on them, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his legs. Soon, shock began to set in, and the pain melted away, both in his legs and in the burns upon his flesh. His lungs hurt for a little longer as he tried to breathe in the hot, smoky air that surrounded him. Titan was dying a horribly violent death, and it was taking him along with it.
He sat for what seemed like an eternity, staring up at Saturn as it loomed overhead like a helpless parent waiting for the death of a terminally-ill child. How much longer would it be? He recalled Brainy saying they had 6 minutes left before the anti-matter injected into Titan’s core by Universo utterly destroyed everything, but how much time had passed since then? If his flight ring was still intact, he could’ve figured it out, but the ring had been crushed by the same rubble that he was now pinned by. Doesn’t matter, Cos thought. Six minutes, six seconds...it’ll come soon enough. What matters is I fought the good fight.
He smiled knowing that his friends would carry on the fight without him. They’d mourn him and Brek, yes, but they’d never stop fighting, not until Universo and his Dark Circle were brought to justice. It was all up to them now: Imra and Garth and Dirk and Blok and...
And Lydda.
The name drifted through Rokk Krinn’s mind, and he felt a pang of regret. Lydda Jath. She’d been at the last Legion try-out, calling herself Night Girl. So eager to join the team, so sure that she could be a valuable member. Indeed, her super-strength would’ve made a great addition to their lineup, but having the limitation of only being able to use it in the absence of ultraviolet light meant that she had to be passed over for membership in favor of Polar Boy. Despite this, Cos saw potential in her and, unbeknownst to the others on the team, he’d kept up a correspondence with Lydda. At first, he was simply encouraging her to develop other skills that’d be useful for situations when she couldn’t depend on her strength, but it soon turned into conversations about anything and everything. Lydda was smart and funny and just a joy to talk to late into the night via holo-chat. Sadly, they’d talked very little in the past few weeks, due to the rising threat of the Dark Circle, but he recalled the last holo she’d sent, which he hadn’t been around to receive live. He’d kept meaning to send a reply, but there was never enough time, never a quiet moment alone, and now...now...
There was an explosion nearby, and magma began to well up over the surface of Titan. The fumes reached him first, overwhelming Rokk so that his body went limp and fell forward -- when he hit the ground, he wasn’t even conscious enough to feel the impact, nor did he feel the magma as it began to flow over him, searing his flesh and setting his tattered uniform alight. His dying brain was unaware of all this as it spiraled down into darkness, crying out Lydda’s name until, suddenly, something new came crashing in like the sound of thunder:
”ETERNITY!”
Upon hearing the word, Cosmic Boy gasped and felt a rush of cool air hit his ash-coated lungs. There was a softness beneath him instead of rubble, and his shattered legs flopped about now that there wasn’t half a ton of permacrete pinning them in place. He couldn’t see, but he could hear voices babbling around him -- some of the words almost sounded like Interlac, but overall they made no sense. He felt pressure on his limbs as someone turned him onto his back, and he was surprised there was no pain, unaware that nearly all of his nerve endings had been burned away by the magma. He was vaguely aware of his head being lifted, followed by a male voice speaking next his ear...not Interlac, nor was it telepathy, yet somehow he understood every word:
“Fear not. We may be strangers to you, but soon, you will stand beside us in a battle to save all of existence. Before that can occur, though, your wounds must be tended to.” Cos felt something being pressed into his hands as the voice said, “There is an elixir within that can restore you, but only you can open it. If you cannot do so, you will die.”
Rokk tried to respond, but all that came out of his ruined throat was a raspy exhalation of air. His blinded eyes saw nothing, he could barely feel the object that had been given to him...how was he supposed to open it? Then, instinctively, he began to sense the magnetic fields in play around the object: it reminded him of a Braalian magno-egg, a type of puzzle box intricately crafted from numerous bands of metal. Simple ones for children used only about three to five bands and typically contained a toy or candy inside, while ones for grownups usually had around twenty. This thing, going by the what he sensed, had at least fifty. He’d heard of fifty-banders, but had never seen one. Well, you’re seeing one now...sort of, he thought. You can do this, Krinn. Your life depends on it.
He heard the voices around him murmur as he drew his hands apart and let the object hover in the air between them. It took a moment to figure out how to manipulate the magnetic field and pull the first band free, but once he did, he could easily sense how to remove the rest. He let the bands fall to either side of him as he worked, gaining a sincere appreciation for the Braalian artist (it had to have been a Braalian, no one could have made this without magnetic powers) who had assembled such a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Cos hoped he could reassemble it back to its former glory once he’d retrieved what was inside: a solid piece of amethyst that had somehow been hollowed out and infused with an unknown liquid.
Though he couldn’t see it, he could sense the gemstone’s diamagnetic properties trying to push away from the magnetic fields generated by his hands, along with the ferric impurities that gave amethyst its violet hue. Working with diamagnetic material was tricky, but Cosmic Boy had gotten more than enough practice over the years. He shifted the field to lift the vial free and bring it towards his upturned mouth, then twitched his fingers to excite the miniscule amount of iron within and crack the gemstone open.
The liquid that spilled onto Rokk’s waiting tongue immediately seeped into his cells and raced throughout his bloodstream. He let out a choked cry as his burned flesh and shattered limbs regenerated at fantastic speed, and his sense of the magnetic fields around him blossomed out with such force that he could visualize the structure he was within. He was shocked to realise it wasn’t a transport ship or other craft, but a building...and one not made with plasteel, but actual steel and iron, literally tons of it, like an ancient pre-Disaster structure on Earth. No such place existed on Titan, but he knew that’s what he was sensing, he could feel the “bones” of the building and everything in it, every wire and screw and...what were they called? Nails? Actual sprocking nails! What was this place?
His eyes had finally healed enough that he could open them, and what he saw stunned him. He’d unconsciously pushed himself into the air using his magnetic powers and was now levitating above a group of six sentients -- five human and one simian -- who were dressed like something out of pre-holo media. In fact, all the furnishings in the room had that same look to it.
Then he looked down at himself to see that his body was perfectly healed...and virtually naked, save for a few scraps of uniform and his charred Legion utility belt.
“Oh sprock,” Cosmic Boy said.
“Ah don’t care how many dif’rent ways yuh say it,” Jonah said, “it don’t make a lick of sense. How kin yuh meet a person afore yuh meet ‘em?”
“You can’t, that’s why it’s called a paradox.” Hal paced back and forth in front of Jonah and Stella, who were sitting next to each other on a metal crate. The rest of the group was off preparing for departure, allowing the three of them some privacy as they tried to sort out the chronal conundrum they were faced with. At first, Hal kept thinking that something may have happened to Jonah’s memory, or that Hal himself had mixed up the dates, but then he took a closer look at Jonah’s bare torso before the man finished getting dressed: there should have been a good-sized patch of scar tissue on Jonah’s left side, courtesy of a laser burn he sustained during their meeting in 1878, but despite all the other scars the gunfighter bore, that particular one was nowhere to be found. “The best I can figure,” the Green Lantern continued, “is that the damage Krona and Libra are inflicting on the timestream is making everything unravel. People born in the distant past or future are winking out of existence. The universe itself is shrinking. The passage of time is speeding up and slowing down at random, making hours pass by in minutes and vice-versa...Qward itself has apparently lost a few decades.” He gestured from himself to Hex as he said, “You and I meeting out of order is a minor inconvenience compared to all that.”
“Wait a minute,” Stella said. “If people born in the distant past are ‘winking out’ like you say, then why is Jonah still here? Shouldn’t he have disappeared too?”
“I’m guessing that him being in the anti-matter universe as opposed to normal space when all this started has something to do with it. As you may have noticed, Qward doesn’t always operate under the normal laws of physics.”
“Like how the planet doesn’t orbit a sun or anything. It just kinda floats through space and makes the stars look all topsy-turvy.”
“More nonsense talk,” Jonah muttered as he clenched and unclenched his fists -- Hal noticed how the man’s hands trembled every time he splayed his fingers. “Y’all keep sayin’ words, but they don’t mean nothin’. The world cain’t shrink. Time don’t move faster an’ slower. Thet ain’t how things work.”
“Jonah, look at me.” Stella took hold of his hands and looked deep into his eyes. “Do you remember how it took you a few days to get a grip on time travel? How me and Berkowitz had to keep explaining it over and over again until we’d convinced you that we were really born a century or two after you? And you once told me that it took you a while to accept that all these aliens we’ve met are like regular people in their own way. That’s all this is: just another new thing to accept. But this time, you have to accept it right now, not a few days from now, because we don’t have any time to waste.”
“Ah don’t want tuh accept a damn thing,” Jonah replied, his voice strained. “I want tuh find a quiet place tuh get drunk an’ forget all ‘bout this greenhorn standin’ over here.” He nodded towards Hal. “Just some fast-talkin’ Yankee pretty-boy, thet’s all he is.”
“No, he’s not. Back home, Green Lantern is a hero, one of the big ones. I know what he’s saying sounds crazy, but you can trust him.” She reached up and gently touched the scarred side of his face. “Just like you trust me.”
Jonah’s gaze went from her to Hal and back again, a look of anxiety growing on his face. He then squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his head, saying through gritted teeth, “It’s too much...the way yo’re talkin’...the Crone talked like thet...filled muh head with things thet didn’t make sense an’ it’s too damn much...” Jonah’s entire body was trembling now.
Hal stepped towards Jonah. “Wait...Krona told you things? What did he say?” Without thinking, he put a hand on Jonah’s shoulder -- the gunfighter leapt up and shoved Hal away, then lurched out of the room. The Green Lantern began to follow, but Stella blocked his path.
“Don’t do it, you’ll just antagonize him more,” Stella explained. “He gets like this sometimes. He’s got, like, PTSD from whatever the Crone did to him. You push him too hard, and he ends up reliving the whole thing all over again. I’ve been able to talk him through it before, but you...I don’t think he’d respond to you at all.”
Hal was dumbfounded by all this: this gaunt, raggedy version of Jonah Hex seemed leaps and bounds away from the fearsome man he’d met in 1878. There was still a fire deep within the gunfighter, to be sure, but it appeared that fire was on the verge of going out. And if it does go out, Hal thought, if he succumbs permanently to the trauma in his mind, what happens to the version of me back in 1878? Do I die in the desert instead of getting rescued? What had previously appeared to be a minor inconvenience now took on dangerous proportions.
After a moment’s thought, Hal told Stella, “I think I know someone he might respond to better than both of us.”
All was silent within Krona’s private chamber. None were allowed within unless their Lord and Master permitted it, therefore none were aware that it currently stood empty, a black shell devoid of the mad would-be god that normally inhabited it. Nor was anyone aware of when that silence was interrupted with a sound unfit for human ears: a tearing of spacetime itself that disgorged a pair of figures.
“Fool!” Krona’s shadow-form took hold of Libra and pitched him across the chamber, slamming him into the curved wall. “I gave you everything you needed to maintain control over those pathetic mortals, and you still failed me!”
“My Lord...please...” Libra groaned as he tried to get up, but a dark tendril soon shot out from the shadows surrounding Krona and pinned him in place.
“The Martian peeled away your guise easily,” Krona sneered. “The addict pierced your defenses. And the speedster...he and that damnable future he came from should already be DEAD!Until it is, there’s always a chance that, despite all our plans, the accursed champion could show up!”
“That’s impossible, you kil--” The words were choked off as a deep-yellow mist of guilt-sweetened fear wafted out from under Libra’s golden mask and into the decrepit maw of Krona, who’d pressed his shadow-form tightly against his acolyte, smothering him in darkness.
“Nothing is impossible,” Krona declared in husky voice. “Billions of years ago, the Guardians of the Universe thought my surviving discorporation was impossible. I proved them wrong. I LIVE. I WILL ALWAYS LIVE. And soon, I will attain what is rightfully mine and mine alone, despite your mistakes.” Krona withdrew and let Libra drop to the floor. “You’re fortunate that I was watching over you, and that I had gathered enough strength to come to your rescue. You should thank me for that.”
Libra lay in a heap, trembling, gasping for breath, then said in a feeble voice, “Th-thank you...Master...”
“Still, you did succeed at the most important part of your mission: the imprisonment of the Infinite Man. And yet...he is thereand not here.”
“A s-s-s-small m-matter,” Libra remained on the floor, afraid to even lift his head and gaze upon Krona’s visage. “E-everything is in place, they cannot...” He swallowed hard. “They will not interfere with the transfer. I swear my life upon it.”
“Your life has not been yours to swear for a long time, remember?” Krona reached down and cupped a hand under Libra’s chin, lifting his head. “Swear to me on something else. Swear to me on Hex’s life.” Libra tensed at the words, and Krona flashed a gruesome smile. “Did you think you could hide that death order from me? I know every thought that passes through your mind, child. I told you that I wanted Hex to remain alive for now, and you chose to disobey me. Your jealousy clouds your judgment.”
“I am not jealous! He is ruining our plans! He needs to die!”
“He will die when I wish it! Not a moment sooner!” The shadows billowed outward from Krona like stormclouds and threatened to engulf Libra again, but soon withdrew as he said in a calmer tone, “All who have known my touch serve me. You know this.” Krona began to gently stroke the side of Libra’s masked face, a sign of a affection far removed from the rage he’d displayed mere seconds ago. “But make no mistake: Hex is merely a tool, one which shall be disposed of once I no longer have need for it, while you shall remain at my side for all eternity. Now...” Krona moved back, his hand still extended. “Arise, my prophet. Go and do my bidding, and know that I will always be with you.”
“Yes, my Lord.” Libra got his feet, his head bowed in respect as he waited for Krona to open the chamber and permit him to carry out the Master’s word.
Jonah stumbled down the dim hallway, one hand trailing along the wall for support and the other pressed against his aching gut. Thankfully, the medical pod had healed up the worst of Jonah’s wounds prior to him breaking out of it, but he was still in a goodly amount of pain, which only served to amplify his memories of writhing in the Crone’s chamber. A moan came unbidden from his throat as he recalled those skeletal hands cupping his face, drawing him closer to the corpse-like visage that lurked beneath the moldering shroud, its very voice searing images into Jonah’s skull, obliterating his will to resist one layer at a time. But he had resisted: no matter how painful the Crone’s probing of his mind became, no matter how much strength that monster drained from his body, he had screamed and pushed back and refused to give in. It was what Jonah had been doing his entire life, but this time, the cost of his resistance was greater than it ever had been before. This time, he’d paid for it not with blood or scars, but with his sanity.
His foot caught on some debris littering the floor, and Jonah fell. Though he had enough sense to brace his arms in front of him to lessen the impact, he didn’t try to get up, as there seemed to be little point in it. The most he did was lift his head to look further down the hallway, which abruptly ended in a gaping hole leading outside, thanks to the battle earlier. From his vantage point, Jonah could see a massive blue star rising over Qward, its presence casting an eerie glow across the landscape. To anyone else, such a sight may have elicited wonder, but to Jonah, it was just another reminder of how far from home he was, and he lowered his head so he wouldn’t have to look at it.
Then Jonah heard the sound of debris shifting, and when he lifted his head again, he saw silhouette of a figure standing near the hole. Considering they were about three stories up, the figure’s presence there was odd enough, but things became odder when the figure began to approach Jonah, and he got a better look at what the figure was wearing. As plain as day, he could see the Confederate-gray officer’s hat and tunic, the faded denim trousers, the cuffed leather boots, and as the figure stopped a mere five feet in front of him, Jonah caught sight of the twisted and burned flesh on the right side of the figure’s face.
Jonah Hex was face-to-face with himself.
“Cain’t be...” Jonah croaked, unsteadily climbing to his feet. “Yuh cain’t be me...yuh cain’t be here. Not like thet, not now.” He tugged at the bloodied, gray leather shirt he wore, saying, “This is who Ah am now. Thet uniform’s gone...yo’re gone. Ah’m all thet’s left.” He waved a hand in a shooing gesture. “So go on, get outta here.”
The figure remained, silent and unmoving.
“Yuh hear me, boy? Get out! Yuh don’t belong here! Yo’re dead! Yuh died the moment the Crone sunk its claws into yuh!” Jonah took a few steps towards the figure. “An’ it’s yer own damn fault! Nobody made yuh face off against them bug-eyes in the saloon. Yuh had a perfectly good opportunity tuh get out of thet place, an’ yuh didn’t take it. Yuh hesitated, an’ they ended up draggin’ yer sorry ass tuh this hellhole, an’ thet’s whut yuh deserved! Yo’re a goddam failure, thet’s whut yuh are! Yuh ain’t worth spit!”
The figure didn’t react, not even as Jonah closed the distance between them.
“Why are yuh here, anyhow? Tuh taunt me? Yuh here tuh remind me of all the things Ah lost? Ah know damn good an’ well whut Ah lost, Ah don’t need no ghosts showin’ up tuh tell me such. It ain’t like Ah had a lot afore Ah got here, anyhow, so whut dif’rence does a change of clothes or scenery make?” Jonah paused, breathing hard, then said in a quieter tone, “It makes a damn lot of dif’rence, thet’s whut it makes. It makes a dif’rence up here...an’ in here...” He tapped a finger against his head and heart in turn. “Thet’s whut hurts the most ‘bout whut the Crone did tuh me: it tainted every good memory Ah had. The bad ‘uns were already bad, but the good...the only thing thet kept me goin’ at times was the notion thet Ah might have more of ‘em someday. But now...now the world in muh head is just as twisted an’ ugly as the world around me. There ain’t nothin’ good left, inside or out.”
The figure stood by mutely while Jonah slowly shook his head.
“No...thet’s wrong. There’s one good thing left. Stella. She loves me, even knowin’ how fouled up Ah am inside, an’ Ah...Ah do muh best tuh do good by her. She’s like...a light in the window. When it gets all dark an’ stormy in muh head, she’s the light thet leads me back tuh safer ground.” Jonah closed his eyes and let out a shuddering sigh. “But it’s gettin’ harder tuh reach. Feels like something happens every day thet sets me off. Like thet greenhorn Yankee...the stuff he was sayin’...it hits muh brain an’ Ah...Ah kin see whut the Crone showed me.” He raised his trembling hands and curled them into fists, twisting and pulling them away from each other as he said, “Ah kin see the world gettin’ torn tuh pieces, an’ Ah don’t want tuh see thet, don’t want tuh even think it, but it’s in there, an’...an’ if’n whut thet greenhorn was sayin’ is true, then whut’s in muh head might be true as well.”
Jonah opened his eyes again. “Thet’s...thet’s why yo’re here, ain’t it?” he said to the figure, who still hadn’t moved an inch. “Things really are startin’ tuh unravel. Past an’ present an’ future...those words don’t mean anything anymore, do they? There’s just now, an’ yo’re here ‘cause...‘cause yo’re still in here.” He tapped a finger over his heart once more. “Even though it got buried under a lot of pain, who Ah used tuh be is still who Ah am now.”
“That’s not who you used to be,” a voice said behind Jonah, “that’s who you will be.” He turned around to see the Green Lantern approaching, with Stella not far behind. “I used my ring to generate an image of how you looked when I met you in 1878.” The masked man smirked, saying, “Green is just the default color for constructs. With a little extra concentration, I can produce other colors to a limited degree.”
Jonah gaped at him, then turned back to the figure and pressed a hand against it -- a slight ripple of green washed over the gray uniform coat. “Whut’s the point of this, other’n makin’ me act a fool?” he growled.
“He thought it might help you to see that, no matter what troubles you’re having right now, they won’t last forever.” Stella came up to Jonah and hugged him tightly, causing him to let out a slight groan of pain. “Whatever happens next, you’re going to get through it, and you’re going to make it back to 1875, back to that old life.”
“More important, I need you to make it back to 1875,” Green Lantern added. “I told you that we’d met before, but I didn’t tell you what you did for me. It’s a bit risky, telling you about events you haven’t lived through yet, so I can’t fill in all the details, but I can say that you saved my live, Jonah. That’s not an exaggeration: I would’ve died in the desert if you hadn’t found me. I read up on you after our encounter, so I know you have a reputation for being cold-blooded, unfeeling...but the Jonah Hex I met,” he said, pointing at the ring-generated figure, “was also willing to put his life on the line to help a stranger. You kept me safe until we found my comrades, and even then, you stuck around and fought side-by-side with us. No hesitation, no question. Thanks to you, I was able to get back to my own time. I was around to see my daughter be born, and to watch her grow up. But if something happens to you now, so that you’re not there to save me then...” He flicked his fingers, and the image of Hex in his Rebel togs dissolved into nothingness. “It’d be like pulling a lynchpin. Everything that I’ve done since our encounter in 1878 would cease to exist. The battles I’ve fought, the other adventures I’ve had...gone. All of it.” He paused a moment to let that sink in, then said, “You told me back then that, so as long as I rode with you, I could count on you as a friend. And even though I only knew you for a day, I still consider you my friend, and I’m just as willing to help you now as you were to help me back then.”
Jonah frowned at him. “How kin yuh consider me yer friend if’n yuh only knew me fer one damn day?”
“It was a Hell of a day.”
The bounty hunter glanced down at Stella, who still had her arms wrapped around him, then gently pulled away from her -- a look of concern flashed across her face, but she said nothing. He strode up to Green Lantern and stood silently in front of the man for a few moments, then said, “Despite all the words thet’ve been pourin’ outta yer mouth, yuh ain’t explained one thing.” Jonah poked a finger at the emerald symbol on his uniform. “The folks we’re sided with...their machines say this is the mark of an enemy. Why’s thet?”
“Even before Krona came along, the Qwardians had their minds set on conquest. The Green Lantern Corps -- which I’m part of -- had thwarted them on several occasions. That’s why the Guardians of the Universe sent me here: to see if the Qwardians were up to their old tricks, and to put a stop to it if necessary.”
“So there’s more’n one fella like yerself? Yo’re just part of an army?”
“We can function like an army, but for the most part, the Green Lanterns are more like...like Texas Rangers. We tend to handle things solo. You know, ‘One riot, one Ranger’.”
Jonah scoffed, “Ah ain’t never seen a Texas Ranger run around in nothin’ but green longjohns an’ a mask.”
“That may be, but my weapon is a lot more versatile than a rifle or a sixgun.”
“Ah’ll give yuh thet. Reckon we could use a whole mess of ‘em fer the fight thet’s comin’.”
“So I guess that means you trust me now?”
“Ah don’t trust anybody fully, not even muhself...‘specially these days.” Jonah gestured vaguely towards his head, saying, “Things still ain’t right up here, but Ah’m gettin’ a tighter grip on it all. Maybe even enough tuh puzzle out the stuff the Crone shoved in muh brain.” His brow furrowed. “Ah don’t know if’n Ah kin find all the right words tuh describe it proper, but Ah’ll do muh level best.”
Stella came up beside Jonah and laid a hand on his arm. “I know you can do it, cowboy. And me and Green Lantern will do what we can to help you get it all out.”
Jonah allowed himself a small smile as he glanced at Stella, then said, “Thet’s another thing: the Hell kinda name is ‘Green Lantern’?” He cocked his head slightly to look at the man in question. “Ah know a couple of masked men back home who don’t like to be called by their proper Christian names, but ain’t none of ‘em had a moniker as stupid as thet.”
“Hey, I didn’t pick it, it came with the uniform.” He held out a gloved hand, the emerald ring upon it glowing brightly. “When I’m not wearing it, though, people call me Hal Jordan.”
“Thet sounds a lot more proper.” Jonah took hold of his hand and gave it a firm shake.
Oliver Queen leaned back in his chair and asked, "On a scale of 1-to-10, how screwed are we?"
Outside the window of the Watchtower, the solar system was a crowded mess. Hundreds of planets, moons, satellites, stations, and ships had warped into close proximity to Earth just as the entropic wave -- previously held back by the Source Wall -- crashed into the shield generated by the last surviving members of the Green Lantern Corps. How many lives had been lost as the universe came to a crushing end outside the shield? Billions? Trillions? And now all of existence was represented by the races that had managed to strap rockets to their worlds, that had managed to follow Captain Comet's -- and later the Green Lantern Corps'-- advice to travel as quickly as possible to Earth space so they could make a final stand for existence there.
With entropy on their heels, the Green Lantern Corps had managed to turn the tide ever so briefly by pushing back against cataclysm with an emerald shield which lay within the orbit of the now-vanished Pluto. But the cost of that victory had been the lives of two brave men, and now the survivors were stuck in a bubble, waiting for the strain of the energies that had erased all existence but them to finish the job they'd started when the Source Wall fell!
"I don't think that scale does the situation justice, Ollie,” replied Ray Palmer.
John Constantine rolled his eyes and cursed the fact that his beautiful, beloved wife had made him quit smoking. "I mean, we're in a snow globe, ain't we? Or ants under a magnifying glass on a bright and sunny day… either way… we’re well and truly done in, right?”
"That is an over-simplification,” said Doc Robotman.
John pointed an accusatory finger at the cybernetic amalgamation of Cliff Steele’s brain and Niles Caulder’s vast intellect. "But an accurate one, right, tinman?"
Vic Stone tried to ignore the vast egos that were taking up so much space in the room and interrupted the pair. "I've been mapping the gravitational effects each satellite is having on the limited space we're dealing with. If we can redistribute the worlds so that we can harmonise the effects, I think that'll be the best bet, but at the same time... we don't know how long the Green Lantern Corps' shield can hold. While the old 24-hour limit no longer applies to the charges in their rings, the strain on the Lanterns is immeasurable. We're only here today because Guy Gardner sacrificed himself and spread the Blue Lantern energies across the shield and infused it."
"Speaking of which, has anybody heard from Hal Jordan lately?" asked Ollie.
"I don't see how one more Green Lantern can make a difference at this stage,” said Cassie Sandsmark, aka Wonder Woman.
John shrugged. "Every little bit helps, mate. Even at the end of the world."
Roy Harper shook his head vehemently. "That's not why he’s asking. Barry outraced the end of the universe, the end of time itself, to get back to this timeframe, and one of the first things he did when he arrived was ask about Hal. Neither me nor Ollie have seen him since the church. Has anyone spoken to Chloe? Or his daughter?"
Tim Wayne, aka the Batman, said, "Chloe has been granted emergency powers by the United Nations to coordinate Earth-based forces to help keep the peace. Hal and Jessica are currently MIA… along with the rest of the All-Stars.”
Roy blinked and then said, "Excuse me, what?"
"Good God," whispered Ollie. “We’re losing kids now? Shouldn’t they have been with their parents?”
Batman started, “Now’s not the time--” But there was a thudding tremor and the heads of all the assembled heroes swiveled toward the window; a small ship had bounced off the reinforced walls of the Watchtower and spun away, back into the previously-spacious void beyond the moon.
"What the hell...?" asked Ollie.
Cyborg grimaced. "We had to mute the proximity alarms, there's too much happening outside for them to be accurate. There are hundreds of worlds from across the universe now taking up space where there was nothing but void previously. I’m currently working in tandem with LEGION to coordinate the surviving space fleets to try and stop that kind of thing happening, because we don't have enough colleagues capable of surviving in space. I'll reactivate the alarm now..."
Oliver threw his hands up. "So, when we all die in here, it'll be because of traffic violations?"
"Or because the shield falls," offered Katar Hol, aka Hawkman.
"Or because whatever it is that Krona and Libra have in store for us isn't anywhere near done,” said Cyborg.
“You never know, maybe he’s won. Maybe they’ve done what they set out to do, and they’ve left us in their dirt, waiting for the lights to go out,” said Constantine.
“You better be wrong, trenchcoat boy, or else we went through a whole lotta trouble for nothing.” Detective Chimp came into the meeting room, with Dawn Makes-Strong-Move, Kid Eternity, and the Phantom Stranger right behind him, along with a dark-haired young man. No one recognized him, but Tim noticed that the clothes he wore seemed too large for him: the cuffs of his black slacks bunched up over the tops of his expensive-looking shoes, and his deep-gray turtleneck hung somewhat loosely on his frame. Adding to the incongruity was the partially-burned utility belt around his waist, which sported a gold letter L alongside a starburst upon its circular buckle -- Tim thought he’d seen the insignia before, but he couldn’t recall where.
“So, lose some kids, gain another,” Ollie muttered. “Who’s the new fish?”
“My name’s Rokk Krinn...Cosmic Boy.” There was a slight hesitancy when he spoke. Those in the room thought perhaps he was nervous, but in truth, Rokk still couldn’t believe he was speaking fluent Ancient English, courtesy of a little tap on the forehead with the blunt side of the True Axe. It certainly beat having a telepathic plug buzz in your ear. “I’m with the Legion of Super-Heroes.”
“You mean those guys outside playing intergalactic parking attendant?” Roy said.
“Actually,” Dawn replied, “Rokk here is from the 31st Century.”
The room was silent for a moment, until Constantine broke it by declaring, “Bullocks.”
Even translated, Rokk wasn’t familiar with the expletive, but he got the gist. “I know it’s probably hard to believe, but according to them,” he said, gesturing to Dawn and the others, “my presence here at this moment of crisis was apparently predicted thousands of years ago. Considering that, where I just came from, I was most-assuredly about to die, I would much rather be here right now than where I was.” He then cast his eyes around the meeting room, saying, “Of course, there’s always the possibility that I am dead and this is some unimagined afterlife. But in either case, I’m here, and I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
Ollie crossed his arms on the table. “So, what’s your gig, Rocky? Lead singer in a super-boy-band?” The words had barely left his mouth when the arrows in his quiver began to do just that, flying out of their own volition and hovering tips-down over Cosmic Boy’s waiting hands.
“Magnetic field manipulation,” Doc Robotman mused. “I could feel the tug of it when the arrows passed by me.”
Batman nodded. “Could be useful for repositioning the refugee ships. How are you in space?”
“If I still had my transuit and flight ring, I’d be fine, but both were destroyed right before I was brought to this time.” As he spoke, he waved his hand and let the arrows pile up on the table in front of the Emerald Archer, who gave Rokk a dirty look. “If you have something equivalent...”
“I know somebody who might be able to help with the latter,” a voice suddenly said from the direction of the windows. Everyone turned to see Superwoman hovering out in the vacuum. “Sorry for eavesdropping...super-hearing, can’t help it.” She spoke close enough to the window and with precise puffs of super-breath to make the reinforced material vibrate, thereby projecting her voice into the room.
“Kara…?” whispered Batman. He had been there, along with the now-dead Guy Gardner, when the Fortress of Solitude fell into the Phantom Zone. He’d held out hope, but in this life, that was never something you could grasp for long.
“You made it back. That’s amazing,” said Red Arrow. “But how?”
“I’ll explain later,” Kara answered. “Or ask Lena and Corben. They’re on their way up. In the meantime, Kon, Kru, and myself are going to see what we can do about the overcrowding out here.” She then looked directly at Cosmic Boy. “Are you here by yourself, Rokk, or is the rest of the Legion around somewhere? I just hope Brainy’s not with you, I really don’t think I could handle a run-in with an ex on top of everything else today.”
“I...I’m sorry...what?” Cosmic Boy was positively agape. “How do you know who I am?”
“Wait...what year did you come from?”
“3006.”
“Oh...oh, Rao. Sorry for the spoilers.” Kara held up her hands as she moved away from the window, saying, “I’ll be more careful next time we talk, promise!” She soon became a red-and-blue blur across the void.
Ray Palmer put a hand on Rokk’s shoulder. “You look like you should take a seat.”
“That...that was Superwoman, wasn’t it?” Rokk said as the Atom steered him towards the table. “I’ve seen the history tapes, but...how does Superwoman know who I am?”
Tim suppressed a smile: now he recalled why that belt insignia looked familiar. “While our new friend collects himself, Cyborg, could you please bring up the active threat board? Let's regroup, recap, and figure out how to save what's left of the universe."
The meeting room’s lights dimmed and above the large table a holographic display lit up, showing a number of crises the world -- and entire universe -- were currently facing. Cyborg cleared his throat, and said, "Right. Obviously, the main threat on the board is that our universe has crashed down to a fraction of its former size, and would have collapsed entirely without the Corps’ intervention. We have to face facts, though: this is only a stopgap measure, as those Lanterns can’t keep pouring out every ounce of their willpower indefinitely. In addition, the timeline has shrunk to this timespan we're existing in right now. As Roy mentioned, Barry Allen was barely able to keep ahead of the timeline’s collapse and make it back here. He said once he got Iris and the kids settled in up here on the satellite, he’d try and reconnect with the Speed Force again, both to assess the temporal damage and see if he can find any trace of Jesse Quick. Until we get a read on how much ‘here’ is still here, there’s no way of knowing how many days -- or hours -- or minutes -- we have left."
Oliver looked at Roy, then back to Cyborg. "I hadn't thought about it like that."
Kid Eternity leaned down next to Cosmic Boy, saying in a low voice, “Sounds like it was a miracle I was even able to pull you here.”
“In the literal sense,” the Phantom Stranger concurred, “once you consider the source of your powers...as well as how we were informed of our new ally’s existence.”
Batman looked up at the display grimly and said, "We don't know the cause of the problem, so how can we anticipate its effect?"
Cyborg continued. "We’ve confirmed that the Key's escape coincided with the mass opening of doors-- both locked and unlocked-- across the universe. And by every door, we mean every door. Every prison, every dimension, every mystical realm, the length and breadth of the Source Wall… all open.”
“And here we are, living in a snow globe..." said Constantine.
"Please let that analogy go,” said the Atom.
Ollie shrugged. "I want it to be my epitaph."
John propped his feet on the table and said, "Anyways, since we’re listing all our woes, I suppose I should finally tell you why I’m here: the Shadowpact journeyed to Heaven to rescue Zauriel, who we suspect is being held against her will to take the Creation blueprint from her skin. That’s our working hypothesis, of course. We won’t know until the team gets back."
“Jesus Christ, are you serious?” said Ollie.
Cyborg’s eyes opened wide. "You think that they're going to try and reboot the universe?"
John nodded. "If push comes to shove, yeah, and I have to admit, I'd rather it be someone without an agenda behind the reboot -- somebody like us -- rather than someone who might try to make 'improvements' -- like the Host up there." He twirled a finger Heavenward for emphasis.
“Do you have any updates from them?” asked Cassie.
“We lost contact as soon as they left. And with the universe crashing down, who even knows if they survived the journey.” Constantine glanced over to where Dawn and the Stranger stood. “Any celestial insights you could provide there, my all-seeing loves?”
“I am...not permitted,” was all the Phantom Stranger would say.
Dawn hefted the True Axe. “Piercing the veil of Heaven isn’t something I do on a regular basis, especially with all the other disturbances going on throughout the realms, but if you could point me to a quiet corner of the Watchtower, I’m more than willing to try.”
Constantine got up and made a show of leading her out of the meeting room, with Kid Eternity right behind because -- even though Dawn could handle herself -- he didn’t trust leaving that magical con-man alone with her for one second. As for the Phantom Stranger, he’d moved to the corner of the room where the two Questions stood. Sage and Montoya had contributed little in the past half-hour, mainly just talking quietly to each other, with the occasional beep of their smartphones interspersed. Now the Stranger had joined the barely-audible conversation.
“You mentioned two others right as we arrived,” Cosmic Boy said, turning to Cyborg. “Krona and Libra. Who are they, and what’s their involvement in this?”
“Libra is a mystery to us for the most part,” Vic Stone replied, “but Krona is very well-known.” The holographic display changed to show a man with blue skin and a gleam of madness in his eyes. “He’s a member of the immortal race that became the Guardians of the Universe. Billions of years ago, he attempted to witness the birth of the Universe itself, and in doing so...he shattered it. That created the Multiverse as we now know it.” The image shifted to show the Earth itself, which soon exploded into a endless spiral of near-identical Earths. “Since he was immortal, Krona’s people turned him into disembodied energy, forcing him to wander forever across the very Multiverse he helped to create, but unable to interact with it...or at least, that’s what they believed. He’s actually reincorporated himself on multiple occasions, but luckily, the Green Lantern Corps has been able to stop his previous attempts at taking over the universe.” He noted an odd look that passed over Cosmic Boy’s face and asked, “Is the Green Lantern Corps still around in the 31st Century?”
“Sort of,” Rokk answered. “What was word Superwoman said? Spoilers?”
“Oh, I can’t wait to tell Hal about this when he turns up again,” Ollie said.
Red Arrow waved his hand. "Hate to interrupt the history lesson, but how about I offer an alternative solution to trying to outwit a near-god? We run away. Evacuate to Earth-2, or to another friendly universe. This snow globe -- if that’s what we’re calling it -- is gonna shatter sooner rather than later, right? We can abandon ship. Find somewhere to get our bearings.”
The Atom shook his head. "Whatever Krona has done, we're cut off from the Multiverse. Power Girl and the science squad have been trying to break through the vibrational barrier into the Bleed so we can ask for help, but it's like the science has been twisted inside out. We're locked out. Locked in. We're alone."
"Okay, so now I feel stupid..." said Roy.
Cassie shook her head. “Don’t. This is the last stand of our reality. If Krona succeeds in whatever his plan is here, what’s to stop him travelling from parallel to parallel, bringing about this doom on whatever universe he lands in? We have to draw the line here. He cannot be allowed to push us back any further. If we do, then what?”
