DC2 Nemesis: Chapter One

“This isn’t what I was expecting when I got the ring, I have to admit.” Green Lantern Hal Jordan was floating on the fringe of Sector 2814, his ring processing the information he was taking in from the yellow sun burning around him. He was right inside the giant furnace, his ring protecting him from the unimaginable heat- while it simultaneously connected him to Green Lantern Kilowog, back on Oa. “Science projects.”

“This is the Corps, Jordan. We ain't dissecting a Korugan cave frog, this is called forensics.” Hal could almost hear the laughter in Kilowog’s voice.

“Alright, alright, so where’s my back up?”

“Sector Lantern Arisia of 2815 is--”

“Present and accounted for.” Arisia grinned as she flew toward Hal, who smiled back as she approached. “Did you miss me?”

They embraced tightly, and he couldn’t help but laugh. “How couldn’t I?"

"Hey, poozers! Less pinin' and more scannin'!”

Hal and Arisia pointed their rings towards the celestial putrefaction.

"So the Guardians dragged you into this… forensics gig too?” Hal whispered.

“We’re not far from the Sector borders, Hal. I was the closest, so I was sent to help the information be processed.” She tapped her ring. “It’s running the data as we speak. Do you know what the Guardians are looking for?”

Kilowog’s face popped up above their rings: “We’ve had reports from across Sectors of weird anomalies within stars causing disturbances for the surrounding space. Obviously, we can’t be--”

Hal cut him off. “‘Wog, be quiet! Arisia, look!”

The once yellow sun began to darken from the centre outwards. Tendrils of onyx light cascaded into the golden swirls of heat that wracked the gaseous centre until suddenly the solar flares snapped black, and a pitch star was left marking the Sector of space. “Oh, my God.”



“Another sun has undergone the change.”

“The evidence is clear.”

“The markers are all showing.”

“He is rising from below the texture of reality.”

“From the underverse of creation?”

"Indeed, the humus layer that lies beyond sentient abstraction."

"This is a significant complication to our plans."

“Our Green Lantern Corps will be there to stop him.”

"That is to say, if there are any left after the initial moment of entropy…"



The clouds parted, a white bank giving away to the bluest of skies. He rose up above it all, his wings near glowing in the glacial light that welcomed him. Nestled in his arms was a former comrade-- one who had fallen in his duty a century ago, fallen through time itself… and who he hoped would reveal the truth behind the growing darkness that threatened creation below.

And then Zauriel entered Heaven.

“It’s coming,” whispered the fading angel in his arms, driven to insanity from the fall from his post. “The great darkness… is coming…”

“I know,” nodded Zauriel as he headed towards the halls of healing, “and I’ll be there to stop it.”



The world had changed. The subcutaneous layer underneath the Earth had shifted. Weaknesses were exposed, and taken advantage of. Gaia, mother Earth herself, had died, and the world’s foundations trembled, as though in primordial fear of the horrors to come. If the spirit of creation itself had been torn away, what was left?

A dying shell… thought Wonder Woman, as she stood atop Mount Rushmore, marvelling at the sunset. She herself had been through much recently. But she had persevered, pressed forward, survived. She smiled, remembering the face of her mother as she told her tales of the gods as the sun set on Themyscira, and then tensed as the rocks began to quake all around her.

BOOM! The world shimmered and in the sky a cylinder of perfect luminescence spun around and around, oxygen molecules bursting quietly as they bounced off the mesmerizing surface of the curious construct.

“Boom Tube effect,” she whispered, “New Gods.”

Lightray exploded outward from the middle of the Boom Tube, his sudden presence in the world like a perpetual sunrise against the purple, swirling sky behind. He landed in front of Diana, his fingers touching the cold rock, and then he looked up, eyes clear and bright, determination etched on his features: “I come with urgent word from Exodus!”



“White King’s Rook to White Queen,” Paul Kirk, Manhunter, propelled himself across the urban ravine provided by two towering buildings, quickly pursued by his attacker. “I have my field report.”

“You sound preoccupied, White King’s Rook.” Catherine Cobert replied, seated back in Shelby, Virginia, inside Caissa Industries, headquarters of Checkmate’s Royal Court of officials.

