{Bludhaven-Earth-128}
{July 28, 06:50 EDT}
"Access, Flash!" Flash said as soon as they were inside the shipping container, before the door had even fully closed behind them. Somebody inside must have seen them coming and provided secondary authorization, because a moment later the elevator was descending. Wally couldn't help tapping his foot rapidly on the floor as it lowered, feeling agonizingly slow. Lord Batman was fully unconscious again, and the unpleasant wheezing sound when he breathed was the only indication he was breathing at all.
"C'mon, c'mon," Wally muttered as the doors slid up towards them. "C'mooooonnnnn…"
"Ugh, I know," Flash said, looking over his shoulder with a worried frown. "God… can't believe he's actually been alive all this time," he mumbled. "Don't know how people are gonna feel about us bringing a former Justice Lord in here…"
"Not that he's all that dangerous just now," Wally pointed out just as the doors opened and they headed for the medbay, barely avoiding crashing into corners as they went just a little too fast through the hallways. Then again, Lord Superman was scared enough of him to weld him to a table when he had nothing on him but a pair of black briefs and a shitton of injuries, Wally thought, gasping as Flash stopped so suddenly in the medical wing that the back of the stretcher slammed into his stomach.
"Sorry," Flash mumbled as Dr Thompkins and Dr Holt ran over.
"Redbird messaged and said you were bringing a patient, but he didn't say-oh my god," Dr Thompkins gasped, coming to an abrupt halt and staring in horror at the man on the stretcher. "Get him into surgery now!"
"Those burns are awful," Dr Holt said, directing them towards a surgery while Dr Thompkins started directing nursing assistants to prep equipment. "Have these been treated at all? Here," he added, gesturing a nurse over so they could move Lord Batman onto the table. "Go junk that stretcher," he ordered, pointing at the door out of surgery as another nurse handed him some surgical gloves. "Then go check in with Oracle. I think she wanted to speak to you as soon as you got in."
"Sure," Flash said, stepping aside to let a tight-lipped Dr Thompkins into the room before he and Wally headed out. A few seconds later, after they'd dropped off the broken door in the hangar, they were in the monitor room, where it seemed like every person in the base who wasn't on the medical team was gathered, watching a shaky camera feed that was filling the largest screen over the centre console.
"Hey, yellow Flash," a voice said, tapping Wally's shoulder.
"Yeah babe?" Wally said automatically, grinning as he spun around, only realizing his mistake when he saw the expression on Tigress' face. She wasn't wearing her mask, so he could see the way she narrowed her eyes on him, one hand going to the crossbow hanging on her belt as she stepped back from him a little.
"Is it true you're from another reality?" she asked suspiciously.
"Um, yeah," Wally said, folding his hands behind his back. He didn't like knowing that he'd creeped her out, which he felt showed a lot of personal growth from his teenage years.
"Really?" she said, looking extremely doubtful.
"Weird, I know," Flash said, pulling his cowl down and slinging an arm over Wally's shoulders, "but we definitely aren't twins."
"Huh." Tigress just looked down at her phone, texting rapidly.
"What are you doing?" Lois Lane said, detaching herself from a computer console and walking over to Tigress.
"Cat wanted to know if he's really from another world," Tigress said, pointedly stepping out of Lois' reach and sending the message before showing it to her. "And before you say anything, Voice, yes, obviously it's thoroughly encrypted. Like Cat would let any of us use anything Bluebird hadn't played with first."
"Cat? Bluebird?" Wally said, looking in confusion at Flash.
"Why's Catwoman asking after him?" Flash said, pointing at Wally.
"Dunno, she didn't say," Tigress said, pocketing her phone and heading over to her sister, who was eying Wally with an expression that suggested he should probably check his bunk for poisoned needles before going to sleep tonight.
"Anyway, what's going on in DC?" Flash asked, turning to Lois. "Redbird said Lord Superman was fighting something there?" He gestured to the screen, where a shaky, low-res video showed Lord Superman using an indistinct weapon to viciously pummel some kind of golden shield before being blasted away in a barrage of green and blue energy beams. Several of the people crowded into the room cheered.
"A magic user, we think," Lois said grimly. "He's definitely using an nth-metal mace, so it looks like the team we sent to keep him busy got there just in time."
