137
Legal disclaimer: I tend to liberally "burrow" character profiles and art from the Earth-27 wikia created by Roy Westerman. This the single most comprehensive retelling of all things DC and beyond I have encountered. In short, it's worth your time to explore.
That having been said, the properties, and their variations belong to DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Entertainment, and its parent AT&T, with two notable exceptions. More on that in the footnote. I do not own DC characters or their interpretations and reimaginings. My own characters are implied Public Domain since I have not included a copyright notice as required by the 1974 revisions of the copyright statutes and regulations. While an intellectual copyright is implied without the due symbols and language, all such considerations are voided under CC-BY-SAgoverning fanfiction unless duly noted otherwise
Art by Martina Havlikova
URL: martinahavlikova84 | Pixabay
Martina takes commissions as well as offering free samples of her work for royalty-free individual and commercial purposes. 3D art is plentiful on Pixabay as demonstrated by the cover of the Dark Lord depicting the Evil Queen and other DCAU Anthology stories. Rather than worry about legal issues revolving around copyrights, I have shifted to using a majority of images from Pixabay. I commissioned Martina to create a 2D variant of that specific image to my specifications. And I commend her results. As part of the commission, I retain all digital rights to the image.
Karen Starr had just received the shock of her life. It was a text from someone who should not be on the planet much less using a prepaid phone. Especially when they didn't have the coin of any realm on Earth. Karen made her excuses at her tech company, Starrware, and went to the bunker-like closet atop the highest floor.
Karen Starr had begun life as the rather more infamous Galatea Hamilton.
But Karen had been born on paper after Galatea became Power Girl and earned some respectability. Now Karen was one of the 1% and Power Girl had left the Justice League to rejoin the Justice Society. But her current crisis was the text. It gave the coordinates to a location and request to travel there.
Karen had pilfered the Fortress of Solitude. Kelex, the caretaking AI, scanned her DNA and believed Power Girl was the former Supergirl, Kara In-Ze Ferris-Rayner. So Power Girl stole a Kryptonian armor resembling her Power Girl costume. And Kelex even personalized the cape clasp to read "PG" when he fitted it. Which made her suspect she'd never fooled him.
Power Girl landed atop a bustling London pub. She replaced her doffed pants and blouse but kept her armor on underneath. Then she floated down into the alley beside the establishment and entered in. There she found Kalea-El having a pint of the bitter. Which was ludicrous on so many levels. Only two people on Earth were wanted by every nation to prosecute quickly and execute slowly. US President Lex Luthor was one. Kalea was the other. Bear in mind she'd masterminded an invasion for the sole purpose of capturing her father and torture him until he died. Which Kal-El, known as Superman[, had very nearly expired if Galatea hadn't rescued him.
Karen sat beside Superman and Maxima's eldest daughter, "What are you doing here?"
"Having a pint. It's rather good," Kalea snarked, "I own this tavern. So you and I drink for free."
"How did you buy anything?" Karen wondered.
Kalea showed her a handful of gold coins. Almeracian gold coins, "The assayer had never seen a pouch of such pure gold. He estimated it was 100% pure. Which they are. We don't have your limitations regarding smelting."
Karen thought Kalea was just a little too smug,
"Ree-lax you and I have gotten out of more hostile place than London," Kalea was dismissive.
"So why you here? Really?" Karen asked.
"I'm here chasing meta traffickers," Kalea said.
"You want to rescue the…?" Karen prompted.
"Rescue is a secondary concern. These kids are being weaponized. Weapons aimed at both our worlds," Kalea shared.
"Who are you you working for?" Karen was leery.
"The High Tribunal's Ministry of Justice. I just want them to face their day on trial," Kalea DIDN'T remark on how it was the Dept. of Executions that sent her off of Almerac.
But Karen bought it, "I'm in."
"Good. But no one else yet," Kalea stipulated.
"That'll piss your mom off and anger your dad," Karen warned.
"Good for my mom and 'Superman' has never been my father," Kalea was irritable. But mainly because she would have to call in addition help. Help that could track down Saturn Queen. The real perpetrator behind these crimes.
Karen could understand being pissed off at Clark Kent, in any guise.
Kalea took another pull, "Damn! This is good. I'll have to steal some kegs from my own inventory before I leave."
"So where are you living?" Karen ordered a shot of whiskey and a bottle. "Your mom said you'd vanished. She suspected foul play."
Kalea snorted, "Just because no one expects the former Crown Princess to slum in the ghetto."
"And when did you hair go black? I love the magenta highlights, by the way," Karen inquired.
"It's been darkening since I turned six," Kalea returned to drinking.
Which thanks to Almeracians' crazy growth spurt, meant she was six three years ago. And Maxima was twenty-nine with a grown daughter.
"Who are we up against?" Karen asked.
"Saturn Queen and a horde of pirates she assembled," Kalea was nonchalant.
"Gawd, Kalea. You can't just assemble an army to go after her like sensible folks?" Karen groaned.
"No fun in that," Kalea pouted before her mood shifted, "Ready to fight bad guys?"
"And just who are they?" Karen inquired.
"Kay, they're all bad. People suck so I kill them," Kalea answered, "These pirates worship the woman that launched an invasion of my planet and empire that killed two billion, give or take, of my people and nearly broke our infrastructure beyond recovery. They need to die and Saturn Queen needs to undergo the torments of the damned."
"But the Tribunal didn't give you that authority," Karen thought she'd understood Kalea.
"Which is too bad," Kalea seemed remorseful. But she was an expert liar that could beat Karen's super senses, "Look, I'll go through any obstacle to resolve my caseload. You stand the only chance of stopping me and I'll kill you just as much look at you. Besties or not."
Kalea turned towards the barkeeper, "Bag of chips?"
"You hear that?" Karen asked.
"`Course," Kalea received her bag of chips and began eating away, "I have got to get a deep fryer and start a potato farm."
"They here for you?" Karen grated.
"Most definitely," Kalea grinned.
"Dammit! You never say anything," Karen fumed.
"I never have to. It's always obvious," Kalea shrugged.
Karen went to the restroom and shrugged out of her business attire. Looking through the door she discovered why Kalea had every inch of her body covered replete with gloves. The artificial flesh of her right arm, left leg and leg had been burned away. And Power Girl was horrified to see scars crisscross every organic portion of Kalea's body except her neck and face.
Given Kalea's dual Kryptonian-Almeracian physiology the fact scars could even be inflicted at all was as horrifying as it was impressive. Especially since some scars were layered upon one another.
"Enjoy the view?" Kalea smirked. Power Girl had forgotten natives from Almerac could sense her X-Ray Vision upon them.
"What happened?" Power Girl asked quietly.
"Not. Talking. `Bout. It," Kalea was emphatic.
The front doors and part of the walls blow inward. Power Girl waved away the plaster and sheet rock dust, "Friends of yours?"
"That'd be an unequivocal 'no'." Kalea scowled, "They're gonna bust up my pub. It's the only thing I've ever owned."
Power Girl could hear the loss in her voice. Kalea had obviously been on Earth a few months. It had been three to be precise. But that reasoning had more to do than with her assignment. Which Power Girl had fathomed Kalea's employers hired her on a contractual basis and it probably wasn't just the High Tribunal doing so. Power Girl had learned about Almerac while working with Kalea to invade Kandor.
Kalea and Power Girl simply stood by while the explosion cleared. The patrons did the duck and cover, lost bladder control, and went out the back in a stampede..
"We should've told them people will be waiting back there," Power Girl lamented.
"These pirates are human. Handed over to the Dominators as the price of peace. They may hate EarthGov but they don't have a fight with the masses," Kalea predicted.
"Undead or alive, you're coming with us," Corsair Queen demanded, "Or, hey, a third option. In really small pieces we can stuff in a bag. A really small one."
Kalea and Power Girl were laughing, "That's the best you got?"
"Grr," the duo's super hearing picked up.
"Finally. She's mad. Which equals sloppy," Kalea was happy.
"I do love how you phased the interior of this latest castle and choosing to leave Dresden for Heidelberg. I do so love the native beer," Saturn Queen boasted.
"And I don't appreciate the intrusion of my mirror state," the Evil Queen warned, "Why are you here and why didn't any of my telepathically sensitive servants warn me?"
"I'm all that and more," Eve Aries flat out antagonized Renfri.
Every servant in castle dropped dead as the Evil Queen absorbed their life energies.
"A tad theatrical," Saturn Queen complained.
"You threw four planetary civilizations at Almerac. That's a flair for idiocy," Renfri retorted.
"So...we won't be friends. But we can still be allies," Saturn Queen offered, "If you're interested in something like that in our brand new universe."
"I have to admit riding out the death of the Multiverse was fun," Renfri smirked, "But it rallied Twelve Reams of Existence against me. Snow White and Rose Red retook the Realm of Fables from me. And I lost Wonderland, Oz, and Neverland. And the wretched Greater Courts managed to survive my genocide."
"Yet you're Sidhe, Unseelie Court if I'm well informed. Killing your entire race and all related to it takes serious conviction," Saturn Queen admitted.
"To be fair, they provoked me by placing a death mark on my name. Any mention of my name revealed my location to the Hunt Pack. So I went on the offensive," the Evil Queen didn't mention how she murdered her way into Snow White's throne.
"I have a proposition," Saturn Queen revealed.
"You can't afford me," the Evil Queen laughed.
"You help and in exchange I tell you all about the planet Balduur where Glorith is camped out with her lover, M'Onel. Interested now?" Saturn Queen inquired.
"Talk to me," Renfri didn't hesitate.
"And I'll give you the information before I ask you to help in a task," Saturn Queen offered.
"Done and done," Renfri excitedly agreed. And both Queens wore equally evil smiles.
Power Girl was blown through the buildings and a wall. She stayed in the wall with her breasts smoking, "Holy shit. That actually hurt."
And the pirates had brought two portable cannons. With a thirty second recharge cycle. She heard one fire again and blow Kalea some distance.
Power Girl went airborne. The pirates were treating Kalea as the greater threat. And just judging by the dozen or so bodies Kalea had dropped versus Power Girl's none, she saw their point.
But that doubled the number of cannons being brought to bear on Kalea-El. And brighter than daylight flashes and resultant explosions made Karen wonder how her friend was surviving. So she red flagged help. Not the JSA but family.
Superman helped Maxima fly along with Supergirl, the second one. So Kara would be missing out. Only if attempted murder were a cause for a family reunion. With Power Girl having been made an honorary JSA Founder, Superman finally had respect for her.
"Karen, how can we assist?" Superman asked.
Explosions ripped through the afternoon. Supergirl thumbed in that direction, "Best guess?"
"Those are Khund portable cannons. Who's the wretched soul on the receiving end?" Maxima inquired.
"Kalea," Power Girl revealed at last, "She's on Earth tracking meta traffickers."
"Who authorized her?" Maxima asked.
"The High Tribunal," Power Girl answered.
Maxima held her tongue. The Tribunal didn't send out agents. But various departments did. And Kalea-El was a perfect fit for the Dept. of Executions. And executioners were freelance, beholden to no rules. Basically, skip tracers who terminated their quarry.
"I'm going to my daughter. Now!" Maxima declared.
"I'll guide you," Superman offered.
"Thank you, Kal," Maxima was intimately grateful.
Kal? Kryptonians only dropped their House names with those closest they enjoyed intimacy with . So when did Kal-El and Maxima turn that corner?
"You're with me," Power Girl offered Supergirl.
"Glad to be noticed," Linda Danvers sighed.
Yrina, the self-styled Corsair Queen, screamed with fury as Superman destroyed by Khund heavy weapons by slicing them in half with his Heat Vision. That power being stronger than Power Girl's or Kalea's. And Maxima and Supergirl entirely lacked altogether. And it came as a great surprise to Yrina because Power Girl had shown strategic restraint and Kalea superhuman restraint. Her usual response was decidedly lethal and Heat Vision in the arsenal.
Yrina broke out crystal resonance rifles from Almerac. Which everyone was vulnerable to. But Superman and Power Girl had greater resistance to. Actually, no one know how Supergirl's new, human body would react. Despite the extreme agonies that the rifles subjected Superman, Power Girl, and Kalea too, or the indignity of Kalea being nude after Khund weapon strikes, they pressed the attack. Supergirl's psionic shields helped protect her. And Maxima had surprise on her side.
"Empress Maxima!" Yrina snarled.
"Just Maxima these days," Maxima advised.
"I still owe you for that death sentence," Yrina threatened.
"And I still mean to collect your head," Maxima warned.
Supergirl was surprised that Kalea had rigged up a burlap poncho replete with a rope belt. Kalea spotted the glyph on Supergirl's chest, "Why are you wearing the crest of the House of Var?"
"You know it?" Supergirl was surprised.
"I did hard time on Argo," Kalea replied, "Both of my parents intended for my exile there to be a death sentence."
Kalea wasn't bitter but she was still angry and felt hatred for both of them. She'd steered Maxima in the road to reforms, abdication, Earth, and execution. And she felt that way towards Kal-El. She'd paid rapturous attention when Power Girl had described killing Lord Superman single-handedly. And practicing to do the same to Superman.
Kalea and Supergirl returned to the fight to find it over. Kalea called out to Maxima, "I need her alive."
"You're the voice of restraint?" her father was startled.
"Mother can eviscerate her for all I care after I water board her for several days. And if you're wondering about her species' pain tolerance, it'll be boiling water," Kalea warned everyone, "And you all will let me do this my way."
Power Girl pulled Superman and Maxima aside while Supergirl guarded the prisoner. Karen reminded them of Kalea's legal status. Maxima interrupted, "The High Tribunal dispatches agents from the Ministry of Execution. Kalea may want answers but Yrina will not survive the interrogation."
"Not quite, I'm not sorry to say," the Evil Queen announced, "Oh, how deliciously rude, I lacked an opening intro."
"Are you an elf?" Supergirl asked what she, Power Girl, and Superman were all wondering.
"Pfft! Nothing so lowly. I'm a sidhe of the Unseelie court of Faery," she told them, "You can refer to me as the Evil Queen, or simply your Majesty."
Supergirl was admiring Renfri's deep violet eyes. Using her magic, the Queen forced everyone else on their knees.
"Now, you show promise," the Evil Queen chucked Supergirl underneath her chin. Linda Danvers, Satanist and sacrifice to a Fallen Angel, thrilled at being noticed. Matrix' psyche was beaten into submission and Linda was in control.
"I just beg you to notice me," Linda made her desire plain.
"Done," all the pirates and Linda vanished a swirling whiff of violet smoke. The Evil Queen held the others at bay, and in an humiliating stance and helplessness, "Just a fair warning, I've conquered Twenty Realms of Existence and have outright seized Twelve of them. I'm here scouting out beachfront property. I get irked when people interfere with my zoning plans. And I have the raw power to make Arizona ocean side."
"Oh. And a parting gift to me," Renfri siphoned life essence from the four of them. Not enough to kill them but enough to to neutralize their power for a time. Power Girl, Superman, and to a degree Kalea had an advantage over Maxima. They could recharge directly from the sun.
"Now, I'm off to bake some apple cobbler," the Evil Queen laughed as she whiffed away.
"I'm getting some damn pants," Kalea began to walk because she couldn't fly or super speed run. And her knee high boots had survived, minimizing the outre nature of her cybernetic legs. As her right arm was also exposed, that left her right eye still discreetly artificial. Everyone else just caught up and kept pace.
"What a perfectly desolate place," the Evil Queen complimented the sands of Dubai, "And here I thought my wasteland around the Castle of the Blackest Heart was a life sucking bitch. But does it have to be so infernally bright?"
A freighter lifted and headed into space. Renfri asked the obvious question, "Doesn't anyone notice that?"
Yrina answered "We pay the Emir rather handsomely to deter local interest. The United Emirates have spun a fable to distract the world powers."
"Fable," Renfri giggled.
"And who are you to interfere with my business?" Capt. Alicia Frake demanded to know."
"Saturn Queen traded a favor to watch over you incompetents," the Evil Queen goaded Frake and the Asteroid Witch.
"Incompetent?" Asteroid Witch took the bait and a Near Earth Asteroid shifted out orbit and headed towards Earth.
"Over compensating much?" the Evil Queen gestured and the asteroid appeared nearby in the sand, "Generally it's an idea to be off the world you've triggered an extinction level event.
Asteroid Witch stormed off. Yrina hadn't had this much fun since arriving. Frake pointed at Linda, "And frackin' Supergirl?"
"I made a friend," Renfri shrugged. Linda was sizing up her competitors.
Frake was beginning to hate the Faery with a facial tattoo on her left side.
"And just who are you?" Frake asked.
"The Evil Queen," she conjured fruit, "Apple?"
"You're serious," Frake realized.
"Rarely, but I've made several exceptions today," Renfri confessed.
"And you're a…?" Frake couldn't place her species.
"A Sidhe of the Unseelie Court. Think of me as deriving from the uppermost echelons of Faery," the Evil Queen stated.
"You're a myth," Frake was disappointed.
Another gesture brought the freighter back, "Hmm. Yes, completely mythical."
"Alicia, we could use her. And her wit. She laughed at Superman's brood while humiliating them. And she seduced Supergirl by just arriving," Yrina described it.
"Seduction being a metaphor. And her species is possibly more complex than mine," Renfri applied some definitions, "But not as powerful as mine."
"You have a resume?" Frake asked.
The Evil Queen thought it best to describe her work, especially in creating wraiths. And conquering or in the process of conquering Realm after Realm, "Now if I were to be completely humble, Saturn Queen made the right deal with exactly the right person while she's distracted."
"That's humble?" Frake denied the term.
"I have an infinite lifespan. The total details would age you into death," the Evil Queen shrugged.
"Let's make the introductions," Frake brought them to an irritable woman and a reconciliator, "This is Tara and our coordinator, Margo Hess."
Next was a redhead with ankle length hair, "Hi, I'm Spider Queen. But I'm really Sussa Paka. Call me Sussa."
Sussa prehensile hair lifted to shake hands. Renfri ignored it, "Sorry your Grabbiness, no one can touch me without my setting up defensive wards on the person. Otherwise they die. Helluva defensive weapon. Considering how temporary the time constraint is, it's best reserved for sex."
"Right," Frake deadpanned, "This Zaora and Xanna. Zaora is Kryptonian and Xanna is Almerac's exiled Minister of Execution."
They decomposed in front of Frake's eyes and the Evil Queen looked satisfied, "Yum."
"Ooh, who are they?" the Evil Queen was famished. Five hundred Kandorians met Xanna and Zaora's fate, "The Queen pointed at Tara, "You're welcome."
After Tara died, Frake had to ask, "How? Why?"
"How is I drain their life essence to boost my own considerable power. And why? Did you see their faces? You were one step from a mutiny. And they had you seriously outgunnd."