A silence fell over the room once more as the weight of Cassie’s words -- of their dire situation -- pressed down upon those assembled. Cosmic Boy clasped his hands before him upon the table and, after a while, said, “Not long after the Legion’s founding, we faced off against someone who’d been...transformed like this Krona. A scientist working on proving the theory that time is cyclical. I don’t know if any of you are familiar with that.”
Doc Robotman nodded, saying, “There’s a few different models, but the common idea that time is an infinite loop: if you managed to reach the ‘end’ of time, you’d simply cycle back around to the beginning and, therefore, could keep traveling into the ‘future’ until you reached the point at which you left.”
“Pretty sure I watched a Futurama episode like this once,” said Detective Chimp.
“Please, Bobo, this is a serious conversation,” Doc Robotman sighed. “Continue, Mr. Krinn.”
“To keep it short, there was an accident, and he got caught in the loop, going through the birth and death of the universe ‘a million million times’, as he put it. He gained fantastic powers over the timestream because of it, but it also drove him insane.” Rokk shook his head, saying, “We tried to contain him, but it was close to impossible. The best we could do was have Lightning Lad overload the machine which caused the accident in the first place and send him back into the loop. That was the last we ever saw of him. I don’t know what you’ve tried against Krona before, but if his physical state is anything like the Infinite Man’s, then perhaps...” Cosmic Boy stopped talking when he realised nearly everyone was staring at him in shock. “What’s wrong?”
Instead of answering, Batman stabbed a button on the comm panel. “Barbara, anything new in regards to our guest in Centennial Park?”
Like Dawn, Batwoman had gone off to a less-hectic room in the Watchtower to perform her work. “Not a thing. Monitors show him just sitting there, and on-the-ground observers haven’t reported anything unusual.”
“What about your database searches? Have you turned up anything on that name Krona called him before vanishing?”
“Sorry, Dick and I have plugged ‘Jaxon Rugarth’ into every system we have access to at the moment, both here on Earth and on the worlds that we’re cosied up with now, and gotten absolutely nothing back. We even used voice recognition in case there was a spelling variation we were missing. Whoever this ‘Infinite Man’ really is, there’s no record of him anywhere.”
“Don’t feel bad. Turns out you were searching a thousand years too early. Meet us down by the teleporters and I’ll explain.” Batman turned off the comm and looked at Cosmic Boy, who’d been on his feet ever since Babs spoke the Infinite Man’s true name. “Pardon the pun, but it looks like you got here at just the right time.”
“You seriously captured the Infinite Man?” Cos asked. “But how?”
“That’s kinda the problem: We don’t know how,” the Atom said.
“Less talking, more walking.” Batman began to exit the meeting room, with Cos, Atom, and a few other heroes right behind him. Detective Chimp turned towards where he last saw the Phantom Stranger to ask if he was coming along, but he was nowhere to be seen.
In the corner of the meeting room, apparently oblivious to this newest development, the Questions continued to speak quietly to each other, stopping only to glance at their phones from time to time.
The transmat room was a flurry of activity. The Qwardian techs present were overwhelmingly eager to fulfill the Prophet’s wishes, rushing about to move equipment into place and reconfigure the teleportation sequence for its new target. In Libra’s opinion, however, they weren’t moving fast enough, so he gave them all a mental nudge, to the point where one of them sliced her hand on a piece of metal jutting out, yet she didn’t appear to notice, dripping blood across the floor with every step she took.
The injuries she and the others sustained in their efforts to please Libra mattered not a whit to him, as he looked upon them as disposable tools that could be cast aside without a second thought. Krona had taught him early on that the only value a person held was in whether or not they were useful to his master’s goal. The Qwardians were useful because the race’s xenophobia could be twisted easily into religious fervor, thereby making them loyal to a god that promised them paradise whilst devouring them with reckless abandon. The so-called “heroes” were useful because the myriad skills at their command, combined with their innate desire to overcome the impossible, made them blind to the destruction they were unknowingly contributing to.
And then there was his brother, Equinox, who even in death served Krona. His corpse powered the transmat system, while the amulet he’d built to regulate his ability to move across spacetime formed the basis of the system’s control unit. Libra’s hands were resting upon the control unit’s main panel at that moment, his fingers eager to begin the sequence that would bring the Infinite Man over to the anti-matter universe. There had been enough delays already, the last being a human telepath that’d been brought in just as Libra reached the transmat room. It had taken a combination of the Qwardians’ blows and Libra’s emotion-bending abilities to subdue the human. Not surprisingly, the willpower displayed by this human caught Krona’s attention, and the master quickly spoke into his servant’s mind and bade him to have the human prepared for sacrifice. It had been the same way with Hex months earlier, only this time, Libra knew that Krona wouldn’t linger over this human, not when they were so close to final ascension. No, this feast would be quick and brutal and soaked in pain.
Libra lamented that he wouldn’t be present to enjoy it alongside his master.
Night had fallen over the Big Apricot, but it was unlike any night this world had ever experienced before. Instead of a black expanse filled with stars, the sky was instead a deep, velvety emerald studded with tiny sparks of green. Cosmic Boy knew each one of those sparks was a Green Lantern, and he wondered how the people in his time would react if they knew that the peacekeeping force they’d banned from entering U.P. space years ago was now the only thing keeping Earth alive. Of course, this wasn’t their Earth, but rather the Earth of a thousand years previous: a half-remembered period that only existed in what little pre-Disaster material had survived centuries of wars and upheavals. Great swaths of Earth history were unknown in the 31st Century, which was why places like the Time Institute existed, for it was hoped that, someday, they could reach back into the past and recover what was lost.
Of course, if it wasn’t for the Time Institute, Jaxon Rugarth wouldn’t have been accidentally transformed into the Infinite Man. This fact was on Cosmic Boy’s mind as they approached the huge hourglass-shaped device in the middle of Centennial Park (the sight of that place alone amazed him: from Rokk’s perception, he’d been there only a few weeks prior to celebrate the coming of the New Year, but it looked wholly different in his time). Inside the device could be seen a man sitting cross-legged and hunched over, as if the intense light given off by the device was weighing down upon him. Gathered all around it were various heroes, some of which Cos recognized from history tapes, but many were a mystery to him. The Atom walked ahead of Rokk and the others in their group and approached a man dressed in varying shades of blue, with a yellow-goggled hood pulled back from his head. The man looked haggard, his eyes fixed on a data tablet in hand. “Still no luck, Ted?” Atom asked.
“No,” he replied tersely. “I’ve come at this thing from every angle, and all I’ve got the show for it is bupkis!” He threw the tablet on the ground, then pushed his hands up into his brown hair, saying, “I'm a damn super scientist, and I've thrown all my ideas at one problem and come up short, and if I don't keep busy I'll start thinking about how Booster is dead and the world is ending and nothing I can do is making a damn difference!” He sounded on the verge of tears.
“Okay, that’s it, I’m tagging you out.” Atom waved a hand at a stunning woman who appeared to be made out of green flame. “Bea, make sure Ted gets up to the Watchtower in one piece. I think Kimiyo and Akihiko are in one of the science labs monitoring the entropy wave.” As she led the distraught man away, Atom picked up the tablet and examined the cracked screen. “As depressing as it is to say, I think it’s only a matter of time before all of us fall apart like Blue Beetle. If it wasn’t for every telepath available projecting an aura of calm over the general populace, there’d be riots in the streets right now.”
“I still don’t understand what the problem is,” Cosmic Boy said, “by which I mean that.” He pointed at the device. “You captured the Infinite Man, a feat we couldn’t even accomplish in my time, yet you talk like it’s a bigger problem than all of existence falling in on itself.”
“Only because Krona duped us into doing it,” Batwoman answered. “He got Libra to cloud our minds somehow and talk us into building the device from data they provided. Now they’re gone, along with every trace of the data, and no one can figure out how to undo this.”
“Or why they wanted it done in the first place,” her husband-to-be, Nightwing, added. “especially since they up and left this guy here instead of taking him with them.”
“Silly question: Did you try talking with him about any of this?”
Green Arrow mockingly thumped the heel of his hand against his forehead, saying, “Of course, why didn’t any of us think of that? It sure is a good thing you showed up, Magnet Boy.”
“It’s Cosmic Boy.”
“Don’t mind him, he’s got a terminal case of sarcasm,” a blonde-haired woman in a purple hooded cloak said as she came over to their group. After going up to Batman and giving his hand a quick squeeze, she said to Rokk. “You’re the new guy, I take it? The one who supposedly knows who our guest under glass is?”
“If that really is Jaxon Rugarth, yes. To be honest, it doesn’t look at all that much like him, either before or after he was transformed.”
“Probably because that body you’re seeing is artificial,” the Atom explained. “One of the components Libra had us put into this thing was pulverized silica...more commonly known as industrial sand. When this guy manifested inside there, the device apparently made a body for him out of it.” Atom shook his head, saying, “We literally built a sand-filled hourglass to contain a being that exists within the timestream.”
“As for him talking,” the woman continued, “he did quite a lot at first...in about thirty languages we could understand and some that we couldn’t. It all amounted to the same thing: he wanted us to let him out. After a few minutes of yelling and pounding on the walls, he kind of ran out of steam and plunked himself down. He hasn’t responded to anything from us the whole time he’s been here. M’Gann even tried a telepathic probe, but she couldn’t get anywhere.”
“I recall Saturn Girl had similar trouble when we faced him. Thank you, Ms...?”
“Spoiler.”
Rokk’s eyebrows went up. “You can’t tell me your name?”
“Just call her Steph,” Batman interjected.
Rather than question any further, the Legionnaire shrugged it off. “Would you mind if I tried speaking to him?”
Ollie muttered, “Knock yourself out, Rocky.”
Cosmic Boy ignored the jibe and walked up to the device, which sat on a four-foot-high circular platform. The closer he got, the more he could tell that, indeed, the figure inside wasn’t flesh and blood. The fine, light brown sand had been molded into the perfect contours of a naked male human, but it lacked the intricate details like nails, hair, and winkles. If he didn’t know otherwise, he would’ve assumed this to be a sculpture, and not a manifestation of one of the Legion of Super-Heroes’ most-powerful adversaries.
“Hello, Jaxon,” Rokk said in Interlac. “It’s been a while.” There was no answer, so he decided to just keep on. “I want to apologize for what we had to do...in our time, I mean. We wanted to help you, to return you to normal, but your powers...just your presence in the room was warping time out of joint. It nearly killed us. Sending you back into the timestream was the only thing we could think to do.” The regret he felt was stamped plain upon his face. “I wish we could’ve helped you then. I can’t imagine what you’ve suffered through since.”
A few grains of sand slipped loose as the Infinite Man lifted his head and fixed eyes like smooth river stones upon him. “Oh, but you did help me,” the entity that had once been called Jaxon Rugarth said in perfect Ancient English. “When we last met, I was a mere infant, mewling after being ripped from the womb. I didn’t understand yet what I was, any more than you did. Even after all those eons of gestation, I still thought myself human underneath all that, but I was wrong.” He stood up and stepped towards the transparent barrier that lay between himself and the heroes, leaving grainy footprints in his wake. “I am a part of Time itself, spread out across every dimension, condemned to travel its length and breadth for eternity, but unable to interact. I am a silent witness to every moment in every reality from beginning to end and back again.”
“And you look like Clayface’s grittier cousin,” Nightwing said.
Jaxon stayed focused on Rokk, kneeling in front of him and pressing his sand-crafted hand against the barrier. “Despite the circumstances, I am happy to speak with you again, to thank you for acting as midwife to my birth. I know now that could have done no less.” His mouth widened into a grin, revealing an approximation of teeth. “After all, you are zir champion.”
Cos’s eyes narrowed. “Whose champion? I was told that a...a voice called out across the universe looking for me, but nobody knows who that voice belongs to. Is it you?”
“No...no, you are the champion of my Mate, whom you and my former colleagues refer to as the Time Trapper.”
Rokk paled. “Oh grife...” He turned to the others, who were all looking at him with confused expressions. “The Time Trapper is...well, no one knows who or what it is. Brainy theorizes that it’s...like living entropy, or at the very least exists inside of it. Not long after Jaxon’s accident, the Legion helped the Time Institute perfect their Time Spheres, and we began making short trips through the timestream. Pretty soon, we caught the attention of the Time Trapper, who said we weren’t ready yet for what lay ahead. It literally threw us back into the 31st Century and set up what we’ve dubbed ‘the iron curtain of time’. Ever since then, the Time Spheres can’t travel more than thirty days into the future, and even going backwards can be difficult sometimes.”
“It’s for your own good,” Jaxon said, still grinning. “I’ve seen what’s waiting for you...or rather, what was waiting for you. That’s gone now. It’s all gone. As the timeline unravels, my Mate draws ever closer, tearing through the boundaries of reality until zie finally reaches me.” The grin suddenly faded. “That’s something else I was wrong about. Time isn’t a loop, you see: it’s a snowflake, made up of 196,833 separate dimensional planes, each one containing a slightly different version of reality. And that snowflake is merely one of a infinite number of snowflakes. The further out you go, the more different reality becomes...and zie and I exist in all of them. We have beheld images your eyes could never comprehend. We have witnessed marvels your mind could never fathom. Over and over again, forever repeating...but not anymore. This is the last time.” Jaxon’s eyes closed and he said quietly, “Krona is going to take zir from me and destroy it all.”
Ollie made a face. “What’s all this ‘zie’ and ‘zir’ stuff about?”
“Gender-neutral pronouns,” Detective Chimp answered, glaring up at him. “I thought you were supposed to be an enlightened liberal.”
Batman stepped up next to the barrier and said, “You know what Krona’s ultimate plan is? How do we stop it? There has to be a way to reverse all the damage he’s done to this reality.” The Infinite Man stayed silent and unmoving, so Tim banged a fist against the barrier. “Talk, damn you! I’m not going to let all of existence fall apart without a fight!”
“Answer him, Jaxon,” Cosmic Boy said.
“Answer who?” he asked, looking up once more. “There’s no one else here, just corpses.”
Batman snarled, “Listen to me, you son of a bitch...”
“NO! YOU will listen to ME!” the Infinite Man roared back. “The last thing I saw before I was pulled from my proper body was this reality shattering into nothing 45 minutes from now! It has already happened! It will happen! No amount of dead words uttered by dead people will prevent it!”
“Then why did you bother talking to me?” Cos asked.
“Out of respect for my Mate. In every reality you exist in, you are zir champion, the one zie always turns to when zie needs a soldier to do zir bidding, whether they’re aware of it or not. There’s many others zie has used for this role, but you...you’re zir favorite. I suspect that’s because, in a few of them, you and zir are one and the same.” Noting the shock on Cos’s face, he said, “As I told you before, I exist in every reality, and so does my Mate. Not always the same face or name or gender or species, but the consciousness, you see, is the same. When a reality comes to be, we are born into it, a physical part of it. In this reality and many others, I was Jaxon Rugarth. Then there are ones where Jaxon Rugarth exists, but I am not him, I am someone else. In this reality, you and my Mate are separate entities, while in others, the entity known as Rokk Krinn is fated to become zir. The point is, eventually, no matter who or what or where myself and my Mate are, we ascend. Our consciousness rejoins with our true bodies, the ones that span across all those snowflakes I told you about.”
Batman ventured, “And then you and this ‘Mate’ of yours...the Time Trapper...you meet up?”
“Weren’t you listening? We can’t reach each other!” The Infinite Man stood and paced away from them. “We spend an eternity alone, each aware of the other’s existence due to previous encounters, but unable to be together. Not until it all ends.” He spun back around and rushed up to the barrier, falling to his knees. “Once a reality collapses in on itself, we can finally stand beside each other, we can touch.” His voice choked with emotion as he said, “We can only do this for the briefest of seconds before it all explodes outward again, and we have to live out eternity all over again in a new reality. We’ve done this countless times, and it’s the most glorious and the most devastating thing you can imagine. And Krona...” The near-sobbing in his voice suddenly changed to laughter. “Krona wants this voluntarily!”
The Atom walked up beside Cosmic Boy. “You’re right, the guy’s completely insane.”
“What if he’s not, though?” Batman said. “Think of all the things we’ve seen over the years, Ray. Who’s to say that something like himself and the Time Trapper can’t exist?”
“Okay, we’ll say it’s true. Two cosmic forces are about to have a little dalliance in our backyard. What’s Krona’s part in this? Did he set all this up as a kind of final revenge on the universe?”
“It’s more than that,” Batwoman said. “Krona referred to the Infinite Man as the groom in a temporal union. I thought he was being metaphorical, but perhaps he meant it in a literal sense.”
“Yes! The Oracle sees the truth!” Jaxon, still on his knees, moved towards her, dislodging more bits of sand from his artificial body as he did so. “I knew I could count on you to understand. Every version of you is so intelligent, so insightful.” His eyes fixed on Nightwing. “You made a wise choice in this reality. I’ve never understood why you don’t pick her every time, the attraction between you two is undeniable. You remind me of myself and my Mate, the two of you just...you need to be together. I was so happy to see you two taking your vows earlier today. A shame that was also the moment it all began to fall apart.”
“The disturbance at the church, when Vandal Savage was killed,” Barbara gasped. “You’re the ‘eternal walker’ Rip talked about!”
“Yes, I was there, watching like always. I could feel my Mate close by at the moment of Vandar Adg’s death...so tantalizingly close...yet I still...couldn’t...” He let out a sob as he said, “I need to be with zir, but Krona won’t let me! He wants to take my place beside my Mate! I don’t know how he learned about us, but he did, and when he did...” He paused, closing his eyes again, then slammed his fists on the barrier, screaming, “He doesn’t realise what he’s doing! He’s so focused on his end goal that it’s made him blind to the consequences! He doesn’t know...” Another pause as he appeared to regain some semblance of control over himself. “You don’t know. You’ve been told over and over again and you still don’t know.”
Cosmic Boy asked, “What? What don’t we know?”
“How Krona has manipulated you. Not just this.” He waved a hand to indicate the device that held him. “Your lives, and the lives of those that came before you. He’s been snipping away at all the little threads that hold your lives together. Pushing things one way, pulling things another. You, my dear Rokk Krinn, were one of the first. Can’t have the champion muddling about, no, so you had to go.” He pressed his face up against the barrier and said, “You shouldn’t have brought Nemesis Kid to Titan. All it took was the tiniest poke from Krona, and he left you to die with two minutes to spare. You’ll be happy to know that Ranzz led a vote to expel him from the Legion. Not that it mattered much: the entire 31st Century ceased to exist less than a week later. You’ll be joining them soon.”
Rokk took a few steps away from the barrier, numb at the revelation.
“You’ll all be joining them!” Jaxon stood up to address the assemblage of heroes gathered in Centennial Park, smiling as if he were delivering joyous news. “In about 44 minutes, all that pushing and pulling will come to fruition! You have no idea how many people Krona has removed from this reality to ensure what’s about to come next! How many names you’ve forgotten because he took them from you without you realising it! And once Krona gets what he wants...that’s when the avalanche comes.” Still smiling, he looked down at Rokk and the others, saying, “Once Krona has taken over my true body, he plans on devouring my Mate and taking zir power as well. He thinks he can hold onto all that and reshape the universe as he sees it, but he doesn’t know the truth. About the snowflakes. 196,833 separate planes in each one, stretching out over infinity. And my Mate and I exist in all of them.” He began to laugh again. “There’s no way Krona can hold onto all of that! He’ll unravel, and so will every reality for all time! An endless cascade of collapse! There will be NO LIFE again, ANYWHERE, in ANY reality! Only endless NOTHING!”
“What if we let you out?” Barbara asked. “If we can break you free from this prison Krona had us build, could you go back to your true body and prevent him from overtaking it?”
“Most certainly,” the Infinite Man replied, suddenly calm once more, “but this reality will still die. All the rest will be spared, yes, but this one...no, I’m sorry, no, too much damage done, too many broken threads. My Mate and I will touch and wipe it all away and something new shall spring up in its place. It’s inevitable now. A shame. Some of my favorite versions of you are here, but at least...” He stiffened, then clamped his hands on the sides of his head. “No no no no! I won’t go! I won’t let you do this!” The heroes presumed this to be another rant until their ears picked up on a barely-perceptible hum coming from the device.
“Energy surge, but I can’t localize it!” Ray Palmer said as he frantically flipped through programs on the tablet. “Signature is similar to when Krona manifested!”
They all tensed, expecting the former Guardian to suddenly appear before them, but instead, they saw a red haze beginning to form around the device containing the Infinite Man. “They’re trying to teleport it out,” Batman declared. “We have to get this thing open, now!”
Though he was still shaken by what Jaxon had told them, Cosmic Boy said, “Let me try. You’ve all had a go at it already, so maybe...”
“Do it,” Batman replied, already waving everyone else back. “Give it everything you’ve got.”
Cos raised his hands and reached out with his powers to get a hold of the incredible amount of electromagnetic energy pulsing through the device. They’d explained to him earlier how it had been powered up by Jesse Quick, who’d vanished into the Speed Force during the process, much to the dismay of her husband, Hourman. It was a sacrifice that, at the time, they’d thought was for the greater good, but now they knew it was possibly another death to lay at Krona’s feet. In his mind, Rokk began to construct a picture of the device, its every component outlined in magnetic waves -- nothing was hidden from him, not even the tiniest molecule of metallic substance -- then he began to probe any and all perceived weaknesses, praying to every Brallian god he could think of while he did so.
A sound began to grow in the air, like a reverberation of the universe itself as the device began to fade away, yet it couldn’t fully disappear due to Cosmic Boy’s magnetic grip upon it -- for good measure, the Legionnaire directed a portion of his powers downward, anchoring himself to the maze of metal crisscrossing beneath the streets of Metropolis. The two opposing forces grappled with each other, and the sound grew louder, causing all of those assembled to cover their ears. Everything made of glass within a hundred-foot radius started to vibrate, then shatter, save for the hourglass that held the Infinite Man, who was clawing at it from the inside with such force that his sand-crafted fingers were wearing down to nubs.
Finally, there was a tremendous CRACK as the device disappeared from sight and Cosmic Boy collapsed from sheer exhaustion. “Couldn’t...couldn’t hold it...any longer,” he managed to say as Batman and the Atom helped him to his feet -- the young man’s body was trembling from the effort he’d put in. “I’m sorry...oh grife, I’m so sorry...”
“You did what you could, “Batman told him quietly. “We all did.”
Today was not turning out the way Alice Stuart had expected at all. Then again, that was par for the course in regards to her life. She’d expected to parlay her civilian piloting skills into an Air Force career, not to be given a discharge after filing a sexual harassment claim against the base commander. She’d expected to have a nice, quiet visit with her grandfather as he struggled with late-stage cancer, not for him to confess about an ultra-secret government project from his days as President of the United States that he didn’t approve of in the least but was powerless to stop. She’d expected to break into a facility to steal a few hard drives and maybe wreck some equipment, not come face-to-face the ghost of a distant ancestor who’d become the unwilling participant in an experiment thanks to some techno-mystical wizardry involving a World War II tank. She’d expected to just pilot a one-of-a-kind spacecraft away from those who seemed bent on using it for nefarious purposes, not to get talked into zipping across the cosmos helping folks on alien worlds...okay, she didn’t mind the last bit so much.
Still and all, when the general plotted them a new course that sent them straight into the hull of a massive starship, Alice really questioned the wisdom of his navigation. Then she saw the kids and realised this was another of the general’s “missions” that he never bothered to explain to her in advance, she just had to figure it out on the fly, just like Grandpa Jeb always had to during the war. So she let the guy that the kids addressed as Professor Todd talk her into playing space cabbie so they could rescue the dad of one of the kids. Now she was fighting the controls as the space-tank attempted to punch through reality itself and into the anti-matter universe. Normally, the experimental spirit drive that powered the craft would drop it in and out of normal space with ease, crossing light-years in a couple of minutes, but this was taking far longer than any other trip so far, and the entire craft felt like it was on the verge of shaking apart from the strain. “You sure this is doable, general?” Alice asked, not taking her eyes off of the maelstrom of rainbows that swirled outside the space-tank’s windshield.
“Yew need to trust in yuh commanding officer more, little lady.” The spectral form of General J.E.B. Stuart, late of the Confederate Army, sat in the copilot’s chair. “It may nawt look it, but Ah kin feel us makin’ progress through this heah barrier...and make no mistake, there is a barrier. Whomever those kidnappin’ scapegraces are, they definitely don’t want visitors.”
“They’re called Qwardians.” Jason Todd braced himself in the doorway between the cockpit and the main part of the craft, where the superpowered kids in his charge were strapped into the jumpseats that lined the walls. Todd had been sitting there himself until a few moments ago, when the conversation he’d heard drifting from the cockpit caught his attention. “Extremely xenophobic, extremely violent, and just overall not nice people. I wouldn’t put it past them to send all of reality crashing down just out of spite for the rest of the universe.”
“Like Sherman burnin’ Atlanta to the ground,” the general muttered, “bastard that he was.”
“I am not in the mood to discuss battlefield morality with a Civil War ghost,” Todd snapped. “Just get us through to Qward so we can get to the bottom of all this.”
Alice was about to reply that he was getting far too bossy for her tastes when she felt the resistance on the steering yoke ease up. “I think we’re through!” she said excitedly, but that was cut short when she saw that, instead of materializing in space once more, they were in what she could only presume was Qward’s atmosphere...and falling in a dead spin straight at the ground.
As Alice pulled back on the yoke with all her might, Jason fled back to his seat, yelling, “Everybody, brace for impact!” He hastily buckled his harness as he watched the kids double-check their own, with Stars and Stripe reaching out to grab each other tightly by the hand once they were done. They could deny it all they liked, but just about everyone at the All-Star Academy knew they had a thing going on.
Maybe if they survived all this, Jason thought, they’d be more open about it.
“I thought Green Lantern was a blond guy with a cape.”
“That’s a different Lantern,” Hal told Berkowitz. “I came along a few decades later.”
“I don’t care what he looks like,” Harris said, “so long as he’s willing to fight alongside us.” The two Vietnam-era Marines had arrived with the transport that would take Hex and Stella’s team back to the Army of True Qward’s base, and though they were surprised by Hal’s presence, they accepted him much more easily than Jonah had. As the injured were loaded onto the transport, the five of them were catching up on current events. “Be nice if those friends of yours show up soon too.”
Hal nodded in agreement, saying, “If we’re lucky, the message I sent has already arrived and they’re just trying to figure out a way through the dimensional barrier. It wasn’t easy for me, and that was with all the Guardians giving me a push through.”
“So how many fellas in green longjohns kin we expect tuh come a-runnin’?” Jonah asked.
“With everything that was going on when I left, it’s hard to say. I doubt it’ll be just Corps members, though.” Hal grinned. “Expect to see a lot more colors than just green.”
Stella hugged her arms across her chest. “I just hope they get here before any more bug-eyes pop up out of the city. I’m still don’t get why they never sent a second wave after us.”
Harris nodded at the Green Lantern. “Maybe him showing up scared the pants off of them and now they don’t know what to do.”
Jonah glanced over at Hal, muttering, “‘One riot, one Ranger’.” There was a ghost of a smile on his face when he said it, and Hal’s own grin broadened, but it went away as his ring suddenly trilled out: <Unknown craft descending.>
Five sets of eyes looked skyward to see a ship spiraling towards them barely a half-mile above their heads. Hal was perplexed -- how could it have gotten so close without his ring noticing sooner? -- but that didn’t stop him from springing to action. The odd-looking craft was soon engulfed by an emerald catcher’s mitt and brought to the ground not far from the Qwardian transport. Guns were brought to bear by all capable as Hal slowly approached the craft. To be sure, it didn’t resemble the ones he’d gone up against earlier: the general shape resembled an Mi-8 military helicopter, but with strange semi-circular “wings” along the sides that swept back and attached to what would’ve been the tail boom if there’d been a rear rotor present, and in place of a top rotor, there was instead a gun turret not unlike what you’d find on a WWII tank, the barrel of which was (thankfully) pointed towards the rear of the craft at the moment. How in blazes a cobbled-together contraption like this could ever fly was beyond him. Hal caught movement behind the dark windshield, so he called out, “Whoever’s inside, I want you to exit the craft with your hands in the air!”
A portal on the top of the craft near the nose section opened up, and to his surprise, a familiar face popped out. “Dad!”
“Jessica?” Hal took to the air at the same time as his daughter, who all but leapt into his arms. “What in the world are you doing here?” He then saw five other members of the Young All-Stars -- Cat, Meteor, Stripe, Stars, and Minuteman -- come out of the craft, along with Jason Todd and a young woman Hal didn’t recognize.
“We’re on a rescue mission,” Jessica explained. “Meteor’s dad was captured by these Thunderer guys, so we asked Alice...that’s Alice.” She pointed at the young woman with a pair of goggles perched on her head. “We asked her to take us to Qward, but we materialized too close to the ground and...”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down, Itty,” Hal said, falling back on his longtime nickname for his daughter. “Why did the Corps only send you guys along? Or did you get separated from them on the way through the barrier?”
“There isn’t anybody else, it’s just us.” Jason Todd retracted his Red Hood helmet so he could better crane his neck up to look at them hovering in the air. “I spoke to Kyle Rayner briefly before we jumped over to Qward, so maybe some of your GL buddies are following behind us, but I think they had their hands full with getting a caravan of ships safely to Earth before they all got gobbled up in a big wave of nothing.”
“Hold on, I think we need to start over.” Both the Green Lantern and Spectrum set down in front of the All-Star Academy professor. “You guys coming here has nothing to do with the message I sent back to Guy and the others? You just coincidentally decided to take a field trip to Qward of all places?”
“We had to!” Meteor stepped forward. “They took my dad!”
“They done took a lot of people’s dads,” Jonah said as he strode up to them, Stella and the others not far behind. “An’ mothers an’ daughters an’ all sorts of folks. Whut makes yuh think yer case is so dif’rent?”
“Because his dad is Captain Comet,” Hal explained, “a superhero like myself. From the sounds of things, they’ve been kidnapping average people up until now, but if they’re moving on to metas...”
“What do you mean, ‘up until now’?” Jason asked. “How long has this been going on?”
“I’ll explain once we’re in the air. We shouldn’t delay getting back to their base any longer.” He looked over at Harris and said, “Give their pilot the coordinates so Jason’s team can follow us. I promise, they’re trustworthy.”
Harris gave him a nod, then gestured to Alice to come with him. Meanwhile, Hex had begun to narrow his gaze at Jason. The bounty hunter took a few steps towards him, then grabbed him by the shoulders and stared hard at him for a few seconds. The look on Hex’s face cycled from confusion to disbelief to utter shock as he whispered hoarsely, “Jason Todd?”
Jason froze. He didn’t recognise the man, but the man recognised him? “That’s...me?”
“It cain’t be. Ah thought yer voice sounded familiar, but with thet stupid eyemask on...Ah wasn’t sure ‘til Ah got up close.” Jonah clamped a hand on the younger man’s jawline and slowly turned his head from side to side. “Got a lot less white in yer hair, thet’s cer certain.”
The Red Hood pulled away from Jonah’s grasp. “Say, GL, you want to introduce me to your new friend before he creeps me out even worse?”
“Yuh don’t know who Ah am?” Jonah sounded almost hurt by the notion.
“I have no idea, and you seem like the kinda gentleman who’s hard to forget.”
Jonah looked over at Hal and said, “This is more of thet ‘paradox’ stuff, ain’t it?” Hal half-shrugged, half-nodded, causing Jonah to sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose. “So do Ah say whut Ah know, or do Ah keep mum ‘bout it?”
“Let’s save it for now.” Hal waved his hand back and forth between the two men. “Jason Todd, meet Jonah Hex, Old West bounty hunter and apparent magnet for spacetime anomalies. And on that note...” He gestured towards the two crafts as Alice came running back.
The All-Star students began to climb back into the space-tank, their mentor and the Green Lantern right behind them, while Harris, Berkowitz, and the others headed for the Qwardian transport. The lone exception was Jonah, who hesitated between the two before opting for the space-tank. Stella caught sight of this and hopped off the transport, causing Harris to call out, “Where the Hell are you going?”
“Sticking with Jonah,” she answered. “It’s been a weird day for him, so I figured I’d better stay close by.”
“This place is nothing but weird days.” The Marine waved at her dismissively before shutting the transport hatch behind him. Stella jogged over to the space-tank, scrambled up onto one of the “wings”, then boosted herself up so she could slip down the topside portal. She soon realised there were too many people standing below it for her to drop down, so she stuck her head in with the intent of asking them to step aside. That’s when she saw Jonah Hex standing ramrod-straight in front of the cockpit door, throwing a perfect salute to a ghostly figure dressed in the uniform of a Confederate general.
Yep, definitely a weird day, Stella thought.
Whatever fluke that had led to New Krypton's survival meant that it was currently night time when it should have been day. In the far off cities, on the other side of Lake Trom and beyond, the towering spires were illuminated more thoroughly than they had ever been before, as if the buildings had been transformed into beacons during this impossible night time.
"...Whoa."
Her face a picture of curiosity, Lois Lane stood in the front yard of the home she shared with her husband and looked up at the skies, where darkness eventually gave way to emerald, where spinning ships and orbiting satellites that hadn't been there hours previously now hung in the void. There were no constellations, just planets and moons and hulking transport ships. All of them, last survivors. All of them, representing the last stand of this creation.
"It's the end of the universe out there," she said, quietly.
"It always is, unfortunately," replied Clark Kent, as he approached her from behind and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders...and indeed, he was only Clark now, not just Superman in a mortal guise. He'd left Earth ten years ago the clean-cut blue and red caped icon known throughout the cosmos, and returned a decade later a changed man. His singular focus on saving the universe from some unknown, insidious threat-- one that, even now, Lois didn't truly understand-- meant that he'd allowed his hair and beard to grow out, because what use was a haircut or trim when you were scouring the universe for an eschaton-inducing entity? By the time of his return, the red and blue costume had been replaced by a white and grey survival suit that did the job just as well, and when he made himself known to the Justice League upon his return to Earth, his eyes were grey and seemingly cataracted, but once he'd marshalled the forces of superhumanity and led them to victory against the entity, he expelled all the cosmic energy he'd absorbed during his travels and was returned to normal-- to beyond normal. He lost his solar-charged powers, and was no longer stronger than a baseline human. And that was that.
So here, today, farming on New Krypton with his wife Lois, he had flecks of white at his temples-- Ma always said he was old beyond his years-- and a slight paunch around his centre. Without solar energy burning through his metabolism, his appetite finally started catching up with him. He wore a pair of dungarees and a buttoned polo shirt underneath, and he looked at home, comfortable. His glasses were tucked at the front of his collar, and he welcomed the familiarity of wearing them around the farmhouse he'd built with his own hands upon his return.
"You're only back a year after saving it yourself, after fighting for a decade... and now it's ending again. God, it's almost like the universe is a broken record."
He sighed and put an arm around her. "I have to do something."
She shook her head. "You burned out your powers, Clark. Sacrificed everything to save the universe. I think even I could beat you in an arm wrestle nowadays. Besides, you are doing something. You're here. With me." She placed a hand over her pregnant belly, and then took his and placed it over her own. "With us."
"Lois..." he started, but before he could get going, the couple was interrupted by a figure garbed in blue and red descending from the heavens.
“Hello, Kal...Lois,” Superwoman said with a smile. “Hope you don’t mind me dropping by unannounced.”
“You know you’re welcome anytime,” Lois replied, then went in for a hug. “I’m surprised you’re able to, though, what with everything going on...or is this more of a business trip?”
“In a roundabout way. I came to borrow something...well, borrow it for someone else, rather.” Kara looked at her cousin, saying, “Rokk Krinn showed up about a half-hour ago.”
“You’re kidding,” Clark said. “Who else is with him?”
“So far as I’m aware, he’s totally solo...and a bit younger than either of us has seen him before. He’s also a little short on equipment, so I was hoping that...”
“Of course, you don’t even need to ask twice.”
The two most-famous representatives of the House of El walked into the Kent family home, with Lois following close enough behind to pick on their conversation. The words they spoke were as familiar as an old song, as she’d heard them countless times before during other crises over the years. Lois didn’t like the notes this one was hitting, though, especially when she heard the tone Clark’s voice took on when he repeated certain names Kara had said.
“Krona and the Infinite Man and the Time Trapper.” Clark had a hand pressed over his face, the object Kara was seeking cradled in the other. They were all standing in Clark’s study now, surrounded by books and mementos from both of his lives. Lois’s study was the next room over, with their desks situated in the wide archway between the two, a sentimental holdover from their days in the Daily Planet newsroom. “My God...you’re certain about this?”
“That’s what I picked up,” Kara replied, flicking a finger up by her ear. “I only know about the latter two from old Legionnaire case files, but from what I recall, neither one is a picnic.”
“I’ve dealt with the Time Trapper, and you’re absolutely correct.” He let his hand drop from his face and looked at his cousin with a grim expression. “This is even bigger than what we went through when I returned...and at least then, we were able to take the fight outside our solar system. Now we’re down to a close-quarters match.”
Lois sighed. "You're going with her, aren't you?"
"I can't stand by and do nothing, Lois. I can't. And that's what I've been meaning to tell you..."
She didn’t give him a chance to finish the sentence. "Your powers are coming back, aren't they?"
He blushed. "Well... yeah. Yes. They are. How did you know?"
