Disclaimer: I do not own Justice League Unlimited, Prototype, or any of their affilliates. Though I do hear them In my head sometimes.

'Thinking'

"Speaking"

Telepathy

Radio/Communications

He never thought his life would come to this. A few weeks ago he was Alex Mercer, one of the most brilliant scientists in Gentek, the company that was at the forefront of genetics. Now he was piloting a helicopter carrying a nuclear device in order to save a city from a virus he had both created and unleashed.

"Come on", he hissed between clenched teeth. He wanted to make sure New York was out of the blast zone before he dropped the bomb. He also wanted to have enough time to get away, but he didn't have much faith he would. 'Just as well' he thought, 'everybody would be better off without me'. He was disgusted with what his former self had done, by releasing the virus out of spite. But even worse was what he had done. In his search for answers he had unknowingly unleashed an even greater evil, one which threatened the entire world. He could barely stand himself and if he had to die to atone for his sins he was fully prepared to.

He looked around and estimated that New York was now out of the range of the blast and the resulting nuclear fallout. He released the cables and took off as fast as the chopper would go. Suddenly he heard a deafening explosion. He didn't look back but he could see the light coming from behind. It looked like the rising sun. The helicopter started to shake violently as the blast wave came closer and the cockpit grew hotter by the second.

When the the light grew so bright his eyes started to burn, and the chopper felt like it was about to be ripped apart, time seemed to slow down and he looked back on the memories of his original life. He was in a lab with his lover, Karen Parker, sharing a quick kiss in between experiments. Karen, who had betrayed him, and who he in turn had killed.

He was on a stage giving a speech at his graduation and as he finished, and everybody started celebrating, he saw his sister in the front row quietly clapping and looking at him with pride in her eyes. Dana, who had come to his aid when he needed it, despite their distance, and who was now in a coma with no guarantee of waking up.

He was demonstrating to the higher ups, including his boss Raymond McMullen, the effectiveness of the blacklight virus. McMullen, who even at the end had managed to spite Alex by killing himself and denying his secrets from being known.

All these memories and more flew through his head until, for one moment, everything froze. He became acutely aware of everything, from the heat on his face, to the feel of the seat, to the coiled muscles of his body. And in the next moment all he saw was white fire.

Bruce Wayne also known by his alias Batman was currently facing a major dilemma, one he couldn't figure out. He had been standing there, looking in the same direction for an hour.

"I was wondering where you were."

He didn't turn his head but he recognized the voice of fellow Justice League founder Clark Kent aka Superman.

"What are you doing here Clark?"

"Looking for you. Everybody's worried. Especially Diana."

He gave Bruce a sly smile but stopped when he didn't react. Bruce kept staring in the same direction.

Though he tried to hide it, Clark was worried about Bruce. Ever since their fight with the Brainiac/Lex Luthor hybrid he had been down where the league kept the various technology and artifacts they had come across in it's short history.

"Seriously Bruce, you've been acting weird. What have you been doing? "

"...thinking."

Clark rolled his eyes at his friend's typical short answer. 'Would it kill him to at least give a full sentence', he thought. Out loud he said, "OK. About what? ". He wasn't expecting the answer he received.

"The Justice Lords."

"What?", he said. 'What brought this on?' It was then that he noticed what Bruce was staring at.

"Isn't that..."

"Yeah, the device used by the Justice Lords to view and enter other universes."

"What's all this about?", Clark said slightly unnerved by the machine. It held bad memories, especially considering he had almost become like his doppelganger.

"When the Justice Lords were beaten I realized that we had the potential for great evil."

"I know", Clark said with a heavy sigh.

"But there's a difference between knowing something and seeing it with your own eyes."

"Yeah. When I think about how mad I was when I thought Wally died I..."

"I wasn't talking about you."

'Wait then who...', he thought.

Seeing his friends dumbfounded look he quickly elaborated. "Clark I know what kind of man you are. I may criticize you sometimes but I know you would never cross the line.", he finished with a small smile. "Actually I was talking about Cadmus."

"Listen Bruce, I know they're not exactly Innocent..."

"The Justice Lords suffered a major loss, and in trying to correct it made a terrible world ", Bruce said seriously. "Cadmus saw a major threat and made a similar mistake."

"How do you figure that? ", Clark asked incredulously.

"They created a number of situations to antagonize us and get a hostile reaction. They basically wanted to MAKE us an enemy simply to say I told you so.", Bruce said with some heat. "And for all their talk of defending themselves from us, they created a lot of weapons and plans to be used in an invasion. In my experience preemptive strikes never prevent anything except the potential for negotiation. Instead of preventing the Justice Lords, Cadmus nearly created them."

Clark was surprised by how much thought was put into this. Still it left one question unanawered. "If that's the case then what do you hope to find down here?". Clark was starting to feel uneasy.

"We spent so much time scrutinizing ourselves instead of our enemies that we let our guard down and stood aside as Cadmus' actions nearly destroyed the universe. Hell Luthor hacked In and used our weapons against us!", he shouted. Bruce had gone from a little angry to downright pissed. "I want to make sure it never happens again."

Now Clark was alarmed. "Hold on Bruce, you can't..."

"Don't worry. I don't intend to impose martial law. I just...wanna get some insight.", Bruce said trying to explain what he wanted to do.

"What do you hope to find?"

"Don't know. I might figure out everything, I might figure out nothing.", Bruce said. "But I always believe in getting as much information as I can before making important decisions. And as potentially dangerous as this Is, I need to know If there are ways to prevent things like this without a world ending crisis hanging over our heads."

Superman could tell that there was no changing Batman's mind. "Well if you're gonna do this, know that you have my support. And I'm sure the others do too."

Bruce gave him a fond smile. "Thanks."

"Anytime. So where are you going to start?"

"Not sure.", Bruce said examining the machine. "There's no real way to know what universe you might see. It's like tuning a radio without any indication of what frequency you're on."

"So you're just gonna punch in some information and hope for the best?"

"That's the idea."

"It's not like you to be so reckless."

"Sometimes you have to take a leap."

As he started to adjust the machine, Batman knew that whatever happened he and his friends would be prepared. And he truly believed that at the time. But nothing would prepare him for the horrors he would witness.

Author's Note

Well my first story seems to be off to a good start. I've gotten one review which is one more than I thought I'd get, so my thanks to Mr. dekonfrost, you sir are a saint.

Now you may have noticed that there wasn't much of Mercer in this chapter. Well that's gonna be the case for the first few chapters so don't worry about Zeus, he'll have his chance to shine.

So if you read this story and liked it then come on back now you hear. I've more in store dudes.

-updated 10/7/2015-