"Can you reverse it?" Frake asked.
"Nope," Renfri was quite chipper about it.
Frake went to throttle Renfri, "Ah, ah. Do you even recall my grabby lecture?"
Frake grabbed a passing pirate and threw him against the Evil Queen. He died scraming, "I'm the Evil Queen. Not a Princess of Ill Intent. But I have been referred to as the Duchess of Ill Repute."
Renfri's quirkiness made her admirers and enemies at the same moment, "I have the potential, usually realized, to be the greatest sorceress in all time."
"What do you call Glorith?" Sussa inquired with some interest.
"A fluke," Renfri was dismissive.
"She says she has two great magical evils to overcome," Sussa pressed harder.
"Then she should've learned to tie her shoelaces as a child instead clomping around in this awful boots all the time, It would've taught her patience for the long game," the Evil Queen was churlish.
And everyone knew who one evil was. It was in her name.
"Let's roll," Renfri commanded, "Superstud and tbe planet's trained Metas need distracting. Yrina, returned to the Uralian Pirate Fleet and make a menacing approach," the Evil Queen decided.
"How menacing?" the Corsair Queen sought clarification.
"Kill anyone tha approaches you," the Evil Queen gleefully instructed, "Now, they'll still throw bodies at our efforts. Who are the bad ass brutes to throw right back?"
"I have a few candidates," Frake responded.
"Anyone else on the menu?" Renfri inquired, "No? Let's get it done, then."
"I received word from Col. Trevor and Sue, a hostile fleet has approached past lunar orbit. The idea is to intercept at the Lagrange Point," Superman announced, "Kalea, Karen has arranged for help from the Justice Society. They know you here to assist so they won't apprehend you."
Kalea emerged from her flat's single bedroom, "As if they could."
"That's some pretty extensive body armor."
"And it means jack again a serious attack," Kalea retorted, "And no, we're discussing what happened to or how many times. Let's just say several stellar powers have hard ons revolving torturing me to death. Which actually has happened seven times already."
"Why didn't you reach out" Maxima was horrified.
"Because you already should have known," Kalea snapped, "But, once more I was sent out to die and everyone applauds when I return wishing I hadn't. I'm the face of the imperial war machine and I take the brunt of what everyone wants to do to Almerac."
Kalea almost spat at Maxima, "You never wanted to know what I did during four wars. And you didn't want to either. When the accusation around atrocities and genocidal campaigns, you needed your precious plausible deniability, and honestly, you didn't care that put the emitter blaster at my head and not yours."
"Then I guess I'm warning you having a younger sister by Kal-El and I," Maxima told her.
"Goddammit! It can't always be about you. They frackin' sterilized me after mutilating my clit. Sex is excruciating for me. The one time I tried I threw my 'partner' through the bulkhead and curled into a ball for a week. Congrats! That's the price of your victories. And by the goddess, victory wasn't worth it. So I wish to hell you'd lost and they'd taken you instead. And they could've ripped your cybernetics out."
Kalea turned to Power Girl, "Coming?"
They flew away to Kalea's chosen staging area. Maxima's horror knew no extreme, "Is she right?"
"She'll get over it," Superman suggested.
"No, Kalea never let's go of anything. Her belief in my superiority to accomplish lasting reforms is the only reason she protected me. Kal, she killed the only person she ever loved to insure my reign. She'll be assured of my guilt in everything that's happened to her. You absolutely cannot tell her we're moving to Raan. And she's right. I never asked and I never pulled her back. She killed planetary populations in my name. And literally bathed in warlords' blood. She thinks I don't know. But I felt she was justified. Millions of Almeracens died so I wouldn't marry Ultraa. And every choice was to throw Kalea at a problem. Every stratagem and every loss our people endured were on her. Because I was too great a coward to assume responsibility."
"You're scared.," he couldn't imagine being frightened of Kara.
"You should be even more terrified than me. That vitriol you just heard? She hates you on a level I can never reach. If she learns where we moved to, she'll crack the planet open. She's done it before."
"Great Rao, who is she?" Superman asked.
"The most brutally effective mass murderer in known space," Maxima was finally honest, "And Almerac, in its wisdom, gave her a job indulging her gifts. Because, honestly, watching her as a force of unrestricted murder is a thing of beauty."
Now Superman was horrified of Maxima. But he rembered their first eventful meeting. In his mind he'd dubbed her the "Warrior Queen". Maxima had eased up but at her core she was still that conquering empress, always waging war somewhere.
"Um...Max? You may have let the secret slip," Superman pointed at a dot on a desk. She examined it to discover it was a micro transceiver. Somewhere else their was a reciver recording every conversation in the room.
"Damn it all to hell," Maxima crushed the bug, "Let's just leave and take precautions when we reach Raan."
Frake enlisted the Fourth Reich into assisting The Evil Queen's inherited goals. Ultimately, the Reich obeyed the Masked Leader, who was in actuality Adolf Hitler who had been made gen active in the days of the war. Experiments made upon Ace of Blades had unlocked Captain Nazi's power, uncharted regenerative capacities, and from them, immortality.
The Masked Leader used his remaining regeneration serum to restore Baron Blitzkrieg to his prime. And erased the burn scars that had created the need for the procedures that made him a meta-human. Hitler had one last sample of the super-soldier serum as well
Baron Blitzkrieg was a tenacious operative but he wasn't effective in field command. Baron Blitzkrieg served best as a spy and investigator. He alone had carried Hitler's secret since the escape from Berlin.
That fell upon the Scarlet Skull. Unenhanced, the Scarlet Skull led over comms and stolen access to spy satellites and field reports from the rest of the Fourth Reich. The Masked Leader directed ideology and funding. He brought order to the operation's chaos and cohesiveness where there was division. But he did the exact opposite to the enemy.
Thanks to the Masked Leader, as enforced by the Scarlet Skull and Baron Blitzkrieg, the Fourth Reich saw themselves as being on a war footing rather than being terrorists. But there was a limit to how soldiery the Nazis would be.
"You have to understand, while MLJ Initiative is a global crimefighting organization, our role as instructors leaves us operating in the domestic theater a great deal of the rime. The Justice Society has traditionally been a domestic entity," Alan Scott, once more identified as Green Lantern, explained.
"Karen told me about how you pussied out your Second World War," Kalea snorted.
"Look, snot nose, the entire planet has orders ta arrest yer head. We're ignorin' that as a courtesy. So keep tha' shit ta yerself," Wildcat grated.
"Him I like," Kalea replied.
"I'm touched," Wildcat grumbled.
But the JSA did have jurisdictional leeway to operate internationally unlike the MLJ's principle agents, the Mighty Crusaders and Shadow Crusaders, Seen by foreign governments as enforcers of domestic policies. And solely domestic policy as dictated by Pres. Lex Luthor.
"I'm sure you're all remotely competent. Let's just get this over with and walk away from each other," Kalea agitated the JSAers again.
"Kalea," Power Girl growled a warning.
"She's right," Jay Garrick, the original Flash, agreed, "She's a wanted war criminal. There's no reason to be friends but we're necessary evils."
"Just show us in the right direction," Hippolyta, former queen of the Amazons and the original Wonder Woman requested.
"That's problematic. I haven't tracked down the central base and their launch craft are invisible to your detection tech," Kalea explained, "But I recently learned how to track down their airships that deliver collection crews. We detect them kidnapping metas and we then track them back to the source."
"It isn't a perfect plan but it's doable," Mr. Terrific assessed the viability of the concept.
"But our principle goal is to insure no more victims are taken," Hourman decided.
"Wrong," Sandman interrupted, "Our principle goal is to deal with this Evil Queen."
"He's right," Sand shared his mentor's curse of prophetic dreams and visions.
"Upon learning of this mission, I contacted the Shrike Queen's envoy at the Thanagarian embassy. Kalea is working for Almerac's Ministry of Executions," Hippolyta announced, "She doesn't care about the victims."
"I don't want them leaving this planet. And I want a list of buyers to track the others down. Weaponizing these kids is as much a threat to my world as it is to your," Kalea was angry. Which was her default, "They have destinations. Plural."
And the cyborg was unnerved by the fact her prosthetic eye couldn't detect Mr. Terrific.
"Look! You want it and I walk. But Almerac will roll heads," Kalea offered. Green Lantern, the Flash and the other JSAer Founders did the same.
"We need her!" Power Girl snapped.
"Look, kiddo. We all know ye got a soft spot fer the psycho. But maybe she's just too much trouble," Wildcat was speaking as Ted Grant, multi-heavyweight and Meta-Human Brawl champions. And the trainer of the Justice League's membership while waiting for the Justice Society's regroupinmg two decades after returning from Surtr's Limbo/Niffelheim.
"Karen makes a valid point," Hippolyta shared, "Kalea-El has invaluable intelligence to offer."
"So we get it and kiss her farewell," Mt. Terrific offered.
"You have no idea of what that woman has endured," Karen argued.
"She's right," Sand confirmed, "She's undergone the vilest torture and mutilation imaginable."
"My god!" Mr. Terrific's T-Sphere displayed Kalea washing blood off since the condemned MI-6 building still inexplicably had utilities, "Look at those scars. Her breasts have repeatedly been cut off and reattached. I can't even describe what's happened to her genitalia."
"It was worse watching it," Sand admitted.
And the entire Justice Society knew Sand's visions, like Sandman's, pointed at where to pursue justice. Sandman nodded his agreement, "It's obvious we need to work beside Kalea-El.
Power Girl knew Anna Fortune, Atom Smasher, and Stargirl would protest. Fortunately, Courtney was assisting Anna and Al plan their wedding And in a strange former love triangle twist way, Billy Batson was there to assist Court. Anna laughed at the friction between the men. She also threatened to turn either or both of them into newts if they spoiled the final planning,
Elizabeth Svelana, the newest Dr. Fate weighed in with Sand and Sandman,
"I guess I'll be trusting our Sandmen," Hourman decided. Rex Tyler was a man of science and recognized magic followed its own set of rules. Hawkman had lifetimes to lean to trust seers, Unlike Carter Hall, Kendra Saunders had just begun to recall her past lives. And Hawkgirt resented the hell out of Hawkman because in every life she'd wanted him while he'd wanted Shayera Hol.
But the circle was broken. The sorcerer was dead and wouldn't reincarnate. Shayera was married to John Stewart and freed from the cycle's desire towards Carter. Carter was freed as well. Kendra didn't know her place anymore and wanted to explore her options. Carter respected that but unintentionally pressured Kendra to choose him.
"So where to proceed from and to?" Green Lantern asked.
"We're in luck, four air skimmers appeared new for locations," Kalea handed the Founders (Plus) map emitting ball bearings.
"Divvy your team up but remember, time is not on our side," Kalea advised.
One of the four JSA teams deployed to a bright and sunny Russian Far East. Specifically the major port city of Vladivostok. The Russian's had built their meta academy on the uninhabited Shkot Island. Just over two miles long, the island was within the Peter the Great Gulf but remote enough to secure privacy for the gen latent cadets while scientists mapped their meta-genes and the secret of unlocking it's potential.
Once the children were gen active they were sent to a training academy. Research into LuthorCorp styled Everyman Project artificial meta genes were also underway.
LexCorp had initiated the original Everyman Project which yielded the corporate embarrassments called Infinity, Inc. The Infinitors had very unstable meta-genes grafted into them. The high profile death of Trajectory had only tarnished the group's reputation despite Trajectory having joined the Justice League.
But it recently was discovered Eliza Harmon had merged with the Speed Force and establishing a connection with it stabilized Trajectory's faulty meta-gene. And augmented her powers.
The Russians were attempting to replicate LuthorCorp's initial success with the Retaliators. With the demise of baseline Retaliators and disappearance of Major Max, Mercy Graves 2.0 sought to repeat individual successes such and American Crusader and Ladybug while killed the genetic line of the rest. Now Mercy had delivered Infinity3 to Lena Luthor. Training was underway before a public revelation happened.
The Russians were more cautious, an oddity in Russian science. Still, it produced the Rocket Red Brigade, one of the finest technical achievements on the planet.
Trial runs of injecting artificial meta-genes were underway, each with pre-coded activation triggers. Conventional gen factor activations were underway as well. The Russian program was so successful rival nations felt threatened, including the United States which was dominating the field in raw number of gen actives.
All three of the other three target sits were locations for regional gen activating sites. Frake's crew was underway stunning pre-teen children and hauling them into a drop harness used by planetary space jumpers. Presumably a larger craft would be doing then collected. Dr. Fate's teleportation spell brought the JSA in close enough to see the Fourth Reich providing security. Either the Scarlet Skull or the long-rumored Masked Leader having authorized the team's participation. The JSAers called targets and moved in to engage.
Power Girl power dove at Satan Girl. Karen could still hardly recognize the former Kryptonian redhead. The demons possessing her had reworked her DNA. Satan Girl now had raven hair, horns atop her head, red skin, and a prehensile tail. With re-imagined Kryptonian powers as well.
At that moment, Satan Girl was barraging Russian State Security agents with hellfire using her Infernal Vision. But the cadets were being hunted by their would-be captors. And like the remainder of Fourth Reich, Satan Girl was marvelously situated to block Power Girl's rescue. So it meant a fight. And the former Galatea had never, ever backed down. Even when doing so was to her detriment.
Half-Man was a cyborg dating back to 1945 ala the future Tharok. Dr. Demon had upgraded his components and reinforced his organics via nanotech. But those organics were still 116 years old as of 2009. His body had literally begun to decompose. But Dr. Demon had proposed a radical procedure: a brain transplant. The Ultra-Humanite had pioneered and mastered the technique. And Dr. Demon felt she'd mastered his early black market notes to compensate for her lack of advanced procedural knowledge.
It was a radical departure for an Aryanist for Half-Man to suggest his mind be transplanted into Michael Holt. Because Mr. Terrific would be considered sub-human by white supremacists on a good day. Only Jews rated at the bottom of sub-humanity but Africans and Arabs weren't much further above them. And the Slavic peoples still faced subjecation and eternal subservience while the hundreds pf African and Asian peoples would be exterminated. The Turkic and Indian peoples would be exterminated. The Native Americans would eradicated, throughout the Americas. The European settlers North through South American would be enslaved and become subject peoples. This was the Masked Leader's vision for the world, slightly adjusted and revised following his ignominious defeat in 1945. And even Hitler admitted he'd deserved to be beaten. But he equally blamed the German people.
Half-Man's photoreceptive digital eye couldn't detect Mr. Terrific. But his organic eye, failing though it was, could blurrily see Michael Holt. But the man's T-Spheres registered. Half-Man deployed his weapons ports and began blasting away at them faster than Mr. Terrific could teleport new ones in.
Mr. Terrific attempted to overpower Half-Man to end the mechanical carnage. And his discovered the nanite reinforcements lacing Hal-Man's natural body. They activated upon recognition of a threat and Mr. Terrific certainly qualified. The nanites had been using protein to reinforce and improve Half-Man's physical body.
His vision cleared as he caught his foe by the throat and lift him off of rocky soil.
"Oh, fick dich, Affe. Ich werde dich und euch Mischlinge jetzt beenden." Half-Man roared with renewed vigor. Michael fluently spoke a dozen languages and could manage to communicate in a dozen more and he despaired at the level of hatred and bigotry behind Half-Man's vitriol.
Daniel Maris had been born and bred to be an Acolyte of St. Dumas. A behavioral technician, he ingrained the minds of the future generations of Dumas' knights...including the Great Avenging Angel himself. So it was that Maris took the full blame when Jean-Paul Valley, despite his eugenic breeding, genetic manipulation, and mind control, defected to become one of two Agents of the Bat. Both Azrael and Talon had died only to be resurrected through arcane science.
Sister Lilhy was charged with high treason and excommunicated from the Order of St. Dumas for Azrael's return to life. Maris's technique were being employed to chose an emergency replacement to Jean-Paul. So Maris was left alive, monitored every hour of every day to consult on the "Azrael Solution". In the meantime he played out warrior fantasies. This one against Judomaster.
Hawkman had chosen the Iron Emperor as his target. "Target" being appropos since the Iron Emperor had begun as aa design series dating from 1944 to reach its latest zenith in 2009, or at least until the next design upgrade was built. The Iron Emperor series began at a looming ten feet tall. Now it dominated any area at a looming thirty feet.
The alloy utilized in the mechanoid's hull was a curious blend and fusion of titanium, steel, vanadium, cobalt and an infusion of chromium. So it was high tensile, chemically unreactive, slightly radioactive, and resistant to corrosion. Thereby negating most weakness typically found inherent in mechanical constructs.
There was a sixth ore (steel being an alloy of iron and carbon and thereby counted as two) and that third was unidentifiable by human science. Even science surpassing that of the Thirties when the meteorite was excavated in German East Afrika during the Great War for the Kaiser. In the next war, Nazi scientists would see amazonium used as weaponry. The Nazis and the Americans, often led by the British, raced around the globe to secure unclaimed, and often times claimed, deposits of this remarkable ore. Once forged and cooled, it had no weakness. The Second World War saw the discovery of dozens of ore sites by the infamous Dr. Cairo Jones. She even led the even more infamous Luftwaffe Kommando Ace of Blades into betraying Hitler.
Iron Emperor had one weapon derived from the ages old race for Amazonium: a short sword, that protruded from its "forearm". As Hawkman pitted his Nth Metal cudgel against Iron Emperor's hull, he found the damned thing nearly impossible to break.
The three original Pilotenkommandos were Valkyrie, Ace of Blades, and Baroness Blood. They were queens of the skies, able to land in any territory, and commit any act of sabotage. Valkyrie enlisted her Air Maidens in her quest to spread National Socialism by the sword. But Valkyrie earned a nemesis in the form of David "Davey" Nelson III, better known as Airboy. And as unconventional as it seemed to modern palates, the 32-year old Valkyrie (Lisollette von Schellendorf) fell in love with the 16-year old Airboy and Davey fully reciprocated her feelings. Enough so he returned with her to Berlin to play the longest stakes infiltration operation ever attempted. One that was still underway.
Ace of Blades (Katharina Schneider) also fell out love with Nazi ideals and practices. Her punishment was to condemned to Auschwitz and then Dachau to be executed in the gas chamber "showers". The problem being was that Ace of Blades had been the second German soldier given the Super-Soldat formula. She's survived her six executions before being removed to Berlin in the seige of the Red Army onslaught. There Ace of Blades was killed and revived numerous times to perfect the regeneration formula that would be given to Adolf Hitler. The problem, they discovered, was Ace of of Blades now had the same formula coursing through her veins. Super powered, virtually unkillable, and effectively immortal, she escaped the bunker as Eva Braun gave her life for her husband's insanity while he would take up with a "female" gynoid.