Lois began to list off reasons on her fingers. "You've been losing weight without trying. Your eyes. They're brighter. Not the same kind of bright than when you were flying about ten years ago, but brighter than they were when you expelled all the stellar energy in your body. You're not fully powered up though, are you? You're not at full strength?"
"Enough to make a difference," said Clark. “And even if that difference was merely my familiarity with our opponents, I’d still feel obligated to go.” He went over to his wife and gently caressed the side of her face. “But you know that I’ll come back to you. I always come back to you, no matter what.”
“I know. And now you have twice as many reasons to come back. However, Smallville...” Lois smiled and mirrored his gesture, her fingers smoothing down his neatly-trimmed beard. “If you’re going to go back on duty, I suggest you don’t do it in Farm-Boy Chic.” She then nodded towards a tall, cylindrical display case that stood in the far corner of the study. “I may’ve made fun of Bruce when he gave that to you, but right now, I’m glad for his aesthetic.”
The silence was deafening. As Dr. Fate, Flash, Captain Marvel, and the Spectre quickly made their way to the very center of the realm, they encountered no one, they heard nothing. Heaven was not meant to be a desolate place, yet that was most certainly the case. The distress over this was plain to see on the Spectre’s face as he led them down what the mortals perceived to be a massive hallway made of ivory and gold, at the end of which stood the doors to God’s throne room. When the Spectre reached out to open the doors, Billy couldn’t help but think of The Wizard of Oz: he half-expected an angel to pop out and tell them God wasn’t seeing anyone right now, come back tomorrow. But an even bigger surprise occurred instead as the doors swung open of their own volition and a voice called out, “Welcome, welcome! Entrez!”
The four of them entered to find the Key dressed in flowing robes and perched atop God’s throne, which was held aloft by the four Hosts of Heaven. In one hand was a massive, blood-covered blade, the tip of which was slowly digging a hole into the Mercy Seat as the Key idly twisted it back and forth. There were spatters of blood upon his robes and across the pearlescent floor as well. “She told me you’d come,” he said, fixing his eyes upon Fate. “Her dear Traci, the one person she’d willingly sacrifice all of Creation for. Remarkable devotion. I’ve never seen the like before, and I doubt this universe ever will again.”
“Where is she?” Fate demanded. Zauriel’s sword was in her hands now, and she looked more than willing to use it on the Key. “So help me, if I have to tear apart all of Heaven to find out where you’ve hidden her...” She stopped when the Key threw back his head and began laughing.
“The guy’s insane,” Flash said, “we’re never gonna get an actual answer out of him.”
Captain Marvel’s attention was diverted when he noticed a drop of blood falling onto his pristine cape, followed by another. He looked up and let out a strangled cry, and the others quickly followed his gaze to see a grisly tableau hanging from the throne room’s vaulted ceiling: ribbons of skin and muscle, along with various bones and internal organs, each dangling from fine ropes of braided silver hair.
“I’m still trying to figure out the proper arrangement,” the Key explained. “It’s less of a straightforward blueprint and more of a puzzle, you see. I realised that after I’d carved the majority of skin off of her. And what I found inside her was even more intriguing! Every piece of Zauriel holds a component necessary for rebuilding the universe! The cilia in her lungs contain unborn stars! The cells that make up her intestines represent every organism that will ever exist! And these...” He held out his other hand, which had been cupped in his lap the entire time. Nestled in his palm were Zauriel’s eyes. “All the intelligence and wisdom that can possibly be granted to sentient life is held within these delicate orbs. With just a little bit of pressure, I can blind the universe-to-come before it’s even born.”
“Obscenities!” the Spectre roared. “How dare you profane God’s works, His very throne!”
“I dare because I must! With the very blueprint of Creation under my control, I can overwrite whatever Krona plans to do.” The Key grinned when he saw their reactions to the name. “Oh, you didn’t know, did you? Yes, Krona is the one who set me loose upon the world once more. And the moment after I did what he forced me to do, I fled here. I begged the Host to let me in, but they refused...so I unlocked them to put them under my thrall. Then I unlocked Purgatory and shoved God and anyone else who refused to comply inside.”
The Spectre stared at him incredulously. “You...you confined the Presence to Purgatory? Do have any idea what you’ve done?”
“I’m doing what God refused to do! He was willing to sit idly by in His isolated little realm and watch how all this plays out because He knew it wouldn’t touch Him. Perhaps once I’ve set everything back to rights, I’ll let Him out, but not a moment before.”
“But there won’t be a moment before, or even after. There’ll be no moments at all,” Fate told him. “Heaven was created so the souls of those who believe in Him can dwell in His Presence forever. Its existence depends on both the faith of His believers and the Presence of God Himself. If you’ve removed God and all His worshippers from Heaven, it’ll cease to exist just as soon as the rest of reality is wiped out.”
“No...no, you’re lying!” The Key psychically ordered the Hosts supporting the throne to lower it so he could stalk up to the heroes. “I have all the powers of Heaven at my beck and call! I can hold this realm together and rebuild the universe better than it was before! And you’re going to help me!” With that, he began to force his way into their minds so he could take them over, just as he’d done with all the angels in Heaven. The Flash went down almost immediately, falling to his knees with a blank expression, and while he could feel Captain Marvel’s resistance to him crumbling slowly, Dr. Fate and the Spectre were putting up a tremendous mental fight, with the embodiment of God’s wrath struggling to make any sort of move against him, be it physical or supernatural.
To unlock a mind took an certain amount of concentration. To unlock four at once took a substantial amount more. To do so whilst maintaining your grip upon the four most-powerful angelic Hosts was a daunting task. So the Key could be forgiven for not noticing the wisp of X-Element that had somehow seeped into the throne room. Moving through the air in a deliberate fashion, the ribbon-like mass of black bubbling energy drifted up right behind the Key and engulfed his head. The Key let out a startled cry, dropping both the blade and Zauriel’s eyes as he reached up to try and claw the X-Element away from his face, but to no avail. Both the heroes and the angels began to shake themselves out of their various levels of mind-controlled stupor just in time to watch the X-Element seep into the Key’s flesh, turning his long white hair to black and distorting his features until they resembled that of a certain ally.
“Holy moley,” Captain Marvel gasped. “Is that...”
Scott Free, now in full possession of the Key’s body, twirled his hands up in a flourish and said with a grin, “Ta-da!”
“You’re alive! I can’t believe it!” Marvel rushed up and wrapped him in a bear hug.
“Glad to see you too, but if you hug me any harder, you’re gonna make Courtney jealous.”
Marvel apologized and set him down, while Fate asked, “How is this possible? I thought the X-Element had destabilized you totally.”
“As far as my body goes...yeah, I think that’s gone. The X-Element couldn’t adjust me well enough, so it just ditched my body in favor of saving my mind. It kinda absorbed me, plus I’m pretty sure it absorbed a few angels too, because I -- or we, or however you want to phrase it -- knew the Key was up here in the throne room and how exactly to get here. And once I saw what he was doing to you, I pulled him in with us and brought him under control.” A smile spread across Scott’s features as he wrapped the Key’s arms around himself, saying, “We’re all nice and cosy in here.”
“So...you’re not all Scott?” Wally asked. “You’re some mushed-up version of Scott and the Key and some angels for flavor?”
“Enough of me is Scott for the name...and the face, of course. Give me some time and I could probably direct the X-Element to convert the rest of this body as well. Matter of fact, I’d better, or else Barda is going to be really unhappy when we get home.”
“Before we get to work on our return trip, we need to...to...” Fate looked up at the ceiling again, where the remains of Zauriel still hung.
“Do not be troubled.” The four angelic Hosts stepped towards them, with the Human Host saying, “Though her body is dismembered, there is no true death in this realm.”
“I knew it!” Wally exclaimed.
“With your help,” the Host said, gesturing to the Spectre, “I believe we can put things back to rights once more.”
“Yes,” the Spectre replied, and bent down to gather up Zauriel’s eyes from where the Key had dropped them. “This blasphemy must be undone.” With that, the five of them took to the air, leaving the four mortals to watch from ground level as the Spectre’s cloak billowed out to impossibly-long lengths, eventually obscuring himself, the Hosts, and Zauriel’s remains from view. After what felt like forever, the cloak retracted to reveal Traci’s beloved unblemished and whole once more, with both her wings and armor intact. The entire group them descended, and the moment Zauriel’s feet touched the floor, Traci removed the Helmet of Fate and rushed up to her, barely giving Zauriel time to do the same with her own helm before they embraced.
“I knew you’d come for me,” Zauriel told her. “He called me mad, but I knew it.”
“Always,” Traci replied. “No matter how far, no matter the odds.” They kissed some more, the sight of which brought a smile to everyone’s face. Even the normally-dour Spectre allowed the corner of his mouth to upturn slightly. Captain Marvel went so far as to wipe a tear from his eye. After a while, though, the Flash cleared his throat and said, “I hate to put a damper on this, but I think the universe is still dying. Maybe we should put the celebrations on hold until after God’s back in His Heaven and all is right with the world.”
“Wally’s right...and I hate him for that,” Traci said with a sigh.
“I hate him a little right now too.” Zauriel put her helmet back on, then retrieved her sword and said, “Restoring the Presence is paramount, however, and it won’t be easy. We--” The words were suddenly cut off as Zauriel vanished. There was no flare of light, no noise to indicate her passing, she simply was there one second and gone the next, leaving behind a room full of mortals and angels with shocked expressions.
Krona gazed upon the naked human laying prone upon the cold marble floor of his chamber. Even in an unconscious state, he could sense the immense mental powers contained within that mortal flesh. This would be a fitting repast before he ascended beyond the need for such things. Krona delicately probed the human’s mind, bidding him to awaken from the drug-induced sleep the attendants had put him under. The human veritably leapt to his feet, facing Krona with clenched fists...and just as Krona had probed the human’s mind, he could feel the human trying to do the same to him. Oh, this was going to be a delight!
“I know who you are,” the human declared. “I gleaned everything from those Thunderers you sent to my ship. You may have them thinking you’re some sort of god, but I know better. I’ve read every file the Green Lantern Corps has on you.”
“And I know who you are,” Krona replied. “Adam Blake...the vaunted Captain Comet. The supposed pinnacle of human evolution.” He let out dismissive chuckle. “A meaningless boast. Rather like calling yourself the most-evolved protozoa in a fetid sea. Still, your existence is not without purpose.” Reaching out with his shadow-form, Krona made to engulf Blake, but the human immediately held the shadows at bay with his telekinetic powers.
Thus began a war of attrition, with both sides pushing against each other with all their might. Unfortunately for Blake, Krona had an edge: while Blake could not penetrate the mad Guardian’s mental defenses, Krona very easily found the weak spots in the human’s, and slowly wormed his way into Blake’s psyche until he found a memory wrapped in multiple layers of emotion too tantalizing to resist. It didn’t take much for Krona to crack it open and unleash it upon his opponent’s conscious mind, crippling Blake with a flashback intense enough to break his telekinetic shield. Within seconds, Krona engulfed him and began to feed with reckless abandon upon the emotionally-charged memories pouring forth:
...crippled ship...single occupant within...humanoid, female, thin as a willow...silvery-gray skin, eyes like lapis lazuli...instant telepathic link between rescuer and rescued, inadvertently sharing decades of loneliness with each other...anomalies amongst their own people, but now, in the vastness of empty space, finding another who understood...a bond of love as strong as the pull of a black hole...exploring the galaxy together, using their vast knowledge to help far-flung civilizations...the shared thrill when they realise she’s pregnant...the crushing, solitary despair when her willow-thin body cannot take the strain of childbirth...burying his grief behind layers of telepathic shielding for the sake of his son, who looks so much like her...his son...his son...
“He’s here, you know,” Krona told Blake, “I’ve seen him. The boy and his friends dared to cross over entire dimensions just to try and save you. They’ll all be dead soon, just as you will be.”
“Liar,” Blake managed to say, a waft of red-tinged mist coming out of his mouth as he did so.
“You doubt my words? Then let me show you.” Krona forced the image into Blake’s mind of Meteor rushing up to Green Lantern and Red Hood, saying, “They took my dad!” The sight alone was enough to bring forth a wave of love from the soul of Captain Comet, which Krona greedily gulped down before explaining, “I have eyes everywhere. Many have been brought to my chamber, and though few have been able to withstand my embrace, enough have to become my servants.” Krona caressed Blake’s sweat-covered brow with a skeletal hand. “It’s a shame you didn’t come to me sooner. You could have been one of them. But I will soon have no more need for servants. Soon, I will encompass all that ever was and shall be.”
“S-s-stop you...Hal...Jason...my son...they’ll...”
“They will do nothing but die!” Krona took hold of Blake’s head in both hands and began to squeeze with a strength that belied his fragile-looking state. “I have triumphed over every obstacle thrown in my path! I have triumphed over death itself! And once I have ascended, no one shall ever be able to challenge me EVER AGAIN!”[/i] There was a wet snapping sound as the tips of Krona’s fingers punctured Blake’s skull and sank into his brain, killing the man instantly. Krona quickly gorged himself upon the ebbing life force before it faded from the body, then tossed the husk to one side of the chamber. It was a shame he’d let himself get so worked up, but the feast had to end sometime, and there were other matters that still needed attending to.
Closing his eyes, Krona let him decrepit body drift to the center of the chamber, the tendrils of his shadow-form slithering about him on all sides as his mind reached out to all the other minds on Qward he shared a connection to. Libra was the first and therefore the strongest, and Krona briefly watched the world through his Prophet’s eyes before moving on to his attendants, who were silently waiting outside the chamber in case their Master called for him. Then there were the newest servants, whom Krona had brought into the fold just recently in preparation for what was to come. Some guarded the perimeter of the Great Spire, while others were currently piloting warships laden with the most powerful qwa-fueled weaponry ever created. He lingered over these last servants until he was confident that they were nearly at their destination.
Then Krona came to the servant he always took the most pleasure in observing. While he couldn’t feed upon him from this distance, Krona loved to lurk in the corner of the man’s brain, delighting in his nightmares, both asleep and waking. Through the man’s eyes, he could see the cramped interior of a spaceship, the children seated across the aisle, the young woman at the man’s side like always, and the two so-called “heroes” standing nearby. The man kept fixing his gaze upon those two as his mind continued to work over the concept of paradoxes. Krona wasn’t surprised, as the man still struggled mightily with the knowledge Krona had imparted upon him all those months ago. Such a simple man, better suited a simpler time, but none of that mattered anymore. The moment had arrived to bring this disobedient pet to heel. As Krona readied to make his presence known, the woman leaned towards the man and spoke in his ear...
“You’ve certainly had an interesting life, haven’t you?”
Jonah looked at Stella sitting beside him. “Come again?”
“You and them.” She pointed at Jason and Hal, who were standing next to the cockpit -- there were only 8 passenger seats, so the two senior-most heroes had opted to brace themselves in the doorway during the flight. “An Old West cowboy who’s friends with two superheroes from the 21st Century...and then there’s your girlfriend.” She smiled and laid her head on his shoulder, though the safety harness made it a bit awkward. “As lousy as the rest of this has been, I wouldn’t change a bit of it, not if that meant never meeting you.”
“Reckon Ah kin think of a couple of things Ah’d rather leave out.” He then noted the smile fading from Stella’s face and quickly added, “Yo’re not one of those things, sugar, not by a long shot. It’s just...”
“I know what you mean, and it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. Yuh’ve damn-near bent over backwards dealin’ with muh messed-up head, an’ all Ah’ve done in return is give yuh grief. The nonsense with Jason an’ the greenhorn over there ain’t helpin’, neither.” He lowered his head, saying to Stella, “This whole notion of meetin’ folks out of order...it makes me scared tuh do or say anything for fear of lousing it all up.”
“I can think of one thing you can do...for me and for them. You can make a promise.” She reached over and took his hand. “No matter what happens today, I want you to promise that you’ll take good care of Green Lantern when you two meet again in 1878. No turning your back on him, no running away because you don’t want to deal with it, you stick around and do whatever needs to be done. He’s going to need help, and you’ll be the only one there who can give it to him.”
Jonah let out a heavy sigh. “Alright, Ah promise tuh help him.”
“No matter what?”
“No matter...” he began to say, but stopped when he heard a cold, merciless chuckle reverberate through his brain. His head snapped up as he frantically began to look at the people around him, hoping that one of them was the source of the laughter that sounded so much like what he’d first heard so many months ago. It’s not real, he told himself. It’s not real, it’s not, yo’re safe, Stella’s here...
“Oh, you are far from safe.” The voice felt like a tongue licking the inside of his skull. “Had you stayed with me, it would have been different, but you ran from me. Worse than that, you opposed me. And yet, I spared you. I could have destroyed you a hundred times, yet I chose not to...until now.”
“What’s wrong?” Stella began to undo her harness so she could stand in front of Jonah, whose entire body had gone rigid, his face contorted in a wide-eyed look of terror as he gasped for breath. “Talk to me, cowboy, I’m right here.” Hal and Jason noticed something was amiss and immediately came over. “I don’t know what happened,” she told them. “We were just talking and then he froze up for no reason.”
“You mentioned before that he’s got PTSD,” the Green Lantern said, “so I’d presume he’s having another episode.”
“Maybe, but I’ve never seen him react like this before.” She gently cupped his face in her hands, saying softly, “It’s okay, we’re here for you. Tell me what’s going on.”
A choking sound came out of Jonah’s throat, while in his mind, the voice taunted, “Yes, Hex, tell her how I’ve always been with you, watching and waiting. From the first moment my mind touched yours, your very soul has been laid bare before me. I AM YOUR GOD, you could NEVER hide from me. You exist only to serve me, and you have served me well. You led me straight to where my enemies dwell, and I rewarded you by letting you remain free. You thought your little acts of rebellion would stop my plans, but in truth, the fear you stoked amongst those loyal to me only made me stronger. I fed upon their fear, just as I once fed upon yours. But as with all things, your usefulness has come to an end.”
From his seat, Meteor shouted, “There’s someone else in there! I can’t hear either of their thoughts -- whatever it is, it’s powerful enough to keep me out -- but its presence is HUGE!”
Hal blanched. He suspected just what might be invading his friend’s mind, and he was powerless to stop it. Pushing Stella aside, he grabbed Jonah by the shoulders and said, “Listen to me, Hex: you have to fight him off! Think of brick walls, iron doors, put anything you can between you and him! Keep fighting, don’t give in!”
“It’s too late for all that,” the voice said to the bounty hunter. “You’ve already given in, haven’t you? You’ve finally accepted me as your master, just as you should have months ago. Now there’s only one thing left for you to do: say my name.”
No... Such a tiny thought, and yet he barely had the mental strength to muster even that.
“SAY IT! CALL OUT TO YOUR TRUE GOD! CALL OUT TO THE ONE WHO OWNS YOUR WEAK, PATHETIC SOUL!”
“K-Kr...Kr-Krunn...Krona...Krona...” As the name finally passed Jonah’s lips, he began to weep, for he knew now that he’d never really escaped that marble-lined chamber. It had all been a illusion, something to give him hope just so Krona could feed upon it. There was no life beyond those black walls, no purpose beyond writhing and screaming in naked agony.
The comm channel suddenly crackled to life. “We’ve got bogies coming in fast!” Harris called out from the ship flying just ahead of them. “I don’t know where the Hell they came from!”
“Everybody strap in,” Alice said, “we’re going evasive!” She’d barely gotten the words out when an explosion rocked the space-tank, throwing Hal, Jason, and Stella to the floor. All the while, Krona gleefully forced images into Hex’s mind of the half-dozen heavily-armed flyers firing upon their position, along with the twenty more that were currently raining qwa-fire upon the Army of True Qward’s base...which had been perfectly hidden from Krona’s forces until the day Jonah Hex stepped inside. Now the hundreds of souls within were being reduced to ash, and soon, all the people around him would be dead as well.
Still weeping, Jonah prayed that Krona would let him die with them.
The whistle of the teakettle faded as Silver removed it from the burner and began to pour the contents into a pair of china cups. She’d been busying herself around the kitchen for the past half-hour in an attempt to take her mind off of Bruce’s worsening condition. He’d improved slightly after Bobo and the others had left with the young man they’d somehow summoned from the future, but then one of them -- the darkly-garbed man that Bruce simply addressed as “Stranger” -- had returned to speak with Bruce again. They spoke for a while about Bruce’s family from generations past, and about...about a person...someone...who...
Silver struggled to remember, but she couldn’t. She knew a conversation had occurred, but she couldn’t dredge up a single word of it -- she blamed the headache that had begun pressing down upon her about ten minutes earlier. After the Stranger left, Bruce’s tremors ramped up, to the point where she guided him to the bedroom so he could lay down. All the while, he tried to tell her something, but again, the words...she couldn’t remember the words. It was something important, though, something concerning what was happening to the world.
She picked up the cups so she could place them on a tray alongside some tea biscuits and take them into the bedroom. As she did so, she admired the delicate pattern on the china. It was a part of a set specially commissioned by Bruce’s parents for their wedding, and Silver had insisted on using it for her and Bruce’s wedding as well, so that his mother and father could be...
Silver froze and stared off into space, one of the cups still in her hand. His mother and father...what were their names again? So odd that she couldn’t recall what...
She let out a small cry as hot tea spilled all over her hand. How in the world did that happen? she thought, then realised the cup in she’d been holding was gone. The one she’d already placed on the tray was gone as well, a puddle of tea in its place. Her mind barely had time to register this bizarre occurrence before she heard Bruce scream in pain. It was rare for him to acknowledge any sort of discomfort, so he had to have been in true agony to make a sound like that. She ran to the bedroom, expecting to see Bruce crumpled on the floor, perhaps, or in the throes of a particularly nasty muscle spasm, but he wasn’t.
Bruce Wayne was nowhere to be seen. The bed was perfectly made, untouched, as if no one had been in there for hours. Panic-stricken, Silver tried to call out his name, but as she opened her mouth, the entire building began to shake, then she let out a scream of her own as her headache grew, to the point where it felt like a dozen icepicks were being jabbed into her brain.
“That’s it,” Montoya said quietly, “he’s gone. It’ll be over any minute now...”
<The bad news is, you’re gonna have to find a way to get to Qward. That’s where I’m at right now.> The verdant image of Hal gave a wry smile. <Thankfully, I ran into an old friend who’s teamed up with some people that have already been taking the fight directly to Krona. I’ve embedded coordinates in this message so you can find us easily. As for getting here, grab as many Lanterns as you can, because it’s going to take a tremendous amount of willpower to punch through the barrier into the anti-matter universe.>
“You heard the man,” Batman said to Cyborg, “put a call out to the Lanterns, see who they can spare. Everyone else, start readying for departure.”
“Are you crazy?” Ollie snapped at him. “How can you believe this is real?”
“Why shouldn’t we believe it?”
“Because Hal Jordan is dead! He died nearly two decades ago!” He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead as he spoke. “I was a pallbearer at his funeral...me and...”
Nightwing stared at him. “What are talking about? I saw Hal just...” Dick was suddenly hit with a blinding headache, causing him to lean heavily on Barbara. “He was...”
“No, Ollie’s right,” Cassie Sandsmark said, “Diana told me about this. She was on monitor duty the day he died. Hal was doing a training session with a few other Leaguers and they disappeared. That guy who called himself the Lord of Time, he...” The current bearer of the Wonder Woman mantle grabbed the sides of her head as she struggled to get the words out. “Kendra...found Hal’s body...d-desert...”
Oblivious to the heroes in distress around him, the image of Hal Jordan continued to speak. <I’ve got warn you, though: if you break through just outside of Qward space like I did, it’s going to get messy. The planet’s defensive systems are huge and deadly and I got cut up bad, and my ring tells me it'll only get worse if their systems detect a bigger force. You need to either break through at least a light-year away or find a way to teleport in close to the ground.>
“Then that’s just what we’ll do.” Everyone turned towards the door to see Kal-El -- clean-shaven and hair slicked back, save for an S-shaped curl of hair upon his forehead -- walked into the room, garbed in his traditional blue, red, and yellow Superman costume. Accompanying him were Kara, Kon-El, and Kru-El, though Kara broke away to happily embrace Lena Luthor the moment she saw her.
“But...this has to be a trap,” Ollie said. “They already tricked us once...”
“It’s not a trick. This may be just a projection, but I can tell...that’s really Hal Jordan speaking.” Superman stepped right up to the image, a wistful look in his eyes. “As awful as the events of today have been, it feels good to see long-lost friends again.” He then turned towards Cosmic Boy, saying, “That includes you, too.”
“Me? B-but we’ve never...”
“Not yet, but you will. You and Imra and Garth...you’ll visit me when I’m just a teenager. And you’ll give me something...maybe because you knew that, one day, I’d give it to you.” With that, Superman took hold of the young man’s hand and pressed something into his palm. Rokk looked down to see a Legion flight ring, its golden finish shining brightly against the black fingerless gloves he was wearing. Of all the incredible things the Legionnaire had experienced in the past couple of hours, the idea that, at some point in his future, he would be friends with the legendary Man of Steel was probably the most mind-blowing.
There was little time to enjoy it, as a dozen alarms suddenly began blaring at once. “This is impossible!” Cyborg declared. “Multiple systems failures, all over the Watchtower...the superstructure is...it’s disintegrating!”
“Distress signals coming from Earth as well,” Doc Robotman announced, “mainly in the region of Gotham City.” There was a pause, and though his metallic face was nearly incapable of showing emotion, his voice modulator expressed it well enough. “Dear God in Heaven...”
As all this was occurring, Montoya fished around in her pocket until she pulled out a five-dollar bill, then held it out to Sage. “Figure I should give you this before we go.”
“What for?”
“That’s how we first stumbled upon all this, remember? We were arguing about who’s made a bigger impact on the superhero community: Superman or Batman. You bet me five bucks that it was Batman, then we started digging through the archives. I daresay that you won.”
“And I daresay this is the textbook definition of a Pyrrhic victory.” He looked over at the CCTV images Doc Robotman had sent to the holographic displayer: all across Gotham, buildings were twisting and collapsing for no apparent reason, bridges were unraveling, and the people...scores of people were screaming in agony as they were erased from the timeline. Sage could hear the smartphone in his hand beeping like mad, as was Montoya’s, but there was no need to look anymore. For hours, the two of them had been comparing the readout from the Justice League’s temporally-protected archives on Sage’s phone to the vulnerable public archives on Montoya’s, watching as the Wayne family legacy vanished line by line. There was literally nothing else they could do: by the time they’d discovered Jonah Hex’s unexplained disappearance in 1875, every deed he’d accomplished after that had already been erased from the public record...including his rescue of wealthy socialite Catherine Wayne from a group of kidnappers in 1885.
According to the Justice League’s files, Catherine would pass away years later in the midst of childbirth, leaving her husband, Alan, to raise their son alone. That son, Kenneth, would sire a son of his own decades later, and so it would go on through the years until Thomas Wayne’s wife, Martha, gave birth to their only child, Bruce. But the civilian files told a different story, one about Catherine’s death at the hands of her kidnappers, and Alan taking his own life not long after, leaving no heirs. The damage to the timeline wasn’t just irreparable, it was long-ranging, warping nearly 150 years of Gotham history in a matter of hours, culminating with the complete and utter erasure of Bruce Wayne...and by extension, the Batman. The Questions’ attempts to warn others about the temporal tsunami heading their way soon proved fruitless, as everyone else’s memories of the original timeline were becoming just as corrupted as the documentation of it -- merely an hour earlier, the other heroes had no doubt Hal was alive -- only the constant cross-checking program Bruce helped them set up before parting ways with him allowed Sage and Montoya to keep their original memories intact to a reasonable degree.
But again, there was no need for it anymore. Removing the majority of Hal Jordan’s career as Green Lantern from the timeline caused a severe temporal wound, yes, but there were other Lanterns that could take his place. Removing the existence of Batman -- the very idea of the Dark Knight -- was like cutting someone’s belly open with a rusty knife and yanking out handfuls of their intestines. The Questions watched in silence as Tim Wayne fell to his knees, his teeth gritted against the pain tearing through his mind, while the Batman-specific elements of his costume began to fade from reality. Barbara and Dick were having a similar struggle, clinging tightly to each other throughout the ordeal. Other heroes began to collapse as well due to their decades-long personal histories with Bruce being forcibly rearranged. Even the Watchtower appeared to scream as all the WayneTech-researched-and-funded equipment it contained ceased to be, putting insurmountable stresses upon what remained.
Sage cried out at the blindingly-sharp pain that had just entered his head. He felt Montoya grab hold of him, and the elder Question turned to face the younger. Like himself, she still wore her mask, but he could detect a hint of a smile beneath it. “I hope...I did right...by you, Charlie,” she managed to say. He tried to answer, but instead they both fell wordlessly to the floor.
In the midst of this chaos stood Cosmic Boy. Between his origins a thousand years hence and the scant amount of time spent in the man’s presence, the nonexistence of Bruce Wayne had virtually no effect on him. All he knew was everyone around him had been struck down by forces invisible, and it sounded like the space station they were in was on the verge of collapse. He felt like he was trapped on a dying Titan all over again, only this time, there was more than a single child that needed rescuing. His eyes fixed upon Superman, laying at Rokk’s feet with an agonized expression stamped on his face. How could he overcome something that left even the mythic Man of Steel helpless?
Then he heard the voice of the Green Lantern the others called Hal Jordan: the holographic message had reached its end and began playing over again from the beginning, and was once more talking about a place called Qward. Cos ran across the room to where Dawn Makes-Strong-Move had collapsed. “You need to get up, right now!” he shouted, pulling her upright as he did so. “Your axe...you can make a portal to just about anywhere, right?”
“Y-y-yes, b-but...” Her eyes were squeezed shut against the pain in her head.
“Make a portal to Qward! Close to the ground, like the Green Lantern said! We need to get off this station as fast as possible!” The Legionnaire then grabbed hold of Cassie, who was closest by, and attempted to get her on her feet as well.
Despite the agony she was in and the cacophony of noise around her, Dawn brought the True Axe into position and began searching for the anti-matter universe’s place along the Axis Mundi. Her earlier attempts at reaching Heaven had proved fruitless due to so much of the Axis Mundi collapsing along with most of reality, and she feared running into the same troubles again, but she did her best to push such negative thoughts from her mind. They had to get to Qward and stop Krona from destroying all of existence...even if it meant losing their own lives to do so.
The lights inside the Watchtower failed, leaving the emerald image of Hal Jordan as the only illumination. <I know I’ve not been around much, but that doesn’t mean I stopped believing in all of you. You’re the greatest heroes the world has ever seen… and there’s nobody’s hands I’d rather put the fate of the universe in.> Hal grinned, then the image wavered and the grin went away as the recording started playing over for a third time: <I don’t know who’s seeing this...>
At the edge of what remained of the solar system, John Stewart and Kyle Rayner -- who’d already been struggling alongside their fellow GLs due to Hal’s removal from the timeline -- fell away from their positions along the shield perimeter almost in unison as Bruce’s erasure caught up with them. The other Lanterns attempted to take up the slack, but hours upon hours of near-constant ringslinging had taken a toll upon the willpower of all involved. Cracks began to form, more Lanterns began to falter, and soon, the universe-sized wave of entropy they’d been holding back punched through, sweeping over every Corps member in its path and quickly building speed. Those who remained did their best to rebuild the shield, but they no longer had the strength or numbers to do so, and they too perished as white nothingness crashed over them at ten times the speed of light. The hundreds of planets and refugee ships the Green Lanterns had been protecting had just enough time to realise their demise was coming, yet no ability to stop it. When the entropy wave reached Earth, it was almost a mercy: over a fifth of the planet’s population was already dead due to the Batman’s nonexistence, Gotham City was a smoking ruin, and the Watchtower had torn itself to shreds moments earlier, scattering bodies into the icy void of space like toys across a playroom floor.
By the time the Sun was extinguished, there was no one left alive to witness it.
It was supposed to be the wedding of the decade when Barbara Gordon and Dick Grayson had finally decided to get married! The heroes of the world were invited, and as a special gift to the happy couple, in one night, every wanted criminal, every supervillain across the world, was taken down! With this new era of peace established, the wedding goes forward, but they don’t know what’s coming next…
THE DC2 UNIVERSE PRESENTS…
The villainous Key, long forgotten after his defeat at the hands of the Flash and the Justice League, was awoken from a near decades-long coma by the mysterious Libra and a dark-robed master. At the behest of his saviours, the Key used his powers, expanded a thousand-fold by the experiences that sent him into the coma, to open every door in existence-- including the doors to the cells inside every prison across the universe, be it Arkham Island and Iron Heights, Takron Galtos and the Sciencells of Oa, and even the Source Wall itself!…AN ADVENTURE OVER A DECADE IN THE MAKING…
From a moment of infinite peace to a time of infinite crisis, the universe experienced a cosmic disaster the scale of which had never been witnessed before-- the now shattered Source Wall unleashed a wave of entropic energy that destroyed everything it touched!…THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF AN ENTIRE UNIVERSE…
After trillions of lives were lost, the entropic wave only came to stop when the Green Lantern Corps drew the line around the Milky Way galaxy-- surrounding the solar system that all the surviving worlds and refugee ships had managed to evacuate to in an emerald shield-- something that threatens to shatter at any time!OMEGA CRISIS
PART SEVEN: “FOR WANT OF A KNIGHT”
Original story by Susan Hillwig, Don Walsh, and House of Mystery
Written by House of Mystery and Susan Hillwig
(with thanks to Don Walsh and Scott Kruger)
Cover taken from concept designs by Brandon Herren (RIP)
PART SEVEN: “FOR WANT OF A KNIGHT”
Original story by Susan Hillwig, Don Walsh, and House of Mystery
Written by House of Mystery and Susan Hillwig
(with thanks to Don Walsh and Scott Kruger)
Cover taken from concept designs by Brandon Herren (RIP)
NOW - THE WATCHTOWER, FLOATING ABOVE THE MOON:
“Come on, people, there has to be something we missed.” Tim Wayne stared intently at the holographic readouts projected over the table in the center of the room, his eyes beneath his Batman cowl flicking from one set of numbers to the next. “A trace amount of energy, a radiation signature, an echo bouncing across what’s left of spacetime...”
“May as well start a door-to-door search at this point,” Green Arrow quipped, then hitched a thumb at the young man standing nearby. “Let’s put Magnet Boy in charge of that, since he’s been sooo helpful so far.”
“I told you, my name is...”
“Both of you, shut up!” Tim rubbed the heel of his hand against his temple: he felt a piercingly-sharp headache coming on all of the sudden, which wasn’t surprising, considering the stress he was under. Quite a few other people gathered in the room weren’t doing so well either, going by how many of them were also cradling their heads. There’d even been reports that some of the Green Lanterns maintaining the shield were beginning to falter, forcing the Corps members around them to redouble their efforts. “It’s not possible for Krona and Libra to have vanished without a trace, not when the universe has shrunk down to pretty much what’s visible outside our window, both in terms of physical and temporal space. They went somewhere, and dammit, we need to figure out where!”
In a far-off corner of the room, Renee Montoya said quietly, “Should we try telling them again?”
“There’s no point to it,” Victor Charles Sage answered just as quietly. Had anyone been looking their way, they likely wouldn’t have even realised the two were talking, thanks to the featureless masks both of them wore. “None of them have been able to hold the information in their heads for more than a minute. We...” Sage paused as both of their smartphones beeped -- in unison, they held them next to each other, looked at the screens, then Sage continued talking. “We may as well let them have the illusion that there’s still a way to stop this.”
“It seems so cruel, though.”
“You’re too young to remember ‘duck and cover’, aren’t you? The idea that hiding under a desk or a blanket would save you from an atomic blast?”
“You’re kidding, right? People really thought that would help?”
“People like to feel that they can control the uncontrollable. If they believe a desk can save them of getting their face melted off, then maybe they won’t live in constant panic about the nukes being stockpiled by both sides.” Sage nodded towards the various heroes assembled in the room. “Right now, we’re letting them sit under a desk, because telling them the nuke is on its way won’t change anything. At least they can go out believing they did all they could.”
“I still think it’s cruel.”
Their phones beeped again. “Go tell ‘em, then,” Sage said after they had looked at the screens once more. “This’ll only be...what, the eighth time or the ninth? Maybe this time it’ll stick.”
Montoya seriously considered doing it just to spite him, but before she could, the Watchtower was buffeted heavily, and the inertial dampeners whined to keep the team members on their feet. Krypto barked loudly, confused by the sudden tilt, but Lena Luthor knelt next to the Dog of Steel and got it to calm down.
“Jesus! I thought we’d turned the proximity alarm back on!” shouted Oliver.
“I… I did. Whatever hit us wasn’t a solid...” Cyborg stopped as an intense green light filled the observation window. They all turned to look, though many of them feared the worst. Had the shield fallen? Were they all about to be erased? But instead, in the centre of what was left of their solar system, a glowing emerald sphere had manifested with such force that it generated a shockwave, shunting any nearby satellites and ships away due to its wake. The sphere itself was the same colouration as the shield keeping them all alive, but it glowed brighter than any of them expected after staring at the tide break for the last few hours.
“What happened?” Dawn Makes-Strong-Move asked as she came into the room, Kid Eternity and Constantine right behind her -- all three came up short upon seeing the sphere outside. “Are the Lanterns planning something? Building something? An escape hatch or whatever?”