“Not preoccupied, don’t worry, White Queen,” he grunted, sliding down the side of a tiled building, as slate showed down to the dusty street below. “Suspect entered Naliivan city limits an hour ago. If you remember, Naliiva has been a dead city for twenty years ever since Marshall Kafka, the unelected ruler, detonated a biochemical explosive in the middle of the city, on the busiest day of the year. Millions died. No one has stayed in the city long ever since.” He slid down, reached the edge of the roof, and propelled himself across the next gully between buildings, rolling across. “I’ve been pursuing this creep for two months now. Finally caught up with her and--”

Paul ducked as his pursuer copied his move and leapt across the buildings, only for the Manhunter to catch her by the head and slammed it into the cold concrete. Kirk repeated the attack, the concrete breaking on impact, and then attached a nullifier to her throat. She groaned, and her body reverted to human.“--taken her down. I have the Hyena.”

He slid down the side of the wall and caught his breath. “We have your location on GPS, airlift is en-route. Good work, Manhunter.”

“No man escapes me, Madame Cobert.” He wiped his sweat and thought back to the mission. Capture or kill. And he’d rather not kill. Though he could… “Hhm.” …Hyena was faster than previous reports. More vicious too. Paul looked to his arm, the sleeve of his uniform in tatters, a deep gouge scoring his flesh. His body was knitting itself back together, but he’d been clawed by the Hyena before and this was deeper. Harsher. “I’m going offline, just buzz if you need me.”

“Understood, White Queen out.”

He stood, and approached his fallen adversary. Summer Day, and yes, he was aware of the cringe-worthy nature of her name, was a were-hyena. He’d hunted worse. “What made you so rabid all of a sudden, Ms Day?” He was looking for surgical scars. Track marks. A place where an implant could aggravate her condition to such a degree to make her this vicious He could find no such signs. “Alright then. We’ll just have to have the doctors back at Checkmate have a look at you.”

“Nnnuuuuh…” She looked at him, eyes glassy- before they shifted, and her body followed. A furry arm tore the nullifier from her throat, and she howled, and then began laughing. Kirk took his knife from his back and readied himself. “Hehe. Haha. Heha. They. They. Ha. He. They took. Away. Ha. My. Haha. Faith.” With a guttural growl, she leapt, and Paul drew up his knife. She hit the ground bloody, and he staggered back against the wall, his fingers a mash of torn flesh and exposed bone. But he had won. No matter what.

He dropped to his knees and grabbed her by the muzzle, pulling up her face to his. “Who? What do you mean? Talk to me, Summer.”

She twitched, her body morphing from human to hyena and back, until settling on frail human. “They killed… God… and now… we’re theirs…”

The scream of a helicopter overheard drowned out the next question he asked, not to Summer but to himself: “…What does that mean?”



Notch an arrow in my bow and… Ollie Queen’s finger moved just slightly, and the arrow shot out of the bow, and straight toward the target. “…Oh, crap.”

Gunfire had simply caught the arrow in midair, his eyes blazing black. “Not going down easy, Arrow!”

I can kind of see that, idiot. He notched another arrow, and winked at the villain, who was now trudging toward his vantage point atop the small abandoned building. They were battling for some reason that Green Arrow hadn’t managed to discern yet. According to police reports, Gunfire had gone crazy, started firing at the crowds in the streets- injuring at least a dozen, with possible fatalities. Ollie figured that meant he had justification not to play nice, so prepared to let loose another arrow, and, just as he was about to fire--

An arrow hit Gunfire squarely in the back. The villain spun around again, caught off guard, and Green Arrow let loose with his own attack, splitting the previous arrow in half and digging deeper into the villain’s spine. He howled in pain, and Ollie Queen looked over to the other side of the street, where Golden Arrow, Connor Hawke, was reloading.

“That’s m’boy.” They’d gauged his resistance to projectiles from afar, small arms popping out after a few seconds after impact. Seemed that this z-lister had undergone a power amplification. The whys and hows would wait till later.