Baroness Blood was given a portion of the Super-Soldat formula in order to conserve the Nazis' dwindling supply. While it had an effect, it quantified as less than half of a Captain Nazi or Ace of Blades, or even the Masked Leader himself. Dr. Albrecht perfected the process after the skewed result with Captain Murder but met with full success with Madame Libertine. And then he suddenly died, taking the formula with him to his grave.
With Valkyrie all but a legend, a former helicopter pilot with the German military had been dishonorably discharged. Enraged, the Neo-Nazi put together a former Red Faction collection of terrorist veterans and second and third generation acolytes. Ideologies differed and didn't matter. Destroying the Western World did. Taking the name Valkyrie, she menaced Europe until Baron Blitzkrieg recruited her. And then she even met her idol, Lisollette, the original Valkyrie. And they instantly hated one another and neither would surrender the code-name.
The Red Knight had led the Red Faction and Neo-Nazi collaboration Valkyrie (the second one) had cobbled together on the merits of hate. He so dubbed because of his brazenly red body armor and other gear. He was thug with a thug's understanding of violence but also with enough wit and cunning to keep his followers alive...for the most part.
Jonni Thunder had wrangted the misfortune of becoming Yz the Thunderbolt. All she'd been concerned about was keeping her private investigation service operating on half the caseload after the death of her father and senior partner, John Thunder. But accidents through Divine havoc be played. And all hell routinely broke loose.
Vanguard, a flying black stallion, alighted on the sodden island bearing Sir Ystin and Maid Maleen. Ystin had born Ystina and had been the first girl to made a page in Camelot. With the death of Arthur, Merlin assumed the right to knight Ystina and call her "Ystin." Her first job was to secure the Holy Grail in such fashion it could never be recovered again. Her second task was to defend the world from its greatest peril.
Along the way, Ystin having been made immortal by the Grail, met Maid Maleen as she fled her betrothed who would have beaten her to death for discovering Maleen loved another...of the same sex. Ystin thrashed the man and offered to take Maleen home but she preferred to join Ystina on her innumerable adventures. And she trained Maleen as a shieldmaiden. And Maleen was the only living soul allowed to refer to Ystina by her given name.
Maid Maleen had discovered hair products over the century. Her current shade was neon red. Which Ystin practically swooned every time she beheld her beloved. But seeing the garishly outfitted Capt. Swastika and the Crimson Conqueror made Maleen exclaim.
"Ffye fi," she requedsted.
"Now?' Ystin grinned, "Literally?"
Maid Maleen risked her knuckles against Ystina's chainmail as she punched her arm.
Cape Town served as Africa's depository of gen latent children. Kenya providing the training arena for those children whose meta-gene's were activated. A group home had been built for those latents that never became gen active. Frequently, their families did not wish to receive them back as they had been promised to local warlords or national governments and the parents simply feared for their children's lives.
At the height of WWII, Ares saw that Italy and occupied Greece were the weakest members of the Axis Powers. Wholly unsuitable for a god of war's need for chaos and bloodshed. Activating various bastards across the globe, Man of War was the illigitmate offspring nestled in the Third Reich.
Hitler degenerated Man of Wars potential contribution because of two simple facts. Hitler minimized the power of the Greco-Roman pantheon in favor of the Teutonic gods. And Man of War was a misnomer chosen by the demigoddess who bore the name. She was seen as less than capable by the racially charged Fuhrer becauser her father wasn't a patron of the Germanic Volk disregarding the fact that for eighteen years, Man of War had grown and been raised in Germany. Her mother was even an ardent supporter of National Socialism and served the Reich in official capacities.
But Wilhelmina Koester hadn't been born into the mortal world to be side-railed or subservient. So Man of War charged into various battles. And it took the direct intervention of the Freedom Fighters to block her march across the English Channel to terrorize Great Britain itself.
Vandal Savage cut the egress short when he travelled through time and cryo froze Hitler. A technology that would allow Nazi scientists to place the best Nazi operatives in suspended animation should the war turn against Reich only to be reactivated at a later date. The Justice League followed Savage through and ended his mad ambitions. Thereby allowing Nazi loyalists to thaw Hitler and resume losing the war.
The gifting of a sample of the Japanese mirakuru serum by the mysterious Per Degaton also went into the vaults where the cryo genesis chambers were stored deep within the Alps. And the location of a Chinese island called Lian Yu promised to hold a hidden cache of more of the Japanese version of a Super-Soldat formula.
Man of War did not go gently into the night to siomply slumber. For 64 years, she submerged her Man of War identity into various guises to reemerge when tracked down by Baron Blitzkrieg. And upon hearing the identity of the elusive Masked Leader, war drums began sounding in her ears once again.
Thousands of years ago, as Homo Sapiens first came into violent contact with Neanderthals, the Guardians of the Universe attempted another remotely operated deterrent dubbed the Starheart. Jointly infused with the Green Light of Will and the bastardized fusion of Will and the Yellow Light of Fear as employed by Volthoom, the Guardians sought to supplant their Manhunter program which had utterly failed in the Oans' eyes.
And so the Starheart, essentially an untested prototype, patrolled the Universe. And all seemed to go well until it passed an unremarkable planet within Sector 2814, one of 3600 individual partitions the Guardians had arbitrarily assigned to the cosmos at large, and the Starheart became volatile and exploded. The largest fragments landed in the bayous of Loiusiana and the Amazon basin of Brazil. The Starheart's limited intelligence and nearly unlimited power fused with the elemental essence of the Earth itself, creating a new and separate entity that would fall into legend as the Green Flame.
The Green Flame took the primary motivator of the Starheart to enforce justice and the Earth elemental mandate to preserve life and fused them into the core criteria for seeking champions to personify the Green Flame's power. And minor champions came and went as they were guided to Starheart fragments by the Green Flame. But all of these champions burned out and proved unworthy.
It wasn't until 1937 when Alan Scott, a radio broadcast engineer, was drawn to the Starheart's largest fragment that a ring was crafted for him and a lantern, unbeknownst to him, serving a symbolic role as a power battery for the ring which could create any construct limited only by Alan's willpower to harden and his imagination to form it. And that moment the true power, not the facsimile lantern, bonded with Alan and made him the true power ring and lantern.
And so, Green Lantern blazed into a world of emerging mystery men and women. He bcame a founding member of the Justice Society of America and even now served as its mightiest member. Green Lantern had called himself Sentinel for a time as the world filled with Green Lantern Corpsmen. If Earth already had five Green Lanterns, why would it need a sixth?
And now it came to be that Green Lantern faced the wrath of Man of War and her Unbreakable Battleaxe of Ares which always returned to her hand when summoned after having been thrown. And she would finally indulge the climatic battle lust she had always craved. And its sating would reshape the world.
Hourman's Miraclo kicked in just as Captain Murder made her first attack. Rick had warned his dad about fighting her while he was Hourman. And Rick's wife, Jesse Chambers, also known as Jesse Quick, had lamented Captain Murder's homicidal lunacy. And now Rex Tyler was learning the truth firsthand. And his first lesson was that neither Rick nor Jesse had exaggerated.
Captain Murder's Super-Soldat serum infused with mirakuru gave her greater than Martian-level styrength. She was more formidabe than Miss Martian and even more power than the Martian Manhunter in his prime. She'd reached the human zenith that was Majestic-level nigh unto Kryptonian brackets.
But the offshoot was the mirakuru was so volatile it to administered precisely one way, and even then cause delusional paranoia, had caused the murderess to lose what little was left of her sanity. Dr. Demon's supply of super-soldier serum was exhausted but the cache of mirakuru had been recovered from a submarine in a lake hidden within the greater portion of Lian Yu. Dr. Anthony Ivo had sought the fabled substance for himself to create weapons as potentially powerful as his masterpiece, the Shaggy Man. But Ivo died in the attempt. Leaving Lex Luthor, the Ultra-Humanite, and Dr. Fu Manchu with the dilemma of how to employ the world killing Shaggy Man without him actually killing the planet and all life upon it.
But that didn't address Hourman's pressing need for a solution regarding Captain Murder.
The Eastern German woman bequeathed the mantle of the Red Robe of Death was the third woman to bear the mantle. The original had been a Nazi agent provocateur stationed in the United States to help the Fascist Bundt in conducting sabotage and recruitment. RedeRobe had the West Coast as her fiefdom. Batron Blitzkrieg controlled the East Coast. The Heartland, the Rockies to the Appalachians, was controlled jointly by the original Captain Swastika and Count Berlin. Baron Gestapo and Baron Doom provided as-needed support for Red Robe and Baron Blitzkrieg. Additional fifth columnists and "lesser elite" Nazi agents included the Brain, Count Spectrum, Black Axeman and his master, Super-Brain; Iron Jaw and the Human Fly. These ranged from strategists to simple executioners and assassins. But each and everyone was sworn into a major agent's control via personal radio communique from Berlin conducted by Hitler himself.
Red Robe had escaped the United States to slip into East Germany where she swore allegiance to the Communists now in power. Her successor did as well. Each secretly burned the candle of their hearts for fascism. The current Red Robe of Death had been a child in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. And like most Essies she felt embittered by the disparity between Western and Eastern Germany's living conditions. That rage epotomized her brief career in the Politzei, who dismissed her rather than risk the public exposure that the investigation and official trial into her mass shootings would bring. Baron Blitzkrieg approached her and offered her the Masked Leader's invitation into the Fourth Reich. Of which, she was only too happy to accept.
Catalina Flores had left the FBI feeling they'd become moribund, more concerned with procedural nitpicking than actual arrests and convictions. So Catalina returned home to Texas and joined the legendary Texas Rangers. But even they fell short of her demands. Creating a specialist's position, Catalina was on the payroll in an unspecified way while she created the costumed persona of the Tarantula. And then she struck terror into the cartels and more common criminals.
The Justice Society took notice and decided to recruit the Tarantula before the Outlaws could. The Texas Rangers, fully aware of the Tarantula's activities and identity, shuffled paper to keep Catalina on the payroll while she served with the JSA. In her infrequent visits home, she'd assist the Rangers in whatever capacity she was needed in, Ranger Flores or the Tarantula.
And so built the confrontation between the Red Robe of Death and the Tarantula.
The Prussian Spy was a legacy title handed down from one generation of Teuton women to the next. Originally established after the Teutonic Knights carved out the kingdom of Prussia from Lithuania, Poland, and Denmark. Which still left over 300 German kingdoms in the hands of princes or the Holy Roman Emperor. The Pope himself had dispatched the Teutonic Knights to Lithuania, a genuine terror of the Baltic region, but the Knights waged a genocidal war before advancing into Russia and being cataclysmically beaten by Alexander Nevsky. Thereby leading to the retreat the Teutonic Knights engaged in back to their secured borders of Prussia.
Prussian Spies spent the ensuing centuries scouting out potential threats and enemies beyond Prussia's border. And as the Kaiser, with Otto von Bismark, united the bulk of German holdings, excluding Austria which ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire under the watch of the Hapsburg imperial dynasty.
The Prussian Spies advanced into sabotage and assassination as Germany fought Denmark, the Netherlands, and France culminating in WWI. The most recent Prussian Spy wore throwback armor.
Prussian Spy faced off against James John Diggle, the new Guardian. Jim Harper had decided that as he served under Maj. Lucy Lane in the PATRIOTS, a second and potentially third and fourth or more Guardians could be free to serve within other deputized super teams. John to his friends and "Dig" to most everyone else had served for eight years in the US ARMY. Each year spent in two tours of overseas combat. He discharged to join ARGUS before its collapse.
His recruiter had been his ex-, and now current-, wife, Lyla Michaels. What Lyla had largely been aware of was that she'd been orphaned and found by the being calling himself the Monitor. Her career choices had been sublimely guided by the Monitor's needs. He'd just transformed her into the being now called Harbinger. With the collapse of ARGUS Dig needed the means to pursue Lyla's location. And Sec. Bones of Homeland Security needed a man or women inside the Justice Society. So their needs met in the middle.
Guardian had killed men, women, livestock and pack animals, and God help him, the occasional child. War, in a greater degree than most would admit to a sanitized Congressional hearing, war was an indiscriminate business. Civilian massacres were only noticed by the insurgents unless they happened to occur in front the news cameras. And then the CO sitting back as base camp took the fall. All because they fostered "an environment where discretionary fire was marginalized". This laughingly coming from an entity whose primary reason for existence was boiled down to a single catchphrase: kill the enemy.
So in essence, Guardian had no difficulty killing the nearly naked Prussian Spy. How the woman could wear little else than a metal bikini eluded Guardian especially at the southernmost tip of a hemisphere quickly plunging its way into winter.
The hugely inexperienced Spider Queen was met with a largely unknown foe...and her robot bodyguard. Shannon Kane had made a public splash by foiling some intensively violent appearing crimes and Spider Queen's trademark web gun had wrapped up the crooks with nary a scratch. Lawyers were still trying to pull defenses out of their collective asses without the standard "vigilante brutality" plea cornerstoning their briefs, motions, and preparations. Although a few had defied forensic science and filed motions to dismissed due to "high levels of toxicity found in the synthetic web strands". To which CSI labs were still laughing over because the silk emitted by Spider Queen's gun looked milked from actual spiders. RNA cloning being a presumed, but not realistic, cost constraint.
The theory was complex for something so simple. Utilizing harvested and biologically maintained glands, RNA was introduced to "prompt" the gland into excreting the desired viscous fluid, ie. "spider silk". Of course, their genetic work came into it creating a biologically compatible gland in what would soon be a deceased donor of not inconsequential size.
The Lady Illyria had been born in the last ten years of Tito's reign over the dispirited nations forcibly united as Yugoslavia. The genocidal Balkan Wars shaped her more than any Communist regime could. Tito would've shot himself if he hadn't already been dead over Illyria's turning to Fascism to govern her small, Kosovo-sized country. Illyria kept her title but left other...pragmatic...individuals to govern as she went abroad as the "Queen of Spies". With her was a prototype robot, X-33, built on the same assembly lines that had produced the Yugo. The difference being, X-33 reliably worked.
Despite Tito's angering every Soviet Secretary-General since Stalin, Tito had managed to obtain prototype repulsors that would eventually be perfected into the Rocket Red propulsion systems. X-33 boasted any variant of these repuslors. It rarely touched the ground and even then only in malfunction or recharging. In similar Balkan Slavic ingenuity, the battery system was an earlier forerunner of the fission batteries later developed for the Rocket Red program. Of course, Dmitri Pushkin's bringing the Apokaliptan battle armor home to Russia advanced the battery type into a fusion battery.
The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the People's Republic of China were all pushing, as top echelon nation-states, to harness large scale fusion batteries. To lesser degrees that same technology was being developed by the United Kingdom, the French Republic, the Republic of Germany, LuthorCorp, Starrware, Smoak Tech, Palmer Tech, Queen Consolidated, STAR Labs, and Wayne-Powers all at a national level, the various multinational corporations being laws unto themselves.
But doing so independently, they galvanized the legitimate nations into throwing resources at scores pf smaller companies to coordinate further research and development. Even in a parasitic economic model like China's the yield would vastly outweigh the initial costs.
And smaller developers like Intel, AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sony, Samsung, Philips, and Toshiba vied to create the systems that would govern the newly developed batteries. Batteries, if made self perpetuating, would solve cold fusion and Earth's reliance on carbon fuels and fissionable nuclear energies. Microsoft and Google beat each other senseless in the race to develop the software and firmware to drive these systems while Amazon sought to edge out potential vendors and sniffed at the operating systems side of the equation to purchase. Elon Musk invested in scaled versions of the tech to eventually power Tesla and SpaceX vehicles. Meanwhile, officialdom and users at Facebook did little else but bitch and moan about the slowness of the process and the limitations of its eventual yield.
X-33 was painted black and silver, the colors of the Gestapo, whom Illyria believed X-33 would have been an invaluable asset for. It possessed a four arms. Two primary arms possessed clamps for hands and flanges for thumbs. Mounted on the forearms were belt-fed miniguns receiving ammunition from a bisected drum on its back. The other two arms served intimidation and execution purposes. These stubs were tipped with deployable claw razors that spun to tear through flesh, whether it be an extremity or core tissue. Illyria simply called the machine "Maximillion".
Lady Illyria was hardly helpless on her own. A Romani circus performer had taught her to expertly throw any bladed object. As a back up, she carried a 9mm CZ P-01 as a concealed carry primary with a secondary weapon being a Beretta .25 cal. Which was easily concealed inside her over-the-thigh FMBs. Her Czech pistol was carried in a fashionably discreet shoulder holder generally well hidden under a jacket or other cover up.
So Spider Queen went at it armed with her web gun and a lot of ignorance. Her exceptional reflexes allowed her to dodge Illryria's thrown knives but X-33's tearing blades shredded the web lines despite their having ten times the tensile strength of steel.
Sandman and Red Death dosed each with their brand of gas. Sandman exclusively used a knockout gas that rendered an inhalant unconscious for 72 hours. Red Death relied onm a putrefying gas that left people dead forever. Wesley Dodds had been returned to the living as an agent of the Endless just as Morpheus had used him in life. Red Death was a successor to the first two legacy Nazi villains bearing the name.
Each predecessor fell victim to his own gas. The expertly concealed woman wielding the toxin's gas canister now felt a heady overconfidence that she would do unto rather than receive. The immediately previous Red Death had supposedly developed a natural immunity to the red death gas but it seemed it merely built in his system until reaching a saturation point and finished his putrefaction off.
But Sandman and Red Death each proved immune to others noxious compounds. So Red Death drew out a Walther P-09 from the folds of her robes. It was a vintage piece that had been her great-great-grandfather's officer's issue sidearm in WWI. Its 9X19mm Parabellum round would eventually become NATO standard. Sandman on the other hand drew out a Webley MK III .45 cal. It being a modern decedent of the British revolver that served the Imperial Armed Forces of Great Britain in that same war.
"Nice choice in pistols," Sandman said genteelly.
"Danke. Du auch. Schweinehund." Red Death replied courteously and throwing out one the vilest insults in the language simultaneously.
Red Death didn't realize Sandman had no fear of her weapon. He'd been dead before. He'd found it quite pleasant.
Perth, Australia hosted an International Meta Academy. Enrolled were gen latents from countries surrounded by up to three oceans. The South Pacific, Indian, and Southern Oceans being the three. The diversity included citizens from opposing nations. China and Japan excluded themselves as well as the Koreas. But nation-states from the breadth and width of Oceania participated, including Australia's own rivals. The academy operated under SEATO and UN supervision. And it was remarkably successful like its corresponding school in Cape Town.
Ostensibly the Flash was in charge of leading the Perth team. But Kalea refused to accept it. She didn't do teams and wouldn't begin to now. So it was she faced off alone against the revitalized Baron Blitzkrieg and the Man of the Ages.