"Any enemy of Lord Superman's is a friend of ours," Owl added. He was sitting at one of the desks, working kryptonite tips into a line of crossbow bolts. "Besides, some people were chomping at the bit to try out their new kryptonite weapons. What happened at the Fortress of Solitude, anyway?" he asked, glancing up. "Redbird's message said something about a clone…?"
"FLASHES!" Oracle yelled. "You're back! Get over here!"
"Never mind, tell me later," Owl said, gesturing them towards Oracle, who was craning over the back of her chair with a worried look. Onscreen, Rocket was dragging the downed magic user out of the way in a purple shield while Blue Beetle and Icon kept Lord Superman pinned down in a hail of blue lasers. The Kryptonian had his arms up to shield himself; Icon's energy blasts didn't seem to be actually hurting him, but it seemed like the Scarab had successfully "incorporated" some kryptonite into its system, because Blue Beetle's green shots were leaving burns on the kryptonian's arms.
"Do you want us to head there?" Flash asked as they sped through the crowd and wound up next to her chair.
"Maybe. What's the situation in the Fortress of Solitude?" Oracle asked. "What's this about a clone? And is the prisoner you found really…?"
"The artist formerly known as Lord Batman? Yeah," Flash said grimly. "He's in bad shape. Lord Superman's been trying to get him to rebuild the portal back to his world." He gestured to Wally.
"I mean, nice to know he can send me home at some point," Wally said, looking up at the screen, "but we've gotta stop Lord Superman first. I don't want that one-man-army loose on my world, y'know?"
"He's been alive all this time…" Oracle murmured, all the colour draining from her face. "And Lord Superman was…" She shook her head. "So, clones?"
"A clone, singular," Flash corrected her. "I mean, according to Lord Batman, there were other clones, but the first few Lord Superman tried to make were unstable maniacs even compared to him, so he destroyed them. The one we met is stable, though he doesn't have all of Lord Superman's powers. Also his name's Conner now, I think…"
"Kryptonian DNA's notoriously unstable when cloned," Wally explained. "On our world, a stable Superman clone was only made when they patched up the instabilities with human DNA. Back home, Cadmus did it with Lex Luthor's DNA, but I'm pretty sure Lord Superman used Lord Batman's, as the main ready supply of human DNA to hand. I mean, he'd better be the other dad," he added sheepishly, "because I kinda told the clone as much to get him to help us break out Lord Batman-he was kinda welded to a table."
"You teamed up with a clone of Lord Superman?!" Oracle demanded, her eyes flashing angrily. "And then you left Redbird and Maelstrom with it?!"
"Him," Flash and Wally chorused, earning a truly vicious Bat-glare in response. "Hey, they've got the kryptonite cuffs and weapons too," Flash pointed out, "and he was uncuffed for a while without hurting any of us before we left. Lord Superman tried to sort of… program him for loyalty, but KF here and Lord Batman talked him around."
"If he's anything like the Superboy at home, his programming gets him pretty strongly, but what he really wants is family," Wally said with a shrug. "When he talked up Lord Superman as his creator, I figured pointing out where the other half of his DNA came from would get him onside-"
A loud cheer suddenly rose up around them. "They got 'im!" Karen shrieked excitedly, throwing her arms around Mal. Oracle spun around to look back up at the screen. Lord Superman was kneeling on the ground, clutching his leg.
Even on the shaky, low-res footage, the glint of green sticking out of Lord Superman's calf was easy to see.
Lord Superman jerked forwards abruptly, arrows peppering his back. Wally winced, even as more cheers erupted behind him. He'd seen what Lord Superman had done to Lord Batman, heard endless stories about all the horrors he'd committed, but still… hearing about it isn't the same of living with it, he thought, seeing the excitement on most of the faces around him. Even Flash looked more relieved than anything else.
Until Lord Superman turned, the blast of heat vision so intense that the video was nothing but white for several seconds, then dark as the camera overcorrected for the sudden high light level. The audio was still fine, though, and they could hear the person filming ecstatically yell, "I think he got 'im! Lord Superman got the bastard! He's down!"
"What the hell did you do?" Cheshire yelled furiously, cutting through the sudden deathly silence that had fallen. Wally turned just in time to see Tigress grab her sister as she leapt at Owl, though Cheshire's furiously kicking foot still knocked the kid off his chair.