“You’ll pay for this… this…”

“Humiliation? Embarrassment? This bereavement from your self esteem? Boo-hoo.” Green Arrow leapt down from his firing position, and aimed the loaded bow at his opponent’s head. “You lie on your front, your hands on your head, and I won’t put this through your leg.”

“My hands?” Gunfire grinned, and that didn’t sit right with Green Arrow. Connor was reaching out even as Gunfire’s hand slapped down on the concrete, and a streak of black explosive energy whipped outwards through the ground, engulfing the emerald archer in total darkness. “My hands are a weapon, and I won’t be a joke anymore! I won’t be a joke!” The villain pulled himself up, only to be encased in an glowing green sphere of light, and pulled from the ground. The sphere filled with a thick, viscous liquid and Gunfire was quickly rendered unconscious, floating in the vat of weird energy.

“Sorry I’m late.” Hank Henshaw, Green Lantern, grinned as he lowered the sphere to the ground, and approached Connor. “We’ve not met, I’m Green Lantern--”

“Ollie! He was caught in--”

“--apparently, a green catcher’s mitt,” Green Arrow, wiping soot off his uniform, approached the two other heroes. “What brings you to Star City, Hal?” He looked over to Green Lantern, and punched him on the shoulder, before realising that it wasn’t Hal Jordan, but his replacement. “Oh. You’re the other one.”

“Sorry for the misunderstanding. Hal’s in deep space, I’m covering for him.”

“Yeah, I know, I know, just wasn’t expectin’ some other Green Lantern to save my butt. Colour me surprised.” Oliver waved his hand, and then looked through the spherical prison at Gunfire. “We’ll be fine if you don’t go round claiming to be the one true, OK?”

“I wasn’t--”

Golden Arrow nudged him with his shoulder, and leant toward him. “Ignore him, he’s set in his ways. They’re best friends. You’re wearing his clothes. You understand?”

“Sure, sure,” Hank smiled in thanks, and then turned back to Ollie. “I’m going to take this guy to the Slab, that alright?”

“Not going to hear me complain.” Green Arrow notched his bow once more- with a line-arrow this time- and Connor followed suit. “Catch you later, Henshaw.”

Henshaw watched as the two archers vanished from sight, and then sighed. “Following in the footsteps of the best pilot at Ferris Air, and now I’m following in the footsteps of the best GL. Greatness.” He lit up his ring, and headed to the metahuman supermax prison, Gunfire following in his emerald bubble.



“I’m not the world’s greatest detective, but I’ll be damned if I don’t at least try.” Dick Grayson was sitting in front of the computer in the cave. He typed into a search field, and a thousand hits came onto the screen. “He went missing five days ago. That’s a long time in our business. We’re assuming the worse. That’s what I’ve been trained to do.” He narrowed the range of the search and leaned back in the thick leather of his chair. “The Ray. Second generation.” Time travel was involved with this kid. “Ray Terrill.”

The Justice Society of America had come to him. Captain Marvel, the chairman (another second generation, noted Dick). Hawkman (Carter Hall, the original), Green Lantern (that was Alan Scott, the original rather than Hal or the new guy), and The Flash (Jay Garrick, another original, rather than Barry Allen, who ran with the League), That made three of the Old Guard, Marvel and finally Jade- a fellow member of the ‘Young All-Stars’ team Ray himself was part of. “We don’t know where he went.” Marvel had told him. “And we want you to help us find him.”

“Of course, sir, of course.” Dick couldn’t help but show respect to these men. They were the people that inspired Bruce, and in turn, inspired himself. “He came to Gotham a few days ago, I didn’t think much to it then, but obviously I should have paid more attention--”

“Maybe you should have!” shouted Jade, barely containing her frustration. Alan Scott placed a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at him, regret in her eyes. He nodded slowly. “Sorry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have shouted, it’s just… he’s gone. He may be impulsive, but he’s not an idiot. I’m worried about him.”

“Batman, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important to us.” Captain Marvel stepped forward, and Dick thought he could almost see the Mightiest Mortal glow in the glum darkness of the cave. “Any help you can offer us, we would welcome with open arms.”

“I assume you have others on the case?”

“I put out some calls to some old friends, and they came up empty.” Alan Scott looked up from his daughter, and shook his head. “It could be nothing. But it might be something. I hate the uncertainty of this. And like the Captain said, any help you could offer.”