"Guys, I don't give a flyin' fark who you are. I'm not holding back," Kalea warned the duo.
"It is just as well, Fraulein-El. For I am similarly inclined," Baron Blitzkrieg delivered his own warning.
"And I'm immortal," Man of the Ages boasted.
"Y'know, dealing with ass hats like you makes me want to just scourge this planet," Kalea admitted.
"Vas?" Baron Blitzkrieg had overseen his share of genocide but he noted Kalea was bandying the idea of xenocide.
Man of the Ages was also worried because his power and eternal nature came from the evil mankind committed.
"Look at it this way, I kill every last man, mother, son and daughter and all your repulsive creatures and reduce this dirt ball to a slag heap and the Anti Monitor erases this universe, my problems are solved," Kalea thought it through and it sounded pretty damn good.
"Surely there is another way," Baron Blitzkrieg had dealt with Hitler for 76 years. He knew crazy when he heard it. Whether by his name or the misnomer, Masked Leader. Hitler was a sociopathic misanthrope. But, still one inspired enough to follow.
"We shall stop you, Fraulein. One way or another," Baron Blitzkrieg pledged.
"Ditto. I can't allow you to exterminate humanity," Man of the Ages concurred.
"Then you're on for one helluva fight," Kalea warned them both. Her opening gambit was to slice Man of the Ages head in half when her Heat Vision erupted from her left eye.
But his cranial cavity regrew at a phenomenal rate and soon his cerebellum, the surrounding skull, epidermis, follicles, and sensory organs were all replaced. Man of the Ages scowled at her but little else, "That may hurt but as long as evil persists so will I."
"Okay. So we're in agreement? Everything dies?" Kalea baited them both.
And the two men attacked her with all of their respective might. Just as she'd hoped.
The Bronze Man had been, a then labeled, Tuskagee Airman of the 99th Pursuit Squadron pilot captured in Italy during the Anzio Campaign. Taken to Berlin, the soon to be nameless pilot was subjected to experiments to attempt to "save" African descended Blacks by transforming them into albinized whites. But further experimentation continued the transformation.
The albinism rendered the pilot photosensitive. So a liquid metal developed after Rubberman's smelting accident was applied to the pilot's body and he became the nearly indestructible Bronze Man.
But, additionally, cerebral surgical techniques unlocked certain psionic abilities to rival Baron Blitzkrieg since their Mendelistic understanding of genetics revealed what would would eventually be known as a gen factor. The entire Aryan eugenics program was geared towards yielding the much touted "perfect race" of a blonde, blue eyed Volk. But the secretive objective was that the aforementioned Ubermensch would be further enhanced with a meta-gene.
And so it was that in the 76 years after WWII, a small, disproportionate number of Baron Blitzkrieg's descendants manifested psionic powers to a lesser degree than he himself. Baroness Blitzkrieg had his speed. The treacherous second Baron Blitzkrieg, had the original Baron's strength or durability. A third whelp had his vision and flight capabilities. And a fourth possessed his original restorative powers. And yet, all of his great-grandchildren were utter disappointments in their lack of loyalties. All of which would have been blamed by the Masked Leader on their "mongrel" Mayan, Portuguese, African, or Amazonian Basin tribal bloodlines. Lesser Nazi survivors had sown their seed extensively in Brazil and Argentina and the Masked Leader didn't rave about them. But because of Baron Blitzkrieg's meta-gene, his descendants would be considered "vile" and "degenerate". And as much as Baron Blitzkrieg despised their motives or politics, his grandchildren were still his flesh and blood, worthy of his defense so that he alone could discipline their transgressions.
All of Nazi science led to the creation of the gynoid Hitler would take as his immortal lover, the development of the Super-Soldat formula that first created Capt. Nazi and then the others that followed, the surgical means to unlock gen factors, the Unsterblichkeit formula racing through the Masked Leader and Ace of Blades' veins, and the Wiederherstellung serum that accompanied it dually or individually in Baron Blitzkrieg's case.
Bronze Man's metallic skin provided his durability. So his two gen factors were strength and flight. One of which affected the pilot on a genetic level to even become a pilot. That yearning for the freedom of flight made him a pioneer in a racially charged environment to excel and become an unspoken national hero.
And so it was, Bronze Man chose to fight the Flash. Jay Garrick was the least assuming and least prejudiced of the JSAers save perhaps Sandman and Hawkman. Sandman having prophetically seen into the souls of every race, creed, or color. Hawkman had been every race found on Earth during his long millennia of reincarnating. It was still unknown how far back Hawkgirl remembered. Kendra Saunders was still heavily in denial and largely unaccepting of her past lives, hence her hostility towards Carter.
And her historical role of having affairs with Carter's predecessors while Shayera cheated with John Stewart. Monogamy, even serial monogamy, hadn't been their foretold fate. Until now. But Kendra still resented the hell out of Carter for what she did recall.
Flash's speed and static build-ups gave him several advantages against Bronze Man. Not least of which was Bronze Man's namesake metallic skin's conductivity. But the liquidity still resident in the bronze-like application wouldn't allow dents or cracks from Flash's supersonic punches. So Jay's only real offensive weapon was to vibrate through the skin, a decidedly lethal option, or the static lightning. Which only kept Bronze Man and his strength at bay. Flash's only real regret was that he'd only learned about static lightning's uses and applications fighting Edward Clariss, his Rival, the very first Reverse Flash with a better name.
Rival had been a chemist who had deduced Jay's identity and it created an obsession within Clariss to duplicate the accidental, procedural, and formulaic means that created the Flash. And when Rival invented himself, in what would become tradition, his only thought was to surpass his archenemy's growing legend and to do so would require terminating the object of the session. So Rival fought the first Flash. Professor Zoom, the precursor to Reverse Flash, fought Barry Allen during his limited stint as the Flash. And finally Eobard Thawne traveled back through time to threaten, but first train, Wally West after Barry's passing. Thawne promising that the rivalry of the Reverse Flash and the third Flash would reach through the ages to meet Thawne's own 29th Century.
Little did Thawne realize, the scientific rivalry between the Thawne and Allen-West clans would pinnacle with the recreations of the Flash in Inertia, Kid Flash II, Miss Quick, and in the 31st Century, the Tornado Twins and then XS. In the interim, such figures as Jesse Quick, Johnny Quick, Max Mercury, Kid Mercury, Blue Trinity, Red Trinity, Lady Flash, Streakman, Streak Carter, Speed McGee, and Blitz would all be eclipsed by the Flashes and their polar opposites. Trajectory would achieve her own level and brand of notoriety.
Flash hadn't realized just how close to Bronze Man he'd come until the brainwashed Nazi, whose core identity had been erased, grabbed hold of Jay's neck and began to squeeze.
The young woman with the nom de guerre "Blitzkrieg" wasn't a member of the Baron's family. She was just an unrepentant street punk with racist fantasies. Armed with kinetic discharge gloves, her punches could smash holes through brick and mortar and concrete. Even concrete reinforced with steel rebar suffered mightily. So it was, Blitzkrieg gleefully confronted Wildcat.
She knew his resume as a superhero. But her general knowledge lacked specific facts. As Ted Grant, and under assumed aliases over the past 71 years, Wildcat had been the boxing heavyweight champion no less than nine times. He'd dominated underground, enhanced, full contact mixed martial arts in the Meta-Human Brawl by going undefeated for three years beginning as a sixty-plus year old. Now, revitalized by fourth application of the Nine Lives' Charm, Ted was a twenty-four year old man with the muscle mass of his sixty-year old conditioning and all of his 94 years of experience.
So Blitzkrieg's dreams of street cred and villainous glory had just met the concrete wall that might not crack.
Crossbow was a Neo Nazi fanatic that relied solely upon his skill with said weapon. The Whip was a rancher named Shelley Gaynor with a similar obsession with whips. Crossbow's own great-grandfather had been a Nazi agent in Yugoslavia that terrorized the Bosnian and Herzegovinian regions with forays into Serbia. Whip's family had trained with their namesake weapon and operated under the legacy alias since 1849 inspiring such pulp fiction and movie/television characters as Zorro.
Crossbow saw an easy victory until Whip snapped his first launched quarrel out of the air. And his reload time necessitated her ability to began swing her whip around to do the same on the second shot. The bolt smacked out of alignment and provoked a sense of panic in Crossbow. Because Whip had made a steady advance on him at the same time.
The Son of the Hun dropped his cumbersome alias and simply became the Hun when he inherited the fabled Shield of Attila that had powered and preserved the Hun since the earliest days of Hitler's invasion of Poland and the Sudetenland. In the Eighties, the Hun met with his greatest enemy, Roger Higgins, the first man to be called the Shield. Roger's nephew, Joe, became an even greater nemesis as the second Shield. And the original Hun's last dying thought had been his regrets over never defeating either Shield. Although, having Roger's brother, Gen. Marion Higgins, throw in with Sam Lane's treasonous actions and motives would've warmed the cockles of the Hun's heart.
Given the Son of the Hun's legacy of hatred, it was little wonder the latest Hun viewed the world through lenses of sexism and bigotry. And so it was with no greater irony that the Hun should face Hawkgirl. Who wanted nothing more than to splinter that shield and make the Hun her personal spear cushion. She'd pit her Nth Metal spear and axe against an old wooden and iron relic any day.
The Scarlet Skull, in merging his Neo Nazi Korps into the Fourth Reich at the Masked Leader's request, brought in Madame Doom and Marksman. Marksman's straightforward ballistic weapons approach eased Jade's mind. But Jennie-Lynn Haden was unnerved by the sheer propensity Madame Doom had for edged weapons. The woman threw literally anything you could attach a blade to.
Jade had inherited her father's abilities through her Green Flame powered power pulse located in the palm of her left hand. She'd also just refused an offer to join the Green Lantern Corps as an Earth-based Lantern. Green Lantern and Jade both had declined the "generous" offer made by Kyle Rayner and his training officer, Kilowog. Any organization that would field Guy Gardner left the relatives queasy. So while Marksman distracted Jade, Madame Doom chipped away at her defenses.
The Nazi Blue Beetle had been prepped and trained to replace Ted Kord. Only Blue Beetle died. And when he was resurrected, he'd been supplanted by Jaime Reyes, who had found an alien scarab, and derived his armored powers from it. This left a highly trained but unplaceable agent. So the Nazi Blue Beetle was reassigned to the Fourth Reich.
Man o'Metal had undergone a nanite transfusion that transformed his organic skin into a metallic substance. Far more advanced than Bronze Man's skin treatment, Man o'Metal's nanites also healed surface cuts and abrasions with near instantaneous results. That is, if the skin could be punctured at all.
Sand had three advantages. Externally, he carried a gas gun designed by Sandman. Internally, he was made of silicates after a weapons discharge transformed him. Additionally, he was geokinetic on the scale of Geo Mancer. Able to move earth substances with his mind and give them motive force, Sand was one of the most understated, formidable men alive.
Like Wesley Dodds, Sandy Hawkins had prophetic nightmares. So why would he want to sleep? In reaction, he denied the one aspect that still made him human after all. And becoming inhuman, he became something far more dangerous.
La Paz was Bolivia's capital. More appropriately, it was the political, commercial, and social hub of the country. It also "secreted" a facility to locate, activate, and train gen latents from across South and Central America as well as the Caribbean nations. Unlike the big three NAFTA nations of North America who cooperated amongst themselves but excluded all outsiders.
Wonder Woman led the singular charge against Madame Libertine. A descendant of Capt. Nazi's familial line, the young woman was as powerful as any Martian, Green, White, or Red. The last being a supposedly extinct offshoot massacred by the Whites long ago and undefended by their rivals, the Greens.
Hippolyta could never be as powerful as her demigoddess daughter but she was first amongst the Amazons. Her only rival had been her sister, Antiope.
Hippolyta, like the rest of the Justice Society, had been magically blocked by powers beyond angelic scope from entering the European and Pacific theaters of war. So, while Vandal Savage ruled the Third Reich and the Justice League intervened, Wonder Woman was little more than a battlefield myth. A myth mightily purported by OSS man, Steve Trevor, namesake great-grandfather to MLJ Col. Steve Trevor, Operations Commander for the JLU. Trevor answered to three people in order: Gen. Jack Latham the MLJ Director, Sec. Amanda Waller of the Dept. Of Meta-Human Affairs, and the US president and Chairman of the Legion of Doom, Lex Luthor. Waller being the only non-Oval Office official able to write Executive Orders with presidential authority beyond her official purview.
Madame Libertine was third generation American. She was willful, impulsive, and expected instant total gratification. In addition, she was immature and irresponsible. More akin to a tween than a thirty-ish woman. She also displayed the family penchant for murder most foul.
Her indirect ancestor, Capt. Nazi, fought Robert Crane the Robotman. Bob Crane had developed the Robotman synthetic body to transplant human cerebellums into a temporary storage facility while a body healed in lieu brain death caused by catastrophic failure of the body. He'd never expected to either need his creation for personal use or that the situation would be permanent in his case barring the fact he had no body to return his brain to.
Capt. Nazi was blind. He saw through VR googles transmitting visual impulses into his brain through connective rods inserted into his optic nerves via wired transmitters. Failure or disconnection of the goggles or the unexpected failure of the rods would result in returned blindness. So basically Capt. Nazi was instructed to modify his entire fighting process and protect his damn head in a fight.
Robotman had been thoroughly tested by engineers and medical professionals alike. And accredited him with Martian-level strength. Akin to Capt. Nazi. Capt. Nazi regretted that the Marvel Family no longer seemed affiliated with either the JLU or JSA. He had a lot of pent up aggression to dole out to hated enemies. Robotman was merely target practice.
When TO Morrow injected wind controlling nanites into Maxine Hunkel, he'd expected Maxine to become an organic replacement for Red Tornado and his loyal henchman. The young genius rebelled instead. She refused to destroy the android Red Tornado. Additionally she took the sobriquet "Cyclone" and joined the Justice Society.
Now, with Reddy dead or simply destroyed, Cyclone had blossomed into the next Red Tornado.
Maxine's severe injuries after a JSA mission had prompted her nanites to transform a compatible nurse into an echo of Maxine. This allowed Max to maintain her identity as Red Tornado and still attend Yale as a normal woman whose nanites had completely transferred into the newly modified body and "downloaded" Max's memories and experiences, down to scars, into the "copy".
First, Dr. Mid-Nite had run extensive testing accompanied by Dr. Fate in determining the veracity and totality of the transfer. The original Maxine was completely purged of all nanites. And the only difference between Maxine and her double was that the original differed between herself nd her "copy" was her DNA.
And with the "new" Maxine completely infested with nanite "protectors", Maxine decided she could play Red Tornado. The newest Maxine's mind occasionally experienced a flashback of her old life. These episodes were sporadic and episodic. Red Tornado infrequently spoke of these bouts but the evidence of her emerging from her rooms drenched in cold sweats was evidence enough.
In the field, Red Tornado never faltered but in private, she increasingly grew uncertain. The growing doubts as to her core identity wearing at her. But the hesitancy vanished in action. So Red Tornado was increasingly an action junkie. Volunteering for every mission, instructing every Young Justice class and guiding every field mission she would be allowed to shoulder. Exhaustion becoming a salve to drown out her resurgent original identity.
Vicenhammer II had a cybernetic arm that ended in a vise "hand". With it he possessed a nearly unbreakable grip and could apply tens of thousands of pounds. Volkssturm II contained all of the electric powers of his predecessor. Dr. Demon had learned from prior disadvantages that the originals had endured. Her design improvements, limited such continued experiences. The pair could even appear incognito. And their shared experiences and sexuality made them the Fourth Reich's "official" couple.
The men assumed they were more than a match for Red Tornado. Little did they fathom that Reddy just was looking for an excuse to cut loose. On them or any available target of opportunity.
Fifty candidates had been injected with the thinned Super-Soldat formula distilled from Capt. Nazi's blood. All went into cryo freeze. And each silently transformed, into viable candidates or corpses. Additional damages ruptured containment of over half of the cryo freezers as East Berlin rebuilt itself. Four applicants were revived from cryo to display roughly half of Capt. Nazi's original performance marks.
Baroness Blood alone aligned herself with the Masked Leader at Baron Blitzkrieg's invitation. The other three supplicants "vanished". Baroness Blood was a highly valued pilot-commando even before her transformation. Her preferred weapon was a Cat O'Nine Tails.
As strong as an Amazon, the Baroness was also highly resistant to injury and could fly under her own propulsion now. Baroness Blood, unequally or not, faced Dr. Mid-Nite. Pieter Cross had been a student of Charles MacNider, the original Dr. Midnight. When Dr. Cross experienced a similar "accident" arranged by the Five Families, Pieter underwent a transformation into Dr. Mid-Nite.
Mid-Nite's new array of viusual input went far beyond Dr. Midnight's "shadow vision" within the confines of darkness, whether natural or artificially imposed. MacNider pulled strings to insure Cross received dual citizenship and wouldn't have to depart the US to return to Sweden.
Taking up a dual post with the JSA, Pieter served as chief biomedical examiner/researcher as well as the vigilante Dr. Mid-Nite. A Swedish Special Forces veteran, Ted Grant found Pieter to be an exceptional student. And before his death, Dr. MacNider had handed Pieter all of his research into visual impairment and interventions.
Additionally, Dr. Midnight introduced Dr. Mid-Nite to Hootie, MacNider's enchanted owl. Hootie was Dr. Midnight's closest thing akin to a sidekick. Pieter understood that Charles' vision didn't fully reveal Hootie's advanced age. Whatever enchantments had extended the owl's life had worn off. Pieter took it as a personal charge to oversee Hootie's comfortable passing. He doted om the aged owl far more than he did most people. With a distinct exception of Dinah Laurel Drake Lance. Dr. Mid-Nite and Black Canary had enjoyed a torid affair after one of Oliver Queen's multiple dalliances yielded yet another unacknowledged child. Yet, as always, Black Canary returned back to her relationship with Green Arrow.
After Ollie's death, Dinah unexpectedly fell in love with Nyssa Raatko. And under League of Shadows and Assassins' laws, Dinah married Nyssa after her wife defeated Ra's al Gfhul, whose mind resided in Nyssa's half-sister, Talia. Nyssa refused to be the new Ra's. Dinah became the Demon's Head and Nyssa would be her sword arm, the Demon's Hand.
And so, Dr. Mid-Nite nursed a bruised heart whilst convinced that Black Canary had been seduced and duped. Both Dinah and Nyssa would argue otherwise. Which only fed Pieter's jealousies. The thought of losing the object of his affection to another woman rankled Dr. Cross, no matter how progressive he was. And they mere fact that Nyssa could kill him with just her thumb didn't faze his obsession.
Baroness Blood saw Dr. Mid-Nite as just another worthless obstacle. His tricks wouldn't baffle her superior Aryan mind. And her enhancements would make the so-called "challenge" a very surmountable odd.