Before anyone could answer, the sphere zipped towards the Watchtower in the space of a second, phasing first through the space station’s shields, then through the observation window. Those standing near the window backed away, uncertain both of the sphere’s intent and their own ability to stop it. The brightly-glowing object came to a halt near the center of the room, then began to elongate, its contours changing until it became a six-foot-tall image of a man in a Green Lantern uniform.
“Hal?” Oliver stepped towards the image, a look of shock on his face. “It can’t be...”
<I don’t know who’s seeing this,> the image of Hal Jordan said, <but I figured it was best to send this message back to the Watchtower since it was the most likely place to be found. I also don’t know how much time has passed since I left, so I’m going to get right to the point: Krona is back. He and Libra are the ones behind all of reality crashing down, but I think we still have a chance at stopping whatever it is they have planned.>
Over in the corner, the two Questions looked at their beeping phones. “That’s it,” Montoya said quietly, “he’s gone. It’ll be over any minute now...”
200 MINUTES EARLIER - THE WATCHTOWER:
“I know how to contain the Infinite Man. I have future knowledge I can share with you, snatched from his timeline before it fell...we need to trap him, to stop his movements. If we don’t...this timeline will die in flames!”
The figure garbed in white and black before them called himself Equinox. He claimed to not only be the brother of Libra -- the person who’d killed Rip Hunter, then tried to do the same to the Atom -- but that he also knew what causing all of reality to collapse. When Hal Jordan first saw Equinox, his instincts immediately went on high-alert and he readied himself for a fight (not surprising, since the figure’s arrival had not only been literally explosive, but it also disrupted an important message being transmitted by his fellow GL Kyle Rayner). When he saw Guy Gardner and the other heroes gathered around him doing the same, he was glad to know that his reaction wasn’t unique. Admittedly, this newcomer might’ve been someone he just didn’t know yet, seeing as how he’d been out of the game for a while. Raising his daughter while his wife played super-secret agent across the globe meant that he’d hung up his ring, and it was a choice he’d happily make infinite times over. The past decade or so had been the happiest of his life. But with Jess’s move to San Francisco a year or so back when she’d joined the All-Star Academy… it meant he suddenly had a lot of free time. He was no longer chaperoning a burgeoning cosmic superhuman on a day-to-day basis. Instead, he suddenly found time to fly again. To charge up his ring, to say his vow, and take to the skies...and when space and time had begun to warp, he’d been at the forefront, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with old friends and new ones as they saved the world once more.
And now there was another new friend: Equinox. The more he spoke, the more Hal could feel all the tension and uneasiness within him drain away. He could see the posture of the others begin to relax as well, and why not? It was an incredible stroke of luck, having someone who could solve this crisis literally arrive at their doorstep just when they needed him the most. Besides, there was something about the man...something in Equinox’s voice...that convinced all of them that what he said was the truth.
“We need to hurry. Here, let me upload the information I have into your computers.” Equinox began to move towards one of the consoles in the Watchtower. At first, no one even thought to object, but then Batman jerked his head slightly, as if he’d momentarily nodded off, followed by him leaping in front of Equinox to block the man’s path.
“Not going to happen,” Batman said. “You may be here to help us, but we still need to maintain some level of security. Vic?”
Cyborg understood what was needed without it being said, and began to manifest a silvery cube about the size of a grapefruit in his outstretched mechanical hand. “Totally solid-state,” Cyborg explained as he gave it to Equinox. “Only one who’ll be able to read what you put in there is me, and that’ll only be after I run it through every virus and malware test I can muster.”
Equinox nodded, saying, “Very wise. You and your people have earned your reputation.” He pressed one of the bands on his wrist against the cube, which soon produced thin metallic leads that plugged into the near-invisible ports on the band. As the data was transferred, Equinox continued to talk, telling them all how Libra had tried to kill him as a sacrifice to the Infinite Man. Looks of sympathy washed over the faces of all the heroes present. Hal himself found his thoughts drifting towards his own brothers, and the fights they’d had when younger. The feeling of empathy he felt towards this newcomer was incredibly strong, and he found himself getting so wrapped up in the words that it took a moment for him to realise his ring was vibrating. He thought at first that it was Kyle trying to reestablish contact, but this felt different than any other signal Hal had ever received. It was a feeling foreign to him -- this particular power ring was his. Purely his. It had been destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed, rebuilt, all down to his potent vein of willpower. He’d plumbed the depths of this tool, and never felt this kind of thing before. So he did what he always did when faced with the unknown… he met it head on.
Uh… hello? he asked, mentally.
<Hal Jordan of Earth. We have not spoken in some time. Not since our ascension out of the physical universe. This is the collective voice of the Guardians of the Universe. And we have need of you -- our greatest champion -- one final time.>
“Oh, boy,” he whispered. The Guardians of the Universe had exited this physical realm of existence over a decade ago, and to Hal’s knowledge, nobody had seen hide nor hair of them since. If he remembered rightly, they left to reclaim some semblance of their former life with the Zamorans, the females of their species that had evolved on a divergent path. Hal had hoped that when they returned it would be followed with peace and goodwill across the cosmos, but unfortunately, with them speaking directly to him on the sly, it seemed like it was more of the same. Secrets. Manipulation. But if he wanted to get to the truth of the matter, there was only one thing he could do. After moving away from Guy to find a quiet corner of the room, Hal said to the Guardians, “So, long time no speak. What’s the deal?”
<Since our ascension to the immaterial, we have watched the universe grow in ways that astound and inspire. While we may not act ourselves, we trust our agents to do so in our stead. We trust in the Green Lantern Corps and their allies.>
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Still, glad that you’re willing to pitch in at a time like this. With literally everything collapsing all around us, we could use some extra help.”
<You misunderstand. We have no interest in ‘pitching in’. Your world has triumphed over many crises without our assistance, and we believe it shall do so again. There is, however, another matter that needs attending.>
“I’m sure it can wait!” Hal said, not hiding his exasperation at all.
<A veil has fallen across the anti-matter universe. We are unable to pierce it, but even blind, we can sense the immense energy spikes emanating from that grey rock. A threat grows inside there that eludes even our gaze, but it is there. We know that much. You must journey there to verify our suspicions… and if they are proven to be true, you must marshal your forces, and remove the threat before the entirety of the Multiverse is consumed by it.>
Hal considered tossing another barb at his old bosses, but he held his tongue for the moment. With everything else that had happened so far in the past nine hours, the possibility that the warmongering inhabitants of Qward would take advantage of the chaos was a very real one. They’d been quiet for close to a decade, focused more on fighting amongst themselves than on attacking the Corps or anyone else, so little attention had been paid to them as of late. As long as the Qwardians didn’t bother anybody, there was no need to bother with them. But what if that had been a mistake, one that was now ready to bite them all in the ass? “If the threat is as big as you think, why all the secrecy? Shouldn’t you be calling up every member of the Corps so we can go in all guns blazing?”
<While the future is not clear to us, we know the direction the universe is going in. The Green Lantern Corps are needed to provide a beachhead for the future, to protect life to the best of their ability on this side of the matter/anti-matter divide. You must go alone. The Corps cannot afford to spare any more of their number on this.>
“And because it might just turn out that you’re being paranoid?” said Hal with a smirk.
<Impudent as always, Hal Jordan. While we do not believe ourselves to be paranoid, with the future being a blind spot, and with the anti-matter universe opaque to us… it is best you proceed as requested.>
“Okay, so if they’re closed off right now, how do I go about getting to the anti-matter universe?”
<You will it.>
A moment later, Guy Gardner turned, the tingle of the Starsoul’s voice in the back of his head telling him that something had just happened, but it was unsure of what. He searched the room for Hal, but his old friend was suddenly gone, and the Blue Lantern had no idea as to where…or when he had managed to sneak out from the proceedings.
193 MINUTES EARLIER - THE ANTI-MATTER UNIVERSE:
Reality warped inside out as Hal Jordan spun from the positive matter universe into the anti-matter universe. He’d journeyed from one reality to another previously, but that was when he was a younger man, before he hung up his ring to raise his daughter. Thing was, it was like being back in the Air Force, experiencing the kind of G-force that a civilian would never, and he immediately felt like a cadet again, like it was second nature. Pulling Gs was like a warm embrace to him, and this was even better than that! He laughed as his body shuddered from one side of a wormhole to another, but his ring kept him safe, his focus was square.
Then he realised this trip was taking a little longer than he remembered.
He opened his eyes to the twisting tunnel that bore through reality and witnessed events streaking past him at random. He saw lightning travel from the future to the past, carrying Barry Allen -- his oldest friend in this business -- and family back to the present day. He saw the wall of entropic energy engulfing the universe, obliterating everything it touched. He saw heroes fighting in both Heaven and Hell and everywhere in between. He saw a figure robed in gray and black, another in purple, both their faces obscured, along with a third whose form seemed to be composed of entire galaxies. He saw Libra’s attack on Equinox, just as described, then Libra appeared to become Equinox, the implication of which wasn’t lost on Hal, but there was nothing he could do about it. More events shot past him, sights and sounds blurring until it became one gigantic, blinding scream of information and he couldn’t control it -- couldn’t slow it -- he was caught up in this thing, moments were escaping him, and then -- without warning -- he was spat out into the real space once more as he completed his journey.
Before he could even begin to get his bearings, diamond-hard bolts of golden light struck his aura, and he was thrown backwards. The entire black abyss of space around Qward -- recognisable from its mottled, crater-ridden surface -- was suddenly illuminated by a thunderstorm that zeroed in on the Green Lantern exclusively, hitting him again and again without respite. He spun and twisted, trying to escape the attack, but he couldn’t tell exactly which direction it was coming from. His aura was beginning to crack, letting in microscopic particles of qwa energy that jabbed at him like high-velocity sewing needles. There seemed to be no telling when the onslaught would end.
“Ring! What are we dealing with here?” shouted Hal, concentrating on survival, on shields, on not dying. He hadn’t come this far, hadn’t resumed wearing the ring, just to die so far from home.
<Multiple offensive micro-satellites in place around Qward. Ring sensors did not detect them, suggesting they lay dormant until activated by proximity. 99% chance of fatality if you remain in high orbit.>
“Yeah, well, okay, that makes complete sense… Weaponers of Qward and all that…” said Hal.
<Repeat, 99% chance of fatality,> repeated his ring.
“Aww, c’mon, it may have been ten years, but I live in that 1%,” said Hal.
First things first, Hal willed his ring to slow down his perception of time -- the way his mind processed visual and auditory input. An old trick, but a useful one, and the entire world began to move in slow motion, and he was struck by how beautiful the deadly solar system was when it wasn’t actively murdering him. Bolts of lightning moved slowly across the inky blackness, and he could see the pattern of their attack, how the energy formations sprung from countless fist-sized orbs riddling the high orbit of the planet. He mapped his descent, and then, with the click of a finger, his perception snapped into real time and he darted through the onslaught, and zig-zagged down into Qward’s atmosphere, where the attack ended abruptly -- the orbs must have been programmed to not target objects closer to the surface to avoid any “friendly fire” incidents.
“Okay, that’s one thing down, but that’s pretty damn deadly,” he said, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead as blood threatened to trickle into his eyes. The injuries weren’t life-threatening, but they certainly didn’t feel good. “Ring, find me a place to hunker down for a minute so I can get patched up.” The A.I. guided him across the desolate landscape, occasionally passing by the ruined remains of spaceships that presumably got caught in the killbox surrounding Qward, until he came to a small complex that had taken some damage of its own -- a derelict energy-production facility, from what the ring could suss out. After doing a quick scan of the area to make certain no one was around, he flew through a hole in one of the buildings and sat cross-legged on the floor. He instructed the ring to get to work on patching up his wounds while he pondered what he’d seen so far. While Qward was never exactly a vibrant, friendly place, it seemed as though the past decade had been less than kind to it. The killbox was a new thing: Qwardians prided themselves on facing their enemies head-on, and the approach of a Green Lantern usually resulted in squadrons of Thunderers pouring out of the woodwork. So far, though, he hadn’t seen a one. “Something’s going on here. Definitely. Ring, generate an energy buoy.” He held out his hands and above his palms formed an emerald sphere about the size of a softball. “Hang back invisible, mapping everything that happens. I want a fully-detailed recording of all audio, visual, and data input. If I should become incapacitated, immediately send this buoy back to the positive matter universe, back to my point of departure, okay?”
<Affirmative.> The sphere levitated up towards the ceiling and began to emit a stealth field, making it virtually undetectable to both the naked eye and most tracking systems. With that out of the way, he ordered his ring to scan the planet for any life signs, plus he told it to compare all readings that came in to those already on file from ten years earlier, and to alert him to any anomalies. There was a mystery here, and he was going to uncover it, because that meant he’d be home with his family sooner rather than later. And if he saved the universe in the interim? Well, that would be the icing on the cake.
The ring made fast work of his wounds, healing them with such efficiency that it no longer appeared that he’d ever been injured. A special gift of the ring...one of many, of course, but a very appreciated one. As it finished up its work, Hal looked over a projected map of Qward that the ring was building right before his eyes. It seemed as though nearly the entire population was now concentrated in a single, massive city just 100 miles northeast of Hal’s present position, which was apparently the source of the energy spikes the Guardians detected. It also seemed -- going by what the ring was telling him -- that there were a little less than 20,000 people on the entire planet. “That can’t be right,” Hal muttered. “Ring, what was the population of Qward ten years ago?”
<Population during last survey scan on rec->, the ring began to say, then suddenly let out a discordant tone. <Anomaly detected. Records on file do not correlate to current scans. Cannot reconcile error.>
“What’s the error? Are you saying this isn’t Qward?”
<Geologic samples indicate planet to be Qward, but decay-product ratio of samples indicate time since last survey on record to be longer than ten years. Cannot reconcile error.>
Hal frowned. Measuring the age of an object by the decay of certain isotopes present was usually pretty precise. “Ring, comparing the results of the last survey on file to the current one, how much time has passed on Qward?”
<34.18 years.>
“That’s impossible,” Hal said, but then he thought of all the other anomalies that’d been cropping up since this crisis started. Could it be that whatever was causing those also sped up time here in the anti-matter universe, to the point where decades had flown by in a blink? The laws of physics had always behaved strangely in this place, but so far as he knew, time passed at the same rate on both sides of the matter/anti-matter barrier.
The ring didn’t give him much time to contemplate this, as it soon alerted him to multiple vehicles closing in on his position. Hal contracted the map to show only the immediate area: a single aircraft was landing nearby, while further out came five more aircraft from the direction of the city, each larger and armed more heavily than the single. He presumed the first to be a scout ship for the others, and wasn’t surprised at all when fifteen lifeforms -- represented as indistinct bright-green figures on the map -- disembarked and began to fan out around the area. “Put the kettle on, company’s coming,” Hal said to himself, and made ready to blast out of the building. But before he could take to the skies, a verdant missile streaked across the map, destroying the scout ship as the figures ran for cover. Then Hal saw the waves of small figures flying out from the larger crafts. Thunderers, he thought, and wasted no more time deciding which side he should be fighting against.
The Green Lantern streaked out of the building like an emerald comet, taking aim at the jetpack-wearing Thunderers and blasting them out of the sky. The people who’d flown in on the presumed scout craft were firing upon the Thunderers as well. A quick glance at his new allies revealed that a few of them appeared to be human, which raised a few questions in his head, but now wasn’t the time to ask them, not when there were enemy aircraft lobbing missiles at him. He disabled most of them, but one slipped past, impacting with the building he’d occupied only moments earlier and causing part of it to collapse. Hal redoubled his efforts and began tearing through the aircrafts one by one, while his new allies took down the remaining Thunderers.
When the final aircraft hit the ground, Hal landed next to it, intent on getting some answers out of whomever might remain within. A Qwardian was pushing his way out of the shattered canopy, and when he saw the Green Lantern, he immediately began to grope for the rifle slung across his back. Raising his ring hand, Hal was about to relieve the alien of his weapon, but a blast of qwa-powered energy suddenly flashed out, ripping through the Qwardian and killing him instantly. Hal turned in the direction the blast came from to see a blonde-haired young woman lugging a similar rifle as she stepped out from behind some nearby debris. “Oh, wow,” she said with a grin. “I’ve never gotten to see a superhero up close before.” She stuck out her hand. “Stella Borsten… I’m from Earth. It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”
“I’d introduce myself, but it appears you already know who I am,” Hal replied, shaking her hand. Others began to approach as well: two Xudarians, a Talokite, and a thin, yellow-skinned humanoid from a species unfamiliar to Hal. There was also a Qwardian among them, but he seemed to be more intrigued than hostile. “I’ve got about a dozen questions, starting with how the heck you all got here. Qward doesn’t exactly have a lively tourist trade.”
“We were kidnapped,” one of the Xudarians replied. “The Qwardians back in the city wanted to use us for slave labor, but we escaped and banded together with his people to fight back.” She indicated the lone Qwardian standing with them.
Hal cocked an eyebrow at that information: historically, the people of Qward were highly xenophobic, more apt to wipe out other alien races than work alongside them. The notion of them allowing non-Qwardians to set foot on their home planet -- even as slave labor -- was unprecedented. “Are you the only ones?”
“There’s close to four hundred offworlders in our group now,” Stella told him. “We free whomever we can, but there’s still thousands back in the city, with more arriving every day. Those bug-eyes have a time machine that can pluck anyone from anywhere and they like. They just zap in, grab people, and zap out before anybody knows what’s going on.” She paused, then said, “I take it by the look on your face that you didn’t know about any of this.”
“No, but it fits in with a few things I already know.” The Green Lantern looked over the scene of devastation around them: burning aircraft, dead bodies, and a partially-collapsed building. “This was just supposed to be a scouting mission for now, but between what you’ve told me and our little firefight here, it looks like I’ll be taking a more active role right away. I presume the rest of your group isn’t here at the moment?”
Stella shook her head. “We were doing some scouting of our own… you coming to this complex set off some of our sensors. Soon as we round up the rest of our party, we’ll take you back to the hideout.”
“I don’t know if there’s anyone else left alive.” The Talokite pointed towards the rubble, saying, “I saw part of our group run in there right before that section collapsed.” The Talokite’s blue skin paled a little as she said to Stella, “I think Jonah may have been with them.”
“Oh my God…” Stella began running towards what was left of the building, heedless of how unstable it looked.
Hal used his ring to scan the rubble. “I’ve got two lifesigns… no, three. The last one’s pretty faint. We need to hurry.” He took to the air and bathed the area in emerald light, lifting away massive chunks of debris while shoring up the still-intact portions of the building. Soon, a pair of battered-but-alive people came into view. “The third one’s over here,” Hal called out, focusing his ring tightly on a deeper pile of rubble, until he’d cleared away enough to reveal the bloodied and broken body of a man clad in a mix of Qwardian uniform and frontier-style leathers. A pair of gunbelts crisscrossed his hips, and as Hal set down next to him, he saw a massive antique revolver dangling from the man’s hand.
Stella screamed, “Jonah!” and ran over to him, while Hal used his ring to examine the man’s injuries. During this, the man tried to say something, but neither of them could make it out before he slipped into unconsciousness. “I’m here, Jonah,” Stella said as she knelt beside him, gently touching his blood-smeared face. “It’s okay, you’ll be okay.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Hal told her. “He’s got multiple fractures, a serious abdominal wound, and his blood pressure is dropping like a stone. My ring can patch up some of this, but not everything.” The Green Lantern immediately set to work, generating an oxygen mask over the man’s face and sealing off the wounds with emerald light.
“There might be something that’ll help, presuming the infirmary didn’t get wrecked.” Stella pointed towards another part of the complex. “I think we skipped over one of the medical pods the last time we raided this place… didn’t have room for all of them in the transport. If we can fire it up and get him in, it should have him fixed up in a few hours.”
“Lead the way.” Hal created a stretcher beneath the man and lifted him carefully into the air. As he did so, he got a better look at the right side of the man’s face. Beneath the blood and the beard, Hal could see an oddly-familiar scar. “You said his name was Jonah, right?” Hal asked the young woman. “As in Jonah Hex?”
“You know him?” she responded, a measure of surprise in her voice.
“Been a long time, but yeah, I know him. Let’s get him on the mend before we delve into that particular story, though.”
167 MINUTES EARLIER - THE MARS COLONY:
After the scientific triumvirate of Lena Luthor, Power Girl, and Superwoman terraformed the planetoid that became New Krypton, they used their “genesis engine” to make Earth’s moon habitable, and later, with J’onn J’onzz at the helm, they did the same to Mars.
While the soil was still a rich crimson, the skies were blue, an atmosphere had developed that once again allowed life to thrive on the once alien world! The buried ruins of Mars’ once glistening cities were raised and rebuilt, bigger and better than before, and colonists from Earth had made the journey via Boom Tunnel to take up residency on the newly available world.
Of course, the world known as Ma'aleca'andra to her people still held her own secrets close to her chest, and when the Key had unlocked every door, gateway and portal across the universe… who could have expected that the mysteries buried beneath the rocky mantle of Mars would rise once more?
After hours of fighting the vicious psychic fires unleashed by the sadistic and sociopathic hordes of White Martians that had been released from their cells during the universal prison break, J’onn had hoped that he might be able to relax after pushing himself harder than he imagined possible, but instead, the entire universe seemed to be collapsing to a kernel of its former glory. He wasn’t entirely hooked into the communications between the Justice League and her extended roster, but he heard fragments, caught snippets from the Green Lanterns, and was struck by the cacophony of voices that were speeding away from the wall of nothing closing in from all directions.
Before he had time to process that information, the last of the Ebony Martians finally dug themselves out of their tombs.
The New Mars colony was occupied by a mélange of peoples: an international contingent of Earth-borne colonists and scientists were established in the southern hemisphere, while to the north, the resurrected Green Martian race thrived in the Barsoomian spires that had risen with their return to the land of the living.
J'onn had fought too hard and for too long to let Ma'aleca'andra fall in the face of the worst that their home world had to offer. His peoples' return had been due to his brother Ma'alefa'ak's machinations a year or so earlier. It had not been the intention for the mad Martian to engineer his peoples return after he himself had been responsible for their deaths, but the net result was one and the same. Ma'alefa'ak died a final, fiery death, and the Greens re-emerged as the dominant species of Mars.
The White Martians resurfaced soon after to tear the red planet from the Greens, but thanks to the allies J'onn had made across the universe in his time as the last Manhunter, the Whites were soundly defeated and imprisoned in the rehabilitation wombs situated beneath the Valley Dor.
Unfortunately, the psychic rehabilitation cycles hadn't reached their end when the Key's release from his celestial coma triggered the opening of every door across creation, and when their wombs hissed open, the White Martians were just as monstrous as they had been the first time around. But with the assistance of the Ma'aleca'andra-based Authority led by the Guardian, they'd been able to prevent the Whites gaining a foothold.
After J'onn managed to project a cross-world rehabilitation aura keyed to the Whites' unique psychic register, they'd won the day, but then, something even worse emerged from the red sands of Mars: The Ebony Martians.
“Jesus! Who knew Mars had so many damn tombs?” murmured the Engineer, weapons sprouting from her arms as she sent concussive blasts into the rampaging hordes of feral proto-Martians that swarmed the surface of the red planet after emerging from their holes.
“I can feel the tunnels under the skin of the planet, pulsing with activity, like veins,” observed Jack Hawksmoor, somersaulting over the heads of the crazed inhabitants of the world. “The planet is like one giant city, and it’s finally woken up after millennia dormant.”
{If not longer.}
J’onn J’onzz’s voice spoke into the Authority’s minds as they fought back against the colossal hordes of his recently risen ancestors. He was using his Martian Vision to scour massive trenches between the oncoming hordes and the new cities that sat atop Mars’ surface, but it was doing little to slow down the thousands of attackers who’d awoken from an ancient slumber.
{Eons before the Burning Martians and their eventual genetically engineered branching into the Greens and Whites, the Ebony Martians were the dominant race on Mars. Primitive… monstrous… their war-like nature eventually led into their evolution into the Burning--}
Behind the trenches, marshalling the remaining numbers of the Earth/Mars Defense Corps, the Authority’s leader-- the Guardian-- looked up to where the Martian Manhunter floated, and shouted, “J’onn, I hate to break up your history lesson, but these things aren’t backing down. Our attacks aren’t deterring them… and they’re nearing the walls. They barely held against the Whites. You think they can withstand these mean bastards?”
“We’re just lucky they don’t come with the standard Martian powerset,” noted Colonel Montgomery Kelly, field commander of the EMDC.
He looked up at the sky, where the shiftship known as the Carrier loomed overhead. Flashes of orange light flickered throughout the twisting streets as the evacuation was underway, the Authority’s site-to-site transportation system known as ‘Doors’ allowing the citizens of Mars to be rescued before the Ebony Martians could reach them.
{They are utilising a form of sub-psychic communication-- a primitive, almost instinctual hivemind. Not fully psionic, but still, quite potent,} J’onn said, wiping blood from his nose. {And loud.}
“We need to get your man Apollo up here. Where the hell is he?” asked Colonel Kelly.
Beneath the surface of Ma'aleca'andra, that question was answered by action. Covered in emerald blood, Midnighter kicked another one of the Ebony Martians in the face, splitting its skull in two, while Apollo kept the young Jenny Infinite close as she worked her delicate fingers across the alien pentecontahenagon they’d found at the base of the ancient tombs.
The shape rotated at odd and sometimes impossible angles. The sides should have ground against each other, sending sparks or shavings of itself out into the world, but instead the material folded in on itself, flowed like waves crashing across an ocean, and from deep inside it a low hum groaned out. Whatever this was, it held the key to saving the Mars colony, but only if they could figure out what it actually was!
“No rush, Jenny, darling,” said Apollo, his aura flashing as he disintegrated a swarm of Ebony Martians that rushed toward them.
“But maybe, if you could try a little harder,” said the Midnighter, throwing a handful of throwing stars down the tunnel that he guarded. Beyond his position, mounds of dead Martians were piled up, with more of their numbers powering through to reach the trio.
Apollo shot his husband a look, then squeezed their adopted daughter’s shoulder reassuringly. “You’ll figure it out.”
“But…I’ve never seen anything like this before,” she said.
Apollo smiled warmly and then knelt down beside Jenny. “But honey, that’s your stock in trade. Ever since we arrived back home, we’ve seen the weird and the wonderful, and we’ve figured it out. This is just a mystery you’ve yet to solve. And you know what you do, every single time you uncover a new mystery?”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“You solve it, love! You always solve it!” shouted Midnighter.
“I mean… it’s… it’s weird… it’s moving so strange, and it’s singing a song I’ve never heard before, in a language… unlike anything… anything I’ve ever heard,” she admitted.
“Singing? Can you tap J’onn into it?” asked Apollo.
“I think so, sure,” said Jenny.
Above ground, J’onn prepared himself for the psychic-auditory input, and was shocked when he heard an ancient Ma'aleca'andrian song echo through his body. “C'eridyall’s Light,” he murmured. J’onn didn’t fully understand it, but he could taste it, feel its age, its purpose. This was the link between the Ebony Martians. This was their hivemind. And he knew how to end their threat!
{Jenny, repeat after me--!}
Jenny’s eyes widened when J’onn brain joined with hers, and her cosmic senses expanded to encompass the pentecontahenagon. Fifty-two sides moving in synchronicity with one another, never touching, never repeating. She placed her small hands on either side of the shape, and then in ancient Martian, whispered “<Please come home.>”
Across the surface of Mars, the hordes of Ebony Martians stopped what they were doing and turned back toward the source of the strange new voice they’d all heard at once. Without hesitating, they began to swarm back toward the holes they’d emerged from, clouds of red dust kicking up as they sped back toward their tombs.
{Apollo! Midnighter! Get Jenny out of there!} ordered the Martian Manhunter.
“Yeah, because we want to stick around,” said the Midnighter, as Apollo bundled up Jenny and himself then shot upwards through miles of Martian rock, using his heat vision to melt through it until they reached the surface, just in time to witness the last of the Ebony Martians returning to their tombs beneath Ma'aleca'andra.
The group quickly regrouped, the Authority standing upon the battlements of the wall surrounding the Mars colony, while Colonel Montgomery Kelly barked orders at the members of the Earth / Mars Defence Corps still positioned nearby.
“So, J’onn, are you saying that all we had to do to stop those things was ask nicely?” said Jack Hawksmoor, as he tried to work the kink out of his back that came with utilising his city-based powers on an alien world.
“There was more to it than that, but yes, effectively,” said J’onn, his ruby-red eyes lifting up towards the smoke-smudged sky, searching for any sign of the entropy wave that, according to the chatter still filling his mind, was inexorably heading for the Sol System. “I only hope this is victory was not all for nothing.”
155 MINUTES EARLIER - DERELICT FACILITY, QWARD:
“That should do it.” Kyu stepped away from the readout panel at the foot of the medical pod. “I do not have much experience calibrating these for Terran use, but everything appears to be reading normal. He should be stable within one-and-a-half segments.”
“That’s about an hour,” Stella told Hal. The two of them were standing beside the pod. Jonah lay within it, stripped of clothing and covered in tubes and wires. A clear liquid filled with cell-repairing nanobots swirled around him. Glancing over at the Qwardian, Stella said, “Thanks, Kyu. You’d better get on contacting the base before another wave shows up from the city.” After Kyu left the room, Stella leaned on the medical pod’s transparent top and looked down at Jonah -- already, his wounds had stopped gushing blood, and the jagged hole in his abdomen was slowly shrinking. “Good thing he’s unconscious. If he’d known we were gonna stick him in this thing, he would’ve freaked out. Just the sight of them makes him uneasy.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Jonah Hex I know,” GL said. “It seemed to me that there was very little that could faze the guy. Robots, time travel, flying people...” He gestured towards himself on the last one. “He just took it all in stride.”
“Okay, you’re definitely gonna have to explain to me how you two met, because I know you and me are from around the same time period. No way you were alive during the 1800s.”
“It was a Justice League mission, many years ago. My friends and I got tossed back in time and separated...Jonah found me out in the desert about half-dead. He kept me safe until we located my friends, who’d lucked into running into some of his friends. Then we all banded together and took care of the bad guy that threw us back in time in the first place.” Hal smirked. “That’s the Cliff’s Notes version. Once Jonah’s awake, we’ll give you the longer version.”
“Oh, I doubt that. It’s hard to get Jonah to talk about anything regarding himself. Took me two months to pry out of him that the scar on his face wasn’t from the bug-eyes.”
“You guys have been on Qward for two months now?”
“Longer, actually. I don’t know how long exactly, since they don’t really have proper days and stuff here, but I’d say Jonah and I have known each other for about six months now. Add on maybe another month or two for when I got here, and Jonah...” She shrugged. “Not sure. Again, it’s hard to get him to talk. The Crone really screwed him up.”
“What’s the Crone?”
“It’s this...I dunno...this thing the bug-eyes back in the city worship. It’s, like, some kind of psychic vampire: it feeds on people’s souls, their emotions. That’s what it was doing to Jonah before he escaped...the thing just about killed him. Some guy named Libra showed up years ago promising them all paradise if they served the Crone, but the group we’re with, they refused, and they’ve been fighting against it ever since. They call it the False God...most of them are too scared of the thing to call it by its real name.”
“I know about Libra,” Hal said, “but this is the first I’ve heard about this Crone thing. I can only presume it has a part in Libra’s plan as well, though I’m not 100% on what that is either. When you and the others were back in the city doing slave labor, what exactly did they have you working on?”
“Some were working in the mines, others worked in factories...that’s where I ended up. There’s all sorts of different ones all over the city, churning out parts to build this big gold tower they call the Spire. The bug-eyes claim it’s a temple for the Crone, but I know the time machine that brought us here is located somewhere inside, so maybe the two things are related, y’know? They say the Crone’s really old, like, existed-since-time-began old. So, like, maybe it feeds off of time too, or maybe the Crone is what makes the time machine work?”
“If it does feed off time, that might explain why the universe appears to be unraveling at both ends, and it would definitely explain the incredible power spikes that we detected coming from Qward,” Hal said. “Punching holes in spacetime is no easy feat, as you can imagine: there’s only a handful of people that are capable of pulling it off, and none of them have ever done anything close to the scale we’re...” The Green Lantern paused, an expression of shock growing on his face, then he put a hand on Stella’s arm and turned her so she was facing him. “This thing...you said most of the Qwardians don’t call it by its real name. But what about you? Is it really called the Crone, or does its name just sort of sound like that?”
“That’s Jonah’s name for it,” she replied after a moment of hesitation. “The rest of us just kinda picked up on it. But yeah, the thing’s real name is Kroner or something like that.”
“Krona.” The word came out of Hal’s mouth almost like a curse. “Dear God...after all these years, Krona’s come back.” His hand still on her arm, Hal pulled Stella towards the door, saying, “Come on, we need to talk with the others right away!”
148 MINUTES EARLIER - CENTENNIAL PARK, METROPOLIS:
Behind the false face he wore, Libra smiled at the heroes scuttling about. He’d had to push his abilities a little harder than usual, but in the end, they were just as willing to obey as the fools on Qward. It was in their nature to help, of course, so it was easy to latch onto that and twist it in such a way that they wouldn’t even question him. They were all so engrossed in building the temporal trap that would attract and hold the Infinite Man that Libra was tempted to drop the illusion cast about his true self just see if they’d even notice, but Krona would not be pleased if he disrupted their plans with such a childish game.
It had a been a long time since he’d played any sort of game, actually. He could recall the last game he’d played with his brother, back when they’d been mere humans named Justin and Julian Ballantine, living on small farm in Turk County in the early 20th Century. They were twins, he and his brother, a fluke of birth that brought with it instant closeness, an unbreakable bond...or so he thought. Then came that day of game-playing -- shooting marbles in the front yard, to be exact -- when Julian went from laughing and smiling to a sudden scowl. The hand came up, striking Justin hard across the face, hard enough to draw blood. Justin fell back in shock, and when he looked at his brother, he no longer saw that perfect reflection of himself. Worse yet, he could suddenly see inside his brother, directly at the utter rage dwelling beneath his skin, as if a demon straight from their Sunday school lessons had put on his brother’s face in an effort to fool him. But he wasn’t fooled, not even when the rage within his brother evaporated like water in a desert to be replaced by confusion and guilt so heavy that his brother ran away, vanishing without a trace. That absence did nothing to erase what he now knew lay within his brother’s heart. There was no way to unsee it.
From that moment on, things were different...not just between Justin and his brother, but between him and the entire world. It was as if that single blow across the face had dislodged a veil over Justin’s eyes, and now he could see what lay beneath everyone’s skin. So many false faces, so many hidden feelings. Every smile a lie, every kind word passed from lips ultimately attached to some self-serving desire. The world was a violent sea of emotion, and the little boy soon found himself drowning in it, rendering him catatonic. His parents, already reeling from the disappearance of Julian, left him in the care of medical professionals who plied him with a myriad of treatments, all of them unaware of the true cause of their young patient’s silence and immobility. They placed him in a facility full of people whose emotional states ran the gamut daily, unknowingly threatening to shatter what little sanity he had left...
...until the day he heard the voice of Krona.
Tears spilled from Justin’s eyes that day, for it was the first time since his brother struck him that the emotional onslaught which constantly whirled around him receded. Krona held it at bay somehow, absorbed it until it became the merest nudge upon his psyche. To Justin, the disembodied voice of Krona was the voice of God, exactly like it had been described to him every Sunday. “Fear not,” the voice said, “for I am here with you. I will always be here with you.”
And he was: day and night, Justin felt Krona’s presence, soothing him, sharing with him glorious sights from across billions of years of existence, all the while drawing out of Justin the decades of mental anguish that had built up inside of him. It was painful at first, but it brought such relief that he quickly found pleasure in it. Justin longed to gaze upon his new master’s visage, not merely feel him near, but Krona was not yet capable of manifesting as anything more than a shadow. With Justin’s help, however, that could change.
Within a month, Justin Ballantine walked out of Arkham Asylum under his own power, thanking the staff for all their hard work. It was a lie, of course: it had been Krona who’d given him the ability to block out the emotions that still raged around him, then instructed him on how to turn that ability loose upon others, making them feel whatever Justin wanted them to feel. He’d started small in the asylum -- giving the doctors a sense of pride over “curing” him rather than questioning how it happened -- and after he returned to the family farm in Turk County, he practiced freely upon his parents. Justin vaguely remembered feeling love for them as a child, but that was before he’d spent nearly two decades surrounded by the roiling emotions of gibbering madmen. Now he only wanted revenge on the two people responsible.
He toyed with them at first, pushing his normally-pious parents to lash out at each other with terse words and open palms until it escalated a week later into a feral rage so violent that they clawed and bit each other like wild animals. He then shifted it to pure, unbridled lust, watching with clinical coldness as their naked and bleeding forms rutted for hours with such force that bones began to snap. Even when his mother expired, Justin wasn’t satisfied, so he kept pushing his father’s emotional state so that the man was soon overwhelmed with insatiable hunger, causing him to gorge upon his wife’s corpse until he choked to death upon the flesh. Through it all, Krona urged him to push his abilities even further, the shadows in the room pulsing and deepening as his master reveled in the sacrifice laid before him.