“Gotham is quiet. You have my word I’ll try my best.”

“Thank you, son,” replied Jay Garrick solemnly. “We’ll be on our way, but you know where to find us if you find anything out.”

“I’ll keep you in the loop.”

And so here he was. His leads had run dry. The Ray. Why was he in Gotham City in the first place? What would bring a member of the Justice Society of America (or the Young All-Stars, if Dick was getting precise) to this place.

What indeed?

Take a step back. Come at the case from a different angle. If you can’t work the case back, work it forward. Start from where Ray started, and see where it takes you. “What was this guy investigating in the first place?”



“How was your flight back to the states?”

“Quiet,” replied Paul Kirk. “I think it was because I didn’t wash the blood off till we got home. They don’t like that, apparently. The other agents.”

White King’s Rook was sitting in the office of the White King. Debriefing, they called it.

Steve Trevor had heard the field report, Catherine Cobert had put it on his desk when Kirk hit the tarmac. There were holes in it, but this was Paul Kirk they were talking about. “Your assignment was to track down and bring in one of the Rogues rumoured to exhibit enhanced powers. We were going to bring psych in and get them to acquire a bead on how said Rogue acquired said enhanced powers. You gutted Hyena, Paul.”

“Sir, she exhibited enhanced powers. It was me or her. And I had the knife.”

Trevor thought about this for a moment, his thumbs dancing around each other. “…Yeah. Ok, I can understand that. But what do you have now? What possible leads?”

“I have a few. Her last words are lingering in my head. ‘They killed God’. Have you heard something like that recently? Because Rogues I’ve tracked down have been spewing that kind of £$%^ to me recently. I want to run down the last of my leads. Do I have your authorisation?”

“Completely. But don’t do anything stupid, Paul. I have your back, but if you do something stupid and get called on it by agencies outside of Checkmate, it’ll be damn hard to clear up.”

Kirk stood up, and nodded at his superior’s words. “No explosions.” He smiled, and pulled on his coat. “I’ll remember that.”



“The world is unravelling! It’s heading full pelt into the chasm of darkness that started forming before reality had ever fully set itself in place!” Lightray stood before the Justice League, his hands moving frantically, trying to set the scope of events in the minds of this world’s premier super-hero team. “Layer upon layer of reality is being peeled back by this… darkness… and soon it’ll pierce through the final shell of protection! The world will shrivel up and die under the gaze of what is coming!”

The Atom had dealt with New Gods before. The scope of their lives fascinated him, their language excited him, and their news… almost always made his heart drop. They lived a step beyond reality, they travelled through mass-altering tunnels he couldn’t begin to comprehend, and their actions affected the movement of fixed reality itself. God-machines powered their homes, living circuitry spoke to them in their dreams and lives, and if they said the world was going to end… “All this has to do with a Mother Box?”

“Yes Ray,” replied Wonder Woman. “A Mother Box from the future, recording the events of a time-line that never came to pass, folding back in time and arriving in the past, into my hands.” She took a moment to think of her next words. “I… was saved, weeks ago, in the Underworld, by someone I thought I recognised.”

“I thought it was my mother. Spirits have a tendency to make surprising returns in the land of the dead, but I was mistaken. This was my sister, Donna Troy, from the future, saving my life once last time before she faded from existence, her time-line erased. The once piece of evidence of her existence was this Mother Box, a fixed point of creation. The God-machine was placed in my hands, and Himon of the New Gods went about repairing it.”

The Justice League had been gathered by emergency alarm. The core team was present, and a few reservists were scattered around the room. Wonder Woman’s tone in the call was one they had never heard before, and they had to know what was going on. Green Arrow was stood in the corner, his son Connor standing by his side. Green Lantern- that was Hank Henshaw- was late, made his apologies, and found a place to lean without looking too obvious. Hal Jordan had left him the keys to the kingdom, but he wasn’t presumptuous enough to take his partner’s chair. Ollie noticed this, and respected the decision. The Flash- Barry Allen this time- nodded as he caught Green Arrow’s eye, Kid Eternity stuck near Manitou Dawn, whispering among themselves, and they were all engrossed by the meeting unfolding before them.