Iron Ace's code-name was a misnomer to most. The plate armor wearing soldier had never flown a plane much less in combat. Like the latest Valkyrie, he was certified in rotary and tilt wing aircraft. When he'd take off his damn medieval styled helmet. He even went so far as to wear Kevlar armor with ballistic plates, carry a sword and other accoutrements, and heft a heavy polymerized shield.
Rubberman had owned a vital series of rubber producing plants in Nazi Germany before an industrial accident transformed his skin into a bio-organic rubber. Nearly immortal, Rubberman's only physical concerns now were drying out and cracking and being pulled apart as well.
Obsidian thought the two nutbars were beneath his notice. Todd Rice had faithfully taken his antipsychotics for a year now. He wasn't about to get sealed into the Shadow Realms by his father and twin sister again. Sometimes having Green Lantern and Jade as relatives could be a colossal pain in the proverbial ass.
Obsidian controlled elements of the Shadow Realms, "leaking" them into the Multiverse to control shadows and darkened areas. He could also merge with said shadows and transport himself or stretch in and out of them to strike unexpectedly at foes. Like the Nazi idiots confronting him. Todd definitely enjoyed his work when he scared the piss out of people.
Elizabeth Svanolev had been as surprised as anyone when the Lord of Order, Nabu, the former Eqyptian sorcerer elevated beyond his station during an Age of Chaos and advisor to Pharaoh Khufu; was chosen as the Dr. Fate. Giovanni Zatara had just replaced Khalid Ben-Hassin, Kent Nelson's own replacement, when Nabu tried a gestalt of the male and female. An aunt and nephew to be more precise. What even the Lord of Order failed to recognize but was quickly deduced by the Agent of Order named Anna Fortune was that Eric and Linda Strauss were lovers. And that Eric had impregnated his aunt.
Elizabeth, or "Bess", became the latest Dr. Fate. She did so with a hesitancy opposite Kent Nelson's eagerness, Zatara's willfulness, Khalid's unwillingness, and Eric and Linda's reckless abandon. But Bess' skittishness provided Nabu with a greater opportunity to dictate Dr. Fate's actions.
So it was that Dr. Fate, this incarnation anyway, had a profound inexperience with mystical creatures and monsters and a profound distrust of her own abilities. Factors that worked against her when Nabu was summoned by other Lords of Order to discourse over their unwillingness to interfere in the coming Age of Chaos that ensued after the Crisis of the Multiverse concluded, instead intent on shoring up the defense of the Realm of Order.
So it was that Bess faced the Green Ghoul alone. The ogre was a transfer from the Realm of Fables to Earth Prime. Intended by Lucifer as Hitler's pet. And not unlike the typical ogre, troll, or goblin, the Green Ghoul was manifest with magical abilities. And armed with such arcane arts, the Green Ghoul was the equal if not sum superior of Dr. Fate without Nabu in charge.
Superman wore a rebreather as he led Capt. Atom, Guy Gardner, "Deborah Camille Darnell" and a Javelin-11 piloted by Natalie Reed. Lady Blackhawk led the Blackhawk Squadron piloting Javelin-9 interceptors. The entire squadron flew against Yrina the Corsair Queen and her Uralian pirate fleet. Pilots included: Fran Craig, Scarlet Ace, Sky Ranger, Skywolf, Black Venus, V-Man, Firebird, Flyin' Jenny, Sky Chief and Grey Comet.
Approaching from the opposite side of the Moon were Airboy, Lisollette von Schellendorf the original Valkyrie and ten Air Maidens. Each flew prototype Javelin-X15s. Each with a mission to attack the fleet from behind.
Alicia Frake launched a hyper sled into high Earth orbit. Accompanying her, Asteroid Witch began shifting Near Earth Asteroids out of their orbits and sailing them across the inner system at the Justice League.
"What can you throw at them besides rocks?" Frake inquired sharply.
"I'm the Asteroid Witch? It's in the name?" came the sarcastic reply.
"Look, I'm just wondering if you could throw these three space stations?" Frake clarified.
"One way to found out," Asteroid Witch replied. The Chinese Habitat was the smallest and easiest to dislodge from orbit. The International Space Station followed. The much larger and therefore more inert Watchtower was the last to fly towards the Uralian fleet.
"Some of ours will get hurt," Asteroid Witch warned.
"That's on Yrina," Frake cackled.
The Evil Queen observed the situations through a large portal mirror that was divided into four quadrants much like the Milky Way. Renfri studied the action. Using advanced alien bio tech stolen from the Dominators, Scarlet Skull kept apace of the action and issued commands to the fielders. Asteroid Witch had inadvertently or not thrown every satellite and shred of space junk at the Uralian fleet and the JLers and their Blackhawk allies as well. The second time in recent history Earth's near space had been swept.
The Evil Queen watched the mirror closely as a copy of herself split apart to every quadrant and every dissected view of every player so that she gave herself instant updates.
"That's...impressive," Margo Hess admitted.
"It's more convenient than your methods," the Evil Queen switched her concentration to differing locations at different times to receive efficient real time updates.
"The Scarlet Skull seems to stay abreast of things. Yrina is being engaged and has been updated at to the threats approaching her. Capt. Frake seems to be...reluctant…to assist the Corsair Queen in any other direct fashion," Margo reported.
"Jealousy will do that. Take my stepdaughters. They couldn't abide my taking the throne even as regent. So they sparked a rebellion against me,. One they have regretted for centuries now," Renfri said wistfully.
"And why are you in our universe again?" Margo wondered.
"The spark that ignited here to reshape history began in this century on this universe. I mean to crush her at the source," the Evil Queen boasted.
"So...vile and twisted," Margo checked off her tablet's list, "Got it."
"So…insightful," the Evil Queen smirked, "Now this is getting interesting."
"What, why, and where?" Margo asked.
Kalea's image took dominance. Baron Blitzkrieg and Man of the Ages were clearly and deeply agitated, "This woman takes after my own heart."
"How so?" Margo wondered.
"She's threatened to exterminate all life on Earth," Renfri answered, "I wonder how she'll do it."
"How or whether?" Margo wasn't clear.
"I think it's a definite 'how and when'," The Evil Queen smugly clarified.
"Our reinforcements arrived," Margo informed the Queen.
"I know," it was a statement, not a boast.
"Hirohito's Red Sun Brigade is more stable than the Fourth Reich if just only," Margo assessed their new security detachment.
"Have Hachiman report directly to me. I want to put the fear of me into him," Renfri said without irony, "And have Sussa and Capt. Z-Ro take Frake's freighter-thingie and collect our prizes. I understand that vessel can far exceed the speeds of those craft Capt. Frake's crews are employing. Point in fact, have them abandon their ships and provide insurance that our young charges don't suddenly discvover their hidden gifts and over power our helmsmen."
"Will do. Happy viewing," Margo strode off.
"Always. Until it turns bad," Renfri clarified to herself, "What? I wasn't talking to you."
Margo barely registered that the Evil Queen was talking to her reflection. She barely recognized such behaviors as being odd. At least not anymore.
Satan Girl's Infernal Vision bisected the sky as she swiveled her head to try and keep up with Power Girl's speed. Then she belched a sulfuric cloud of Brimstone Breath. As Power Girl swept closer to attempt an attack rather than remain defensive. Satan Girl attempted to snag Power Girl's ample bosom with her talon-like fingernails.
But she also recognized Karen's Kryptonian armor weave costume for what it truly was. Kryptonians had been a war-like people whose empire had stretched thousands of light years amidst their most aggressive colonial period. Armored suits had been a byproduct of that mentality. Only Kryptyon's xenophobia had caused the culture to abandon their colonies and withdraw back to Krypton and Argo within a defensive buffer zone.
As a clone of an Argoan, Galatea was marginally less powerful than a full blooded Kryptonian. Just as a Kandorian would be weaker than Superman. The genetic variation that made Daxamites more powerful than their Kryptonian ancestors also made them violently allergic to lead. But they in turn were immune to kryptonite. Their only shared weaknesses being red solar radiation, atmospheric composition, and magic.
Atmospheric compositions were an additional element to a Kryptonian's fabled strength. Krypton and many of its colonies not only shared red giant suns but also high nitrogen, mid-methane, and low oxygen atmos. Kal-El never realized how selective Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van had been in selecting Earth as the future Clark Kent's adoptive planet. The parents could hope their son, who would be a god amongst mere men, would be beneficent rather than a Kryptonian-styled despot. And the largest factor would be the type of humans that found and raised Kal-El into being Clark Kent. And thanks to the high morality and pervading sense of equality that Jonathan and Martha had, Clark became Superman. And in wandering the globe in a voyage of self-discovery, Clark located a Kryptonian colonial lander and met with a digital similcrum of Jor-El and learned what and who Kal-El was and who his birth parents hoped he would be.
Clark eschewed Kryptonian armor in lieu of Martha's sewing. The armor being reflective of Krypton's martial past. And Clark couldn't suppose what, on a world that was essentially fragile before him, what human weapon could penetrate his skin deep enough to require armor? So between war-like phantoms and overconfidence, Superman wore human cloth rather than Kryptonian micro-weave.
Kryptonian physiology projected a gravitically based mass induced field that projected a density field mere micrometers off of Kal-El's skin. Thus Superman marginally "projected" his invulnerability to his skintight clothing. His cape being vulnerable. Superman had sewed and woven the cape himself from swaddling material provided by Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van. So Superman, like his ancestors, favored capes. And a byproduct of his birth parents' foresight, had made an invulnerable version.
Karen's armor weave was plainly evident to Satan Girl. As a native Kryptonian before her long tenure in the Phantom Zone, and her subsequent transformation in to an alien-demon hybrid, Satan Girl easily recognized the composition and nature of Power Girl's "costume". Of course, the traditional House sigil glyph emblem plate was missing. Leaving Power Girl's chest exposed. Kara In-Ze had worn the House of El's sigil glyph rather than that of Ze. Supergirl wore the House of Var's. Karen eschewed House sigil's having no House to belong to. Kalea-El vociferously protected the El sigil glyph but refused to wear it herself. Having been raised by Maxima's servants, Kalea had no true identification with her father. But her exile on Argo had taught her the language and history of Krypton and its colonies. And of how Jor-El had discovered the Phantom Zone, the phantom drive, and designed and developed the AI scourge known as Brainiac.
Kalea's perfect recall allowed her to bring the designs of the phantom drive to Almerac. The actual production had taken the length of Almerac's war with Gordania. But the defense against the Khund-Dominator-Kandorian alliance and subsequent Daxamite re-invasion had been invigorated and enabled by the Almeracian phantom drive development.
Power Girl's micro-weave, and Satan Girl's poor aim, spared her breasts from the demoness' claws. But nothing saved Satan Girl's jaw from Power Girl's respondent right cross. Satan Girl's tail snaked out and wrapped itself around Power Girl's throat. She severed it with her Heat Vision. Satan Girl howled in pain even as she released her Brimstone Breath again.
Karen was grateful her Argoan cells didn't grant her a sense of super smell as a power. As much as Power Girl hated to admit, Satan Girl's sheer might outmatched her own. The last time she'd been tested so it had been against LuthorCorp's Infinity 3. There she'd confronted their "guest", Ultrawoman. Ultrawoman appeared to be a Bizarro clone but it was revealed she was truly Lena Luthor. Lex had cured his sister's terminal malady by infusing Bizarro cloned cells. Subsequently she could transform into Ultrawoman at will. And unlike Bizarro Lois and Bizarro Girl, who had been corpses revived by the Bizarro cell infusion, she had all of the original Bizarro's might.
Power Girl's recollection of her battle with Ultrawoman reminded her of Superwoman and Superwoman. Each had been infused with Kryptonian DNA, transforming the Lois Lane and Lana Lang of Earth-2 into disparately powered meta-humans. Mercy Graves had funded the Everyman Project of Earth-2 to secretly develop living weapons against the Justice Lords and their allies amongst Darkseid's Elite. On Earth Prime, Mercy had revived the Everyman and Team Luthor Projects but Lena had brought them to fruition.
Mysteriously, Mercy had "vanished" and been replaced by a Japanese Mercy Graves 2.0. Whether this Mercy was organic or synthetic had yet to be discovered. Luthor had tried substituting an android bodyguard for the original Mercy on at least one occasion. Thereby demoting her from CEO to mere bodyguard so he could take her place as Chairman and CEO of Mercy Corp and revert itself back to being LexCorp. But Lena's advent of displacing Mercy from those roles had derailed Luthor's plans and Mercy Corp was reinvented but as LuthorCorp. Its consumer subsidiaries had been rebranded as L Corp. Consumer polling showing military contractors preferred the Luthor name intact and private consumers preferring the ambiguous L Corp despite Lex's landslide into political office.
While it was true that Luthor's political career had launched as an effort for his goals of world domination, it was equally true that it was a side effect of his sister's being cured and the dawning revelation of the world populace that Lena was in effect Luthor's equal in many areas and superior in some. Business acumen being chief amongst them. But her engineering capabilities equaled Lex's and her scientific talents were on par with her infamous brother's.
But Luthor's inadvertent granting her super powers had escalated their rivalry. And Luna Luthor's savant-level intelligence emergence past her autism made her as equal a threat to Lex's pride as Lena ever was. So While Lex strove to be the dominant as well as eldest Luthor, his sisters simply sought to excel where their gifts and talents led them. And Ultrawoman was now part of Lena so she fully intended to make that identity serve LuthorCorp's prosperity. Even as Infinity 3 and Team Luthor were becoming.
Satan Girl's Kryptonian heritage stored and expended solar energy. Even blended with her demonic hybridization, that fact remained. And as Anna Fortune had briefed the JSA alongside Zatanna and John Constantine, light and black magic carried a toll or a price. A toll being a limitation and a price being literal. So it turned to a price as Satan Girl's darkened soul and began to consume her increasingly depleted cells.
With a tremendous scream born of rage, Satan Girl vanished. But as she healed, she'd restore her solar battery and return with the wrath of Hell solidly behind her.
Mr. Terrific had to physically dodge Half-Man's weapons fire even as the cyborg destroyed one T-Sphere after another, quickly depleting their number. Even with the T-Sphere's using energy-matter transference, the T-Sphere's were losing the battle to stay relevant in the struggle. Mr. Terrific closed the distance and applied his seven black belt's to the equation.
But Half-Man's synthetic portions were completely armored. And the Nazi had been a highly decorated Waffen SS who'd been a veteran of the Italian campaign. The American army had been blocked from advancing out of the Italian Peninsula by Half-Man's comrades despite their being vastly outnumbered.
Mr. Terrific sacrificed his remaining T-Spheres in a swarm attack to eventually grapple one to Half-Man's back and teleport the cyborg to the converted Lubyanka Prison, now a meta- housing facility rather than an infamous KGB black site. The New People's Heroes stood by to take custody of the Fascist.
Mr. Terrific paused to cobble together additional T-Sphere's from pre-fabbed components.
Judomaster valiantly battled Daniel Maris. Maris desperately tried to land a single blow against Sonia Sato. Judomaster was a suspected gen active but no registered test could detect a meta-gene in her DNA. But her reaction times were so far off the charts they exceeded any known standard below Martian-, Kryptonian-, Speed Force speedster-, or Majestic-classes. Even Batman had been unable to even remotely touch her in full contact sparring matches.
The JLU, JSA, Young Justice, and Outsiders frequently trained against one another. Azrael, considered to be the pinnacle of common human genetic conditioning, had never made hard contact with Judomaster. Maris was a Jean-Paul Valley wannabe. So it staggered the imagination to humbly consider his success where other giants had failed.
The Mighty Crusaders had initially had difficulty with Maris but swiftly overcame him.
He'd called out the League of Assassins but Black Canary would have nothing to with him. His efforts to defeat at least the Shadow Crusaders, Freedom Fighters, or even the Americans had all subsequently failed. In short, Maris had more time inside Blackgate and Iron Heights Prisons than he'd ever served with the Order of St. Dumas.
In what appeared to Judomaster tiring of boredom, she finished off Maris with a backspin kick to his left temple. The concussion knocked him out. And Judomaster quietly restrained him.
Hawkman dislodged Iron Emperior's "thumb" with a tremendous blow from his mace. When the robot attempted to reacquire its prisoner, the reincarnated Thanagarian struck the "soft" point binding Iron Emperor's other "wrist" together. The final indignity, for its creators rather than the construct, Hawkman displaced Iron Emperor's "head" from its chassis. Without a framework to work with, the CPU shut down into standby mode and awaited further instruction. Carter Hall alighted next to the processing unit and kicked it.
Yz was a purely electrical being whose energies were contained by Thunderbolt magic. Jonni frequently wondered if she'd ever get used to the sensations and perceptions of being Yz. If not, she had confidence she'd get severely pissed about it. But with all of the Thunderbolt's power behind her, Yz unleashed torrents of energy at the Red Knight and Valkyrie.
Both wore insulation in preparation for such encounters. But that couldn't save them from a being that exploited any imperfections in the insulating factors. The Nazis were still partially grounded and Yz hit them with enough watts and amps to overload a state's power grid. So Valkyrie and Red Knight, once so confident of an easy victory, fell before her. And in celebration Yz happily returned to being Jonni again.
Sir Ystin had over 844 years of direct combat experience. Maid Maleen had little over a century. But in all justification, Maleen had trained for seven centuries until she was confident in her own prowess. Even though she'd been trained by her lady love, Maid Maleen was still hampered by medieval prejudices that seemed to stretch back to most ancient cultures.
England under Arthur had loosened homosexual prohibitions but with loss of Arthur, parochial hatred had returned. And despite the fact that Ystina and Maleen were Welsh rather than English and raised under pagan traditions, they'd faced severe persecution for being who they naturally were.
Sir Ystin had run Capt. Swastika through on three separate occasions now. But the faceless man whose features bore a namesake swastika simply healed and rebounded back at her. Maid Maleen understood enough about the racial imperatives of the Nazis' Aryan myths to understand Crimson Conqueror was a contradictory troglodyte.
Crimson Conqueror, like the second Baron Blitzkrieg, was black. He'd adhered to Fascism as an economic system and then as a racial and political one while still in community college. Radicalized by the Masked Leader's online presence, he'd left the United States to travel to Africa to enslave a country as the latest warlord. After which he would devote his slaves' material and labor resources to the Fourth Reich's demands. Only, Crimson Conqueror fed Africa Hitler's mad dreams of white supremacy and then bitterly complained that no one but untrustworthy mercenaries would follow him. And the reliable mercs, such as Meridian or Zither Security Group, were vastly too expensive for him to hire.