After his parents’ deaths, Justin contemplated his next move. His abilities had grown, to be sure, but he wasn’t certain if he was strong enough to strike down everyone in Arkham Asylum yet (his favored goal). Then there was the mystery man called Green Lantern who protected Gotham City: something about that name made Krona bristle, so Justin considered destroying the man as a way of pleasing his master. He was still mulling over these choices when an intense flash of light outside caught his attention. Running out onto the porch, he saw a man garbed in black and white standing in the front yard. There was a mask over his face, which he promptly removed, revealing the same visage Justin saw in the mirror every day.
Julian Ballantine, Justin’s long-lost brother, had finally come home. As he soon explained, he hadn’t run away all those years ago, but rather he’d been so ashamed of his actions that he slipped out of reality and landed in some primordial world. The past, the future, another dimension...after all this time, he still wasn’t certain, but it had been the first step in a decades-long journey across time and space as he tried to find his way back home. It took him that long to master his newfound ability, and to build the amulet that helped him focus it so that he could finally return to his brother’s side. In that time, he’d taken on a new name -- Equinox -- and learned many truths about the two of them: born of flesh they may have been, but they were destined to be more than human, to be a hair’s-breadth away from gods. He then proffered to Justin a golden staff -- a set of scales on one end, a razor-sharp point on the other -- and explained that it would help his brother control his own powers as they ascended to their true place in the Multiverse as Equinox and Libra, avatars of...
Equinox never got to finish his explanation, for Justin had suddenly thrust the pointed end of the staff straight through his chest, just below the swirling amulet over Equinox’s heart. He was barely able to burble out “Why?” before collapsing. Justin felt no need to answer, for the truth was plain: his long-lost brother was an agent of the Devil, and he’d returned to corrupt him.
As his brother choked on his own blood, Justin looked up to see the shadows in the front yard drawing together until he was gazing upon a withered figure that resembled a charred corpse, with eyeless sockets and spindly arms. It appeared to be wrapped in a tattered cloak, but in truth, this was a manifestation of its shadow-form, not yet strong enough to attain true substance -- the bottom of it slithered across the ground to engulf the dying Equinox and draw out the last lingering threads of life. “My child,” Krona whispered huskily, holding out a gnarled hand towards Justin as it approached, “my torchbearer...”
He wept to see the beauty of Krona’s true form, and he cried out in ecstasy when his lord and master embraced him, filling his mind with plans...grand plans...grander than he could’ve ever conceived of alone. Together, they would forge the gifts Equinox brought to them into weapons of conquest. Libra would not become an agent of the Devil like his hated brother, but a divine prophet of the Lord God Krona, who would reshape the world in his own glorious image. Together, they would save reality from itself...
“This doesn’t make any sense.”
The words snapped Libra out of his reminisce. He looked to his right and saw Ray Palmer -- still in his Atom costume but standing at his full height of six feet -- approaching with a tablet in his hand and an expression of concern on his face. “I’m trying to figure out the purpose of one of the components you said we need for this device, but for the life of me, I don’t see how it relates to the rest of it. Why do we need 200 pounds of pulverized silica for the containment chamber? Is it for some kind of filtration, or maybe to create a silicon-based chemical reaction?”
Behind the false face of Equinox, Libra’s mouth twisted into a snarl. It appeared his control over Palmer had slipped without him noticing. This would not do. “Very perceptive,” he replied, pushing his way back into the man’s psyche. “I commend your attention to detail.”
The concern on Palmer’s face dissolved, to be replaced by a small smile of satisfaction. “Thanks. I just...I want to make sure we don’t overlook anything.”
“Of course you do. Let me see.” Libra tilted the tablet, pretended to examine the schematic of the device, then passed a hand over the screen without touching it. “There. That makes more sense now, doesn’t it? Perfect sense.”
“Yes.” Palmer’s smile broadened as Libra stoked up feelings of pride and accomplishment within him. “Yes, that’s perfect.” He then walked away without another word.
Libra glanced around at the other heroes present, gently probing the minds of each of them to make sure no one else was slipping. To his delight, all were just as oblivious as Ray Palmer had become once more. All will be ready soon, my master, he thought, secure in the knowledge that Krona would hear him across the dimensional gulf that lay between them. Your time of ascension is nearly at hand.
143 MINUTES EARLIER - HEAVEN:
“I mean it, guys!” Captain Marvel called out, his eyes fixed on the army soaring towards them. “Even if it’s for a good cause, punching an angel just seems really wrong on a moral level!”
“Just ask God to absolve you when it’s all over!” Wally West said, then rushed forward, leaving behind a crimson streak as he tried to zip past the angelic horde before it could descend upon them. The Gates of Heaven were tantalizingly close, and he was certain he could make it past the threshold in an eyeblink, but even the Flash couldn’t outrace an angel. One of them dive-bombed right on top of him and grabbed hold, literally yanking him out of the Speed Force and tossing him away from the gates. Another angel soon caught him in midair and threw him aside, where yet another angel took hold and batted him about. Though they all remained as silent as the rest of the horde, their goal was clear: keep Wally away from the ground so he couldn’t build up momentum again. As he felt bones inside of him break from the multiple impacts, he began to wonder why they didn’t just kill him outright. Then he realised that, in Heaven, there likely was no death. These angels might eventually pound him into paste, but he’d never die.
The irony of possibly suffering eternal agony outside the Gates of Heaven was just beginning to set in when a streak of crimson and gold rushed towards Wally, taking hold of him and carrying him higher into the rarefied air. “I think we need to rethink this plan,” Captain Marvel said as they fled the throng of angels now pursuing both of them.
“A little late to be bringing that up,” Flash replied. The top of his cowl had been ripped away, and his shock of red hair was plastered against his head as they zipped through the air. “What do you have in mind?”
“Not sure yet. After you took off, I tried flying over the wall surrounding the Gates, but I can’t.”
“Angels blocked your way?”
“No, I mean I can’t. It’s not exactly a force field, it’s just...something holds me back. Think of like when you have a dog that does something wrong, so you tell it NO or BAD in a really loud voice. The dog doesn’t know what the words mean, it just knows it did something wrong because of your tone. I get that feeling when I’m about to fly over the wall. It’s not literally a voice, but...”
“But we’re the dogs,” Wally replied, “and we’re doing something we’re not supposed to.”
“Yeah, and I get the impression that the punishment might be worse than a rolled-up newspaper across the nose.” Billy suddenly changed direction to avoid a group of angels that was descending upon them -- thankfully, the wisdom of Solomon gave him just enough of an edge to predict their movements. “If we want to get into Heaven proper, it has to be through the Gates, no avoiding it. Only trouble is, there’s a bit of a bottleneck there at the moment.”
Wally looked down to where Billy indicated and saw a writhing mass of wings and limbs surrounding a large golden orb. “I take it Fate is in the middle of that angelic mosh pit?”
“She plowed ahead right after you. Believe it or not, she was making progress until she got up to the threshold. They’re literally blocking the way in with their bodies.”
“Scott doesn’t seem to be faring much better,” Wally said as he spotted another crowd of angels. Inexplicably, Mister Miracle had manifested in Heaven at his gigantic “New God” proportions as opposed to the lesser “human” ones that he normally assumed on Earth, but while he was swatting angels out of the air left and right, his movements seemed sluggish, and his knees appeared to be on the verge of buckling. “Okay, I’ve got a new plan, and I hate to break it to you, but it involves angel-punching. Or at least angel-frying.”
A ill look came over Billy’s face. “Flash, I can’t...”
“You can, you just don’t want to. I know you’ve got this pure, innocent heart, and you can’t bear the thought of hurting something you see as just as pure, but they don’t have that same hang-up. They were playing frickin’ dodgeball with me a minute ago! If we want any chance of getting past the Gates, you’ll have to do more than fly circles around these guys.”
Billy didn’t answer, he just kept on flying, shifting direction over and over again to stay out of the grasp of the countless angels that kept getting within a hair’s-breadth of grabbing the two heroes. After a moment, he said quietly, “Okay, tell me the plan.”
Meanwhile, Traci Thirteen -- garbed in the traditional trappings of Doctor Fate -- continued to pour all of the mystical energies at her disposal into the golden force field surrounding her. It was taking nearly all of her concentration to keep the angels attacking her at bay. Before her floated Zauriel’s sword, the tip of which was pointing the way towards where her beloved was imprisoned. From the safety of her golden sphere, Traci could easily see the utterly-blank expressions on the angels’ faces as they assaulted her force field with swords and lances, none of which had made a dent yet, but they had managed to keep her from advancing any further. Whatever force had imprisoned Zauriel had also rendered the entire heavenly host into mindless puppets...meaning that they were facing something with an incredible amount of power at its command. But I’ve got some incredible power of my own, Traci thought, her arms crossed tightly at the wrists as her levitating form pushed ever harder at the wall of angels that clogged the entranceway into the Shining City. I’ve got full might of Nabu on my side, along with every other person who’s ever worn the Helmet of Fate. All of them live within me and through me...and we’re all fighting for the same goal at this very moment!
Out of nowhere, she heard a cry of “SHAZAM!”, followed by an bolt of lightning striking the ground in front of her. A clot of angels quickly fled, and into that brief space flew Captain Marvel, who was holding onto the Flash. “Let me in, before they regroup!” Flash shouted. Traci did as he asked, and Marvel took off the second Flash was safe within Fate’s magical sphere. “Now, get us down to ground level! This idea isn’t going to work with me up in the air.”
“A ‘please’ would be nice,” Traci said, lowering the sphere just as a new wave of angels rushed forward into the gap created by Marvel’s lightning bolt -- the entire sphere rocked backward a few inches from their impact. “What’s this idea you have?”
“I figured you could use an extra push to get through the Gates.” He set his feet against the soft, springy earth they now stood upon, though he knew it was just what his mind perceived this part of Heaven to be. Where he saw a lush meadow, others might see fluffy clouds, while another might see a plain of gold or ivory. Right now, he had his mind fixated on the notion that it was the same consistency as an Olympic-level running track. “I need you to tether me to the inside of this thing, so it’ll move along in synch with me.”
“Done.” Golden bands emanated from the force field and wrapped around his torso to make a harness. “What else?”
“Just make sure nothing breaks off.” With that, he began to run. His feet immediately became a blur, but there was no forward momentum at all, as the sphere was met with the same resistance as before. The harness bit into his skin, but he kept on running, kicking off sparks of lightning every time his feet struck the ground, and soon, the sphere began to lurch forward, inch by agonizing inch. Sweat poured down Flash’s face from the effort, but he didn’t dare slow down.
As Wally pushed himself to the limit, Billy sped over to Mister Miracle and the scores of angels who continued to stab him from all directions like angry hornets. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Billy began to say under his breath, then he flew straight into the fray, striking one angel after another with just enough force to send them flying. He eventually knocked enough of them aside to reach the New God, who’d sunk to one massive knee. Despite knowing this was Scott’s “normal” appearance, it was bizarre to see the man at roughly ten times the size he was accustomed to. “Are you okay?” Billy asked.
“No...I’m not,” Scott gasped in what would’ve been a normal speaking level if he’d been smaller, but at these proportions came off like a distant rumble of thunder. “Think I’m...gonna throw up.” He ripped away his hood, revealing a pale, sweaty face covered with splotches of red. At first, Captain Marvel thought it was blood, then he noted that it looked more like hives. “Something...‘bout this place. Boom Tube can’t...adjust me...like the rest of you.”
Billy flew in tight circles around Scott to knock back more angels, saying, “You look like my mom when she accidently ate some shellfish.”
“Allergic reaction. That’d...make sense. Foreign elements...clashing...old gods and new.” Despite the pained expression on his face, he chuckled. “Should’ve seen it coming.”
“What can we do?”
“Try to...readjust.” With a trembling hand, he reached for the Mother Box attached to his costume. “Find a...compatible shape. Better...move away...might get messy.”
“What do you mean?” He then saw Scott dig his fingers into the Mother Box’s seams to pry it apart. “Wait a minute, is that safe to do?”
Scott chuckled again, and Billy realised the man was bordering on delirium -- whatever was preventing his body from adjusting to Heaven’s realm was affecting his mind as well. “There’s a way...to escape anything. A way over...a way out.” Strange black bubbles -- the human brain’s perception of the mysterious X-Element harnessed by the New Gods -- began to spill out of the Mother Box. “Sometimes...it’s the way through...”
Taking advantage of the distraction, a group of angels swept in and grabbed Captain Marvel, attempting to pull him apart, but he shook them off easily. By the time he’d done so, however, Scott had fully breached the interior of the Mother Box, and the X-Element burst forth in its full mind-bendingly-impossible glory. Marvel sped upwards to escape the sudden explosion of cosmic energy that engulfed Mister Miracle and numerous angels for about a sixty-foot radius. Thankfully, Fate and Flash were far enough away to be unaffected by the cloud of blackness and brightness that now churned in one corner of Heaven like something alive. Billy stared at the eye-searing sight and hoped to spot some glimmer of Scott within, but he couldn’t.
And still the angels came, oblivious to the number of them who’d been consumed by the X-Element along with Scott. They assaulted Billy, who no longer apologized for the blows he dealt them, and they assaulted the shield protecting Fate and Flash, who continued to push ever forward to the Gates of Heaven. It seemed as though the battle would never end, and the three heroes would spend all of eternity trying to breach the threshold of the most holy place in all of Creation.
“ENOUGH!”
A enormous plume of green smoke billowed up out of nowhere, and all eyes turned to see the Spectre -- the embodiment of God’s own wrath -- manifest in the midst of the battlefield at a size that easily dwarfed the proportions Mister Miracle had attained. Despite this, the angels only hesitated for a moment before mounting a coordinated attack against this new opponent. It was a fool’s errand: the Spectre waved a gargantuan hand and turned every angel present into glass. They quickly fell from the sky, shattering upon impact with the ground. This task done, the Spectre began to shrink until he stood at a height the human mind could better deal with.
“Thanks for the assist.” Fate said after she’d dropped her shield. “Glad to see that whatever’s effected all of the Heavenly Host didn’t get to you as well.”
“I have always been...set apart...when it comes to my brethren,” Spectre replied as his gaze cast over the broken remains of scores of angels. “And yet, standing here, I can feel the corruption that has taken over their minds. It still dwells within them, even in this altered state, filling the void where the Presence once was.”
“The presence of what?” Marvel asked, confused.
“The One True God.” Spectre looked at him with disdain, saying, “As opposed to the lesser gods you choose to align yourself with.”
“Hey, no Billy-bashing right now, Spec,” Flash said as he zipped in between the two of them. “We’re all here for the same reason: to figure out who kidnapped Zauriel and turned all these angels into mindless killing machines.”
“I was unaware of the corruption of the Host until my arrival. What brought me here was that monstrosity.” He turned towards the X-Element-fueled inferno that continued to roil not far away. “Even as I did battle all the way down in the depths of Hell, I felt it manifest in this sanctified realm. It must be dealt with.”
“Allow me.” Fate stepped forward, a golden ankh already forming between her hands. “I may be able to force the X-Element back into normal space, where it’ll disperse naturally.” The ankh grew as it moved towards the energy cloud, which began to engulf the mystic symbol like iron filings around a magnet. Soon, most of the cloud was gone, with only a few wisps of X-Element clinging to the twisted and mangled angelic forms that were now revealed. Some had been turned inside-out, others had merged together into shapes that could barely be comprehended by human eyes. “What in the world happened?” she asked Marvel, who was walking up to where she stood, with Flash right behind.
“Scott...he was reacting badly to being here in Heaven. I think he got desperate to fix it, so he t-t-took his Mother Box and...” A pained expression washed over Marvel’s face. “I couldn’t stop him, and now he’s...he’s...” The tears started to come as he said, “I don’t even see a body. He was over sixty feet tall, how could there not be a body?”
Fate shook her head. “I don’t know. There’s so little we humans know about the X-Element, but considering what it did to those angels, it could be that it destabilized Scott’s body entirely.” She laid a hand on Captain Marvel’s shoulder, saying, “Be that as it may, don’t go blaming yourself. We’ve all been doing this long enough that we understand the risks that come with every mission. Sometimes...we don’t all make it home.”
“I know...I know.” He let out a shuddering breath, then looked at Fate and Flash in turn. “You would think a trip to Heaven would be a lot less heart-wrenching, huh?”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting this to go off without a hitch,” Flash replied, “but yeah, it hasn’t been all that much fun so far, considering the locale. How about you, Spectre? Is this typical for...” He paused when he realised the green-garbed spirit wasn’t nearby anymore. He then spotted the Spectre standing just beyond the threshold of the now-unblocked Gates. In a blink, he raced over to there and asked, “What’s the matter, Spec? You don’t look very happy to be home.”
“That is precisely the matter: I shouldn’t be home,” Spectre said, his eyes remaining fixed upon the achingly-beautiful Shining City that lay before them. “I have not been able to pass through the Gates in eons. By God’s own command, I am not allowed to tread these streets, and yet...nothing is stopping me from doing so. This is wrong. Utterly wrong.” Spectre turned so that Wally got a glimpse of the terror in his eyes. “The Presence is not here. The throngs of souls that eternally sing God’s praises are not here. Heaven is...empty.”
125 MINUTES EARLIER - HELL:
“Anybody see where Ol’ Green-Britches wandered off to?” Detective Chimp asked, his voice echoing through the cavern.
“He muttered something about sensing a disturbance.” Dawn Makes-Strong-Move -- known to some as Manitou Dawn -- was double-checking the seals she and the other Sentinels of Magic had just finished placing upon the ancient iron door that led into the lowest depths of Hell. They’d been fighting for hours to prevent the myriad terrors that lay behind it from overtaking the world above, and all of them were happy to finally declare the task finished. “Considering everything going on at the moment, he could be anywhere.”
Dawn’s husband, the ever-youthful Kid Eternity, added, “He probably went off to have a sulk. He didn’t seem happy that I called up King Kong to help him fend off that pack of Hellhounds.”
“Just wait ‘til he finds out Kong was my idea,” the chimp said with a grin.
“In all my years of knowing him, I never found the Spectre to be the sort to ‘sulk’, as you say.” The Phantom Stranger turned his gaze upward, as if to study the stalagmites that hung above their heads. “It does indeed feel as though a new disturbance is growing throughout every realm, but I cannot discern its source.” He approached Dawn, saying, “You wield the True Axe, which gives you a direct connection to the Axis Mundi. That connection should give you better insight than I can attain as to what new threat is upon us.”
“I certainly hope so.” Dawn brought the Axe to bear, holding it before herself so the end of the handle pointed towards her navel and the head of it was centered between her now-closed eyes, with her hands positioned at the halfway point of the Axe’s handle. The Axis Mundi -- even this relatively-tiny portion of it -- spanned all realms, all realities, as well as all that dwelled within them. Since the beginning of the current crisis, Dawn had felt a wavering in the True Axe on a psychic level: just as a seismometer can detect an earthquake thousands of miles away, the Axe was picking up on disturbances throughout the cosmos, but there were so many happening it once, it was hard to pinpoint every single one. Still, if this new disturbance was as big as the Stranger was implying, it should stand out among the rest. “You’re right, something’s different,” Dawn said after a few moments. “It’s like all the threads that bind reality together are screaming from the strain. No...no, it’s not screaming, it’s...it’s a voice. There’s a consciousness behind it.” Dawn’s arms began to tremble as she choked out, “God, it’s so loud!”
Concerned, Kid Eternity reached a hand out to her, but the Phantom Stranger held him back. “What is it saying?” the Stranger asked.
“It’s all a jumble, like...erratic thoughts. I can feel their loneliness, it’s almost unbearable, but there’s also...relief.” Her brow furrowed as she tried to concentrate on the words. “The...pathway...is clearing. Champion...the champion is needed...the champion is gone...the champion must...” Suddenly, Dawn’s posture stiffened and the timbre of her voice changed, so that it sounded like a second voice was now being projected through her. “Where are you, my Beloved? I have dreamed long of your touch. I grow weary of waiting.” The ache in her voice became palatable as she shouted, “Please, my Beloved, come to me! The curtain falls! The trap is undone! The time is... nngh!” Dawn jerked backward violently, tossing the Axe aside, and Kid Eternity caught her. After a moment, she gasped out, “Sorry...had to force my way out. Felt like I was losing myself to whatever...whoever that is. I get the sense that it’s unfathomably powerful, yet...helpless.”
“Maybe it’s the real cause of what’s going on,” the Kid said.
“No, I don’t think so, not exactly. It’s just as puzzled about the situation as the rest of us.” She stood up straight and brushed some stray hairs from her face. “It does appear to be benefiting from this crisis to some degree, but it knows something is wrong with how it’s unfolding. Like...like it’s done this before and there’s pieces missing.”
“Such as the champion it spoke of.” The Phantom Stranger glanced over at Detective Chimp. “Do you suppose they’re referring to...”
“I’d bet a whole box of Cubans on that.” Seeing the confused looks on Dawn and the Kid’s face, the chimp explained, “The folks over in Nanda Parbat have a legend ‘bout some great champion who’s supposed to rise up when the universe is in dire peril. They’ve even been safeguarding an ancient elixir for ‘em, something that’ll basically put ‘em in the peak of health right before the last battle.” As he spoke, he moved over to the iron door, produced a cigar from within his tweed coat, and pressed it to the door so as to light it with heat from the very fires of perdition. After blowing a perfect smoke ring, Detective Chimp said, “Now, I don’t know about you kids, but it seems to me the universe is in very dire peril right now, so maybe we should all make a little trip to Nanda Parbat and see if this champion is hanging about.”
122 MINUTES EARLIER - DERELICT FACILITY, QWARD:
For all their physical similarities, there were just as many differences in human and Qwardian biology. For example, the amount of sedative it took to keep the average Qwardian unconscious wasn’t nearly enough to fully immobilize Jonah Hex, a man who could down a couple of bottles of the cheapest rotgut and only feel a mite tipsy afterward. Kyu didn’t take such things into account when adjusting the settings on the medical pod, and therefore wasn’t aware that Jonah would wake up before the nanobots had fully finished repairing his injuries.
The results weren’t immediate: Jonah’s mind slowly resurfaced from the drug-induced fog, while his body remained numb, making it hard for him to judge his surroundings. After a while, he became aware of the tube down his throat and the needles in his arms. His eyes snapped open, and though his vision was blurry, he recognized the glass coffin from all the other times he’d been placed in it. Panic seized Jonah’s brain as the nightmare he’d been fighting against for months took hold: the bug-eyes had recaptured him, and soon they would drag him back into the Crone’s marble-lined chamber so it could feed. Already, Jonah could imagine the Crone engulfing his body and seeping into his brain like it had done so many times before, his very soul screaming in agony as it drained every ounce of life out of him, yet it still wanted more, it always wanted more...
With the strength of a madman, Jonah began pounding and kicking at the interior of the medical pod until the seal broke open. An alarm sounded as nanobot-infused liquid spilled onto the floor, followed by Jonah himself, who landed with a meaty thud. He pulled out the tube that had been snaked down his throat, then yanked off all the other wires and such. Shivering from both cold and pain, he slowly climbed to his feet, his eyes already casting about the room in search of a weapon. The bug-eyes would be coming soon, drawn to the sound of the alarm like moths to a flame, and he had to be ready for them.
Elsewhere in the complex, Hal was wrapping up his conversation with Commander Vezali, leader of the Army of True Qward, the resistance group that opposed Libra’s forces. He’d never imagined a day would come when Qwardians would fight alongside a member of the Green Lantern Corps, but a lot of other impossible things had occurred already, so why not add one more? “I’ll be sending a message to my colleagues shortly about what I’ve found here,” Hal told the commander, “so hopefully reinforcements will arrive not long after. The more firepower we have when we go up against Krona, the better the odds will be.”
“Agreed,” Vezali replied, nodding her bald head. “I have already sent a message of my own, recalling all our troops to base, save for one transport directed your way. With luck, we will all be assembled back here within three segments.”
“Makes sure that transport is big enough to hold a medical pod,” Stella interjected. “Jonah might not be fully healed by the time it arrives.” Vezali acknowledged the request before cutting the transmission. As Kyu began repacking the communication array, Stella let out a sigh and looked at Hal. “Guess this is it, isn’t it? One last big battle, then it’s finally all over.”
“One way or another,” he replied. As he said the words, he noticed the faint sound of an alarm echoing through the otherwise-silent complex. “What’s that? Are we under attack again?” Hal asked the others.
“It appears to be coming from the infirmary,” Kyu said. “The pod must be malfunctioning.” He and Stella began running down the hall, but Hal quickly passed them, opting to fly the distance. The alarm had ceased by the time Hal reached the medical bay, and though lights in the room were dim, he immediately saw the large puddle of liquid on one side of the closed pod. Presuming it must have sprung a leak, Hal began inspecting the pod, not noticing until he looked directly into it that the pod was empty.
Hal’s brain had barely registered that fact when someone suddenly grabbed him from behind, throwing an arm around his neck in a chokehold. “That was damn stupid, leavin’ muh stuff lyin’ around fer me tuh find,” Jonah Hex whispered in Hal’s ear, right before the bounty hunter jabbed a knife into his ribs...or rather he tried to, unaware of the skintight forcefield the Green Lantern ring was generating around its wearer. Jonah cursed as the blade skittered to the side, then let out a painful wheeze of air when Hal drove his elbow back sharply into Jonah’s still-healing midsection. Distracted by pain, Jonah loosened the chokehold, so Hal quickly slipped free and shoved his assailant to the ground. Jonah had managed to put on his torn and bloody trousers before Hal’s entrance, allowing him some small amount of decorum as he lay on the wet floor in a crumpled heap.
“Christ, Hex, do you greet all of your friends like that?” Hal said, looking down at him.
Jonah fixed a deathly glare upon the man. “Ah ain’t friends with folks thet drop buildings on me,” he growled, then leapt up with surprising agility to renew his attack. Hal backpedaled while silently commanding his ring to wrap Jonah in an emerald straightjacket, which he quickly anchored to the wall with a length of green chain. Despite all this, Hal could feel the strain being put upon the constructs as Jonah pulled against them, every fiber of his being focused on breaking free. This was a test of wills, and the Green Lantern quickly realised he and the bounty hunter were evenly matched.
At that moment, Stella and Kyu reached the medical bay, both of them skidding to a stop at the sight before them. “What the Hell?” Stella said, looking from one man to the other.
“Looks like you were right about him freaking out,” Hal said to her.
“Jonah, stop!” Stella strode right up to Hex, putting her hands on the sides of his face and forcing him to look at her instead of Hal. “Calm down, you’re safe. No one here’s gonna hurt you, I swear, just calm down...calm down...” She smoothed back Jonah’s damp, shoulder-length hair with one hand, her gaze never leaving his. “You hear me, cowboy? You’re safe now.” Slowly, the words seeped through the wall of rage between her and Hex, and he pulled at the emerald restraints a little less intently. “I’m sorry we put you in the medical pod, but we didn’t have any choice,” she continued. “The building you were in collapsed, and you almost died.”
“An’ he’s the one thet done it!” Jonah yelled, his eyes focused once more upon Hal. “Ah saw it! Right afore everything fell in, the same green glow he’s givin’ off hit the building. Sonovabitch is workin’ fer the bug-eyes!”
The Green Lantern stepped forward, saying, “Are you kidding me, Hex? You know me! I’d never go along with what Krona and the Qwardians under him are doing.”
“Ah don’t know a damn thing about yuh, stranger, but Ah do know the folks we’re sided with have some fancy-dan machines thet were tryin’ tuh warn ‘em ‘bout yuh comin’ ‘round here. So don’t go actin’ all innocent now thet Ah’ve called yuh out on whose side yo’re really on.”
Hal let out a nervous chuckle. “I can’t believe this...you’ve forgotten about me? I’ll admit, it was a long time ago for me, but you look to be around the same age as when we met. Time travel can be weird like that.” He shook his head and said, “Come on, Hex, you have to remember something about that day. It was in 1878, near a little town in Arizona called Desecration...”
Now it was Jonah’s turn to chuckle, only when he did so, it had a tendency to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. “Ah don’t know whut sorta yarn yuh was gonna try an’ spin there, boy, but Ah kin already unravel it,” he told Hal with a wicked grin. “Y’see, when them bug-eyes took me, the year was 1875, an’ Ah sure as shootin’ ain’t never been tuh no place called Desecration afore.”
114 MINUTES EARLIER - WAYNE TOWER PENTHOUSE, GOTHAM CITY:
“Try to breathe, Bruce. Please, just try to breathe,” whispered Silver Wayne, clutching the weak, trembling hand of her husband as he strained against the ravages of his ailing body. She wanted to curse him, to tear him apart physically and verbally for going out in that damn costume when he was so sick… but the state of him now, unable to assert command over his body after decades being the premier human, being the best and strongest man he could possibly be… it broke something in her, too. To see the love of her life so damaged, so fractured.
“I’m… I’m okay,” he managed to reply, red in the face as he rocked back and forth on the sofa. “D-didn’t last. C-couldn’t hold it t-t-together. D-damn. Damn this b-body. I thought… I thought I could do some good. With the world falling apart, I thought I could do something about it. But even the… nnn…”
He had been able to do something. With Arkham Island cracked open, her inmates pouring out, Fright’s fear enzyme cloud primed to unleash pure nightmare on Gotham’s citizens, he’d been able to assume the mantle of the Bat once more, journeying to the island institution and assisting in bringing the jailbreak to an end, even if the only person who’d spotted him had been the new Robin.
But due to the toll it had taken on his already addled body, he’d been unable to bring the violent spasms that came with his advanced case of Parkinson’s Disease under control. All that work, the studies, the training, everything he’d undertaken since leaving Gotham with Silver after he received the diagnosis… it had all evaporated a handful of moments after removing that old cowl. He’d put on a brave front when the Questions showed up to speak with him, but not long after they’d left, the tremors took over again, making it impossible for Bruce to sit still.
Silver held his hand to her cheek, and said, “Just breathe, remember what the monks at Nanda Parbat taught you. Remember everything that helps.”
“I’m s-sorry, Silver. So sorry. You d-didn’t deserve this l-life,” said Bruce.
“Hush now, you silly man. Years spent globetrotting with the love of my life? I have no regrets. You’re my everything, and this has been the greatest life I could ever hope to live.”
“L-liar,” he replied.
“Don’t make me beat you up, Mr. Dark Knight. I’d do it, too. I promise,” she said, leaning over and resting her forehead on his. “I love you. I love you so much it hurts. Never doubt that. Never call me a liar. I love you too much for that stupidness to hold an ounce of weight.” They stayed like that for a while, Silver wishing she could imbue Bruce with all her strength, if only so he could know peace for a brief moment. But as she’d come to learn long ago, when it came to life with Bruce Wayne, peace was a fleeting thing. And this moment was no different, for it was soon broken by a bright, vertical line of light appearing in the midst of the penthouse. It quickly grew until it was wide enough for a quartet of figures to step through, only one of whom Silver recognized. “Bobo?”
“Evening, Ms. St. Cloud...pardon...Ms.Wayne.” Detective Chimp smiled at her and doffed his deerstalker cap. “Pardon the intrusion, but we have a bit of business with your better half.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to take that business elsewhere,” Silver told him. “Bruce has been through enough tonight. There has to be someone else who can handle it.”
“Not in this case,” the Phantom Stranger interjected. “We’ve just come from Nanda Parbat on a mission of great importance. We were told that you’d visited there recently, and that the monks had passed something on to you. I presume it is still in your possession.”
Silver’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “They told you about the elixir? I was under the impression that it was a closely-guarded secret. Even we didn’t know about it when we arrived there, but after they learned who Bruce was...”
“Word of it has been passed around certain circles over the years,” the simian sleuth elaborated. “This isn’t the sort of thing you’d blast across social media, but awareness of its existence was kept up for when the time came to actually use it. We just got clued in that the time is likely now, so we went to fetch it, and hopefully the champion it’s supposed to go to, only to find that both had left Nanda Parbat recently.”
“So you came here for it...and for him.” She looked at her husband, who’d been listening to the conversation very intently, despite the distress his body was in.
“We’re sorry to do this,” Dawn Makes-Strong-Move said, “but we presume you’re aware of the whole situation going on out there. Despite everyone’s best efforts, it appears that, on a cosmic level, we’re barely holding the line. Any edge we can get over this, we need to take it.”
“I understand.” Indeed, Silver understood all too well: Bruce’s lifelong mission had been the one thing keeping them apart for many years, as she couldn’t stand the thought of the risks he was putting himself through night after night. It had taken much soul-searching on her part to come to terms with it, and not long after she did, Bruce received his Parkinson’s diagnosis, as if the universe was playing a cruel joke on them. Still, they’d resolved to make up for lost time as best they could. That the time would come to an end with the emergence of a universe-shattering crisis which only her husband could resolve surprised her not one bit. “It...it’s in the other room. I’ll go get it.” She began to get up from the sofa, only for Bruce to hold up a trembling hand.
“D-d-don’t bother,” the former Dark Knight stammered out. “It w-won’t do any good.”
“Bruce, it’s okay...I’m okay with it. I do wish you’d taken it a little sooner, but...”
“No. N-no. I can’t. I can’t take it.” He twitched uncontrollably, rocking back and forth as his wife tried to comfort him.
“Bruce, that formula will restore you. Remember what the monks said… it’ll give you back everything…you’ll be in the peak of health again. They’ve been keeping it safe for centuries, waiting to pass it on to a great champion who’ll need it in their darkest hour. If that’s not now, then when is it?” She tried to find his deep, dark eyes, but he was looking down at the floor, trying to avoid the gaze of everyone present. What was it that radiated off her husband now? Shame? “Bruce, what aren’t you telling me?”
“I didn’t… I didn’t tell you… I’ve already t-t-...” He paused as he waited for another spasm to pass. “I already tried to take it. B-before...we left Nanda Parbat.” His voice took on an edge of anger as he said, “I can’t even figure out how to open the damned thing. Me, the so-called ‘World’s Greatest Detective’, and I’m...s-s-stumped by a stupid...little...bottle!” He fell quiet for a moment, then said, “Whoever this champion is that they’re looking for...it’s...it’s not me.”
The weight of Bruce’s confession hung heavy in the air as Silver looked up at the other heroes present, hoping they’d be able to counter what he’d said, but they were all as shocked by the words as she was. It was left to her to break the silence. “Bruce… Jesus Christ… after everything… we came back to Gotham because we had it… a cure…”
“Silver,” Bruce looked at the love of his life, his eyes wet with the tears that had begun to form, “We came back because I needed to say goodbye. My battle… it’s over.”
Her hands slipped away from his. “You didn’t… you kept that from me.”
“If you had your way, we’d never stop looking. But this is my life. And my death.”
“No...no, it’s not...it’s not...” She was crying now as well, and this time, Bruce reached out to her, despite the tremor in his hands, and held her as tightly as he could.
Out of respect for the tableau before them, the Sentinels of Magic moved away from the couple. Once they were out of earshot, Kid Eternity whispered, “Well, this puts a damper on things. Before we got here, I was all ‘Yay, Batman can fix everything because Batman.’ Now I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
“All joking aside, Kit’s right,” Dawn said. “We have the elixir, but still no idea who this champion is. If the monks thought they’d given it to the right person and managed to get it wrong anyways, how can we fare any better?”
“Perhaps the monks were not mistaken, but we are,” the Phantom Stranger replied.
Detective Chimp hissed, “Oh please, now is not the time for riddle-talk.”
“I thought I was being rather straightforward. As the man himself just pointed out, Bruce Wayne is the world’s greatest detective...”
“Human detective,” Bobo interrupted, holding up a hairy finger.
“...so perhaps that’s the reason the monks presented him with the elixir,” the Stranger continued. “He is not the champion, but rather the only one who can help us find the champion. Their identity is unknown to us at the moment, so we need someone who can look at the clues before us and point us in the right direction.”
Dawn glanced over at the sofa: Silver was pressing her husband’s hand against her tear-streaked cheek and trying to smile at him through the heartache. “There’s got to be another way,” she quietly told the Stranger. “I know what I said about taking every edge we can get, but this...”
“Then let me shoulder the burden.” The Phantom Stranger turned away from the others and silently walked back over to the couple. Silver’s gaze immediately went up to him, and for a moment, he saw a blaze of hate in her eyes, as though he was the cause of all that ailed her husband. He didn’t hold it against her, for he knew it was easier to pin the blame for Bruce’s omission upon a stranger than on the man himself. “Forgive me,” he said, and knelt upon one knee before them, his head bowed low -- the gesture took on the air of a servant swearing fealty to the royal court. “For most of my existence, I have offered counsel to those in need, but at this moment, I must ask you to do the same for me. I would not ask this of you if I did not truly believe within my heart that you are the only one who can aid us.” He looked up at Bruce, saying, “Despite the current frailty of your body, I know that your mind is still as keen as it has ever been...perhaps more so, now that you must find new ways to overcome your physical limitations. If there is anyone in this universe capable of discerning the identity of this unknown champion, it is you.”
Bruce said nothing at first, his body twitching and fidgeting just as it had been since the Sentinels of Magic first arrived in the penthouse, but his eyes took on a dark gleam. Silver recognized it immediately: it was how he looked when he put on the cowl. The Phantom Stranger had laid one last unsolved case in front of the man, and the Bat had woken up. “Tell me...everything...you know,” Bruce said, taking his time with the words so as to keep the tremor out of his voice.