"HEY!" Oracle yelled furiously. The crowd quickly parted to let her roll through, putting herself between Owl and Cheshire. "What the hell's your problem?!"
"You saw it! He had a back full of kryptonite arrows and he could use his goddamn heat vision!" Cheshire snarled, gesturing to the screen where, with a flick of his cape, Lord Superman knocked the arrows out of his back. He seemed to be struggling more with whatever was stuck in his leg, however. "He made those arrows! What the fuck did you do?!"
"The arrows are kryptonite tipped!" Owl yelled defensively. "I don't know what went wrong-"
The video blurred frantically for several seconds before refocusing on a domed purple shield that shattered under a single blow from Lord Superman's fist. Before he could land another blow, a bright red blur slammed into him, knocking him back and into the rubble of the Hall of Justice. The red blur stopped in front of the two dark figures that had been crouched under the purple shield with Rocket as Icon and Blue Beetle flew over to join them.
"Honey?" Iris said, looking from Flash, to Wally, to the other Flash on the screen.
"Not me," Flash said, staring wide-eyed at Wally. Wally couldn't tear his eyes away from the screen as Lord Superman started to fly towards the onscreen Flash, before being knocked aside again, this time by a blur of red and blue.
"Oh my god," Lois gasped as Superman and Lord Superman started duking it out.
"Kid Flash," Oracle said sharply. He tore his gaze away to see her staring intently at him. "Go," she said simply. "And Flash?" she said, looking past him. "Get back to the Fortress and…"
Wally didn't hear what else, because he was already out the door and accelerating.
{Gotham-Earth-128}
{July 28, 06:49 EDT}
"God dammit," Batman growled as a red blur shot out of the portal and through the fallen rocks that blocked the main way out of the cave. He glared at Hal Jordan as the Lantern flew through the portal. "Jordan…"
"It's not his fault," Superman said, coming out of the portal. Superboy, Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl, Hawkman and Hawkwoman were quick to follow. "I mentioned we were heading for DC."
"To fight Lord Superman, not because that's where Kid Flash is," Wonder Woman sighed, "not that Flash listened… we'd better get after him."
"There's an opening over there," Batman said, pointing towards a rope dangling from the ceiling. He'd gotten some of the lights in Lord Batman's Batcave working again, so the rope Steph used to get in and out of the Cave was visible-not that any of them needed it, as Superman picked up Superboy before flying out, with Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl, Hawkman and Hawkwoman close behind, Wonder Woman carrying Wolf. "Hold it," Batman said, grabbing Hal Jordan by the ankle as the Green Lantern started to fly after them. "We need to go meet up with the Martians, Batgirl and Robin."
"You could just say hold it," Jordan grumbled, shaking his foot when Batman let go of it.
"We goin' to DC after?" Bumblebee as as she and Atom shrank and hopped onto Batman's shoulder.
"We might be," Batman said, gesturing to Hal Jordan. "You two need to go back through, close the portal and move it. It won't be long before Lord Superman realizes that a portal's been opened-in fact, he probably already does, at Flash's speed. The Batcave is the first place he'll look when he gets the chance."
"Good point," Atom said, hopping off of Batman's shoulder and returning to full size on the way. "Where should we move it to?"
"You decide," Batman told him sternly. "Or Black Canary. After you're over there. The important thing is that nobody on this side should know where to find it."
"So we can't tell the Justice Lords if we get caught," Jordan said quietly as Atom walked through the portal.
"You'd better not," Bumblebee threatened, flying through the portal after her mentor.
Batman waited until the yellow light flickered and vanished before turning to Jordan. "They're in the East End," he said. The Green Lantern nodded, picking Batman up in a bubble of green light as they flew out of the now-empty Batcave.
The fallen Batcave had been unsettling enough, but even though he'd had time to prepare himself for it, the sight of the ash and rubble where Wayne Manor should be was even worse. "Son of a bitch," Jordan muttered, looking aroun. "I take back anything I ever said about Gotham looking terrible back home."
"Turn down the glow," was all Batman said, eyes trained on where the Gotham skyline should have been. Even with the distance between Wayne Manor and the bulk of the city, the devastation was already visible, and only got worse as they flew closer.
"Batman. Green Lantern," Martian Manhunter greeted them psychically as he got into range. "I apologize for the brevity of my transmission before. Huntress and Catwoman expressed a quite vehement concern that Lord Superman can hear radio transmissions."