Mercy Graves 2.0 cut a deal for the first international iteration of Team Luthor to operate in Crimson Conqueror's proposed theater of operations in exchange for the same as he'd offered the Masked Leader. LuthorCorp willingly obliging in exchanging material support and personnel for products to be manufactured at $0.04 an hour. Crimson Conqueror in turn would receive the use of a cadre of armored Team Luthor Int'l operatives and $1.06 an hour from each "employee's" official hourly "wage".
Part of the Nazi ideal that appealed to Crimson Conqueror was that he was exclusively attracted to white women, and men but he wouldn't admit to it, and hirsute bottle blondes with roots showing especially turned him on. Of course, Maid Maleen's red velvet hair color also gave him a hard on.
Bronze Man was the first, if physically altered, African descended man to join the Fourth Reich. No one but Baron Blitzkrieg knew that his great-great-grandson using the same code-name had also been Black. Baroness Blitzkrieg being of Portugeuse-Indian-German descent. After the fall of the Third Reich and Baron Blitzkrieg settled in Columbia, he had sex with women of every ethnicity, creed, and political conviction. All in an effort to harvest gen latent offspring. And Hitler's Eugenics Breeding Facilities had been captured by the Soviets so German women with detected latent meta-genes were under Russian control.
As a camp director, Baron Blitzkrieg had raped his share of Jewish and Slavic "subhuman" women. So the idea of getting his dick dirty with less than evolved races had lost its repellent nature long ago. If the Baron were to be honest, his sexual perversions in the eyes of Hitler's Master Race theory pleasured him much in the way that the "little chicken farmer's" open same-sex pedophilia gratified him. But not to Himmler's degree, whereas the Gestapo Director employed poultry in his sexual "conquests". Or the fact that Germany's elite families typically had to proffer their second sons to him. These 6-8 year olds would be circumcised, castrated, and sodomized before being returned to their parents. The circumcision hanging potential charges of Jewish ancestry and granting him unlimited access to the boy until he aged out at 11 and was terminated with blunt instruments. Himmler ran his own mass burial sites where he dumped previously frozen bodies separately from Gestapo auspices.
Hitler condoned the activities because it satisfied Himmler, kept the rodent in check, and blackmailed Germany's powerful families. The Fuhrer could see no drawbacks or political blowback. And he'd publicaly profered the notion that first borns were the viable future for the Third Reich. Second borns and women were weak and effeminate. Of course, Hitler was the exception to that rule. Being the sixth of eight children. The eldest two being half-siblings and three of his actual brothers and sisters dying in infancy. As the "epitome" of the Aryan ideal, the runt was immunized against his own venom.
The Shining Knight's own regenerative capabilities were unmatched thanks to exposure to waters held by the Holy Grail. Maid Maleen had also tasted from the cup. So Ystin wasn't really worried about her or Maleen's health. She was, however, prone to fret over the efficiency of the fight. And Sir Ystin was worried over the reaction to her beheading Capt. Swastika, which seemed the last viable option to stopping him.
Instead, seeking a compromise with her martial instincts and those of her more sensitive companions, Ystin speared her foe's head. Then she slowly twisted the blade by the hilt, blending Capt. Swastika's brain like a smoothie. When she pulled her sword free and his body collapsed, she used her heavy boots and chainmailed leg to crush his skull.
The JSAers were boon companions but far too fickle when it came to lethality to suit a knight of a seemingly forgotten realm. Maid Maleen was still locked in combat with Crimson Conqueror. And she had him reeling. Still, Ystin decided to save her some time. So while Maleen consciously distracted Crimson Conqueror, Sir Ystin managed to come behind him undetected and used the pommel of her sword to strike him down.
"I'm sorry it took…" Maleen never finished the apology because Ystin swept her into a heated kiss that made both women flush.
"Nawr allwn ni fuck?" Maleen practically begged.
"Yn anffodus, nid oes gennym yr amser na'r lle," Ystiin tried to let her down easy.
"Damnio chi," Maleen groaned.
Green Lantern's power ring, being the greatest sum of the Green Flame's might, pushed Man of War back. She steadily lost ground to him in a losing fight. And as Ares' daughter, she epitomized "sore loser".
"You probably should just surrender now," Green Lantern advised.
"Fick dich und deinen verdammten Ring!" she screamed back at him.
"Well, that was rude," Alan Scott, Earth's Green Lantern and former Sentinel, didn't speak the German language but spoke tones. Bludgeons of every shape, size, and description flew at Man at Arms from every conceivable angle, direction, and vector. Simply put, despite her armor, shield, and helmet, Man at Arms was nearly beaten to death.
She fell to the ground and released her weapons and shield. Casting aside her helmet, she snarled her surrender, "Ich gebe vorerst nach, du selbstgerechter Bastard. Also, fick dich und deine Verundeten. Ich werde dich eines Tagen alle ficken."
Green Lantern knew then that this particular woman would be enduring trouble. But after his ring restrained her, she was subdued. At least for the moment.
"Lady, what's your deal?" Hourman asked after exchanging several blows with Capt. Murder. He wiped blood away from his lips, nose, and eyes. And that was with the hyper-density of the muscle and bone tissues that Miraclo gave him.
"Why the hell are you a Nazi?" he had to wonder.
"Who cares about the Nazi cause?" she tittered, "They point. I kill. It's helluva lotta fun."
"So you're telling me you just get off on it?" Hourman asked.
"Oh, hell yeah!" Capt. Murder giggled uncontrollably.
Finally enraged, Hourman focused every iota of strength he had into a single punch that knocked Capt. Murder out.
"I see why Rick and Jesse retired," Rex Tyler bemoaned. Actually, his son Rick Tyler had abandoned being Hourman and Jesse Chambers had left Jesse Quick behind when Jesse's pregnancy was announced. That left Rex coming out of retirement to be Hourman once more. Tyler Chem had done better under his grand-niece's administration than it ever thrived under his. And Rick was a pharmaceutical researcher and Jesse a historian so they were set for money beyond the trust funds from Rex, Johnny Chambers, and Libby Lawrence. Johnny's self-help empire was fractionally successful next to Tyler Chem but when Libby's news network bonuses funneled into trusts came into play, then Jesse was as comfortable as Rick would ever be. And Jesse's brief tenure outside the JLU and JSA with the Conglomerate also padded her revenues.
The Conglomerate's corporate sponsored vision of superheroing had collapsed. But Claire Montgomery was a visionary as well as the Justice League's press corps and financial sponsor administrator. She cobbled together a scrappy team of veritable unknowns and dubbed them the Young All Stars. Under Vibe and Gypsy's watch, with Vapor returning as field chief, the Young All Stars were a privatized security firm on par with LuthorCorps' Infinity 3 or Team Luthor. What the young adults lacked in experience they made up for in enthusiasm.
Tarantula and Red Robe of Death were equals at physical conditioning and martial skills. But Tarantula was the top of her marksmanship qualifiers at Quantico and with the Texas Rangers. Unlike Guardian, who used hyperkinetic bullets, Tarantula had two Glock 22 .45 cal. pistols and six mags for each. She emptied one into Red Robe's body armor. Holstering the emptied pistol after fourteen rounds, she pulled the other free.
"Honey, you're outta the fight," Tarantula goaded Red Robe into revealing her own weapons stashes. After thoroughly disarming the Nazi, Tarantula put a round into each of Red Robe's thighs.
Ejecting the empty magazine into her freed hand, Tarantula flipped the color tab at the latch of the magazine pouch she inserted it into after liberating the full one in it. Slapping the fresh mag into her pistol, she hit the slide release and chambered the round and cocked the pistol all at once. She drew the pistol down to twelve round again and used it as her primary as she kept Red Robe covered and made certain the other woman didn't bleed out.
After a prolonged, and exceedingly lopsided gun battle, Guardian hit Prussian Spy several times with hyperkinetic rounds. Dig used Greg Saunder's nonlethal ammo that hit like a loaded freight car. The original Vigilante had initially relied upon Lone Ranger styled precision shooting to disarm or wound opponents but tended to favor the hyperkinetics towards the end of his superhero career as the original Vigilante.
Vig's only regret was that the new Vigilante was a decided killing machine. Adrian Chase had employed his cases as NYC DA to target high level criminal operations and terminate them. Now, Vigilante II loosely operated with the government in similar fashion as the Phantasm. Andrea Beaumont was decisively the third ranked mercenary -assassin in the world. Surpassed in demand only by Deathstroke and Deathblow. And edging out Deadshot and a quadrapartite ranking consisting of the Eraser, Deadly Force, Martial Law, and the Persian. The League of Assassins and its masters/mistresses in the form of the Seven within the League of Shadows were a ranking unto themselves.
Lady Shiva, David Cain, Bronze Tiger, and Fury were operatives beyond the pale. Merlyn, Dark Archer, Shado, and Syonide were close rivals.
And that didn't even account for non-lethal fighters like Batman, Wildcat, Black Bat, Richard Dragon, I-Ching, Red Fury, the Question, the Huntress, or Angelica and Ghost Fox Killer. Or even Pike and Devon or Backlash and Taboo. And amidst these giants Arrow, Arkham Knight, Squire, Ravager, Red Hood, Cheshire, Arsenal, and Red Arrow casually floated with them.
This didn't account for Martian-class and above contenders like Superman, Power Girl, Maxima, Darkstar (Kara In-Ze Ferris-Rayner), Supergirl, Miss Martian, Superman II, The Wonder Women (Hippolyta, Diana, Artemis, Nubia and Donna Troy), Superwoman (Lois Lane), Superwoman (Lana Lang), Strange Visitor, Majestic, Uncle Sam, Storm-God, Shieldmaiden, Black Bison, Icon, Power-Man, Wonderman, Tom Strong, or even uncharted potentials like Erishkigal Narayana the Disco Mummy. And excluding the Marvel (Shazam, Captain Marvel, and Lady Marvel) and Black Marvel (Black Adam, Isis, and Horus) Families. Or Avatars like Hawk and Dove and/or beneficiaries like the Thunder Family (Capt. Thunder, Thunder Jr, and Thunder Woman).
Most of Dig's military training involved rifles and suppressive weapons along with various explosives. Handguns were a secondary concern amongst military soldiers because once the enemy met that range, grenades were far more effective with a greater killing kill ratio. Most of his expertise with pistols had derived from continued training as a civilian. ARGUS had relied on military and law enforcement training to fully round out agents. Despite heavy military and ex-military recruiting, agents were classified by government pay grade levels along with similar agent classifications as the FBI, DEA, Secret Service, Treasury agents, and MLJ Initiative endorsements relied upon.
Even as Prussian Spy sought shelter, the object surround her had holes punched through them and deep dents and gauges into others. His shot straight into the ballistic metal plate centered in her armored vest blew her a dozen feet back and the impact from the shot knocked her out far before the impact with ground had a chance to.
And John was just grateful.
Spider Queen lured Lady Illyria behind and then spun away as X-33 made his attack. His spinning razors tore through Illyria's flesh. Maximilian clutched at his mistress and used his repulsors to skim across the grounds to escape Spider Queen's capturing him and assuring Lady Illyria's demise. Shannon Kane assumed the hospitals would inform the authorities that would in turn place strategic calls to guide the JSA to the wounded Queen of Spies and her pet bodyguard.
Spider Queen was beginning regret her career path as a mystery woman-deputized law enforcement agent. It was still too easy to get weirded out. Thought the woman who had a cow's mammary gland and tit modified to be a spider silk caster in her handgun.
Sandman easily recognized that Red Death couldn't be stopped by conventional means. Or unconventional means either. The chemicals running through her veins made her inhuman. So he emptied his pistol into Red Death's skull and used his gloved hands to break the German's head apart and stomp on the remains of splintered brains and bone. The fragments oozed their way slowly towards one another as he dragged the corpse away. He estimated that by the time Red Death's remains remerged with one another, the mission would already be over and Red Death could get the attention she deserved.
Baron Blitzkrieg used Man of the Ages' distracting Kalea to get behind her. But as he went to slap a full Nelson on her, she swung her right elbow into his face. Then she carried the motion through into a left cross that sent him spiraling down into Perth.
Man of the Ages was robust enough to appear to be her equal. But that was only because he was a magically constructed spiritual being. One who shrugged off every injury she inflicted.
"Your own evil sustains me," he laughed at her.
She considered her own blackened soul. Kalea's first instinct in dealing with an obstacle was to kill it regardless of species, gender, or age. Even Maxima was afraid to investigate how many planetary populations Kalea had eradicated in the name of Almerac. Or why Xanna had recruited Kalea to embark on the deadliest and bloodiest assignments the Almercacian Ministry of Executions had to offer. Kalea didn't just enjoy her work, she reveled in it. But apparently not as much as Xanna herself before her ouster and exile.
And her current assignment went far beyond halting the human trafficking. She was tasked with killing every last pirate involved, including destroying the Uralian pirate fleet in its entirety. Saturn Queen being the pinnacle of her target list. Such personages as Spider Girl and Asteroid Wicth were merely targets of opportunity. Freebies as it were.
Kalea knew she required help to execute the remaining Kandorians when she found them. For now, her interests coincided with Earth's defenders' own. But when those fortunes changed, she'd happily inflict the same upon them. After the Crisis had passed the new Universe, and during Zero Hour, Glorith had cemented her version of history. Even the Time Trapper and the Lords of either Chaos or Order couldn't alter it. Such had been the power of Zero Hour's reboot of all time just as the Crisis had erased the Multiverse and then yielded a universe blending dispersed fragment of the Multiverse. She still couldn't fathom how willfully ignorant her own parents were of the events or their repercussions despite Glorith's reweaving history altered memories and backstories.
And why, the Dark Goddess' name, was her father following Maxima to Rann, now of all times?
Karen proved to be her only emotional obstacle. Marcus had been her one great love. He'd also been her only genuine friend until she met Galatea. Power Girl was her equal; in strength, skill, ferocity, and cold blooded purpose. Galatea had been created to kill Superman and every meta-human. And she'd aptly demonstrated her ability on Earth-2 when she dissected Lord Superman alive.
Saturn Queen's proxy in this endeavor, the previously unknown "Evil Queen" was proving to be a nuisance. An obstacle requiring removal. But she was also mystical, making Kalea vulnerbale to her power. But Earth possessed enough gen actives to throw at her to ostensibly wear Renfri down so that she could kill her.
As for the matters at hand, Kalea switched tactics and merely laid hands upon Man of the Ages. Spinning him in a high velocity arc, she released him and he left Earth's atmosphere, hurtling at near the speed of light past the Lagrange Point to eventually impact with the Moon mere moments later.
Baron Blitzkrieg wasn't nearly the same caliber of threat to her. The rejuvenation process had eliminated the scars and pain he'd endured since his gen activation. It also reversed one hundred years of aging and froze his body's natural decaying process. So now, he could focus his psionic powers into two physical manifestations simultaneously. As now, he flew to meet her with his physical density increased so as to exhibit near invulnerability, not unlike Hourman and his Miraclo. He shifted durability to speed and broke the sound barrier in the last seconds of his approach. Transferring flight and speed into strength and durability, he relied upon sheer momentum to carry him the distance.
Kalea turned and caught him by the throat. Which surprised her by the lack of injury that had inflicted. Kalea studied him with her X-Ray Vision with her natural eye and in infinite detail with her mechanical replacement.
The dual inputs had long since stopped being confusing or overwhelming. Now they simply overlapped as she processed the data. She watched as his very cells reinforced themselves and repaired the damages she'd already inflicted. She wondered if the processes would continue if he was unconscious.
It seemed he still required oxygen no matter what flux state his body was in. So she simply endeavored to deny him the same. She smothered him until he passed out. And then two miles above the continent, she simply let him go. And she studied him as he fell like dead weight into the streets far below. And she watched as his unconscious mind partially released its grip on his body. But some residual autonomic response was active because he survived the fall while his durability lasted and his enhanced regenerative capacities kicked in.
The Fourth Reich wasn't part of her target list. They seemed to be mercenaries in the Evil Queen's employ. So Kalea would allow them to live. For now. But hindrances had a way of dying. And so too would the Fourth Reich if they continued to interfere in her her mission. And she'd argue about potential bounties later when she reported back to Almerac.
Jay Garrick was bruising his knuckles against Bronze Man's flesh. Jay was eternally grateful Wally West had returned from Apokolips to resume being Earth's primatry Flash and relegating Jay back to being an instructor first and foremost.
Trajectory's return had heralded the news that Barry Allen had still been alive to participate in the Crisis. Eliza Harmon reported Barry's reward was that he and Iris would dwell in the 31st Century Central City.
Trajectory's news had broken the wall containing all of Iris West-Allen's grief and joy at Barry whisking her off. And Wally's return enabled Patty Spivotz to reveal her own secondary occupation as the speedster called Hot Pursuit. With Vreti's death at the hands of Grail, Wally had found Patty to be a source of unexpected consolation. And while Tina McGee had begun as merely a sexual cougar, she'd developed real feelings for him and he for her.
Patty was unusually subdued on any subject involving Tina. And Tina seemed rather smugly fascinated with Patty. To add to the confusion, Linda Park had insinuated bringing herself back into Wally's life. Christina Borodin, Lady Flash, was also making unexpected overtures. The only speedster, or current and former flame, not vying for attention was Eliza.
Jesse Chambers and Jay were supportive but both seemed to want to kick Wally in the head. God knew Jay certainly wanted to. Since Apokolips, Wally had been restless about being the Flash. But neither Jesse Quick or Jay would hear of Wally laying down the mantle. He'd urged the same for Patty concerning Hot Pursuit. Patty had stubbornly counter demanded that Wally set aside the role of the Flash and she'd do the same.
Christina carried the weight of being Russia's answer to the Flash. Jesse had retired. Jay teetered on it. Linda and Tina continually counsled Wally that he'd given enough for the time being. Only Trajectory kept her advice to her herself. And having spent a year within the Speed Force, he knew she had more of it to impart than anyone. Especially about Barry's future.
Flash had tried a number of supersonic punches on Bronze Man to no avail. Bronze, even the syntehetic variety, presumably blended copper with iron. So Flash built up static charges and hurled lightning at Bronze Man on several occasions.
Finally, on the fifth discharge, Bronze Man reeled and fell over. He appeared to still be semiconscious but he was inert at least.
Jay's musings over his own retirement always came crashing to a halt when he considered the Justice Society's current mission of training the newest generation of superheroes. Young Justice was only one aspect of that core mission. Jonni Thunder, Guardian, Tarantula, the Whip, Robotman, Spider Queen, and Hawkgirl were all primary examples of students in need of experience and guidance. Kendra especially needed steering.
Carter was her obvious role model but she frequently could barely stomach being in a room with him. Elizabeth was an offender because she felt her gestalt with Nabu made her the perfect Dr. Fate. Maid Maleen's arrogance came from her experiences travelling with Ystin all these centuries despite her only undertaking martial training over the last hundred years.