“We know no more than what the monks told you,” the Stanger answered.
“Tell me again. As you know it. Don’t...presume anything.”
“The champion will come from afar, to fight alongside strangers in an unfamiliar land. They will have abilities none have ever seen before, and possess knowledge beyond anyone’s reach. In their homeland, there are many like the champion, but at the same time, they stand unique amongst their peers. The very forces of nature bend to their will, and the strongest iron flows like water with a mere wave of their hand.” The Phantom Stranger noted a flicker of surprise on Silver’s face at that last sentence: up until then, everything he’d said could have plausibly described Bruce, but not that. “For all the wonders they embody, though, they are mortal. When the universe needs them most, they will be at the cusp of death. Millennia ago, Rama Kushna herself saw what was to come and wept at the sight of it -- she collected her tears and sealed them in a bottle only the champion can open so that she could lend them her strength.”
“The voice I heard,” Dawn ventured hesitantly, “perhaps that was Rama Kushna.”
“I have my doubts.” The Stranger glanced over at her. “I have been in the presence of Rama Kushna many times. The disturbance I originally felt whilst we were at the Gates of Hell did not feel like her, nor did the voice that came through you sound like hers.”
Now Bruce was looking at Dawn as well. “What voice?”
“It was something...someone calling out for the champion, saying they were needed, but the champion was gone.”
“I think I know why,” Bruce said. “Sage and Montoya were here...a few hours ago. They’d found...inconsistencies...in the historical record. People missing who shouldn’t be. There was one they brought up...the name...I c-c-can’t recall...” A look of confusion passed over Bruce’s face, and he briefly turned to Silver, but she seemed just as puzzled. “N-never mind. Not important. The point is that it appeared people were...being removed from time in order to cause d-damage by their absence. The longer they’re gone, the more damage...it ripples up the t-t-timeline to now.”
Detective Chimp rubbed his chin. “So somebody already knows who the champion is and took them out before they could do what they need to do, but not soon enough for the ripple effect to reach us yet and make us forget they exist in the first place.”
“Exactly.”
“But if that’s the case,” Kid Eternity added, “then this champion could be anywhere and anywhen, not just here and now. That doesn’t narrow things down at all!”
Bruce fixed his gaze upon him and said, “If I understand your powers correctly...this should be narrow enough.”
“Wait a sec...I can’t just call up somebody I don’t know! I need at least a name, an idea of who they are, not a lot of vagaries.”
“No, he’s right, Kit,” Dawn said, laying a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “You do it all the time. When you called up King Kong earlier, what we you picturing? A stop-motion model? A CGI creation? A guy in a suit? Because what you made appear was none of those: this Kong was a living, breathing creature that towered over all of us and smashed through a pack of Hellhounds like they were nothing. The Phantom Stranger just laid out everything anyone knows about this champion, so all you should have to do is hold that information in your head, concentrate on it as hard as you can, and say the word.”
Kid Eternity nervously chewed his bottom lip. “Okay...okay, I’ll give it a shot. Maybe if I was holding that bottle, to give me something concrete to focus on...”
This time, Bruce didn’t stop Silver when she got up from the sofa. She returned a few minutes later and handed a small cloth pouch to Kid Eternity. Inside was an oblong, brightly-polished metal object, about five inches long and two inches in diameter. When he turned it in his hands, he could feel something sloshing about inside, but the outside appeared to be nothing more than multiple layers of interwoven metal bands, each about an eighth of an inch wide, with no obvious seams or hinges. If there really was a way to open this bottle, it certainly wasn’t evident to him. Let’s hope this champion is really all they’re cracked up to be, he thought as he closed his eyes, clasped the bottle tightly in his hands, and took a deep breath.
THE 31ST CENTURY - TITAN:
Cosmic Boy stared up into the sky and watched as his teammates escaped the doomed moon. He held no malice in his heart toward them. He did what he had to do in order to save a child’s life, just as Polar Boy had done earlier when he saved Saturn Girl. He doubted that Brek thought any more about his mortality than Rokk himself did when they’d done their respective deeds. They were Legionnaires: they helped people, no matter the cost.
He tried once again to pull his legs free of his permacrete shackles -- the shattered remains of the building he’d rescued the child from -- but he couldn’t move. He remained kneeling on them, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his legs. Soon, shock began to set in, and the pain melted away, both in his legs and in the burns upon his flesh. His lungs hurt for a little longer as he tried to breathe in the hot, smoky air that surrounded him. Titan was dying a horribly violent death, and it was taking him along with it.
He sat for what seemed like an eternity, staring up at Saturn as it loomed overhead like a helpless parent waiting for the death of a terminally-ill child. How much longer would it be? He recalled Brainy saying they had 6 minutes left before the anti-matter injected into Titan’s core by Universo utterly destroyed everything, but how much time had passed since then? If his flight ring was still intact, he could’ve figured it out, but the ring had been crushed by the same rubble that he was now pinned by. Doesn’t matter, Cos thought. Six minutes, six seconds...it’ll come soon enough. What matters is I fought the good fight.
He smiled knowing that his friends would carry on the fight without him. They’d mourn him and Brek, yes, but they’d never stop fighting, not until Universo and his Dark Circle were brought to justice. It was all up to them now: Imra and Garth and Dirk and Blok and...
And Lydda.
The name drifted through Rokk Krinn’s mind, and he felt a pang of regret. Lydda Jath. She’d been at the last Legion try-out, calling herself Night Girl. So eager to join the team, so sure that she could be a valuable member. Indeed, her super-strength would’ve made a great addition to their lineup, but having the limitation of only being able to use it in the absence of ultraviolet light meant that she had to be passed over for membership in favor of Polar Boy. Despite this, Cos saw potential in her and, unbeknownst to the others on the team, he’d kept up a correspondence with Lydda. At first, he was simply encouraging her to develop other skills that’d be useful for situations when she couldn’t depend on her strength, but it soon turned into conversations about anything and everything. Lydda was smart and funny and just a joy to talk to late into the night via holo-chat. Sadly, they’d talked very little in the past few weeks, due to the rising threat of the Dark Circle, but he recalled the last holo she’d sent, which he hadn’t been around to receive live. He’d kept meaning to send a reply, but there was never enough time, never a quiet moment alone, and now...now...
There was an explosion nearby, and magma began to well up over the surface of Titan. The fumes reached him first, overwhelming Rokk so that his body went limp and fell forward -- when he hit the ground, he wasn’t even conscious enough to feel the impact, nor did he feel the magma as it began to flow over him, searing his flesh and setting his tattered uniform alight. His dying brain was unaware of all this as it spiraled down into darkness, crying out Lydda’s name until, suddenly, something new came crashing in like the sound of thunder:
”ETERNITY!”
Upon hearing the word, Cosmic Boy gasped and felt a rush of cool air hit his ash-coated lungs. There was a softness beneath him instead of rubble, and his shattered legs flopped about now that there wasn’t half a ton of permacrete pinning them in place. He couldn’t see, but he could hear voices babbling around him -- some of the words almost sounded like Interlac, but overall they made no sense. He felt pressure on his limbs as someone turned him onto his back, and he was surprised there was no pain, unaware that nearly all of his nerve endings had been burned away by the magma. He was vaguely aware of his head being lifted, followed by a male voice speaking next his ear...not Interlac, nor was it telepathy, yet somehow he understood every word:
“Fear not. We may be strangers to you, but soon, you will stand beside us in a battle to save all of existence. Before that can occur, though, your wounds must be tended to.” Cos felt something being pressed into his hands as the voice said, “There is an elixir within that can restore you, but only you can open it. If you cannot do so, you will die.”
Rokk tried to respond, but all that came out of his ruined throat was a raspy exhalation of air. His blinded eyes saw nothing, he could barely feel the object that had been given to him...how was he supposed to open it? Then, instinctively, he began to sense the magnetic fields in play around the object: it reminded him of a Braalian magno-egg, a type of puzzle box intricately crafted from numerous bands of metal. Simple ones for children used only about three to five bands and typically contained a toy or candy inside, while ones for grownups usually had around twenty. This thing, going by the what he sensed, had at least fifty. He’d heard of fifty-banders, but had never seen one. Well, you’re seeing one now...sort of, he thought. You can do this, Krinn. Your life depends on it.
He heard the voices around him murmur as he drew his hands apart and let the object hover in the air between them. It took a moment to figure out how to manipulate the magnetic field and pull the first band free, but once he did, he could easily sense how to remove the rest. He let the bands fall to either side of him as he worked, gaining a sincere appreciation for the Braalian artist (it had to have been a Braalian, no one could have made this without magnetic powers) who had assembled such a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Cos hoped he could reassemble it back to its former glory once he’d retrieved what was inside: a solid piece of amethyst that had somehow been hollowed out and infused with an unknown liquid.
Though he couldn’t see it, he could sense the gemstone’s diamagnetic properties trying to push away from the magnetic fields generated by his hands, along with the ferric impurities that gave amethyst its violet hue. Working with diamagnetic material was tricky, but Cosmic Boy had gotten more than enough practice over the years. He shifted the field to lift the vial free and bring it towards his upturned mouth, then twitched his fingers to excite the miniscule amount of iron within and crack the gemstone open.
The liquid that spilled onto Rokk’s waiting tongue immediately seeped into his cells and raced throughout his bloodstream. He let out a choked cry as his burned flesh and shattered limbs regenerated at fantastic speed, and his sense of the magnetic fields around him blossomed out with such force that he could visualize the structure he was within. He was shocked to realise it wasn’t a transport ship or other craft, but a building...and one not made with plasteel, but actual steel and iron, literally tons of it, like an ancient pre-Disaster structure on Earth. No such place existed on Titan, but he knew that’s what he was sensing, he could feel the “bones” of the building and everything in it, every wire and screw and...what were they called? Nails? Actual sprocking nails! What was this place?
His eyes had finally healed enough that he could open them, and what he saw stunned him. He’d unconsciously pushed himself into the air using his magnetic powers and was now levitating above a group of six sentients -- five human and one simian -- who were dressed like something out of pre-holo media. In fact, all the furnishings in the room had that same look to it.
Then he looked down at himself to see that his body was perfectly healed...and virtually naked, save for a few scraps of uniform and his charred Legion utility belt.
“Oh sprock,” Cosmic Boy said.
99 MINUTES EARLIER - DERELICT FACILITY, QWARD:
“Ah don’t care how many dif’rent ways yuh say it,” Jonah said, “it don’t make a lick of sense. How kin yuh meet a person afore yuh meet ‘em?”
“You can’t, that’s why it’s called a paradox.” Hal paced back and forth in front of Jonah and Stella, who were sitting next to each other on a metal crate. The rest of the group was off preparing for departure, allowing the three of them some privacy as they tried to sort out the chronal conundrum they were faced with. At first, Hal kept thinking that something may have happened to Jonah’s memory, or that Hal himself had mixed up the dates, but then he took a closer look at Jonah’s bare torso before the man finished getting dressed: there should have been a good-sized patch of scar tissue on Jonah’s left side, courtesy of a laser burn he sustained during their meeting in 1878, but despite all the other scars the gunfighter bore, that particular one was nowhere to be found. “The best I can figure,” the Green Lantern continued, “is that the damage Krona and Libra are inflicting on the timestream is making everything unravel. People born in the distant past or future are winking out of existence. The universe itself is shrinking. The passage of time is speeding up and slowing down at random, making hours pass by in minutes and vice-versa...Qward itself has apparently lost a few decades.” He gestured from himself to Hex as he said, “You and I meeting out of order is a minor inconvenience compared to all that.”
“Wait a minute,” Stella said. “If people born in the distant past are ‘winking out’ like you say, then why is Jonah still here? Shouldn’t he have disappeared too?”
“I’m guessing that him being in the anti-matter universe as opposed to normal space when all this started has something to do with it. As you may have noticed, Qward doesn’t always operate under the normal laws of physics.”
“Like how the planet doesn’t orbit a sun or anything. It just kinda floats through space and makes the stars look all topsy-turvy.”
“More nonsense talk,” Jonah muttered as he clenched and unclenched his fists -- Hal noticed how the man’s hands trembled every time he splayed his fingers. “Y’all keep sayin’ words, but they don’t mean nothin’. The world cain’t shrink. Time don’t move faster an’ slower. Thet ain’t how things work.”
“Jonah, look at me.” Stella took hold of his hands and looked deep into his eyes. “Do you remember how it took you a few days to get a grip on time travel? How me and Berkowitz had to keep explaining it over and over again until we’d convinced you that we were really born a century or two after you? And you once told me that it took you a while to accept that all these aliens we’ve met are like regular people in their own way. That’s all this is: just another new thing to accept. But this time, you have to accept it right now, not a few days from now, because we don’t have any time to waste.”
“Ah don’t want tuh accept a damn thing,” Jonah replied, his voice strained. “I want tuh find a quiet place tuh get drunk an’ forget all ‘bout this greenhorn standin’ over here.” He nodded towards Hal. “Just some fast-talkin’ Yankee pretty-boy, thet’s all he is.”
“No, he’s not. Back home, Green Lantern is a hero, one of the big ones. I know what he’s saying sounds crazy, but you can trust him.” She reached up and gently touched the scarred side of his face. “Just like you trust me.”
Jonah’s gaze went from her to Hal and back again, a look of anxiety growing on his face. He then squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his head, saying through gritted teeth, “It’s too much...the way yo’re talkin’...the Crone talked like thet...filled muh head with things thet didn’t make sense an’ it’s too damn much...” Jonah’s entire body was trembling now.
Hal stepped towards Jonah. “Wait...Krona told you things? What did he say?” Without thinking, he put a hand on Jonah’s shoulder -- the gunfighter leapt up and shoved Hal away, then lurched out of the room. The Green Lantern began to follow, but Stella blocked his path.
“Don’t do it, you’ll just antagonize him more,” Stella explained. “He gets like this sometimes. He’s got, like, PTSD from whatever the Crone did to him. You push him too hard, and he ends up reliving the whole thing all over again. I’ve been able to talk him through it before, but you...I don’t think he’d respond to you at all.”
Hal was dumbfounded by all this: this gaunt, raggedy version of Jonah Hex seemed leaps and bounds away from the fearsome man he’d met in 1878. There was still a fire deep within the gunfighter, to be sure, but it appeared that fire was on the verge of going out. And if it does go out, Hal thought, if he succumbs permanently to the trauma in his mind, what happens to the version of me back in 1878? Do I die in the desert instead of getting rescued? What had previously appeared to be a minor inconvenience now took on dangerous proportions.
After a moment’s thought, Hal told Stella, “I think I know someone he might respond to better than both of us.”
90 MINUTES EARLIER - THE SPIRE, QWARD:
All was silent within Krona’s private chamber. None were allowed within unless their Lord and Master permitted it, therefore none were aware that it currently stood empty, a black shell devoid of the mad would-be god that normally inhabited it. Nor was anyone aware of when that silence was interrupted with a sound unfit for human ears: a tearing of spacetime itself that disgorged a pair of figures.
“Fool!” Krona’s shadow-form took hold of Libra and pitched him across the chamber, slamming him into the curved wall. “I gave you everything you needed to maintain control over those pathetic mortals, and you still failed me!”
“My Lord...please...” Libra groaned as he tried to get up, but a dark tendril soon shot out from the shadows surrounding Krona and pinned him in place.
“The Martian peeled away your guise easily,” Krona sneered. “The addict pierced your defenses. And the speedster...he and that damnable future he came from should already be DEAD!Until it is, there’s always a chance that, despite all our plans, the accursed champion could show up!”
“That’s impossible, you kil--” The words were choked off as a deep-yellow mist of guilt-sweetened fear wafted out from under Libra’s golden mask and into the decrepit maw of Krona, who’d pressed his shadow-form tightly against his acolyte, smothering him in darkness.
“Nothing is impossible,” Krona declared in husky voice. “Billions of years ago, the Guardians of the Universe thought my surviving discorporation was impossible. I proved them wrong. I LIVE. I WILL ALWAYS LIVE. And soon, I will attain what is rightfully mine and mine alone, despite your mistakes.” Krona withdrew and let Libra drop to the floor. “You’re fortunate that I was watching over you, and that I had gathered enough strength to come to your rescue. You should thank me for that.”
Libra lay in a heap, trembling, gasping for breath, then said in a feeble voice, “Th-thank you...Master...”
“Still, you did succeed at the most important part of your mission: the imprisonment of the Infinite Man. And yet...he is thereand not here.”
“A s-s-s-small m-matter,” Libra remained on the floor, afraid to even lift his head and gaze upon Krona’s visage. “E-everything is in place, they cannot...” He swallowed hard. “They will not interfere with the transfer. I swear my life upon it.”
“Your life has not been yours to swear for a long time, remember?” Krona reached down and cupped a hand under Libra’s chin, lifting his head. “Swear to me on something else. Swear to me on Hex’s life.” Libra tensed at the words, and Krona flashed a gruesome smile. “Did you think you could hide that death order from me? I know every thought that passes through your mind, child. I told you that I wanted Hex to remain alive for now, and you chose to disobey me. Your jealousy clouds your judgment.”
“I am not jealous! He is ruining our plans! He needs to die!”
“He will die when I wish it! Not a moment sooner!” The shadows billowed outward from Krona like stormclouds and threatened to engulf Libra again, but soon withdrew as he said in a calmer tone, “All who have known my touch serve me. You know this.” Krona began to gently stroke the side of Libra’s masked face, a sign of a affection far removed from the rage he’d displayed mere seconds ago. “But make no mistake: Hex is merely a tool, one which shall be disposed of once I no longer have need for it, while you shall remain at my side for all eternity. Now...” Krona moved back, his hand still extended. “Arise, my prophet. Go and do my bidding, and know that I will always be with you.”
“Yes, my Lord.” Libra got his feet, his head bowed in respect as he waited for Krona to open the chamber and permit him to carry out the Master’s word.
78 MINUTES EARLIER - DERELICT FACILITY, QWARD:
Jonah stumbled down the dim hallway, one hand trailing along the wall for support and the other pressed against his aching gut. Thankfully, the medical pod had healed up the worst of Jonah’s wounds prior to him breaking out of it, but he was still in a goodly amount of pain, which only served to amplify his memories of writhing in the Crone’s chamber. A moan came unbidden from his throat as he recalled those skeletal hands cupping his face, drawing him closer to the corpse-like visage that lurked beneath the moldering shroud, its very voice searing images into Jonah’s skull, obliterating his will to resist one layer at a time. But he had resisted: no matter how painful the Crone’s probing of his mind became, no matter how much strength that monster drained from his body, he had screamed and pushed back and refused to give in. It was what Jonah had been doing his entire life, but this time, the cost of his resistance was greater than it ever had been before. This time, he’d paid for it not with blood or scars, but with his sanity.
His foot caught on some debris littering the floor, and Jonah fell. Though he had enough sense to brace his arms in front of him to lessen the impact, he didn’t try to get up, as there seemed to be little point in it. The most he did was lift his head to look further down the hallway, which abruptly ended in a gaping hole leading outside, thanks to the battle earlier. From his vantage point, Jonah could see a massive blue star rising over Qward, its presence casting an eerie glow across the landscape. To anyone else, such a sight may have elicited wonder, but to Jonah, it was just another reminder of how far from home he was, and he lowered his head so he wouldn’t have to look at it.
Then Jonah heard the sound of debris shifting, and when he lifted his head again, he saw silhouette of a figure standing near the hole. Considering they were about three stories up, the figure’s presence there was odd enough, but things became odder when the figure began to approach Jonah, and he got a better look at what the figure was wearing. As plain as day, he could see the Confederate-gray officer’s hat and tunic, the faded denim trousers, the cuffed leather boots, and as the figure stopped a mere five feet in front of him, Jonah caught sight of the twisted and burned flesh on the right side of the figure’s face.
Jonah Hex was face-to-face with himself.
“Cain’t be...” Jonah croaked, unsteadily climbing to his feet. “Yuh cain’t be me...yuh cain’t be here. Not like thet, not now.” He tugged at the bloodied, gray leather shirt he wore, saying, “This is who Ah am now. Thet uniform’s gone...yo’re gone. Ah’m all thet’s left.” He waved a hand in a shooing gesture. “So go on, get outta here.”
The figure remained, silent and unmoving.
“Yuh hear me, boy? Get out! Yuh don’t belong here! Yo’re dead! Yuh died the moment the Crone sunk its claws into yuh!” Jonah took a few steps towards the figure. “An’ it’s yer own damn fault! Nobody made yuh face off against them bug-eyes in the saloon. Yuh had a perfectly good opportunity tuh get out of thet place, an’ yuh didn’t take it. Yuh hesitated, an’ they ended up draggin’ yer sorry ass tuh this hellhole, an’ thet’s whut yuh deserved! Yo’re a goddam failure, thet’s whut yuh are! Yuh ain’t worth spit!”
The figure didn’t react, not even as Jonah closed the distance between them.
“Why are yuh here, anyhow? Tuh taunt me? Yuh here tuh remind me of all the things Ah lost? Ah know damn good an’ well whut Ah lost, Ah don’t need no ghosts showin’ up tuh tell me such. It ain’t like Ah had a lot afore Ah got here, anyhow, so whut dif’rence does a change of clothes or scenery make?” Jonah paused, breathing hard, then said in a quieter tone, “It makes a damn lot of dif’rence, thet’s whut it makes. It makes a dif’rence up here...an’ in here...” He tapped a finger against his head and heart in turn. “Thet’s whut hurts the most ‘bout whut the Crone did tuh me: it tainted every good memory Ah had. The bad ‘uns were already bad, but the good...the only thing thet kept me goin’ at times was the notion thet Ah might have more of ‘em someday. But now...now the world in muh head is just as twisted an’ ugly as the world around me. There ain’t nothin’ good left, inside or out.”
The figure stood by mutely while Jonah slowly shook his head.
“No...thet’s wrong. There’s one good thing left. Stella. She loves me, even knowin’ how fouled up Ah am inside, an’ Ah...Ah do muh best tuh do good by her. She’s like...a light in the window. When it gets all dark an’ stormy in muh head, she’s the light thet leads me back tuh safer ground.” Jonah closed his eyes and let out a shuddering sigh. “But it’s gettin’ harder tuh reach. Feels like something happens every day thet sets me off. Like thet greenhorn Yankee...the stuff he was sayin’...it hits muh brain an’ Ah...Ah kin see whut the Crone showed me.” He raised his trembling hands and curled them into fists, twisting and pulling them away from each other as he said, “Ah kin see the world gettin’ torn tuh pieces, an’ Ah don’t want tuh see thet, don’t want tuh even think it, but it’s in there, an’...an’ if’n whut thet greenhorn was sayin’ is true, then whut’s in muh head might be true as well.”
Jonah opened his eyes again. “Thet’s...thet’s why yo’re here, ain’t it?” he said to the figure, who still hadn’t moved an inch. “Things really are startin’ tuh unravel. Past an’ present an’ future...those words don’t mean anything anymore, do they? There’s just now, an’ yo’re here ‘cause...‘cause yo’re still in here.” He tapped a finger over his heart once more. “Even though it got buried under a lot of pain, who Ah used tuh be is still who Ah am now.”
“That’s not who you used to be,” a voice said behind Jonah, “that’s who you will be.” He turned around to see the Green Lantern approaching, with Stella not far behind. “I used my ring to generate an image of how you looked when I met you in 1878.” The masked man smirked, saying, “Green is just the default color for constructs. With a little extra concentration, I can produce other colors to a limited degree.”
Jonah gaped at him, then turned back to the figure and pressed a hand against it -- a slight ripple of green washed over the gray uniform coat. “Whut’s the point of this, other’n makin’ me act a fool?” he growled.
“He thought it might help you to see that, no matter what troubles you’re having right now, they won’t last forever.” Stella came up to Jonah and hugged him tightly, causing him to let out a slight groan of pain. “Whatever happens next, you’re going to get through it, and you’re going to make it back to 1875, back to that old life.”
“More important, I need you to make it back to 1875,” Green Lantern added. “I told you that we’d met before, but I didn’t tell you what you did for me. It’s a bit risky, telling you about events you haven’t lived through yet, so I can’t fill in all the details, but I can say that you saved my live, Jonah. That’s not an exaggeration: I would’ve died in the desert if you hadn’t found me. I read up on you after our encounter, so I know you have a reputation for being cold-blooded, unfeeling...but the Jonah Hex I met,” he said, pointing at the ring-generated figure, “was also willing to put his life on the line to help a stranger. You kept me safe until we found my comrades, and even then, you stuck around and fought side-by-side with us. No hesitation, no question. Thanks to you, I was able to get back to my own time. I was around to see my daughter be born, and to watch her grow up. But if something happens to you now, so that you’re not there to save me then...” He flicked his fingers, and the image of Hex in his Rebel togs dissolved into nothingness. “It’d be like pulling a lynchpin. Everything that I’ve done since our encounter in 1878 would cease to exist. The battles I’ve fought, the other adventures I’ve had...gone. All of it.” He paused a moment to let that sink in, then said, “You told me back then that, so as long as I rode with you, I could count on you as a friend. And even though I only knew you for a day, I still consider you my friend, and I’m just as willing to help you now as you were to help me back then.”
Jonah frowned at him. “How kin yuh consider me yer friend if’n yuh only knew me fer one damn day?”
“It was a Hell of a day.”
The bounty hunter glanced down at Stella, who still had her arms wrapped around him, then gently pulled away from her -- a look of concern flashed across her face, but she said nothing. He strode up to Green Lantern and stood silently in front of the man for a few moments, then said, “Despite all the words thet’ve been pourin’ outta yer mouth, yuh ain’t explained one thing.” Jonah poked a finger at the emerald symbol on his uniform. “The folks we’re sided with...their machines say this is the mark of an enemy. Why’s thet?”
“Even before Krona came along, the Qwardians had their minds set on conquest. The Green Lantern Corps -- which I’m part of -- had thwarted them on several occasions. That’s why the Guardians of the Universe sent me here: to see if the Qwardians were up to their old tricks, and to put a stop to it if necessary.”
“So there’s more’n one fella like yerself? Yo’re just part of an army?”
“We can function like an army, but for the most part, the Green Lanterns are more like...like Texas Rangers. We tend to handle things solo. You know, ‘One riot, one Ranger’.”
Jonah scoffed, “Ah ain’t never seen a Texas Ranger run around in nothin’ but green longjohns an’ a mask.”
“That may be, but my weapon is a lot more versatile than a rifle or a sixgun.”
“Ah’ll give yuh thet. Reckon we could use a whole mess of ‘em fer the fight thet’s comin’.”
“So I guess that means you trust me now?”
“Ah don’t trust anybody fully, not even muhself...‘specially these days.” Jonah gestured vaguely towards his head, saying, “Things still ain’t right up here, but Ah’m gettin’ a tighter grip on it all. Maybe even enough tuh puzzle out the stuff the Crone shoved in muh brain.” His brow furrowed. “Ah don’t know if’n Ah kin find all the right words tuh describe it proper, but Ah’ll do muh level best.”
Stella came up beside Jonah and laid a hand on his arm. “I know you can do it, cowboy. And me and Green Lantern will do what we can to help you get it all out.”
Jonah allowed himself a small smile as he glanced at Stella, then said, “Thet’s another thing: the Hell kinda name is ‘Green Lantern’?” He cocked his head slightly to look at the man in question. “Ah know a couple of masked men back home who don’t like to be called by their proper Christian names, but ain’t none of ‘em had a moniker as stupid as thet.”
“Hey, I didn’t pick it, it came with the uniform.” He held out a gloved hand, the emerald ring upon it glowing brightly. “When I’m not wearing it, though, people call me Hal Jordan.”
“Thet sounds a lot more proper.” Jonah took hold of his hand and gave it a firm shake.
66 MINUTES EARLIER - THE WATCHTOWER:
Oliver Queen leaned back in his chair and asked, "On a scale of 1-to-10, how screwed are we?"
Outside the window of the Watchtower, the solar system was a crowded mess. Hundreds of planets, moons, satellites, stations, and ships had warped into close proximity to Earth just as the entropic wave -- previously held back by the Source Wall -- crashed into the shield generated by the last surviving members of the Green Lantern Corps. How many lives had been lost as the universe came to a crushing end outside the shield? Billions? Trillions? And now all of existence was represented by the races that had managed to strap rockets to their worlds, that had managed to follow Captain Comet's -- and later the Green Lantern Corps'-- advice to travel as quickly as possible to Earth space so they could make a final stand for existence there.
With entropy on their heels, the Green Lantern Corps had managed to turn the tide ever so briefly by pushing back against cataclysm with an emerald shield which lay within the orbit of the now-vanished Pluto. But the cost of that victory had been the lives of two brave men, and now the survivors were stuck in a bubble, waiting for the strain of the energies that had erased all existence but them to finish the job they'd started when the Source Wall fell!
"I don't think that scale does the situation justice, Ollie,” replied Ray Palmer.
John Constantine rolled his eyes and cursed the fact that his beautiful, beloved wife had made him quit smoking. "I mean, we're in a snow globe, ain't we? Or ants under a magnifying glass on a bright and sunny day… either way… we’re well and truly done in, right?”
"That is an over-simplification,” said Doc Robotman.
John pointed an accusatory finger at the cybernetic amalgamation of Cliff Steele’s brain and Niles Caulder’s vast intellect. "But an accurate one, right, tinman?"
Vic Stone tried to ignore the vast egos that were taking up so much space in the room and interrupted the pair. "I've been mapping the gravitational effects each satellite is having on the limited space we're dealing with. If we can redistribute the worlds so that we can harmonise the effects, I think that'll be the best bet, but at the same time... we don't know how long the Green Lantern Corps' shield can hold. While the old 24-hour limit no longer applies to the charges in their rings, the strain on the Lanterns is immeasurable. We're only here today because Guy Gardner sacrificed himself and spread the Blue Lantern energies across the shield and infused it."
"Speaking of which, has anybody heard from Hal Jordan lately?" asked Ollie.
"I don't see how one more Green Lantern can make a difference at this stage,” said Cassie Sandsmark, aka Wonder Woman.
John shrugged. "Every little bit helps, mate. Even at the end of the world."
Roy Harper shook his head vehemently. "That's not why he’s asking. Barry outraced the end of the universe, the end of time itself, to get back to this timeframe, and one of the first things he did when he arrived was ask about Hal. Neither me nor Ollie have seen him since the church. Has anyone spoken to Chloe? Or his daughter?"
Tim Wayne, aka the Batman, said, "Chloe has been granted emergency powers by the United Nations to coordinate Earth-based forces to help keep the peace. Hal and Jessica are currently MIA… along with the rest of the All-Stars.”
Roy blinked and then said, "Excuse me, what?"
"Good God," whispered Ollie. “We’re losing kids now? Shouldn’t they have been with their parents?”
Batman started, “Now’s not the time--” But there was a thudding tremor and the heads of all the assembled heroes swiveled toward the window; a small ship had bounced off the reinforced walls of the Watchtower and spun away, back into the previously-spacious void beyond the moon.
"What the hell...?" asked Ollie.
Cyborg grimaced. "We had to mute the proximity alarms, there's too much happening outside for them to be accurate. There are hundreds of worlds from across the universe now taking up space where there was nothing but void previously. I’m currently working in tandem with LEGION to coordinate the surviving space fleets to try and stop that kind of thing happening, because we don't have enough colleagues capable of surviving in space. I'll reactivate the alarm now..."
Oliver threw his hands up. "So, when we all die in here, it'll be because of traffic violations?"
"Or because the shield falls," offered Katar Hol, aka Hawkman.
"Or because whatever it is that Krona and Libra have in store for us isn't anywhere near done,” said Cyborg.
“You never know, maybe he’s won. Maybe they’ve done what they set out to do, and they’ve left us in their dirt, waiting for the lights to go out,” said Constantine.
“You better be wrong, trenchcoat boy, or else we went through a whole lotta trouble for nothing.” Detective Chimp came into the meeting room, with Dawn Makes-Strong-Move, Kid Eternity, and the Phantom Stranger right behind him, along with a dark-haired young man. No one recognized him, but Tim noticed that the clothes he wore seemed too large for him: the cuffs of his black slacks bunched up over the tops of his expensive-looking shoes, and his deep-gray turtleneck hung somewhat loosely on his frame. Adding to the incongruity was the partially-burned utility belt around his waist, which sported a gold letter L alongside a starburst upon its circular buckle -- Tim thought he’d seen the insignia before, but he couldn’t recall where.
“So, lose some kids, gain another,” Ollie muttered. “Who’s the new fish?”
“My name’s Rokk Krinn...Cosmic Boy.” There was a slight hesitancy when he spoke. Those in the room thought perhaps he was nervous, but in truth, Rokk still couldn’t believe he was speaking fluent Ancient English, courtesy of a little tap on the forehead with the blunt side of the True Axe. It certainly beat having a telepathic plug buzz in your ear. “I’m with the Legion of Super-Heroes.”
“You mean those guys outside playing intergalactic parking attendant?” Roy said.
“Actually,” Dawn replied, “Rokk here is from the 31st Century.”
The room was silent for a moment, until Constantine broke it by declaring, “Bullocks.”
Even translated, Rokk wasn’t familiar with the expletive, but he got the gist. “I know it’s probably hard to believe, but according to them,” he said, gesturing to Dawn and the others, “my presence here at this moment of crisis was apparently predicted thousands of years ago. Considering that, where I just came from, I was most-assuredly about to die, I would much rather be here right now than where I was.” He then cast his eyes around the meeting room, saying, “Of course, there’s always the possibility that I am dead and this is some unimagined afterlife. But in either case, I’m here, and I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
Ollie crossed his arms on the table. “So, what’s your gig, Rocky? Lead singer in a super-boy-band?” The words had barely left his mouth when the arrows in his quiver began to do just that, flying out of their own volition and hovering tips-down over Cosmic Boy’s waiting hands.
“Magnetic field manipulation,” Doc Robotman mused. “I could feel the tug of it when the arrows passed by me.”
Batman nodded. “Could be useful for repositioning the refugee ships. How are you in space?”
“If I still had my transuit and flight ring, I’d be fine, but both were destroyed right before I was brought to this time.” As he spoke, he waved his hand and let the arrows pile up on the table in front of the Emerald Archer, who gave Rokk a dirty look. “If you have something equivalent...”
“I know somebody who might be able to help with the latter,” a voice suddenly said from the direction of the windows. Everyone turned to see Superwoman hovering out in the vacuum. “Sorry for eavesdropping...super-hearing, can’t help it.” She spoke close enough to the window and with precise puffs of super-breath to make the reinforced material vibrate, thereby projecting her voice into the room.
“Kara…?” whispered Batman. He had been there, along with the now-dead Guy Gardner, when the Fortress of Solitude fell into the Phantom Zone. He’d held out hope, but in this life, that was never something you could grasp for long.
“You made it back. That’s amazing,” said Red Arrow. “But how?”
“I’ll explain later,” Kara answered. “Or ask Lena and Corben. They’re on their way up. In the meantime, Kon, Kru, and myself are going to see what we can do about the overcrowding out here.” She then looked directly at Cosmic Boy. “Are you here by yourself, Rokk, or is the rest of the Legion around somewhere? I just hope Brainy’s not with you, I really don’t think I could handle a run-in with an ex on top of everything else today.”
“I...I’m sorry...what?” Cosmic Boy was positively agape. “How do you know who I am?”
“Wait...what year did you come from?”
“3006.”
“Oh...oh, Rao. Sorry for the spoilers.” Kara held up her hands as she moved away from the window, saying, “I’ll be more careful next time we talk, promise!” She soon became a red-and-blue blur across the void.
Ray Palmer put a hand on Rokk’s shoulder. “You look like you should take a seat.”
“That...that was Superwoman, wasn’t it?” Rokk said as the Atom steered him towards the table. “I’ve seen the history tapes, but...how does Superwoman know who I am?”
Tim suppressed a smile: now he recalled why that belt insignia looked familiar. “While our new friend collects himself, Cyborg, could you please bring up the active threat board? Let's regroup, recap, and figure out how to save what's left of the universe."
The meeting room’s lights dimmed and above the large table a holographic display lit up, showing a number of crises the world -- and entire universe -- were currently facing. Cyborg cleared his throat, and said, "Right. Obviously, the main threat on the board is that our universe has crashed down to a fraction of its former size, and would have collapsed entirely without the Corps’ intervention. We have to face facts, though: this is only a stopgap measure, as those Lanterns can’t keep pouring out every ounce of their willpower indefinitely. In addition, the timeline has shrunk to this timespan we're existing in right now. As Roy mentioned, Barry Allen was barely able to keep ahead of the timeline’s collapse and make it back here. He said once he got Iris and the kids settled in up here on the satellite, he’d try and reconnect with the Speed Force again, both to assess the temporal damage and see if he can find any trace of Jesse Quick. Until we get a read on how much ‘here’ is still here, there’s no way of knowing how many days -- or hours -- or minutes -- we have left."
Oliver looked at Roy, then back to Cyborg. "I hadn't thought about it like that."