"Understandable," Batman replied mentally. Jordan shifted their flight path a little, following the slight tug of the martian's telepathy. "We informed the League that we may have a lead on Kid Flash and that Lord Superman is currently engaged in combat in DC. A team is already on their way to combat him." He pointed downwards. "There," he said aloud to Jordan, recognizing Batgirl and Robin among a group of hooded figures waiting on top of the ruins of a community centre that Batman was pretty sure he funded in his own world.
As Jordan brought them to landing, Batman noticed that two of the hooded figures were Martian Manhunter and Miss Martian, still wearing their human faces, and another was Steph, who twitched nervously but didn't move. The other two figures did, stepping back and raising weapons defensively. Batman didn't recognize the tall woman in dark purple who pointed a crossbow at him, but he did recognize Selina Kyle standing next to her, even wearing a more shapeless black hood rather than her usual distinctive cat-eared mask.
"Hey, it's okay!" Miss Martian said quickly, turning to the woman with the crossbow. "They aren't Justice Lords! They're our League!"
"Martian Manhunter, Miss Martian, go on ahead to DC," Batman ordered. "A team's already gone to engage Lord Superman, but the sooner we can end this, the better."
"Of course," Martian Manhunter said as he and his niece shifted to their green humanoid forms and flew away.
"You didn't tell us they were martians, Spoils," Catwoman said, looking at the smaller figure in purple.
"Um, yeah…" Steph said uncomfortably. "I kinda thought it might… freak you out?"
"I sure as hell wouldn't have brought them here if I knew!" Huntress said angrily. "Catwoman, we should move the black market stuff now-"
"The League is going to be moving the portal to our world, but if Lord Superman gets away, this is the first place he'll look," Batman said, "so you should spread the word and get as many people as possible who are left in the city out of it. We don't intend to let him get away this time, but if we do and he comes after Gotham again…" He gestured to the ruined buildings and cracked streets.
"Be prepared and minimize the civilian casualties, hmmm?" Catwoman murmured. "Just like he used to be… Huntress, Spoils, get the word out," she ordered sharply. "Go. Head west, do not head for Bludhaven!"
"Why not Bludhaven?" Batgirl asked.
Catwoman shooed Huntress and Steph away before turning back to him, arms folded. "Well, you're keeping up your end of the bargain, marching off to fight Lord Superman and everything," she said, tapping her fingers. "So I suppose I'll tell you that the last I heard, the Rebellion was in Bludhaven now. I don't know exactly where, but trust me…" She nodded at Batgirl. "Once you're there, Oracle will find you."
"Bludhaven's close enough that we can get there ourselves to make contact," Batman said, looking at Jordan. "Go to DC. I know you want to be there to back up Flash. Do not say anything about Bludhaven."
"Gotcha," Jordan said, tapping his ear before flying off in a burst of green light. Batgirl and Robin pulled out their grapple guns.
"Thank you," Batman said, looking back to Catwoman, who was suddenly standing very close.
"Don't mention it," she purred, laying a hand on his shoulder and leaning up to press her lips to his. She even tastes the same, he caught himself thinking before she pulled away and whispered, "just put him down for good this time." She patted his shoulder before brushing past him, heading through the roof access door that Huntress and Steph had disappeared down.
"You think she misses this world's Batman?" Robin said. Batman ignored him, and the way Batgirl laughed, focused on finding a relatively stable-looking building and grappling away.
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I shipped Bruce and Selina pretty hard in the first couple seasons of B:TAS and baby Bruce and Selina are easily my favourite part of the TV show Gotham, so I hope if Catwoman ever appears in Young Justice that it treats her well.
Also, Wonder Woman isn't coming out here in Japan until August, so I'm begging everybody that can go see it on June 2nd to please do so. Regardless of the film's quality (although… it looks like it might be decent?) it can't be allowed to fail. It's barely being promoted because it's a female-led superhero movie with a female director and if it fails, that's more justification for "see? Superhero movies about women fail!" (Funny how nobody claimed that superhero movies about men can't succeed because of Green Lantern…) and "see? Women can't direct!" and other bullshit of that kidney. Show these bastards that they're losing out on big money by not making more superhero movies about women (and non-white women at that!).