This time they did fight until the death; as I'd feared. There'd been women/children among them too. They'd proven no less dangerous than their adult male counterparts. Yet I'd done the job at this point to counter my brother's actions. The last shots were fired off...and the last of the War enslaved mob fell dead in the body covered street. My armor and blade were covered in blood/gore. It had been another massacre of its own kind; and no doubt the sons of war would spin this to their advantage. I had no doubt that Sam Lane was a SOW; Lucy likely as well. And the membership was growing; even more so now. No superheroes had showed up either; either to assist/resist me. That proved brother's sway over even them was working too. Superheroes would continue to be held in a negative light; and that light would grow in the days/weeks ahead.

I could now see plainly what needed to happen; and it was the only way to prevent escalation or worse.

The cops thanked me for my "divine intervention". Order had been restored, but at a hell of a price. I was glad they were okay; honestly I tended to see our nation's protectors/rescuers as the truest of citizens. Despite the horrors of what had just happened knowing that they were safe made me feel all the better. That surely wasn't a popular view; but it was a damned honest one.

I flew off.

XXX

I stayed pretty much on the WP over the remaining months until the fateful election; we hovered above DC. I'd seen it clearly when I had been at the NYC mob attack. After those last bodies fell it became clear - and not just in the way that brother controlled hell's gates. It was more than that. If I just...backed off...it would pave the way for Lex to win the election and give brother what he sought for his latest insane goals - and all without further escalation. The mob violence dropped off right away after I stopped intervening; shocker.

I didn't even go to Clark/Superman's funerals; I'd simply dropped off the grid after my NYC revelation. In essence I'd relinquished my JL leadership role. I was Olympian; that's all that mattered to me now. The league didn't reach out to me, and they did nothing to fight the purge going on behind the scenes. Public sentiment remained against them and very much against me. As for the nation's protectors they damned near revered me; but that had always been true. Civilians and warriors would never truly understand each other; mother had even said that back in the day. She was right, as usual. We would just keep putting our sword/armor and fight on anyway whether they liked it or not.

In this case it would be about not fighting. Strange as that sounded that was the only way to win this for now. At least until something in the situation changed; and I didn't see that happening anytime soon.

It was the night of the election... Predictably, Lex won by a landslide; along with his new flotus "Hera Newman". Lex's victory speech was what you might have thought - he was the true hero of the world and so on. He again denounced the superhero community and vowed to ban us all. He didn't say anything about removing most nonwhites from the nation but he didn't have to. It would all happen soon enough. The WP had run social simulations on that but it didn't have to for me to see the writing on the wall. Brother would escalate minority violence again not long after inauguration; this would build up the SOW ranks; once that was done brother would use Lex to "legally" remove them all from the hemisphere by any means needed.

And unlike in wars past, notably WW2, brother wouldn't kill races unless he had to. He'd relocate the vast majority of them to their countries of ancestral origin. They would all go no matter what to somewhere else. Lex would ultimately federalize all relevant units to make this happen. It would become permanent martial law.

This would in turn prompt the superheroes to fight him. And this was where the real clincher would take place... I would have to stand between them and Lex. I would have to protect Lex and his evil agenda...or else brother, even allying with brother Hades, would ravage the world and make the national purge resemble the worst of jokes by comparison.

I might have to fight/kill fellow superheroes in the process. Brother had proven his mastery in all things war yet again. This wasn't over...but it was going to get much darker before the end.