Kid Eternity leaned down next to Cosmic Boy, saying in a low voice, “Sounds like it was a miracle I was even able to pull you here.”
“In the literal sense,” the Phantom Stranger concurred, “once you consider the source of your powers...as well as how we were informed of our new ally’s existence.”
Batman looked up at the display grimly and said, "We don't know the cause of the problem, so how can we anticipate its effect?"
Cyborg continued. "We’ve confirmed that the Key's escape coincided with the mass opening of doors-- both locked and unlocked-- across the universe. And by every door, we mean every door. Every prison, every dimension, every mystical realm, the length and breadth of the Source Wall… all open.”
“And here we are, living in a snow globe..." said Constantine.
"Please let that analogy go,” said the Atom.
Ollie shrugged. "I want it to be my epitaph."
John propped his feet on the table and said, "Anyways, since we’re listing all our woes, I suppose I should finally tell you why I’m here: the Shadowpact journeyed to Heaven to rescue Zauriel, who we suspect is being held against her will to take the Creation blueprint from her skin. That’s our working hypothesis, of course. We won’t know until the team gets back."
“Jesus Christ, are you serious?” said Ollie.
Cyborg’s eyes opened wide. "You think that they're going to try and reboot the universe?"
John nodded. "If push comes to shove, yeah, and I have to admit, I'd rather it be someone without an agenda behind the reboot -- somebody like us -- rather than someone who might try to make 'improvements' -- like the Host up there." He twirled a finger Heavenward for emphasis.
“Do you have any updates from them?” asked Cassie.
“We lost contact as soon as they left. And with the universe crashing down, who even knows if they survived the journey.” Constantine glanced over to where Dawn and the Stranger stood. “Any celestial insights you could provide there, my all-seeing loves?”
“I am...not permitted,” was all the Phantom Stranger would say.
Dawn hefted the True Axe. “Piercing the veil of Heaven isn’t something I do on a regular basis, especially with all the other disturbances going on throughout the realms, but if you could point me to a quiet corner of the Watchtower, I’m more than willing to try.”
Constantine got up and made a show of leading her out of the meeting room, with Kid Eternity right behind because -- even though Dawn could handle herself -- he didn’t trust leaving that magical con-man alone with her for one second. As for the Phantom Stranger, he’d moved to the corner of the room where the two Questions stood. Sage and Montoya had contributed little in the past half-hour, mainly just talking quietly to each other, with the occasional beep of their smartphones interspersed. Now the Stranger had joined the barely-audible conversation.
“You mentioned two others right as we arrived,” Cosmic Boy said, turning to Cyborg. “Krona and Libra. Who are they, and what’s their involvement in this?”
“Libra is a mystery to us for the most part,” Vic Stone replied, “but Krona is very well-known.” The holographic display changed to show a man with blue skin and a gleam of madness in his eyes. “He’s a member of the immortal race that became the Guardians of the Universe. Billions of years ago, he attempted to witness the birth of the Universe itself, and in doing so...he shattered it. That created the Multiverse as we now know it.” The image shifted to show the Earth itself, which soon exploded into a endless spiral of near-identical Earths. “Since he was immortal, Krona’s people turned him into disembodied energy, forcing him to wander forever across the very Multiverse he helped to create, but unable to interact with it...or at least, that’s what they believed. He’s actually reincorporated himself on multiple occasions, but luckily, the Green Lantern Corps has been able to stop his previous attempts at taking over the universe.” He noted an odd look that passed over Cosmic Boy’s face and asked, “Is the Green Lantern Corps still around in the 31st Century?”
“Sort of,” Rokk answered. “What was word Superwoman said? Spoilers?”
“Oh, I can’t wait to tell Hal about this when he turns up again,” Ollie said.
Red Arrow waved his hand. "Hate to interrupt the history lesson, but how about I offer an alternative solution to trying to outwit a near-god? We run away. Evacuate to Earth-2, or to another friendly universe. This snow globe -- if that’s what we’re calling it -- is gonna shatter sooner rather than later, right? We can abandon ship. Find somewhere to get our bearings.”
The Atom shook his head. "Whatever Krona has done, we're cut off from the Multiverse. Power Girl and the science squad have been trying to break through the vibrational barrier into the Bleed so we can ask for help, but it's like the science has been twisted inside out. We're locked out. Locked in. We're alone."
"Okay, so now I feel stupid..." said Roy.
Cassie shook her head. “Don’t. This is the last stand of our reality. If Krona succeeds in whatever his plan is here, what’s to stop him travelling from parallel to parallel, bringing about this doom on whatever universe he lands in? We have to draw the line here. He cannot be allowed to push us back any further. If we do, then what?”
A silence fell over the room once more as the weight of Cassie’s words -- of their dire situation -- pressed down upon those assembled. Cosmic Boy clasped his hands before him upon the table and, after a while, said, “Not long after the Legion’s founding, we faced off against someone who’d been...transformed like this Krona. A scientist working on proving the theory that time is cyclical. I don’t know if any of you are familiar with that.”
Doc Robotman nodded, saying, “There’s a few different models, but the common idea that time is an infinite loop: if you managed to reach the ‘end’ of time, you’d simply cycle back around to the beginning and, therefore, could keep traveling into the ‘future’ until you reached the point at which you left.”
“Pretty sure I watched a Futurama episode like this once,” said Detective Chimp.
“Please, Bobo, this is a serious conversation,” Doc Robotman sighed. “Continue, Mr. Krinn.”
“To keep it short, there was an accident, and he got caught in the loop, going through the birth and death of the universe ‘a million million times’, as he put it. He gained fantastic powers over the timestream because of it, but it also drove him insane.” Rokk shook his head, saying, “We tried to contain him, but it was close to impossible. The best we could do was have Lightning Lad overload the machine which caused the accident in the first place and send him back into the loop. That was the last we ever saw of him. I don’t know what you’ve tried against Krona before, but if his physical state is anything like the Infinite Man’s, then perhaps...” Cosmic Boy stopped talking when he realised nearly everyone was staring at him in shock. “What’s wrong?”
Instead of answering, Batman stabbed a button on the comm panel. “Barbara, anything new in regards to our guest in Centennial Park?”
Like Dawn, Batwoman had gone off to a less-hectic room in the Watchtower to perform her work. “Not a thing. Monitors show him just sitting there, and on-the-ground observers haven’t reported anything unusual.”
“What about your database searches? Have you turned up anything on that name Krona called him before vanishing?”
“Sorry, Dick and I have plugged ‘Jaxon Rugarth’ into every system we have access to at the moment, both here on Earth and on the worlds that we’re cosied up with now, and gotten absolutely nothing back. We even used voice recognition in case there was a spelling variation we were missing. Whoever this ‘Infinite Man’ really is, there’s no record of him anywhere.”
“Don’t feel bad. Turns out you were searching a thousand years too early. Meet us down by the teleporters and I’ll explain.” Batman turned off the comm and looked at Cosmic Boy, who’d been on his feet ever since Babs spoke the Infinite Man’s true name. “Pardon the pun, but it looks like you got here at just the right time.”
“You seriously captured the Infinite Man?” Cos asked. “But how?”
“That’s kinda the problem: We don’t know how,” the Atom said.
“Less talking, more walking.” Batman began to exit the meeting room, with Cos, Atom, and a few other heroes right behind him. Detective Chimp turned towards where he last saw the Phantom Stranger to ask if he was coming along, but he was nowhere to be seen.
In the corner of the meeting room, apparently oblivious to this newest development, the Questions continued to speak quietly to each other, stopping only to glance at their phones from time to time.
52 MINUTES EARLIER - THE SPIRE, QWARD:
The transmat room was a flurry of activity. The Qwardian techs present were overwhelmingly eager to fulfill the Prophet’s wishes, rushing about to move equipment into place and reconfigure the teleportation sequence for its new target. In Libra’s opinion, however, they weren’t moving fast enough, so he gave them all a mental nudge, to the point where one of them sliced her hand on a piece of metal jutting out, yet she didn’t appear to notice, dripping blood across the floor with every step she took.
The injuries she and the others sustained in their efforts to please Libra mattered not a whit to him, as he looked upon them as disposable tools that could be cast aside without a second thought. Krona had taught him early on that the only value a person held was in whether or not they were useful to his master’s goal. The Qwardians were useful because the race’s xenophobia could be twisted easily into religious fervor, thereby making them loyal to a god that promised them paradise whilst devouring them with reckless abandon. The so-called “heroes” were useful because the myriad skills at their command, combined with their innate desire to overcome the impossible, made them blind to the destruction they were unknowingly contributing to.
And then there was his brother, Equinox, who even in death served Krona. His corpse powered the transmat system, while the amulet he’d built to regulate his ability to move across spacetime formed the basis of the system’s control unit. Libra’s hands were resting upon the control unit’s main panel at that moment, his fingers eager to begin the sequence that would bring the Infinite Man over to the anti-matter universe. There had been enough delays already, the last being a human telepath that’d been brought in just as Libra reached the transmat room. It had taken a combination of the Qwardians’ blows and Libra’s emotion-bending abilities to subdue the human. Not surprisingly, the willpower displayed by this human caught Krona’s attention, and the master quickly spoke into his servant’s mind and bade him to have the human prepared for sacrifice. It had been the same way with Hex months earlier, only this time, Libra knew that Krona wouldn’t linger over this human, not when they were so close to final ascension. No, this feast would be quick and brutal and soaked in pain.
Libra lamented that he wouldn’t be present to enjoy it alongside his master.
47 MINUTES EARLIER - CENTENNIAL PARK, METROPOLIS:
Night had fallen over the Big Apricot, but it was unlike any night this world had ever experienced before. Instead of a black expanse filled with stars, the sky was instead a deep, velvety emerald studded with tiny sparks of green. Cosmic Boy knew each one of those sparks was a Green Lantern, and he wondered how the people in his time would react if they knew that the peacekeeping force they’d banned from entering U.P. space years ago was now the only thing keeping Earth alive. Of course, this wasn’t their Earth, but rather the Earth of a thousand years previous: a half-remembered period that only existed in what little pre-Disaster material had survived centuries of wars and upheavals. Great swaths of Earth history were unknown in the 31st Century, which was why places like the Time Institute existed, for it was hoped that, someday, they could reach back into the past and recover what was lost.
Of course, if it wasn’t for the Time Institute, Jaxon Rugarth wouldn’t have been accidentally transformed into the Infinite Man. This fact was on Cosmic Boy’s mind as they approached the huge hourglass-shaped device in the middle of Centennial Park (the sight of that place alone amazed him: from Rokk’s perception, he’d been there only a few weeks prior to celebrate the coming of the New Year, but it looked wholly different in his time). Inside the device could be seen a man sitting cross-legged and hunched over, as if the intense light given off by the device was weighing down upon him. Gathered all around it were various heroes, some of which Cos recognized from history tapes, but many were a mystery to him. The Atom walked ahead of Rokk and the others in their group and approached a man dressed in varying shades of blue, with a yellow-goggled hood pulled back from his head. The man looked haggard, his eyes fixed on a data tablet in hand. “Still no luck, Ted?” Atom asked.
“No,” he replied tersely. “I’ve come at this thing from every angle, and all I’ve got the show for it is bupkis!” He threw the tablet on the ground, then pushed his hands up into his brown hair, saying, “I'm a damn super scientist, and I've thrown all my ideas at one problem and come up short, and if I don't keep busy I'll start thinking about how Booster is dead and the world is ending and nothing I can do is making a damn difference!” He sounded on the verge of tears.
“Okay, that’s it, I’m tagging you out.” Atom waved a hand at a stunning woman who appeared to be made out of green flame. “Bea, make sure Ted gets up to the Watchtower in one piece. I think Kimiyo and Akihiko are in one of the science labs monitoring the entropy wave.” As she led the distraught man away, Atom picked up the tablet and examined the cracked screen. “As depressing as it is to say, I think it’s only a matter of time before all of us fall apart like Blue Beetle. If it wasn’t for every telepath available projecting an aura of calm over the general populace, there’d be riots in the streets right now.”
“I still don’t understand what the problem is,” Cosmic Boy said, “by which I mean that.” He pointed at the device. “You captured the Infinite Man, a feat we couldn’t even accomplish in my time, yet you talk like it’s a bigger problem than all of existence falling in on itself.”
“Only because Krona duped us into doing it,” Batwoman answered. “He got Libra to cloud our minds somehow and talk us into building the device from data they provided. Now they’re gone, along with every trace of the data, and no one can figure out how to undo this.”
“Or why they wanted it done in the first place,” her husband-to-be, Nightwing, added. “especially since they up and left this guy here instead of taking him with them.”
“Silly question: Did you try talking with him about any of this?”
Green Arrow mockingly thumped the heel of his hand against his forehead, saying, “Of course, why didn’t any of us think of that? It sure is a good thing you showed up, Magnet Boy.”
“It’s Cosmic Boy.”
“Don’t mind him, he’s got a terminal case of sarcasm,” a blonde-haired woman in a purple hooded cloak said as she came over to their group. After going up to Batman and giving his hand a quick squeeze, she said to Rokk. “You’re the new guy, I take it? The one who supposedly knows who our guest under glass is?”
“If that really is Jaxon Rugarth, yes. To be honest, it doesn’t look at all that much like him, either before or after he was transformed.”
“Probably because that body you’re seeing is artificial,” the Atom explained. “One of the components Libra had us put into this thing was pulverized silica...more commonly known as industrial sand. When this guy manifested inside there, the device apparently made a body for him out of it.” Atom shook his head, saying, “We literally built a sand-filled hourglass to contain a being that exists within the timestream.”
“As for him talking,” the woman continued, “he did quite a lot at first...in about thirty languages we could understand and some that we couldn’t. It all amounted to the same thing: he wanted us to let him out. After a few minutes of yelling and pounding on the walls, he kind of ran out of steam and plunked himself down. He hasn’t responded to anything from us the whole time he’s been here. M’Gann even tried a telepathic probe, but she couldn’t get anywhere.”
“I recall Saturn Girl had similar trouble when we faced him. Thank you, Ms...?”
“Spoiler.”
Rokk’s eyebrows went up. “You can’t tell me your name?”
“Just call her Steph,” Batman interjected.
Rather than question any further, the Legionnaire shrugged it off. “Would you mind if I tried speaking to him?”
Ollie muttered, “Knock yourself out, Rocky.”
Cosmic Boy ignored the jibe and walked up to the device, which sat on a four-foot-high circular platform. The closer he got, the more he could tell that, indeed, the figure inside wasn’t flesh and blood. The fine, light brown sand had been molded into the perfect contours of a naked male human, but it lacked the intricate details like nails, hair, and winkles. If he didn’t know otherwise, he would’ve assumed this to be a sculpture, and not a manifestation of one of the Legion of Super-Heroes’ most-powerful adversaries.
“Hello, Jaxon,” Rokk said in Interlac. “It’s been a while.” There was no answer, so he decided to just keep on. “I want to apologize for what we had to do...in our time, I mean. We wanted to help you, to return you to normal, but your powers...just your presence in the room was warping time out of joint. It nearly killed us. Sending you back into the timestream was the only thing we could think to do.” The regret he felt was stamped plain upon his face. “I wish we could’ve helped you then. I can’t imagine what you’ve suffered through since.”
A few grains of sand slipped loose as the Infinite Man lifted his head and fixed eyes like smooth river stones upon him. “Oh, but you did help me,” the entity that had once been called Jaxon Rugarth said in perfect Ancient English. “When we last met, I was a mere infant, mewling after being ripped from the womb. I didn’t understand yet what I was, any more than you did. Even after all those eons of gestation, I still thought myself human underneath all that, but I was wrong.” He stood up and stepped towards the transparent barrier that lay between himself and the heroes, leaving grainy footprints in his wake. “I am a part of Time itself, spread out across every dimension, condemned to travel its length and breadth for eternity, but unable to interact. I am a silent witness to every moment in every reality from beginning to end and back again.”
“And you look like Clayface’s grittier cousin,” Nightwing said.
Jaxon stayed focused on Rokk, kneeling in front of him and pressing his sand-crafted hand against the barrier. “Despite the circumstances, I am happy to speak with you again, to thank you for acting as midwife to my birth. I know now that could have done no less.” His mouth widened into a grin, revealing an approximation of teeth. “After all, you are zir champion.”
Cos’s eyes narrowed. “Whose champion? I was told that a...a voice called out across the universe looking for me, but nobody knows who that voice belongs to. Is it you?”
“No...no, you are the champion of my Mate, whom you and my former colleagues refer to as the Time Trapper.”
Rokk paled. “Oh grife...” He turned to the others, who were all looking at him with confused expressions. “The Time Trapper is...well, no one knows who or what it is. Brainy theorizes that it’s...like living entropy, or at the very least exists inside of it. Not long after Jaxon’s accident, the Legion helped the Time Institute perfect their Time Spheres, and we began making short trips through the timestream. Pretty soon, we caught the attention of the Time Trapper, who said we weren’t ready yet for what lay ahead. It literally threw us back into the 31st Century and set up what we’ve dubbed ‘the iron curtain of time’. Ever since then, the Time Spheres can’t travel more than thirty days into the future, and even going backwards can be difficult sometimes.”
“It’s for your own good,” Jaxon said, still grinning. “I’ve seen what’s waiting for you...or rather, what was waiting for you. That’s gone now. It’s all gone. As the timeline unravels, my Mate draws ever closer, tearing through the boundaries of reality until zie finally reaches me.” The grin suddenly faded. “That’s something else I was wrong about. Time isn’t a loop, you see: it’s a snowflake, made up of 196,833 separate dimensional planes, each one containing a slightly different version of reality. And that snowflake is merely one of a infinite number of snowflakes. The further out you go, the more different reality becomes...and zie and I exist in all of them. We have beheld images your eyes could never comprehend. We have witnessed marvels your mind could never fathom. Over and over again, forever repeating...but not anymore. This is the last time.” Jaxon’s eyes closed and he said quietly, “Krona is going to take zir from me and destroy it all.”
Ollie made a face. “What’s all this ‘zie’ and ‘zir’ stuff about?”
“Gender-neutral pronouns,” Detective Chimp answered, glaring up at him. “I thought you were supposed to be an enlightened liberal.”
Batman stepped up next to the barrier and said, “You know what Krona’s ultimate plan is? How do we stop it? There has to be a way to reverse all the damage he’s done to this reality.” The Infinite Man stayed silent and unmoving, so Tim banged a fist against the barrier. “Talk, damn you! I’m not going to let all of existence fall apart without a fight!”
“Answer him, Jaxon,” Cosmic Boy said.
“Answer who?” he asked, looking up once more. “There’s no one else here, just corpses.”
Batman snarled, “Listen to me, you son of a bitch...”
“NO! YOU will listen to ME!” the Infinite Man roared back. “The last thing I saw before I was pulled from my proper body was this reality shattering into nothing 45 minutes from now! It has already happened! It will happen! No amount of dead words uttered by dead people will prevent it!”
“Then why did you bother talking to me?” Cos asked.
“Out of respect for my Mate. In every reality you exist in, you are zir champion, the one zie always turns to when zie needs a soldier to do zir bidding, whether they’re aware of it or not. There’s many others zie has used for this role, but you...you’re zir favorite. I suspect that’s because, in a few of them, you and zir are one and the same.” Noting the shock on Cos’s face, he said, “As I told you before, I exist in every reality, and so does my Mate. Not always the same face or name or gender or species, but the consciousness, you see, is the same. When a reality comes to be, we are born into it, a physical part of it. In this reality and many others, I was Jaxon Rugarth. Then there are ones where Jaxon Rugarth exists, but I am not him, I am someone else. In this reality, you and my Mate are separate entities, while in others, the entity known as Rokk Krinn is fated to become zir. The point is, eventually, no matter who or what or where myself and my Mate are, we ascend. Our consciousness rejoins with our true bodies, the ones that span across all those snowflakes I told you about.”
Batman ventured, “And then you and this ‘Mate’ of yours...the Time Trapper...you meet up?”
“Weren’t you listening? We can’t reach each other!” The Infinite Man stood and paced away from them. “We spend an eternity alone, each aware of the other’s existence due to previous encounters, but unable to be together. Not until it all ends.” He spun back around and rushed up to the barrier, falling to his knees. “Once a reality collapses in on itself, we can finally stand beside each other, we can touch.” His voice choked with emotion as he said, “We can only do this for the briefest of seconds before it all explodes outward again, and we have to live out eternity all over again in a new reality. We’ve done this countless times, and it’s the most glorious and the most devastating thing you can imagine. And Krona...” The near-sobbing in his voice suddenly changed to laughter. “Krona wants this voluntarily!”
The Atom walked up beside Cosmic Boy. “You’re right, the guy’s completely insane.”
“What if he’s not, though?” Batman said. “Think of all the things we’ve seen over the years, Ray. Who’s to say that something like himself and the Time Trapper can’t exist?”
“Okay, we’ll say it’s true. Two cosmic forces are about to have a little dalliance in our backyard. What’s Krona’s part in this? Did he set all this up as a kind of final revenge on the universe?”
“It’s more than that,” Batwoman said. “Krona referred to the Infinite Man as the groom in a temporal union. I thought he was being metaphorical, but perhaps he meant it in a literal sense.”
“Yes! The Oracle sees the truth!” Jaxon, still on his knees, moved towards her, dislodging more bits of sand from his artificial body as he did so. “I knew I could count on you to understand. Every version of you is so intelligent, so insightful.” His eyes fixed on Nightwing. “You made a wise choice in this reality. I’ve never understood why you don’t pick her every time, the attraction between you two is undeniable. You remind me of myself and my Mate, the two of you just...you need to be together. I was so happy to see you two taking your vows earlier today. A shame that was also the moment it all began to fall apart.”
“The disturbance at the church, when Vandal Savage was killed,” Barbara gasped. “You’re the ‘eternal walker’ Rip talked about!”
“Yes, I was there, watching like always. I could feel my Mate close by at the moment of Vandar Adg’s death...so tantalizingly close...yet I still...couldn’t...” He let out a sob as he said, “I need to be with zir, but Krona won’t let me! He wants to take my place beside my Mate! I don’t know how he learned about us, but he did, and when he did...” He paused, closing his eyes again, then slammed his fists on the barrier, screaming, “He doesn’t realise what he’s doing! He’s so focused on his end goal that it’s made him blind to the consequences! He doesn’t know...” Another pause as he appeared to regain some semblance of control over himself. “You don’t know. You’ve been told over and over again and you still don’t know.”
Cosmic Boy asked, “What? What don’t we know?”
“How Krona has manipulated you. Not just this.” He waved a hand to indicate the device that held him. “Your lives, and the lives of those that came before you. He’s been snipping away at all the little threads that hold your lives together. Pushing things one way, pulling things another. You, my dear Rokk Krinn, were one of the first. Can’t have the champion muddling about, no, so you had to go.” He pressed his face up against the barrier and said, “You shouldn’t have brought Nemesis Kid to Titan. All it took was the tiniest poke from Krona, and he left you to die with two minutes to spare. You’ll be happy to know that Ranzz led a vote to expel him from the Legion. Not that it mattered much: the entire 31st Century ceased to exist less than a week later. You’ll be joining them soon.”
Rokk took a few steps away from the barrier, numb at the revelation.
“You’ll all be joining them!” Jaxon stood up to address the assemblage of heroes gathered in Centennial Park, smiling as if he were delivering joyous news. “In about 44 minutes, all that pushing and pulling will come to fruition! You have no idea how many people Krona has removed from this reality to ensure what’s about to come next! How many names you’ve forgotten because he took them from you without you realising it! And once Krona gets what he wants...that’s when the avalanche comes.” Still smiling, he looked down at Rokk and the others, saying, “Once Krona has taken over my true body, he plans on devouring my Mate and taking zir power as well. He thinks he can hold onto all that and reshape the universe as he sees it, but he doesn’t know the truth. About the snowflakes. 196,833 separate planes in each one, stretching out over infinity. And my Mate and I exist in all of them.” He began to laugh again. “There’s no way Krona can hold onto all of that! He’ll unravel, and so will every reality for all time! An endless cascade of collapse! There will be NO LIFE again, ANYWHERE, in ANY reality! Only endless NOTHING!”
“What if we let you out?” Barbara asked. “If we can break you free from this prison Krona had us build, could you go back to your true body and prevent him from overtaking it?”
“Most certainly,” the Infinite Man replied, suddenly calm once more, “but this reality will still die. All the rest will be spared, yes, but this one...no, I’m sorry, no, too much damage done, too many broken threads. My Mate and I will touch and wipe it all away and something new shall spring up in its place. It’s inevitable now. A shame. Some of my favorite versions of you are here, but at least...” He stiffened, then clamped his hands on the sides of his head. “No no no no! I won’t go! I won’t let you do this!” The heroes presumed this to be another rant until their ears picked up on a barely-perceptible hum coming from the device.
“Energy surge, but I can’t localize it!” Ray Palmer said as he frantically flipped through programs on the tablet. “Signature is similar to when Krona manifested!”
They all tensed, expecting the former Guardian to suddenly appear before them, but instead, they saw a red haze beginning to form around the device containing the Infinite Man. “They’re trying to teleport it out,” Batman declared. “We have to get this thing open, now!”
Though he was still shaken by what Jaxon had told them, Cosmic Boy said, “Let me try. You’ve all had a go at it already, so maybe...”
“Do it,” Batman replied, already waving everyone else back. “Give it everything you’ve got.”
Cos raised his hands and reached out with his powers to get a hold of the incredible amount of electromagnetic energy pulsing through the device. They’d explained to him earlier how it had been powered up by Jesse Quick, who’d vanished into the Speed Force during the process, much to the dismay of her husband, Hourman. It was a sacrifice that, at the time, they’d thought was for the greater good, but now they knew it was possibly another death to lay at Krona’s feet. In his mind, Rokk began to construct a picture of the device, its every component outlined in magnetic waves -- nothing was hidden from him, not even the tiniest molecule of metallic substance -- then he began to probe any and all perceived weaknesses, praying to every Brallian god he could think of while he did so.
A sound began to grow in the air, like a reverberation of the universe itself as the device began to fade away, yet it couldn’t fully disappear due to Cosmic Boy’s magnetic grip upon it -- for good measure, the Legionnaire directed a portion of his powers downward, anchoring himself to the maze of metal crisscrossing beneath the streets of Metropolis. The two opposing forces grappled with each other, and the sound grew louder, causing all of those assembled to cover their ears. Everything made of glass within a hundred-foot radius started to vibrate, then shatter, save for the hourglass that held the Infinite Man, who was clawing at it from the inside with such force that his sand-crafted fingers were wearing down to nubs.
Finally, there was a tremendous CRACK as the device disappeared from sight and Cosmic Boy collapsed from sheer exhaustion. “Couldn’t...couldn’t hold it...any longer,” he managed to say as Batman and the Atom helped him to his feet -- the young man’s body was trembling from the effort he’d put in. “I’m sorry...oh grife, I’m so sorry...”
“You did what you could, “Batman told him quietly. “We all did.”
42 MINUTES EARLIER - INSIDE THE SPACE-TANK:
Today was not turning out the way Alice Stuart had expected at all. Then again, that was par for the course in regards to her life. She’d expected to parlay her civilian piloting skills into an Air Force career, not to be given a discharge after filing a sexual harassment claim against the base commander. She’d expected to have a nice, quiet visit with her grandfather as he struggled with late-stage cancer, not for him to confess about an ultra-secret government project from his days as President of the United States that he didn’t approve of in the least but was powerless to stop. She’d expected to break into a facility to steal a few hard drives and maybe wreck some equipment, not come face-to-face the ghost of a distant ancestor who’d become the unwilling participant in an experiment thanks to some techno-mystical wizardry involving a World War II tank. She’d expected to just pilot a one-of-a-kind spacecraft away from those who seemed bent on using it for nefarious purposes, not to get talked into zipping across the cosmos helping folks on alien worlds...okay, she didn’t mind the last bit so much.
Still and all, when the general plotted them a new course that sent them straight into the hull of a massive starship, Alice really questioned the wisdom of his navigation. Then she saw the kids and realised this was another of the general’s “missions” that he never bothered to explain to her in advance, she just had to figure it out on the fly, just like Grandpa Jeb always had to during the war. So she let the guy that the kids addressed as Professor Todd talk her into playing space cabbie so they could rescue the dad of one of the kids. Now she was fighting the controls as the space-tank attempted to punch through reality itself and into the anti-matter universe. Normally, the experimental spirit drive that powered the craft would drop it in and out of normal space with ease, crossing light-years in a couple of minutes, but this was taking far longer than any other trip so far, and the entire craft felt like it was on the verge of shaking apart from the strain. “You sure this is doable, general?” Alice asked, not taking her eyes off of the maelstrom of rainbows that swirled outside the space-tank’s windshield.
“Yew need to trust in yuh commanding officer more, little lady.” The spectral form of General J.E.B. Stuart, late of the Confederate Army, sat in the copilot’s chair. “It may nawt look it, but Ah kin feel us makin’ progress through this heah barrier...and make no mistake, there is a barrier. Whomever those kidnappin’ scapegraces are, they definitely don’t want visitors.”
“They’re called Qwardians.” Jason Todd braced himself in the doorway between the cockpit and the main part of the craft, where the superpowered kids in his charge were strapped into the jumpseats that lined the walls. Todd had been sitting there himself until a few moments ago, when the conversation he’d heard drifting from the cockpit caught his attention. “Extremely xenophobic, extremely violent, and just overall not nice people. I wouldn’t put it past them to send all of reality crashing down just out of spite for the rest of the universe.”
“Like Sherman burnin’ Atlanta to the ground,” the general muttered, “bastard that he was.”
“I am not in the mood to discuss battlefield morality with a Civil War ghost,” Todd snapped. “Just get us through to Qward so we can get to the bottom of all this.”
Alice was about to reply that he was getting far too bossy for her tastes when she felt the resistance on the steering yoke ease up. “I think we’re through!” she said excitedly, but that was cut short when she saw that, instead of materializing in space once more, they were in what she could only presume was Qward’s atmosphere...and falling in a dead spin straight at the ground.
As Alice pulled back on the yoke with all her might, Jason fled back to his seat, yelling, “Everybody, brace for impact!” He hastily buckled his harness as he watched the kids double-check their own, with Stars and Stripe reaching out to grab each other tightly by the hand once they were done. They could deny it all they liked, but just about everyone at the All-Star Academy knew they had a thing going on.
Maybe if they survived all this, Jason thought, they’d be more open about it.
41 MINUTES EARLIER - DERELICT FACILITY, QWARD:
“I thought Green Lantern was a blond guy with a cape.”
“That’s a different Lantern,” Hal told Berkowitz. “I came along a few decades later.”
“I don’t care what he looks like,” Harris said, “so long as he’s willing to fight alongside us.” The two Vietnam-era Marines had arrived with the transport that would take Hex and Stella’s team back to the Army of True Qward’s base, and though they were surprised by Hal’s presence, they accepted him much more easily than Jonah had. As the injured were loaded onto the transport, the five of them were catching up on current events. “Be nice if those friends of yours show up soon too.”
Hal nodded in agreement, saying, “If we’re lucky, the message I sent has already arrived and they’re just trying to figure out a way through the dimensional barrier. It wasn’t easy for me, and that was with all the Guardians giving me a push through.”
“So how many fellas in green longjohns kin we expect tuh come a-runnin’?” Jonah asked.
“With everything that was going on when I left, it’s hard to say. I doubt it’ll be just Corps members, though.” Hal grinned. “Expect to see a lot more colors than just green.”
Stella hugged her arms across her chest. “I just hope they get here before any more bug-eyes pop up out of the city. I’m still don’t get why they never sent a second wave after us.”
Harris nodded at the Green Lantern. “Maybe him showing up scared the pants off of them and now they don’t know what to do.”
Jonah glanced over at Hal, muttering, “‘One riot, one Ranger’.” There was a ghost of a smile on his face when he said it, and Hal’s own grin broadened, but it went away as his ring suddenly trilled out: <Unknown craft descending.>
Five sets of eyes looked skyward to see a ship spiraling towards them barely a half-mile above their heads. Hal was perplexed -- how could it have gotten so close without his ring noticing sooner? -- but that didn’t stop him from springing to action. The odd-looking craft was soon engulfed by an emerald catcher’s mitt and brought to the ground not far from the Qwardian transport. Guns were brought to bear by all capable as Hal slowly approached the craft. To be sure, it didn’t resemble the ones he’d gone up against earlier: the general shape resembled an Mi-8 military helicopter, but with strange semi-circular “wings” along the sides that swept back and attached to what would’ve been the tail boom if there’d been a rear rotor present, and in place of a top rotor, there was instead a gun turret not unlike what you’d find on a WWII tank, the barrel of which was (thankfully) pointed towards the rear of the craft at the moment. How in blazes a cobbled-together contraption like this could ever fly was beyond him. Hal caught movement behind the dark windshield, so he called out, “Whoever’s inside, I want you to exit the craft with your hands in the air!”
A portal on the top of the craft near the nose section opened up, and to his surprise, a familiar face popped out. “Dad!”
“Jessica?” Hal took to the air at the same time as his daughter, who all but leapt into his arms. “What in the world are you doing here?” He then saw five other members of the Young All-Stars -- Cat, Meteor, Stripe, Stars, and Minuteman -- come out of the craft, along with Jason Todd and a young woman Hal didn’t recognize.
“We’re on a rescue mission,” Jessica explained. “Meteor’s dad was captured by these Thunderer guys, so we asked Alice...that’s Alice.” She pointed at the young woman with a pair of goggles perched on her head. “We asked her to take us to Qward, but we materialized too close to the ground and...”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down, Itty,” Hal said, falling back on his longtime nickname for his daughter. “Why did the Corps only send you guys along? Or did you get separated from them on the way through the barrier?”
“There isn’t anybody else, it’s just us.” Jason Todd retracted his Red Hood helmet so he could better crane his neck up to look at them hovering in the air. “I spoke to Kyle Rayner briefly before we jumped over to Qward, so maybe some of your GL buddies are following behind us, but I think they had their hands full with getting a caravan of ships safely to Earth before they all got gobbled up in a big wave of nothing.”
“Hold on, I think we need to start over.” Both the Green Lantern and Spectrum set down in front of the All-Star Academy professor. “You guys coming here has nothing to do with the message I sent back to Guy and the others? You just coincidentally decided to take a field trip to Qward of all places?”
“We had to!” Meteor stepped forward. “They took my dad!”
“They done took a lot of people’s dads,” Jonah said as he strode up to them, Stella and the others not far behind. “An’ mothers an’ daughters an’ all sorts of folks. Whut makes yuh think yer case is so dif’rent?”
“Because his dad is Captain Comet,” Hal explained, “a superhero like myself. From the sounds of things, they’ve been kidnapping average people up until now, but if they’re moving on to metas...”
“What do you mean, ‘up until now’?” Jason asked. “How long has this been going on?”
“I’ll explain once we’re in the air. We shouldn’t delay getting back to their base any longer.” He looked over at Harris and said, “Give their pilot the coordinates so Jason’s team can follow us. I promise, they’re trustworthy.”
Harris gave him a nod, then gestured to Alice to come with him. Meanwhile, Hex had begun to narrow his gaze at Jason. The bounty hunter took a few steps towards him, then grabbed him by the shoulders and stared hard at him for a few seconds. The look on Hex’s face cycled from confusion to disbelief to utter shock as he whispered hoarsely, “Jason Todd?”
Jason froze. He didn’t recognise the man, but the man recognised him? “That’s...me?”
“It cain’t be. Ah thought yer voice sounded familiar, but with thet stupid eyemask on...Ah wasn’t sure ‘til Ah got up close.” Jonah clamped a hand on the younger man’s jawline and slowly turned his head from side to side. “Got a lot less white in yer hair, thet’s cer certain.”
The Red Hood pulled away from Jonah’s grasp. “Say, GL, you want to introduce me to your new friend before he creeps me out even worse?”
“Yuh don’t know who Ah am?” Jonah sounded almost hurt by the notion.
“I have no idea, and you seem like the kinda gentleman who’s hard to forget.”
Jonah looked over at Hal and said, “This is more of thet ‘paradox’ stuff, ain’t it?” Hal half-shrugged, half-nodded, causing Jonah to sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose. “So do Ah say whut Ah know, or do Ah keep mum ‘bout it?”
“Let’s save it for now.” Hal waved his hand back and forth between the two men. “Jason Todd, meet Jonah Hex, Old West bounty hunter and apparent magnet for spacetime anomalies. And on that note...” He gestured towards the two crafts as Alice came running back.
The All-Star students began to climb back into the space-tank, their mentor and the Green Lantern right behind them, while Harris, Berkowitz, and the others headed for the Qwardian transport. The lone exception was Jonah, who hesitated between the two before opting for the space-tank. Stella caught sight of this and hopped off the transport, causing Harris to call out, “Where the Hell are you going?”
“Sticking with Jonah,” she answered. “It’s been a weird day for him, so I figured I’d better stay close by.”
“This place is nothing but weird days.” The Marine waved at her dismissively before shutting the transport hatch behind him. Stella jogged over to the space-tank, scrambled up onto one of the “wings”, then boosted herself up so she could slip down the topside portal. She soon realised there were too many people standing below it for her to drop down, so she stuck her head in with the intent of asking them to step aside. That’s when she saw Jonah Hex standing ramrod-straight in front of the cockpit door, throwing a perfect salute to a ghostly figure dressed in the uniform of a Confederate general.