Tarantula was stubborn because of her law enforcement training and experience. Jonni was not only reluctant to have Yz define her life, she outright denied the possibility. Guardian was equally biased. Robotman was distracted by adapting to his new life in a way to procure a greater degree of humanity rather than seeing humanity was also a quality displayed rather than just experienced.
The Whip saw that her family legacy was rooted in the past rather than the present or that it should be guided into the future rather than blindly careen past it. Spider Queen motives were still obscured and she still seemed reluctant to enbrace her chosen role. And these and a multitude of other comparable reasons are why the JSA continued on.
Blitzkrieg didn't hold back ever. Every punch was thrown with ounce of strength she had. Devastating to be certain with the augmentation of her kinetic gloves...if they ever connected. Wildcat measured her as she wore herself down. Finally, Blitzkrieg was barely standing at all. And Ted Grant delivered his trademark TKO.
Crossbow had expended his ammo and tried to flee before the Whip. But she snared him and reeled him in for the beat down of his life. Afterwards, Shelley Gaynor was just relieved the fight was over.
The Hun hid behind his shield as Hawkgirl smashed away at it. Despite the antimagic of her axe's Nth Metal, it endured. Up until Wildcat spun him around and lifted him off the ground with an uppercut.
"Ya got heart, kid. But ya gotta learn ta control yerself," he advised.
"Eff you," Hawkgirl flew away.
"Yer welcome too," Wildcat grumbled.
Jade used her Power Pulse to yank Marksman friom his shooting nest to place him between herself and Madame Doom, who used him like a pin cushion. Then Jade smashed Madame Doom into the ground. After that, she sought out the Whip.
Sand simply buried Man o'Metal and Blue Beetle in the ground. Their head and necks still protruded so he received a litany of profanity as a reply.
"Honestly, what did you expect?" Sand rhetorically asked.
Hippolyta made no qualms about beheading Madame Libertine or Capt. Nazi once Robotman crushed Nazi's visor. Red Tornado used her artificially created storm to arc Volkssturnm';s lightning into Vicenhammer to short his robotic arm. Dr. Mid-Nite easily prevented Baroness Blood's scramble for the light and subdued her. Obsidian's control overt the darkness tied Rubberman up and over Iron Ace. And Finally, Dr. Fate capped off the victory by ripping Green Ghoul apart.
But their remaining prisoners vanished in whiffs of violet smoke.
Hippolyta asserted her authority, "Fate, transport us and every JSAer to London to regroup."
"This was the preliminary," Kalea grated, "You haven't metythe real threat yet no matter what your egos claim."
Every Fourth Reicher, even the corpses had vanished in a whirl of smoke. Power Girl tried to elaborate on Kalea's eyewitness accounts of the Evil Queen in action . And that Supergirl had sided with Renfri.
"But why would she do that?" Green Lantern scoffed, "It must be a ruse."
"It isn't," Sand advised them all.
"Sand is correct but we can still achieve a victory. But it will cost us dearly," Sandman warned.
"What kind of cost?" Hippolyta was apprehensive.
"The very personal kind," Sandman warned.
"How personal?" Hawkgirl took up the banner.
"Your pride," Sand completed the thought.
The Evil Queen left fewer survivors than the JSA would have ever inflicted upon them. She and the Masked Leader had reached an accord over which of the failures should pay with their very lives to supercharge her. Hachiman and his entire Hirohito's Red Sun Brigade fed her hungers. And Dubai's sands were already scouring Kandorian bones.
An object lesson that should have imparted wisdom.
"Your master bought your lives. Show some gratitude," the Evil Queen vanished the remaining Nazis, "Now, for some real talent. It seems I need the help. But never tell anyone or you'll join the deathly departed."
"Of course," Supergirl hastily agreed.
Renfri summoned her best cadres and commanders from the Twelve of the Twenty-Seven Realms she nominally controlled. Supergirl took one look and smiled slyly, "Now these are people to fight beside."
"You have no idea," Renfri promised and then the Evil Queen reached into the Antimatter Earth and retrieved the Emerald Empress and her Fatal Five from their hiding place since the Crisis when they'd backed the losing side. While her servants acclimated themselves to the sands permeating Dubai, the Evil Queen convinced Sarya to pledge herself to Renfri's plans. And Saturn Queen's promised head as payment.
The Justice League's boarding actions were delayed in order to spare the residents of Earth's space stations from Asteroid Witch's wrath.. But even as they did so, she began moving Ceres, the dwarf planet found between Mars and Jupitert out of its orbit. Even fragments of it could extinguish every form of life on the planet Earth down to the viral level.
Green Lantern instructed Dr. Fate to bring Young Justice to London. Hippolyta insisted on contacting the Outsiders as well. The team was led by Donna Troy, one of the five Wonder Women. Hippolyta served with the Justice Society. Artemis and Nubia themselves served with the Justice League. Donna filled that role for the covert action Outsiders. Whose mission was currently consisting of tracking down the Legion of Doom's location in the Vanishing Isles.
The final and fifth Wonder Woman was Queen Diana of Themiscyra herself. She'd vowed never to again leave her island kingdom. Many felt she was punishing the outer world. Only Bruce Wayne knew differently. Her daughter, ostensibly conceived by Superman when he was Diana's husband, was in fact Batman's. The outer world knew her as Alexandra Prince. But her US birth certificate listed her as Elissa Wayne. A dubious honor that Helena Kyle would be denied as Damien al Ghul had been before any others were born. And though Batman was in denial, Diana had slaughtered the attending midwife to ensure that secret remained theirs alone.
But in a vain effort to buy back her own soul, Diana's first overture had been an olive branch to Aresia Lowell. But Fury had spat on the messenger before killing her. The body had been dropped from an aircraft that couldn't see Themiscyra but Aresia knew knew the Amazons would recover it. Thanks to Nyssa Raatko, Fury served Ra's al Ghul, Nyssa's wife formerly known as Black Canary.
Emerald Empress made three demands. The fashion of payment had been agreed to. Another was that the Fatal Five would work independently against the Justice League and only the JLU. And Sarya waznted a voice in the strategic planning of every component of the mission.
The Evil Queen spliced away a mirror image of the Castle of the Blackest Heart in the Realm of Fables, Renfri positioned the echo in the Andes atop a stone outcropping beside a waterfall cascading down the lush mountainsides. High enough to avoid most forms of detection, especially with the illusionary cloud cover, and yet still in the lush forests.
With Margo Hess ensconced in the castle, she still received constant updates from Capt. Z-Ro and Sussa transporting the captives and their captors. Capt. Frake and the Asteroid Witch stayed in orbit as the Justice League raced to save station personnel across the orbital width of the planet. The Uralian fleet slowly mobilized as Corsair Queen ignored Frake's explicit orders to disengage. Rather Yrina would attempt to eradicate the Justice League and Blackhawks in space.
But the JLU rescue operations were completed faster than anyone could have predicted. The Emerald Empress and the Fatal Five's task was to engage and kill as many JLers as her forces could possibly manage.
The Antares, under Z-Ro's commmand would abanadon Frake and meet their quota when they rendezvoused with the Dominators. A betrayal that would redirect Frake to abandon all concerns and pursue her own vessel. Which alerted by Hess, Yrina would move to intercept and the long stewing rivalry would consume them both.
The Evil Queen gathered her forces. Us usual, her second in command would be the Dark Lady Saris. Saris was Renfri's general and she commanded all of the Evil Queen's military forces. Saris had led the conquest of seven Realms and had been overseeing the ongoing raging battles in the Realm of Fables, the Realm of Courts, Oz, and Wonderland. Those four Realms had proven exceedingly resistant over the last few hundred years. Even the supposedly sterilized Neverland was a battleground. Even the other eight conquests had finally been settled when Renfri unleashed her personal twelve wraiths. Creating wraiths had been the crime that banished Renfri from the Unseelie Court of Faery.
Renfri earned her title of the Evil Queen after spending tens of thousands of years touring the Realms to finally marry the aging King Severin of the Realm of Fables and become the stepmother to his daughters, the fraternal twins Snow White and Rose Red. Despite her youthful appearance causing many to assume Renfri was actually the twins' younger sister, she was like most Seelie and Unseelie fey in that she'd been born from the fires of creation itself and was immortal.
Renfri poisoned Severin with an apple and enslaved the Fables. Snow and Rose led the rebellion that drew in the faery. But the Evil Queen embraced her new moniker and waged all out genocidal campaigns against her own people. The Greater and Lesser courts of Faery were simply foes to be conquered. But her Sidhe brethren faced extinction from one of their own. As an Unseelie, Renfri was supposed to be granted less natural magic than the Seelie Court of Sidhe. But her hidden ability to absorb the magic and life forces from other living creatures and beings gave her a seemingly unnatural edge as she supercharged herself.
And Renfri's meddling into arcane arts granted her the abilities and mastery over the foulest creations that she warped and twisted her captives into being. Wraiths, ogres, goblins, trolls, and the like had all been created by the Evil Queen's perverted skills. She'd even made allies of the mercurial dragon tribes.
The Evil Queen wielded powers equal to the Lords of Chaos and Order. And in so doing had also reached the raw potential of the Greater Sidhe of Avalon. Angels and Demons still outclassed her but she was ambitious and tenacious. She had little doubt that she would conquer Heaven and Hell themselves. And with her ability to siphon power, she'd wage war against God. And with her power to dispose of her enemies and leave herself nothing but allies, subjects, and slaves she would become, in effect, the mistress of all time and space.
But, everything in the universe hinged on New Earth. So, it's defenders were more than pests. They were potential nuisances that could stymie her ambitions. So they had to be removed. As painfully as possible.
The Dark Lady Saris was one of the disaffected fey that had joined the Evil Queen's cause. She heralded from the Greater Court of Faery. Locked out from the noble houses, Saris cursed them all and traveled the Realms to learn the arts of combat and war. And, like all fey, she had a core magic that had seemed useless amongst the idyllic Greater Court. She had the ability to manipulate any edged material regardless of origin. Her magic was sufficient that she had once annihilated a continent's worth of soldiers that had successfully repelled her armies. But the price of such an effort was that Saris lay comatose for a month.
Saris hadn't learned to twist her magic into other forms. She saw it as being beneath her. Her fellow subject-soldiers consisted of fellow fey, elves, and mortals. The mortals were divided into two classifications: barbaric fighters or magic wielders. The magicians were subsquently grouped as either witches, enchantresses, or sorceresses. And the classifications were tiered by the type of magic and the raw power behind it sculpted by the knowledge of spell casting. Each was a specialist in various arts.
Witches were the least powerful but had the broadest knowledge base. Elves, like witches didn't have a specific core magic but could harness many forms. Faeries had core magics and the ability to manipulate it into other forms but to a lesser degree than someone who it came naturally to.
And the mortals derived from across the Realms and Earth. The woman simply called the Witch had been recruited by the Evil Queen shortly after her arrival on Earth. The Witch was the daughter of a career criminal called Dagger Dan. He'd been killed in a shootout with police during a robbery. A couple named Paul and Lorna Prentiss had taken the Witch in from the foster system. They revealed to her that her natural magical aptitude had drawn them to her.
Paul was a painter but also a warlock. Lorna was an accountant but secretly served as a coven leader. They'd married after moving to Metropolis with forged IDs. In reality, Lorna hadn't taken on the surname Prentiss. She'd been born to it. She was Paul's younger sister. Their parents had run them out of their home and the police wanted to charge them with illegal sexual incest. So they'd fled far enough and long enough to insure no one that knew their past would them. They laughed to others about their "uncanny" resemblance.
Barbara Elizabeth was another human from Earth that Renfri had enlisted. But Lady Elizabeth wouldn't be present for this campaign but rather manipulating legalities from the House of Lords. Barbara was a sorceress but still untested. Her power had a unique potential for someone in her class-range. So the Evil Queen had mages working with her to elevate her ranking.
Lura was a mortal from the Fables. She was the fiercest and feared Ranger Scout Rose Red had ever fought alomgside until Lura attempted to assassinate her and Snow White. Lura had retreated and escaped to save her life from the vengeful rebel army. So it was Lura made her way undetected to the original Castle of the Blackest Heart and pledged her life to the Evil Queen's service.
Ashleigh was a sorceress from Oz. She was cubist using three cube artifacts to channel power and to suck it out of the fabric of the Realm she stood in. The cubes predated the arrival of the Wizard to Oz. In fact her research indicated the cubes stretched back to the prehistory of Oz. They were akin to the Eyes of Ekron in that they constantly replenished themselves but were unlike the Eyes in that they had no sentience to speak of. But those that commanded them came once every thousand generations.
Dawna was a warrior from Wonderland who had served under the Red Queen but when Alice the Mad Hatter killed the Queen and her overly ambitious daughter, the Blood Queen, took control Dawna defecteed to the Evil Queen's army. Her passion was collecting the heads and skulls from conquests, literal and sexual.
Leirya was a wood nymph cast out of the Fables' Enchanted Forest. She drew power from forestation and could cast botanically based spells. Her greatest weaknesses were fire and dehydration. Destroying plant life under her spells could inflict actual physical pain to her. Extreme cold could drive her into dormancy.
Bruna was an echantress and the high priestess of a forgotten sun god. Her magical specialty was bending light to her whims. And she was particularly sadistic in how she employed her spells.
Argana was another fey dissident. But she was born into the Lesser Court of Faery. She possessed leather wings and a core magic of controlling elemental forces with an aptitude for also controlling wildlife. Her grievances against her own kind were unknown to all save the Evil Quenn herself who took Argana in as a consequence of them,
Auron was a mortal from the Enchanted Forest who controlled all lupine and canine species. It was an empathic gift rather than magic. Her father had been a Huntsman for Severin. And he'd a been loyalist as well. Auron killed him and carried her father's heart to Renfri to offer it up as a sacrifice. This loyalty earned her a place amongst the Evil Queen's elite forces.
Drusilla had a power even the Evil Queen envied. Where Renfri befriended the dragon clans, Drusilla could command them. She preferred persuasion rather than force on any given day but she did wield the power to forcefully compel them into action. It had been her protection of the dragons and her allegiance to the Evil Queen that earned Renfri their sympathy to her cause.
Djarna was unique amongst the Evil Queen's devoted disciples of death. She was a jinn that Renfri had liberated from her captivity to the lamp and her masters of the moment. Gratitude compelled Djarna to side with Renfri. The freedom to leave at any given moment kept her in the Evil Queen's service.
Astrid came from a Coda styled tribe of amazonian warriors. The best of them, her entire tribe had objected to her challenging the Evil Queen. After killing each and every one of them, Astrid reversed her intention and joined with Renfri rather than attempt to kill her. In the Evil Queen's service she found the life of combat and killing she'd always craved.
Fori was an elf witch. Her specialty was bending darkness into tangible objects. Her preference was bladed instruments.
Belina was an ice faery. A fashionista, Belina wore the finest styles of any given Realm. And she preferred plumbing the depths of its history to get the best of every decade of every century and of every millennia. Belina could accept defeat but not damage to her clothing.
Cedric was a barbarian outcast from a tribe engaged in fighting the Evil Queen's advances further into their lands. Cedric had proposed allying with Renfri. He'd barely escaped his trial by combat with his life. Vengeance drove him to do the very thing that had exiled him from his home lands.
Garin had been the warlock king of a forgotten land. He'd sacrificed his subjects on an altar of blood to achieve near immortality. Renfri's successes made him envious so he'd enlisted with her. And the Evil Queen was more than prepared for his eventual treachery.
Rolan was Severin's master at arms and had followed Snow White and Rose Red into rebelling against Renfri after the Evil Queen had ordered their executions. But the twins were democratically minded and weak in Rolan's eyes. So he'd offered his services to the Evil Queen in exchange for the honor of killing her stepdaughters in battle or upon their capture.
Donal hailed from a frozen country. His enchanted axe hurled lightning. No one suspected that Donal was actually an Asgardian descended demigod fugitive fleeing Odin's justice. No but the Evil Queen that is.
Zircon possessed a similar ability to manipulate edged weapons with his magic. But his scope was vastly limited and his powers only affected fiorged weapons made by smiths. But using his own brandished weaponry, he was nearly unstoppable.
Tolph was a barbarian mercenary widely acclaimed as a fighter. King Severin and his ancestors before him had contained Tolph's forebearers and placed a bounty on his head. The Evil Queen spared him and gave him newfound purpose. His was to be a life of spoils and looting.
Zarina was an actual fallen angel condemned by both God and Lucifer. The Evil Queen liberated her from her flaming shackles and gave her the opportunity to amass the power and armies required to penetrate the Gates of Hell and have her chance to kill Satan himself.
Vara was another fallen angel in the Evil's Queen's service. Both Zarina and Vara appeared female but were truly capable of adopting the guise of any creature and possess the attributes of any gender. Vara's appearance was striking because of her alabaster skin and coal black wings. Vara was another fugitive from both sides of the Angelic Hosts. Renfri bought Vara's safety from Lucifer with an armistice she fully intended to break. As did he.
Sari Wren'Tofen was a renegade Atlantean witch fleeing Aquaman's wrath. Sari had sought out the Evil Queen specifically to secure her own safety by serving Renfri's ambitions. Which echoed her own.
Arwin was a female elf condemned for espousing the view that the elves should side with Renfri and dispose of the remaining Sidhe in return for their shunning the elves. She'd escaped execution and now waged a similar genocidal campaign against her own kind as the Evil Queen did against the Sidhe.
Freda was a fey soldier. Perhaps the greatest swordswoman to every derive from the Courts of Faery. Her prowess was legendary amongst the Realms. But Freda had grown tired of the Courts' manipulations and questionable politics. Their vision of a future was clouded by internal strife and vying for superiority between members of the Greater and Lesser Faery. The Evil Queen's goals were simple in the purity. So it came to be that Freda carved her legend into infamy within Renfri's armies.
Zara was formerly Queen Zara of the Thousand Lakes Country. But Zara died barely out of her teens. And unbeknownst to most, a succubus inhabited her body afterwards. Zara's beauty drew many suitors of both sexes. And the constant sexual energy made Zara's powers of Chaos Magic grow. Along the way she "enhanced" Zara's natural beauty. Her bust was legendary in the Realms and she took every opportunity to expose it and lure the lustful to their doom.
Larissa was a mortal from the Realm of Fables. She wore enchanted skulls and bones as armor. Relying upon a chain with sling blades at each end, Larissa enjoyed playing with her prey. Her desire was to slowly kill them one wound at a time.
Hindi was the Evil Queen's most skilled assassin in hand to hand melee combatant. A former harem girl to the Sultan of the Golden Desert, the bloodbath wreaked during Hindi's escape was still used to frighten wayward children. Heavily pierced, especially in the face, where chains looped and attached themselves throughout her nose, lips, and ears. Her half shaved skull was her trademark of having joined in the secretive Assassin's Guild, she approached her targets in plain sight to entrance them and then near them to slit their throats and to shower in their spurting blood.