“…And he did, and he succeeded, as he always does! The time-line you believed erased is still coming about! Records of dying gods and withering Earths, they are all inside Mother Box, and they are still happening! Reality as you perceive it is in crisis, and you must prepare!” Lightray’s hands tightened across the chair he stood in front of. He was energised- he had stopped pacing the meeting’s room but still refused to sit. “You don’t seem to understand the scope of what I’m saying. You think on a much smaller scale than the New Gods. We see the macro, the grand idea, the cosmic ultrapicture of the Superevent unfolding! And the coming darkness… we will not be able to help you, Justice League. Even Gods are not immune to it. Gods will fall! This warning is all we can gift you! I must return to Exodus- we need to man the megawalls beyond the frontiers of existence so we can do our part in the defence of this reality… the cosmic beacons have been lit. The Black Suns are forming. They point to Earth, Justice League, the darkness is being guided here by some unknowable design.”

“We’ll stop it, Solus, it’s what we do.” Superman entered the chamber, and took a seat. “Sorry I’m late. A school of space-whale were caught in Jupiter’s gravitational pull. Had to guide them out by hand. I’ve heard everything since I re-entered Earth’s atmosphere. We’re the Justice League, Solus. We will not go quietly into the dark. You should know that about us. We joined forces with you to defeat Darkseid. We do not give up so easily.”

“You do not understand. Mother Box says that Superman falls in a storm of darkness and pain beyond comprehension.” Lightray finally slumped into the chair given to him. The rest of the Justice League watched him as he shook his head, and then looked to Superman. “One of the first to fall. And so very far from the last.”

A smile formed on the Man of Steel’s lips. “We know the future, Solus. And we’ll avert the crisis presented to us. With finesse.”

The Justice League felt a rumble of confidence fill themselves. The overriding emotion of fear vanished for a moment, and Wonder Woman filled that void as she continued to speak: “We don’t know what the Black Sun is. Most likely, it is a psychological attack engine, designed to feed on our fears, to cause them to fester inside our heads. We are trained to resist this. Details on the entity itself are sparse, but we’re working on supposition.”

“Justice League!” The ceiling of the Hall of Justice dissolved green as Green Lanterns Hal Jordan and Arisia descended, their bodies protected by emerald auras. “Green Lantern Corps business: An ancient warning system is going off across the universe.” Hal turned to Henshaw: “Lantern 2814.2, data upload is active.”

“Aww, crap,” mumbled Henshaw as the information filled his mind.

“Suns are going black. Energy readings are off the scale, and they’re telling us that something is coming, something bigger than we can imagine. I don’t mean to sound melodramatic but we need to come up with a plan of action fast, because whatever it is that the universe is warning us about? It’s coming. And it’s coming fast.” Hal looked around the room, at the faces of every man and woman assembled and then to Lightray. “What did I miss?”



He tried to flap his wings but pain shot down his back. He couldn’t stabilise himself, plummeting ever faster through the dark purple sky. He couldn’t gain his bearings, he couldn’t stop himself from falling, he couldn’t brace for impact-- he folded his wings in to protect them from any more damage, and then, quite suddenly… he hit something.

The world went white and he heard a crunching noise he was reasonably certain came from his own body. Brick and mortar showered down all around him- he heard glass shattering, his wings coming loose behind his back, and then the wind was knocked out of him as his chest plate collided violently with something metal. Finally, after one last impact, he crashed to the ground, black spots he was fairly sure were not normally there dominating his vision.

Zauriel was back on Earth. And all he could feel was pain. “They want… to destroy you all…” he mumbled, a dark shape looming over him, “Plaster over creation with something new… because… the darkness… scares them… the darkness… the great darkness… it’s coming…”

“Well, that doesn’t sound too good, does it,” mumbled the black and red leather clad individual, as he pulled Zauriel up from where he had landed. “An angel in Gotham, eh? And not just Gotham, but the Narrows? Ironic.” He laughed to himself, making sure everything that the angel had on him when he landed was collected. “Looks like the world needs my help again, doesn’t it?”