Yep, definitely a weird day, Stella thought.
33 MINUTES EARLIER - NEW KRYPTON:
Whatever fluke that had led to New Krypton's survival meant that it was currently night time when it should have been day. In the far off cities, on the other side of Lake Trom and beyond, the towering spires were illuminated more thoroughly than they had ever been before, as if the buildings had been transformed into beacons during this impossible night time.
"...Whoa."
Her face a picture of curiosity, Lois Lane stood in the front yard of the home she shared with her husband and looked up at the skies, where darkness eventually gave way to emerald, where spinning ships and orbiting satellites that hadn't been there hours previously now hung in the void. There were no constellations, just planets and moons and hulking transport ships. All of them, last survivors. All of them, representing the last stand of this creation.
"It's the end of the universe out there," she said, quietly.
"It always is, unfortunately," replied Clark Kent, as he approached her from behind and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders...and indeed, he was only Clark now, not just Superman in a mortal guise. He'd left Earth ten years ago the clean-cut blue and red caped icon known throughout the cosmos, and returned a decade later a changed man. His singular focus on saving the universe from some unknown, insidious threat-- one that, even now, Lois didn't truly understand-- meant that he'd allowed his hair and beard to grow out, because what use was a haircut or trim when you were scouring the universe for an eschaton-inducing entity? By the time of his return, the red and blue costume had been replaced by a white and grey survival suit that did the job just as well, and when he made himself known to the Justice League upon his return to Earth, his eyes were grey and seemingly cataracted, but once he'd marshalled the forces of superhumanity and led them to victory against the entity, he expelled all the cosmic energy he'd absorbed during his travels and was returned to normal-- to beyond normal. He lost his solar-charged powers, and was no longer stronger than a baseline human. And that was that.
So here, today, farming on New Krypton with his wife Lois, he had flecks of white at his temples-- Ma always said he was old beyond his years-- and a slight paunch around his centre. Without solar energy burning through his metabolism, his appetite finally started catching up with him. He wore a pair of dungarees and a buttoned polo shirt underneath, and he looked at home, comfortable. His glasses were tucked at the front of his collar, and he welcomed the familiarity of wearing them around the farmhouse he'd built with his own hands upon his return.
"You're only back a year after saving it yourself, after fighting for a decade... and now it's ending again. God, it's almost like the universe is a broken record."
He sighed and put an arm around her. "I have to do something."
She shook her head. "You burned out your powers, Clark. Sacrificed everything to save the universe. I think even I could beat you in an arm wrestle nowadays. Besides, you are doing something. You're here. With me." She placed a hand over her pregnant belly, and then took his and placed it over her own. "With us."
"Lois..." he started, but before he could get going, the couple was interrupted by a figure garbed in blue and red descending from the heavens.
“Hello, Kal...Lois,” Superwoman said with a smile. “Hope you don’t mind me dropping by unannounced.”
“You know you’re welcome anytime,” Lois replied, then went in for a hug. “I’m surprised you’re able to, though, what with everything going on...or is this more of a business trip?”
“In a roundabout way. I came to borrow something...well, borrow it for someone else, rather.” Kara looked at her cousin, saying, “Rokk Krinn showed up about a half-hour ago.”
“You’re kidding,” Clark said. “Who else is with him?”
“So far as I’m aware, he’s totally solo...and a bit younger than either of us has seen him before. He’s also a little short on equipment, so I was hoping that...”
“Of course, you don’t even need to ask twice.”
The two most-famous representatives of the House of El walked into the Kent family home, with Lois following close enough behind to pick on their conversation. The words they spoke were as familiar as an old song, as she’d heard them countless times before during other crises over the years. Lois didn’t like the notes this one was hitting, though, especially when she heard the tone Clark’s voice took on when he repeated certain names Kara had said.
“Krona and the Infinite Man and the Time Trapper.” Clark had a hand pressed over his face, the object Kara was seeking cradled in the other. They were all standing in Clark’s study now, surrounded by books and mementos from both of his lives. Lois’s study was the next room over, with their desks situated in the wide archway between the two, a sentimental holdover from their days in the Daily Planet newsroom. “My God...you’re certain about this?”
“That’s what I picked up,” Kara replied, flicking a finger up by her ear. “I only know about the latter two from old Legionnaire case files, but from what I recall, neither one is a picnic.”
“I’ve dealt with the Time Trapper, and you’re absolutely correct.” He let his hand drop from his face and looked at his cousin with a grim expression. “This is even bigger than what we went through when I returned...and at least then, we were able to take the fight outside our solar system. Now we’re down to a close-quarters match.”
Lois sighed. "You're going with her, aren't you?"
"I can't stand by and do nothing, Lois. I can't. And that's what I've been meaning to tell you..."
She didn’t give him a chance to finish the sentence. "Your powers are coming back, aren't they?"
He blushed. "Well... yeah. Yes. They are. How did you know?"
Lois began to list off reasons on her fingers. "You've been losing weight without trying. Your eyes. They're brighter. Not the same kind of bright than when you were flying about ten years ago, but brighter than they were when you expelled all the stellar energy in your body. You're not fully powered up though, are you? You're not at full strength?"
"Enough to make a difference," said Clark. “And even if that difference was merely my familiarity with our opponents, I’d still feel obligated to go.” He went over to his wife and gently caressed the side of her face. “But you know that I’ll come back to you. I always come back to you, no matter what.”
“I know. And now you have twice as many reasons to come back. However, Smallville...” Lois smiled and mirrored his gesture, her fingers smoothing down his neatly-trimmed beard. “If you’re going to go back on duty, I suggest you don’t do it in Farm-Boy Chic.” She then nodded towards a tall, cylindrical display case that stood in the far corner of the study. “I may’ve made fun of Bruce when he gave that to you, but right now, I’m glad for his aesthetic.”
25 MINUTES EARLIER - HEAVEN:
The silence was deafening. As Dr. Fate, Flash, Captain Marvel, and the Spectre quickly made their way to the very center of the realm, they encountered no one, they heard nothing. Heaven was not meant to be a desolate place, yet that was most certainly the case. The distress over this was plain to see on the Spectre’s face as he led them down what the mortals perceived to be a massive hallway made of ivory and gold, at the end of which stood the doors to God’s throne room. When the Spectre reached out to open the doors, Billy couldn’t help but think of The Wizard of Oz: he half-expected an angel to pop out and tell them God wasn’t seeing anyone right now, come back tomorrow. But an even bigger surprise occurred instead as the doors swung open of their own volition and a voice called out, “Welcome, welcome! Entrez!”
The four of them entered to find the Key dressed in flowing robes and perched atop God’s throne, which was held aloft by the four Hosts of Heaven. In one hand was a massive, blood-covered blade, the tip of which was slowly digging a hole into the Mercy Seat as the Key idly twisted it back and forth. There were spatters of blood upon his robes and across the pearlescent floor as well. “She told me you’d come,” he said, fixing his eyes upon Fate. “Her dear Traci, the one person she’d willingly sacrifice all of Creation for. Remarkable devotion. I’ve never seen the like before, and I doubt this universe ever will again.”
“Where is she?” Fate demanded. Zauriel’s sword was in her hands now, and she looked more than willing to use it on the Key. “So help me, if I have to tear apart all of Heaven to find out where you’ve hidden her...” She stopped when the Key threw back his head and began laughing.
“The guy’s insane,” Flash said, “we’re never gonna get an actual answer out of him.”
Captain Marvel’s attention was diverted when he noticed a drop of blood falling onto his pristine cape, followed by another. He looked up and let out a strangled cry, and the others quickly followed his gaze to see a grisly tableau hanging from the throne room’s vaulted ceiling: ribbons of skin and muscle, along with various bones and internal organs, each dangling from fine ropes of braided silver hair.
“I’m still trying to figure out the proper arrangement,” the Key explained. “It’s less of a straightforward blueprint and more of a puzzle, you see. I realised that after I’d carved the majority of skin off of her. And what I found inside her was even more intriguing! Every piece of Zauriel holds a component necessary for rebuilding the universe! The cilia in her lungs contain unborn stars! The cells that make up her intestines represent every organism that will ever exist! And these...” He held out his other hand, which had been cupped in his lap the entire time. Nestled in his palm were Zauriel’s eyes. “All the intelligence and wisdom that can possibly be granted to sentient life is held within these delicate orbs. With just a little bit of pressure, I can blind the universe-to-come before it’s even born.”
“Obscenities!” the Spectre roared. “How dare you profane God’s works, His very throne!”
“I dare because I must! With the very blueprint of Creation under my control, I can overwrite whatever Krona plans to do.” The Key grinned when he saw their reactions to the name. “Oh, you didn’t know, did you? Yes, Krona is the one who set me loose upon the world once more. And the moment after I did what he forced me to do, I fled here. I begged the Host to let me in, but they refused...so I unlocked them to put them under my thrall. Then I unlocked Purgatory and shoved God and anyone else who refused to comply inside.”
The Spectre stared at him incredulously. “You...you confined the Presence to Purgatory? Do have any idea what you’ve done?”
“I’m doing what God refused to do! He was willing to sit idly by in His isolated little realm and watch how all this plays out because He knew it wouldn’t touch Him. Perhaps once I’ve set everything back to rights, I’ll let Him out, but not a moment before.”
“But there won’t be a moment before, or even after. There’ll be no moments at all,” Fate told him. “Heaven was created so the souls of those who believe in Him can dwell in His Presence forever. Its existence depends on both the faith of His believers and the Presence of God Himself. If you’ve removed God and all His worshippers from Heaven, it’ll cease to exist just as soon as the rest of reality is wiped out.”
“No...no, you’re lying!” The Key psychically ordered the Hosts supporting the throne to lower it so he could stalk up to the heroes. “I have all the powers of Heaven at my beck and call! I can hold this realm together and rebuild the universe better than it was before! And you’re going to help me!” With that, he began to force his way into their minds so he could take them over, just as he’d done with all the angels in Heaven. The Flash went down almost immediately, falling to his knees with a blank expression, and while he could feel Captain Marvel’s resistance to him crumbling slowly, Dr. Fate and the Spectre were putting up a tremendous mental fight, with the embodiment of God’s wrath struggling to make any sort of move against him, be it physical or supernatural.
To unlock a mind took an certain amount of concentration. To unlock four at once took a substantial amount more. To do so whilst maintaining your grip upon the four most-powerful angelic Hosts was a daunting task. So the Key could be forgiven for not noticing the wisp of X-Element that had somehow seeped into the throne room. Moving through the air in a deliberate fashion, the ribbon-like mass of black bubbling energy drifted up right behind the Key and engulfed his head. The Key let out a startled cry, dropping both the blade and Zauriel’s eyes as he reached up to try and claw the X-Element away from his face, but to no avail. Both the heroes and the angels began to shake themselves out of their various levels of mind-controlled stupor just in time to watch the X-Element seep into the Key’s flesh, turning his long white hair to black and distorting his features until they resembled that of a certain ally.
“Holy moley,” Captain Marvel gasped. “Is that...”
Scott Free, now in full possession of the Key’s body, twirled his hands up in a flourish and said with a grin, “Ta-da!”
“You’re alive! I can’t believe it!” Marvel rushed up and wrapped him in a bear hug.
“Glad to see you too, but if you hug me any harder, you’re gonna make Courtney jealous.”
Marvel apologized and set him down, while Fate asked, “How is this possible? I thought the X-Element had destabilized you totally.”
“As far as my body goes...yeah, I think that’s gone. The X-Element couldn’t adjust me well enough, so it just ditched my body in favor of saving my mind. It kinda absorbed me, plus I’m pretty sure it absorbed a few angels too, because I -- or we, or however you want to phrase it -- knew the Key was up here in the throne room and how exactly to get here. And once I saw what he was doing to you, I pulled him in with us and brought him under control.” A smile spread across Scott’s features as he wrapped the Key’s arms around himself, saying, “We’re all nice and cosy in here.”
“So...you’re not all Scott?” Wally asked. “You’re some mushed-up version of Scott and the Key and some angels for flavor?”
“Enough of me is Scott for the name...and the face, of course. Give me some time and I could probably direct the X-Element to convert the rest of this body as well. Matter of fact, I’d better, or else Barda is going to be really unhappy when we get home.”
“Before we get to work on our return trip, we need to...to...” Fate looked up at the ceiling again, where the remains of Zauriel still hung.
“Do not be troubled.” The four angelic Hosts stepped towards them, with the Human Host saying, “Though her body is dismembered, there is no true death in this realm.”
“I knew it!” Wally exclaimed.
“With your help,” the Host said, gesturing to the Spectre, “I believe we can put things back to rights once more.”
“Yes,” the Spectre replied, and bent down to gather up Zauriel’s eyes from where the Key had dropped them. “This blasphemy must be undone.” With that, the five of them took to the air, leaving the four mortals to watch from ground level as the Spectre’s cloak billowed out to impossibly-long lengths, eventually obscuring himself, the Hosts, and Zauriel’s remains from view. After what felt like forever, the cloak retracted to reveal Traci’s beloved unblemished and whole once more, with both her wings and armor intact. The entire group them descended, and the moment Zauriel’s feet touched the floor, Traci removed the Helmet of Fate and rushed up to her, barely giving Zauriel time to do the same with her own helm before they embraced.
“I knew you’d come for me,” Zauriel told her. “He called me mad, but I knew it.”
“Always,” Traci replied. “No matter how far, no matter the odds.” They kissed some more, the sight of which brought a smile to everyone’s face. Even the normally-dour Spectre allowed the corner of his mouth to upturn slightly. Captain Marvel went so far as to wipe a tear from his eye. After a while, though, the Flash cleared his throat and said, “I hate to put a damper on this, but I think the universe is still dying. Maybe we should put the celebrations on hold until after God’s back in His Heaven and all is right with the world.”
“Wally’s right...and I hate him for that,” Traci said with a sigh.
“I hate him a little right now too.” Zauriel put her helmet back on, then retrieved her sword and said, “Restoring the Presence is paramount, however, and it won’t be easy. We--” The words were suddenly cut off as Zauriel vanished. There was no flare of light, no noise to indicate her passing, she simply was there one second and gone the next, leaving behind a room full of mortals and angels with shocked expressions.
13 MINUTES EARLIER - THE SPIRE, QWARD:
Krona gazed upon the naked human laying prone upon the cold marble floor of his chamber. Even in an unconscious state, he could sense the immense mental powers contained within that mortal flesh. This would be a fitting repast before he ascended beyond the need for such things. Krona delicately probed the human’s mind, bidding him to awaken from the drug-induced sleep the attendants had put him under. The human veritably leapt to his feet, facing Krona with clenched fists...and just as Krona had probed the human’s mind, he could feel the human trying to do the same to him. Oh, this was going to be a delight!
“I know who you are,” the human declared. “I gleaned everything from those Thunderers you sent to my ship. You may have them thinking you’re some sort of god, but I know better. I’ve read every file the Green Lantern Corps has on you.”
“And I know who you are,” Krona replied. “Adam Blake...the vaunted Captain Comet. The supposed pinnacle of human evolution.” He let out dismissive chuckle. “A meaningless boast. Rather like calling yourself the most-evolved protozoa in a fetid sea. Still, your existence is not without purpose.” Reaching out with his shadow-form, Krona made to engulf Blake, but the human immediately held the shadows at bay with his telekinetic powers.
Thus began a war of attrition, with both sides pushing against each other with all their might. Unfortunately for Blake, Krona had an edge: while Blake could not penetrate the mad Guardian’s mental defenses, Krona very easily found the weak spots in the human’s, and slowly wormed his way into Blake’s psyche until he found a memory wrapped in multiple layers of emotion too tantalizing to resist. It didn’t take much for Krona to crack it open and unleash it upon his opponent’s conscious mind, crippling Blake with a flashback intense enough to break his telekinetic shield. Within seconds, Krona engulfed him and began to feed with reckless abandon upon the emotionally-charged memories pouring forth:
...crippled ship...single occupant within...humanoid, female, thin as a willow...silvery-gray skin, eyes like lapis lazuli...instant telepathic link between rescuer and rescued, inadvertently sharing decades of loneliness with each other...anomalies amongst their own people, but now, in the vastness of empty space, finding another who understood...a bond of love as strong as the pull of a black hole...exploring the galaxy together, using their vast knowledge to help far-flung civilizations...the shared thrill when they realise she’s pregnant...the crushing, solitary despair when her willow-thin body cannot take the strain of childbirth...burying his grief behind layers of telepathic shielding for the sake of his son, who looks so much like her...his son...his son...
“He’s here, you know,” Krona told Blake, “I’ve seen him. The boy and his friends dared to cross over entire dimensions just to try and save you. They’ll all be dead soon, just as you will be.”
“Liar,” Blake managed to say, a waft of red-tinged mist coming out of his mouth as he did so.
“You doubt my words? Then let me show you.” Krona forced the image into Blake’s mind of Meteor rushing up to Green Lantern and Red Hood, saying, “They took my dad!” The sight alone was enough to bring forth a wave of love from the soul of Captain Comet, which Krona greedily gulped down before explaining, “I have eyes everywhere. Many have been brought to my chamber, and though few have been able to withstand my embrace, enough have to become my servants.” Krona caressed Blake’s sweat-covered brow with a skeletal hand. “It’s a shame you didn’t come to me sooner. You could have been one of them. But I will soon have no more need for servants. Soon, I will encompass all that ever was and shall be.”
“S-s-stop you...Hal...Jason...my son...they’ll...”
“They will do nothing but die!” Krona took hold of Blake’s head in both hands and began to squeeze with a strength that belied his fragile-looking state. “I have triumphed over every obstacle thrown in my path! I have triumphed over death itself! And once I have ascended, no one shall ever be able to challenge me EVER AGAIN!”[/i] There was a wet snapping sound as the tips of Krona’s fingers punctured Blake’s skull and sank into his brain, killing the man instantly. Krona quickly gorged himself upon the ebbing life force before it faded from the body, then tossed the husk to one side of the chamber. It was a shame he’d let himself get so worked up, but the feast had to end sometime, and there were other matters that still needed attending to.
Closing his eyes, Krona let him decrepit body drift to the center of the chamber, the tendrils of his shadow-form slithering about him on all sides as his mind reached out to all the other minds on Qward he shared a connection to. Libra was the first and therefore the strongest, and Krona briefly watched the world through his Prophet’s eyes before moving on to his attendants, who were silently waiting outside the chamber in case their Master called for him. Then there were the newest servants, whom Krona had brought into the fold just recently in preparation for what was to come. Some guarded the perimeter of the Great Spire, while others were currently piloting warships laden with the most powerful qwa-fueled weaponry ever created. He lingered over these last servants until he was confident that they were nearly at their destination.
Then Krona came to the servant he always took the most pleasure in observing. While he couldn’t feed upon him from this distance, Krona loved to lurk in the corner of the man’s brain, delighting in his nightmares, both asleep and waking. Through the man’s eyes, he could see the cramped interior of a spaceship, the children seated across the aisle, the young woman at the man’s side like always, and the two so-called “heroes” standing nearby. The man kept fixing his gaze upon those two as his mind continued to work over the concept of paradoxes. Krona wasn’t surprised, as the man still struggled mightily with the knowledge Krona had imparted upon him all those months ago. Such a simple man, better suited a simpler time, but none of that mattered anymore. The moment had arrived to bring this disobedient pet to heel. As Krona readied to make his presence known, the woman leaned towards the man and spoke in his ear...
5 MINUTES EARLIER - INSIDE THE SPACE-TANK, QWARD:
“You’ve certainly had an interesting life, haven’t you?”
Jonah looked at Stella sitting beside him. “Come again?”
“You and them.” She pointed at Jason and Hal, who were standing next to the cockpit -- there were only 8 passenger seats, so the two senior-most heroes had opted to brace themselves in the doorway during the flight. “An Old West cowboy who’s friends with two superheroes from the 21st Century...and then there’s your girlfriend.” She smiled and laid her head on his shoulder, though the safety harness made it a bit awkward. “As lousy as the rest of this has been, I wouldn’t change a bit of it, not if that meant never meeting you.”
“Reckon Ah kin think of a couple of things Ah’d rather leave out.” He then noted the smile fading from Stella’s face and quickly added, “Yo’re not one of those things, sugar, not by a long shot. It’s just...”
“I know what you mean, and it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. Yuh’ve damn-near bent over backwards dealin’ with muh messed-up head, an’ all Ah’ve done in return is give yuh grief. The nonsense with Jason an’ the greenhorn over there ain’t helpin’, neither.” He lowered his head, saying to Stella, “This whole notion of meetin’ folks out of order...it makes me scared tuh do or say anything for fear of lousing it all up.”
“I can think of one thing you can do...for me and for them. You can make a promise.” She reached over and took his hand. “No matter what happens today, I want you to promise that you’ll take good care of Green Lantern when you two meet again in 1878. No turning your back on him, no running away because you don’t want to deal with it, you stick around and do whatever needs to be done. He’s going to need help, and you’ll be the only one there who can give it to him.”
Jonah let out a heavy sigh. “Alright, Ah promise tuh help him.”
“No matter what?”
“No matter...” he began to say, but stopped when he heard a cold, merciless chuckle reverberate through his brain. His head snapped up as he frantically began to look at the people around him, hoping that one of them was the source of the laughter that sounded so much like what he’d first heard so many months ago. It’s not real, he told himself. It’s not real, it’s not, yo’re safe, Stella’s here...
“Oh, you are far from safe.” The voice felt like a tongue licking the inside of his skull. “Had you stayed with me, it would have been different, but you ran from me. Worse than that, you opposed me. And yet, I spared you. I could have destroyed you a hundred times, yet I chose not to...until now.”
“What’s wrong?” Stella began to undo her harness so she could stand in front of Jonah, whose entire body had gone rigid, his face contorted in a wide-eyed look of terror as he gasped for breath. “Talk to me, cowboy, I’m right here.” Hal and Jason noticed something was amiss and immediately came over. “I don’t know what happened,” she told them. “We were just talking and then he froze up for no reason.”
“You mentioned before that he’s got PTSD,” the Green Lantern said, “so I’d presume he’s having another episode.”
“Maybe, but I’ve never seen him react like this before.” She gently cupped his face in her hands, saying softly, “It’s okay, we’re here for you. Tell me what’s going on.”
A choking sound came out of Jonah’s throat, while in his mind, the voice taunted, “Yes, Hex, tell her how I’ve always been with you, watching and waiting. From the first moment my mind touched yours, your very soul has been laid bare before me. I AM YOUR GOD, you could NEVER hide from me. You exist only to serve me, and you have served me well. You led me straight to where my enemies dwell, and I rewarded you by letting you remain free. You thought your little acts of rebellion would stop my plans, but in truth, the fear you stoked amongst those loyal to me only made me stronger. I fed upon their fear, just as I once fed upon yours. But as with all things, your usefulness has come to an end.”
From his seat, Meteor shouted, “There’s someone else in there! I can’t hear either of their thoughts -- whatever it is, it’s powerful enough to keep me out -- but its presence is HUGE!”
Hal blanched. He suspected just what might be invading his friend’s mind, and he was powerless to stop it. Pushing Stella aside, he grabbed Jonah by the shoulders and said, “Listen to me, Hex: you have to fight him off! Think of brick walls, iron doors, put anything you can between you and him! Keep fighting, don’t give in!”
“It’s too late for all that,” the voice said to the bounty hunter. “You’ve already given in, haven’t you? You’ve finally accepted me as your master, just as you should have months ago. Now there’s only one thing left for you to do: say my name.”
No... Such a tiny thought, and yet he barely had the mental strength to muster even that.
“SAY IT! CALL OUT TO YOUR TRUE GOD! CALL OUT TO THE ONE WHO OWNS YOUR WEAK, PATHETIC SOUL!”
“K-Kr...Kr-Krunn...Krona...Krona...” As the name finally passed Jonah’s lips, he began to weep, for he knew now that he’d never really escaped that marble-lined chamber. It had all been a illusion, something to give him hope just so Krona could feed upon it. There was no life beyond those black walls, no purpose beyond writhing and screaming in naked agony.
The comm channel suddenly crackled to life. “We’ve got bogies coming in fast!” Harris called out from the ship flying just ahead of them. “I don’t know where the Hell they came from!”
“Everybody strap in,” Alice said, “we’re going evasive!” She’d barely gotten the words out when an explosion rocked the space-tank, throwing Hal, Jason, and Stella to the floor. All the while, Krona gleefully forced images into Hex’s mind of the half-dozen heavily-armed flyers firing upon their position, along with the twenty more that were currently raining qwa-fire upon the Army of True Qward’s base...which had been perfectly hidden from Krona’s forces until the day Jonah Hex stepped inside. Now the hundreds of souls within were being reduced to ash, and soon, all the people around him would be dead as well.
Still weeping, Jonah prayed that Krona would let him die with them.
1 MINUTE EARLIER - WAYNE TOWER PENTHOUSE, GOTHAM CITY:
The whistle of the teakettle faded as Silver removed it from the burner and began to pour the contents into a pair of china cups. She’d been busying herself around the kitchen for the past half-hour in an attempt to take her mind off of Bruce’s worsening condition. He’d improved slightly after Bobo and the others had left with the young man they’d somehow summoned from the future, but then one of them -- the darkly-garbed man that Bruce simply addressed as “Stranger” -- had returned to speak with Bruce again. They spoke for a while about Bruce’s family from generations past, and about...about a person...someone...who...
Silver struggled to remember, but she couldn’t. She knew a conversation had occurred, but she couldn’t dredge up a single word of it -- she blamed the headache that had begun pressing down upon her about ten minutes earlier. After the Stranger left, Bruce’s tremors ramped up, to the point where she guided him to the bedroom so he could lay down. All the while, he tried to tell her something, but again, the words...she couldn’t remember the words. It was something important, though, something concerning what was happening to the world.
She picked up the cups so she could place them on a tray alongside some tea biscuits and take them into the bedroom. As she did so, she admired the delicate pattern on the china. It was a part of a set specially commissioned by Bruce’s parents for their wedding, and Silver had insisted on using it for her and Bruce’s wedding as well, so that his mother and father could be...
Silver froze and stared off into space, one of the cups still in her hand. His mother and father...what were their names again? So odd that she couldn’t recall what...
She let out a small cry as hot tea spilled all over her hand. How in the world did that happen? she thought, then realised the cup in she’d been holding was gone. The one she’d already placed on the tray was gone as well, a puddle of tea in its place. Her mind barely had time to register this bizarre occurrence before she heard Bruce scream in pain. It was rare for him to acknowledge any sort of discomfort, so he had to have been in true agony to make a sound like that. She ran to the bedroom, expecting to see Bruce crumpled on the floor, perhaps, or in the throes of a particularly nasty muscle spasm, but he wasn’t.
Bruce Wayne was nowhere to be seen. The bed was perfectly made, untouched, as if no one had been in there for hours. Panic-stricken, Silver tried to call out his name, but as she opened her mouth, the entire building began to shake, then she let out a scream of her own as her headache grew, to the point where it felt like a dozen icepicks were being jabbed into her brain.
NOW - THE WATCHTOWER, FLOATING ABOVE THE MOON:
“That’s it,” Montoya said quietly, “he’s gone. It’ll be over any minute now...”
<The bad news is, you’re gonna have to find a way to get to Qward. That’s where I’m at right now.> The verdant image of Hal gave a wry smile. <Thankfully, I ran into an old friend who’s teamed up with some people that have already been taking the fight directly to Krona. I’ve embedded coordinates in this message so you can find us easily. As for getting here, grab as many Lanterns as you can, because it’s going to take a tremendous amount of willpower to punch through the barrier into the anti-matter universe.>
“You heard the man,” Batman said to Cyborg, “put a call out to the Lanterns, see who they can spare. Everyone else, start readying for departure.”
“Are you crazy?” Ollie snapped at him. “How can you believe this is real?”
“Why shouldn’t we believe it?”
“Because Hal Jordan is dead! He died nearly two decades ago!” He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead as he spoke. “I was a pallbearer at his funeral...me and...”
Nightwing stared at him. “What are talking about? I saw Hal just...” Dick was suddenly hit with a blinding headache, causing him to lean heavily on Barbara. “He was...”
“No, Ollie’s right,” Cassie Sandsmark said, “Diana told me about this. She was on monitor duty the day he died. Hal was doing a training session with a few other Leaguers and they disappeared. That guy who called himself the Lord of Time, he...” The current bearer of the Wonder Woman mantle grabbed the sides of her head as she struggled to get the words out. “Kendra...found Hal’s body...d-desert...”
Oblivious to the heroes in distress around him, the image of Hal Jordan continued to speak. <I’ve got warn you, though: if you break through just outside of Qward space like I did, it’s going to get messy. The planet’s defensive systems are huge and deadly and I got cut up bad, and my ring tells me it'll only get worse if their systems detect a bigger force. You need to either break through at least a light-year away or find a way to teleport in close to the ground.>
“Then that’s just what we’ll do.” Everyone turned towards the door to see Kal-El -- clean-shaven and hair slicked back, save for an S-shaped curl of hair upon his forehead -- walked into the room, garbed in his traditional blue, red, and yellow Superman costume. Accompanying him were Kara, Kon-El, and Kru-El, though Kara broke away to happily embrace Lena Luthor the moment she saw her.
“But...this has to be a trap,” Ollie said. “They already tricked us once...”
“It’s not a trick. This may be just a projection, but I can tell...that’s really Hal Jordan speaking.” Superman stepped right up to the image, a wistful look in his eyes. “As awful as the events of today have been, it feels good to see long-lost friends again.” He then turned towards Cosmic Boy, saying, “That includes you, too.”
“Me? B-but we’ve never...”
“Not yet, but you will. You and Imra and Garth...you’ll visit me when I’m just a teenager. And you’ll give me something...maybe because you knew that, one day, I’d give it to you.” With that, Superman took hold of the young man’s hand and pressed something into his palm. Rokk looked down to see a Legion flight ring, its golden finish shining brightly against the black fingerless gloves he was wearing. Of all the incredible things the Legionnaire had experienced in the past couple of hours, the idea that, at some point in his future, he would be friends with the legendary Man of Steel was probably the most mind-blowing.
There was little time to enjoy it, as a dozen alarms suddenly began blaring at once. “This is impossible!” Cyborg declared. “Multiple systems failures, all over the Watchtower...the superstructure is...it’s disintegrating!”
“Distress signals coming from Earth as well,” Doc Robotman announced, “mainly in the region of Gotham City.” There was a pause, and though his metallic face was nearly incapable of showing emotion, his voice modulator expressed it well enough. “Dear God in Heaven...”
As all this was occurring, Montoya fished around in her pocket until she pulled out a five-dollar bill, then held it out to Sage. “Figure I should give you this before we go.”
“What for?”
“That’s how we first stumbled upon all this, remember? We were arguing about who’s made a bigger impact on the superhero community: Superman or Batman. You bet me five bucks that it was Batman, then we started digging through the archives. I daresay that you won.”
“And I daresay this is the textbook definition of a Pyrrhic victory.” He looked over at the CCTV images Doc Robotman had sent to the holographic displayer: all across Gotham, buildings were twisting and collapsing for no apparent reason, bridges were unraveling, and the people...scores of people were screaming in agony as they were erased from the timeline. Sage could hear the smartphone in his hand beeping like mad, as was Montoya’s, but there was no need to look anymore. For hours, the two of them had been comparing the readout from the Justice League’s temporally-protected archives on Sage’s phone to the vulnerable public archives on Montoya’s, watching as the Wayne family legacy vanished line by line. There was literally nothing else they could do: by the time they’d discovered Jonah Hex’s unexplained disappearance in 1875, every deed he’d accomplished after that had already been erased from the public record...including his rescue of wealthy socialite Catherine Wayne from a group of kidnappers in 1885.
According to the Justice League’s files, Catherine would pass away years later in the midst of childbirth, leaving her husband, Alan, to raise their son alone. That son, Kenneth, would sire a son of his own decades later, and so it would go on through the years until Thomas Wayne’s wife, Martha, gave birth to their only child, Bruce. But the civilian files told a different story, one about Catherine’s death at the hands of her kidnappers, and Alan taking his own life not long after, leaving no heirs. The damage to the timeline wasn’t just irreparable, it was long-ranging, warping nearly 150 years of Gotham history in a matter of hours, culminating with the complete and utter erasure of Bruce Wayne...and by extension, the Batman. The Questions’ attempts to warn others about the temporal tsunami heading their way soon proved fruitless, as everyone else’s memories of the original timeline were becoming just as corrupted as the documentation of it -- merely an hour earlier, the other heroes had no doubt Hal was alive -- only the constant cross-checking program Bruce helped them set up before parting ways with him allowed Sage and Montoya to keep their original memories intact to a reasonable degree.
But again, there was no need for it anymore. Removing the majority of Hal Jordan’s career as Green Lantern from the timeline caused a severe temporal wound, yes, but there were other Lanterns that could take his place. Removing the existence of Batman -- the very idea of the Dark Knight -- was like cutting someone’s belly open with a rusty knife and yanking out handfuls of their intestines. The Questions watched in silence as Tim Wayne fell to his knees, his teeth gritted against the pain tearing through his mind, while the Batman-specific elements of his costume began to fade from reality. Barbara and Dick were having a similar struggle, clinging tightly to each other throughout the ordeal. Other heroes began to collapse as well due to their decades-long personal histories with Bruce being forcibly rearranged. Even the Watchtower appeared to scream as all the WayneTech-researched-and-funded equipment it contained ceased to be, putting insurmountable stresses upon what remained.
Sage cried out at the blindingly-sharp pain that had just entered his head. He felt Montoya grab hold of him, and the elder Question turned to face the younger. Like himself, she still wore her mask, but he could detect a hint of a smile beneath it. “I hope...I did right...by you, Charlie,” she managed to say. He tried to answer, but instead they both fell wordlessly to the floor.
In the midst of this chaos stood Cosmic Boy. Between his origins a thousand years hence and the scant amount of time spent in the man’s presence, the nonexistence of Bruce Wayne had virtually no effect on him. All he knew was everyone around him had been struck down by forces invisible, and it sounded like the space station they were in was on the verge of collapse. He felt like he was trapped on a dying Titan all over again, only this time, there was more than a single child that needed rescuing. His eyes fixed upon Superman, laying at Rokk’s feet with an agonized expression stamped on his face. How could he overcome something that left even the mythic Man of Steel helpless?
Then he heard the voice of the Green Lantern the others called Hal Jordan: the holographic message had reached its end and began playing over again from the beginning, and was once more talking about a place called Qward. Cos ran across the room to where Dawn Makes-Strong-Move had collapsed. “You need to get up, right now!” he shouted, pulling her upright as he did so. “Your axe...you can make a portal to just about anywhere, right?”
“Y-y-yes, b-but...” Her eyes were squeezed shut against the pain in her head.
“Make a portal to Qward! Close to the ground, like the Green Lantern said! We need to get off this station as fast as possible!” The Legionnaire then grabbed hold of Cassie, who was closest by, and attempted to get her on her feet as well.
Despite the agony she was in and the cacophony of noise around her, Dawn brought the True Axe into position and began searching for the anti-matter universe’s place along the Axis Mundi. Her earlier attempts at reaching Heaven had proved fruitless due to so much of the Axis Mundi collapsing along with most of reality, and she feared running into the same troubles again, but she did her best to push such negative thoughts from her mind. They had to get to Qward and stop Krona from destroying all of existence...even if it meant losing their own lives to do so.
The lights inside the Watchtower failed, leaving the emerald image of Hal Jordan as the only illumination. <I know I’ve not been around much, but that doesn’t mean I stopped believing in all of you. You’re the greatest heroes the world has ever seen… and there’s nobody’s hands I’d rather put the fate of the universe in.> Hal grinned, then the image wavered and the grin went away as the recording started playing over for a third time: <I don’t know who’s seeing this...>
At the edge of what remained of the solar system, John Stewart and Kyle Rayner -- who’d already been struggling alongside their fellow GLs due to Hal’s removal from the timeline -- fell away from their positions along the shield perimeter almost in unison as Bruce’s erasure caught up with them. The other Lanterns attempted to take up the slack, but hours upon hours of near-constant ringslinging had taken a toll upon the willpower of all involved. Cracks began to form, more Lanterns began to falter, and soon, the universe-sized wave of entropy they’d been holding back punched through, sweeping over every Corps member in its path and quickly building speed. Those who remained did their best to rebuild the shield, but they no longer had the strength or numbers to do so, and they too perished as white nothingness crashed over them at ten times the speed of light. The hundreds of planets and refugee ships the Green Lanterns had been protecting had just enough time to realise their demise was coming, yet no ability to stop it. When the entropy wave reached Earth, it was almost a mercy: over a fifth of the planet’s population was already dead due to the Batman’s nonexistence, Gotham City was a smoking ruin, and the Watchtower had torn itself to shreds moments earlier, scattering bodies into the icy void of space like toys across a playroom floor.
By the time the Sun was extinguished, there was no one left alive to witness it.
TO BE CONCLUDED!
Click here for a special note from one of the authors of OMEGA CRISIS!