"Who is she?" Saris sneered in Supergirl's direction.
"She's an ally. A defector from our enemies' cause," the Evil Queen smiled.
"How do you know she won't betray you?" Saris asked.
"The same way I know you would, given the proper motivation," Renfri wore a sicky-sweet smile, "Or any of you for that matter."
"But we've proven our loyalty," Leirya protested.
"You've proven your self interests align with mine. When that ends, so do you," the Evil Queen's radiated confidence.
And none of them doubted her word or intentions.
At the abandoned, former MI-6 headquarters, the Young Justice team assembled with their mentors. The Blackhawk Squadron delivered them en route to intercept the Justice League and render further, now terrestrial, assistance. Madame Xanadu and the Dark Justice unit reincorporated into the Justice League was away on a mission involving Mordru.
But Madame Xanadu spared a moment to impart her experience with the Evil Queen in the Realm of Fables. Revealing that for raw power, only Green Lantern and Dr. Fate could match her. Jade, Obsidian and Yz working together stood a chance as well. Power Girl, Kalea, and Superboy were invulnerable to most threats or forms of harm but they were susceptible to magic. Wonder Girl had uncharted potential so her limited training with Hippolyta to harness her heritage as Zeus' daughter gave her a fighting chance as well.
The Justicers were fascinated that Kalea, once a threat to every living soul on Earth, was now defending it. Sinistro and Shirlee Peech secretly sneered. But they quailed as Kalea's all too knowing gaze seared into their brains.
Red Robin and Robin counseled the newest Young Justice recruits. Dick Grayson had only revealed the fact that Red Robion was actually Ulysses Armstrong, the former Anarky, to the JSA Founders. Robin was Helena Wayne from Earth-4. Residents of that destroyed Earth were fourteen years older than their counterparts originally from Earth Prime. Bruce and Selina Wayne had their daughter fourteen years and the resident Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle's daughter was still in the womb. Only in the Prime history, Bruce impregnated Selina and abandoned her and their unborn child. Helena Kyle would grow up as the daughter of Catwoman but never as Batman's acknowledged offspring. And Holly Robinson was now the Catwoman of New Earth.
The Robins were briefing the newbies on what expect on any given crisis or Thursday of the week. Devilina Dare was the great-granddaughter of the WWII vigilante known as the Daring Devil. Starlet was Moon Girl's protege and possessed the same powers as the Samarkandan princess. Specifically she absorbed and transformed moonlight into stored potential energy like a battery run on moonlight. Her powers were focused and harnessed by the moon rock stone she wore around her neck as a talisman.
Blitz was the only survivor of a Russian program that attempted to recreate the Blue Trinity team without the insanity that only Lady Flash escaped. Dolphin wasn't Atlantean but she was aquatic. Discovered by Ulla Paske-Grayson, the former Global Guardian learned Dolphin had no memories beyond a few months before when she awoke on the ocean floor. And accidentely beached herself weeks later and found she was equally capable of breathing above and below the water's surface.
The Wonder Twins were dissentants from the planet Exxor. Their family had employed the Phantom Zone to eliminate all "threats" to public safety, real or imagined. Zan and Jayna, particularly Jayna, had stolen the sole projector and fled their home world. They'd been intercepted and detained by Almerac's border patrol where they came under Maxima's scrutiny.
She'd contacted Superman and the twins were relocated to Earth. Enrolled in the same high school as Proxy and Paragon, Zan and Jayna spent their after hours with Young Justice honing their unique powers. Activated by mental exertion and physical contact, Zan could transform into any state of liquid. Jayna morphed into any animal shape she had studied. Releasing their powers was simply a matter of choice but altering their state of being into another form required physical contact once again.
En route to Earth, the twins had rescued a monkey-like creature with blue fur and certain elastic properties. Due to its limited vocal capacity, they named the creature Gleek after it appeared to call itself that. Gleek was more a friend than a pet. And he trained beside Zan and Jayne within Young Justice.
The final new recruit was Nyoka Meredith, a 5th generation Anglo colonist from Zimbabwe. She was the fifth woman in her lineage to take up the mantle of the public defender called Jungle Girl. Knowing she had no super powers or expert training, Nyoka happily agreed to train with Young Justice to prepare to be Zimbabwe's champion as well as a protector of neighboring friendly African nations.
"How the hell are we supposed to fight witches?" Jack Biceps, more infamously known as Sinistro the Teen Fiend, demanded to know. Sinistro and Shirlee were infiltrators of the Young Justice program. Sent by Libra to undermine and destroy Young Justice from within and earn their place in the Secret Society of Super Villains, the duo studied every potential weakness and flaw within the Justicers and their mentors within the Justice Society.
Sinistro and Shirlee were the resident genuises and ultimate nerds. They, Devilina Dare, and Robin were also the youngest members of the program. Sinistro and Shirlee even had a rogues gallery of bush league superheroes. It included the messy love triangle of Aunt-Man, Capt. USA, and Gail Richards. Aunt-Man was a non-binary crime fighter. Capt. USA was a male besotted with Aunt-Man and Gail Richards, a deputy sheriff, was infatuated with Capt. USA. It made for a failing super team. Their internal strife made them easy prey for Sinistro and Shirlee.
Sinistro was the tech genius and Shirlee was the mastermind. So while Jack was attentive, Shirlee hung on every word of the briefing. Both scheming about how to turn the Evil Queen's arrival into an advantage.
"How shall we identify our enemies?" Dark Lady Saris inquired of the Evil Queen.
Renfri conjured images of the JSA and YJ gathered in the MI-6 building, "See their self-righteous smugness? That confidence born of knowing they follow the path of light and presume they commit no wrongdoing? Except for those two. Their hearts are as blackened as ours."
"Shall we simply kill them?" Saris asked.
"Do we ever?" the Evil Queen smirked.
"Make them suffer!" her troops shouted in unison.
"They are wholly unprepared to face us. No matter what foes they've encountered before, we are the vilest enemies they'll ever face in the short life time they have left. Before you snuff out their bodies, crush their souls."
"To the death!" Saris continued to rally the force. The Evil Queen was delighted as she and her loyalists whiffed away in a swirl of violet smoke.
The Justice League retrieved the various astronauts from multiple stations and took them back to Earth. But Superman remained in orbit with Capt. Atom, Star Sapphire, and the resident Green Lantern Corpsmen serving beside Power Ring despite having depleted his oxygen supply.
The Antares broke orbit and Superman pursued it. Capt. Z-Ro set a course for Alpha Centauri. Sussa brought the weapons online.
Superman had taken another deep breath so he had approximately ninety minutes before he needed to breathe again. But he had to bring the freighter back before then because he couldn't exceed the speed of light which the freighter could upon leaving the outer solar system.
Capt. Frake saw her ship departing the Sol system without her. Enraged, she set course to pursue. Asteroid Witch was giddy. If the Antares survived her manipulations of the asteroid belt, there was still the comet nursury beyond Pluto. She had no vested interest in delivering gen latents so their deaths were inconsequential to her.
Yrina saw the pursuits and decided to focus on Alicia Frake rather than Superman's apparent folly. The Corsair Queen pitted the rest of the fleet against Earth's defenders and the hyper sled. She expected easy victories all around.
Jessica Cruz was the sole Power Ring to conquer her Ring of Volthoom. But Jess was dismayed as space warped and two other Power Ring Corpsmen appeared. Hal Jordan had abandoned any hope of rejoining the Green Lanterns. Lyssa Drak had denied him a Fear Corps power ring. The Red Lanterns were broken and scattered. He had no hope left so he was excluded from the Blue Lanterns and the Indigo Tribe rejected him because of his hardened heart and newfound lack of compassion.
He was alive so he wasn't a Black Lantern. He was avaricious but enough to wrest control of the Orange Lantern and power ring from Larfleeze. He'd been found unworthy of a White power ring and he still didn't know about the Unseen Light that Sinestro was building the Ultraviolet Corps out of.
So when a Ring of Volthoom chose him, he giddily accepted and went to brutalize the rest of the corps in order to control it. Spencer Hawke was the only other human Power Ring under Hal's control. So they negotiated Hawke's return to the Legion of Doom and Hal's limited participation. Finding Jessica in their path just sweetened the moment.
Remoni-Notra had been born on another in a star system in another galaxy. She'd been proud to serve as a Star Sapphire even before her brief elevation to Sapphire Queen. She'd grudgingly relinquished that crown back tro Carol Ferris. But Carol had valiantly led the remainder of the Star Sapphire Corps after the Khunds and Dominators eradicated thousands of them. Remoni-Notra had fled after the first failed assault.
She'd come to Earth to exploit her physical similarities to Carol and use her power ring to sway Carol's house staff into believing she was actually Carol. Hal Jordan had arrived bereft of a power ring and a shell of a broken man. Her plan to usurp Carol's life had then included him.
But Carol arrived to wed Kara In-Ze with her own husband Kyle Rayner wedding his other great love as well. Carol's revenge was three-fold. Remoni-Notra was given a new identity as Deborah Camille Darnell to go with her "French" English speaking accent. Deborah was made the largest shareholder in Ferris Aircraft as Carol ceded all of her stock portfolio and her ancestral manor to Remoni-Notra's new guise. And she exerted her authority to appoint Deborah the Star Sapphjre assigned to the sector containing Earth.
Hal received a minority share that even combined with the sum total of outstanding shares still gave Debi control of the company.
Debi offered him his old position as chief aviation test pilot but he rejected the offer and her. His Ring of Volthoom arrived and he left without informing the clingy Star Sapphire of his intentions. Carol, Kara, and Kyle vouched for Deborah and secured a position with the Justice League. Kyle appointed Guy Gardner to the sector and membership in the Justice League to shut him up and get rid of his infernal interference in rebuilding the Green Lantern Corps after its own catastrophic losses in the same conflict.
Star Sapphire saw Jessica's peril and raced to her aid. Jessica was one of the few that understood the burden of power ring. And Jess was her only friend as of yet.
Guy Gardner had lecherously ogled Debi since their joining the JLU. It was a pure sexual attraction. But he still wanted her intact and beautiful when he finally laid her. So when Hawke and Hal threatened her, he abandoned the defense against the Uralian fleet and rushed to her aid.
Capt. Atom had known Guy was unreliable from the previous Captain Atom's reports. Nathaniel Hale had never had a kind or approving word for Guy. Col. Cameron Scott understood why. Gardner was an unruly, unrepentant, undisciplined thug with nearly limitless power provided by his ring. If hadn't been for Captain Atom's disclosures, Capt. Atom would have wondered why the seemingly esteemed GL Corps kept Guy in their ranks.
Scott had a insane plan but required the help of their reserves and the two Lanterns.
The Justice League sat down at the Cosmodrome in Baikul. The Russians had persuaded the MLJ to redirect the League there. Upon arrival, and the Fatal Five's ambush, many wondered why they had.
The Emerald Empress opened hostilities with several salvos provided by both Eyes of Ekron. She was personally confronted by Maxima, Wonder Woman, and Strange Visitor. Artemis used her enchanted bow to return energy fire at an Eye. Strange Visitor used her own personal power reserves to do the same with the other Eye while Maxima confronted Sarya.
Sharon Vance had no recollection of her life before or during when Kismet gave her her powers. She didn't know she'd been a childhood friend to both Clark Kent and Lana Lang. She didn't realize she had a daughter. It had been a grace that she even knew her own name.
Clark and Lana had tracked down her identity and her daughter. But Strange Visitor didn't want to raise the girl's hopes when she no longer had an emotional attachment for her. It seemed cruel to do so. It was better to be presumed dead.
Wonder Woman cast her golden bow aside and it vanished in midair, "Mistress, to me."
An epically oversized axe suddenly flew to her outstretched hand. Artemis sliced an Eye nearly in half. Sarya screamed at the psychic backlash struck her down. But the other Eye blasted Maxima off of her feet before she could behead Sarya. It stunned Strange Visitor and encapsulated its Empress in a force bubble and spirited her to the Antimatter Earth.
Strange Visitor suddenly looked worried and streaked into the sky. Artemis grumbled, "Hells. That can't be good."
Maxima braved the random discharges emitting from the stricken Eye. Her ferrokinesis melted it, "She'll be all right. But things must have gone seriously awry to make her choose leaving."
Their comms alerted them of the JSA's presence in London and their request for aid. Col. Trevor contacted Lady Blackhawk and she personally led the squadron to transport the JLU and render assistance in the United Kingdom.
Cera Kesh, Sarya's favorite Emerald Acolyte, wielded a power ring constructed by and powered by the Eyes. So when one Eye was destroyed, her available resources were cut in half. And considering she was facing the Silver Sorceress, Blue Jay, Fire and Ice, that presented a major problem.
Ingria Olav, the other Acolyte had reached the same conclusion even faster than Cera had. Although she was the more timid of the Acolytes, she was fighting Owlwoman, Jack O'Lantern, and another Wonder Woman. Combining their available power, the Acolytes leveled the JLers and escaped to Antimatter Earth in pursuit of the Emerald Empress. Nubia seemed hardest hit by the failjure to apprehend the pair.
Persuader was dismayed when she finally encountered something her Atomic Axe couldn't cleave through. She could carve up Kryptonians and Daxamites alike. She could notch Nth Metal and Amazonium forged weapons. But Azrael's flaming sword and gauntlet blades were made from something so alien to Earth that she couldn't fathom it. The ore wasn't from the Multiverse but rather a separate Realm of Existence. The metal was the mythical uru that dwarves had forged into Mjolnir. And like Thor's hammer, they were seemingly indestructible to both science and magic.
In addition the Cyborg from Earth-4 and General Glory fought her. Victor Stones knew his Earth Prime counterpart had been fourteen years younger and had died in action. He knew there was also another refugee from a doomed universe. The Cyborg from Earth-16, also resided on New Earth since the destruction of his universe and his own miraculous and mysterious salvation at the hands of thre Monitor before the Crisis passed. Victor had joined the Justice League. Vic enlisted with the Outsiders.
The quadriplegic Donovan Wallace had replaced the WWII veteran, Joe Jones, as General Glory. The Spirit of Lady Liberty choosing him as the elderly Jones passed away in the room he shared with Donovan at the nursing home they both resided in. Joe because he'd reverted back from being General Glory to visit his last surviving friends from the war.
Joe had a major, nearly lethal, heart attack while visiting at the home. And he became to reside there after the doctors determined he only had weeks, possibly months, left to live.
Donovan was a police officer shot in the neck in the line of duty. He still had the overwhelming desire to serve his community and was inspired to hope as Joe finally revealed his life story.
And the Spirit of Lady Liberty appeared to Donovan and offered to transfer her power to Donovan as she had Joe during a gas attack on battlefield in WWII France. The catches were Donovan, like Joe, would continue to age normally in his mortal form. And that Donovan would remain paralyzed as a mortal. And like with Joe her power would manifest as a physical manifestation granting him restored mobility as General Glory. Her power had likewise infused Joe and kept him alive.
Donovan's injuries would allow him to receive and even greater portion. If he would allow it. He accepted and transformed. Immediately setting out, he foiled several robberies and heists in a single night. The following morning, the medical assistants discovered his absence and sounded an internal and eventually an external alarm regrading his absence and Joe's death.
Cyborg attempted to access any and all criminal records surrounding Persuader. He had facial recognition running after General Glory managed to pluck her concealing helmet off of her head. As such, he learned she'd been a Terror Titan, a member fo Max Lord's Justice League Task Force, and L-Ron had erased all detailed records concerning her. But the superficial details showed that she had begun her criminal career as a pre-adolescent. An interesting fact from his database on Earth-4, Persuader had never become a Terror Titan in his universe. And that she alone was from the 20th-21st Century amongst the Fatal Five. The Emerald Empress and her Acolytes were from the 31st Century as was Sun Girl. Inertia had been empowered and brought from his native 29th Century by Eobard Thawne, the second Reverse Flash.
Now the task was simply apprehending Persuader before Azrael skewered the teen. Jean-Paul Valley was the result of genetic engineering, both through eugenics and overt manipulation and modification, to be the ultimate warrior and the Avenging Angel for the Order of St. Dumas. In addition to the physical programming, he was psychologically engineered to obey orders and respond to threats, real or imagined.
Regardless of the fact that Persuader was a very real and unimagined threat, it qualified her for an immediate death sentence in Cyborg and General Glory's opinion. But in Azrael's preprogrammed selections of assessing appropriate responses, they could qualify as equal opportunity targets as well if they interfered. And both individually and jointly wondered why Azrael was on the team and who had authorized it.
Sun Girl was the younger sister of Dirk Morgana, Sun Boy of the Legion of Superheroes. Both siblings had perennially hidden her powers from the LSH with a fabricated origin story. Dr. Regulus' insistence that he'd attempted to kill both Morgana children were seen as delusional ravings by a notoriety seeking madman.
But Sun Boy betrayed his fellow Legionnaires and had been imprisoned on multiple sexual assaults, sexual harassment convictions, and even incestual relations with every family member.
Sun Girl alone had escaped The Science Police's custody. A time traveling Reverse Flash recruited her to assist Inertia in destroying Wally West when he'd been Kid Flash.
They'd failed even as Hunter Zoloman failed to kill Barry Allen. But Eobard Thawne assumed the role of the Reverse Flash when he traveled into the past and he despised Inertia and Sun Girl.
They enlisted with the Terror Titans and then the JL Task Force but gladly forsook them all in favor of the Emerald Empress' call to action. And so now she found herself in opposition to Killer Frost, Chief Man-of-Bats, Bat-Woman , and Bat-Girl.
Kate Webb and Jessa Carde were new to the Los Angeles crimefighting scene. Their recruitment into the Justice League had shocked them both. But Chief Man-of Bats' recommendation after their action against the Outlaws found favor with Col. Trevor and Gen. Latham. So the MLJ Initiative deputized them both and placed them inside the JLU rather than the Mighty Crusaders or Shadow Crusaders. Kate Webb had become Bat-Woman to rub her aunt's face in Katherine Webb-Kane's refusal to consider Kate for SPYRAL's Batwoman program. Katrina Moldoff had been selected from the approved candidates. And it was almost happenstance when Kate came upon Jessa definatively facing down a street gang. Jessa not only approved of Kate grudge against the Batwoman selection process, she offered a solution. Knowing worldwide fear of Batman could give them a split second advantage in the beginning of a fight, they capitalized on their Bat-Woman and Bat-Girl identities. And the Los Angeles crowds loved them just as they overwhelmingly cheered Manhunter on. The police and prosecutors felt another way, choosing Jade, Obsidian, Yz as their masked crusaders of choice.
Louise Lincoln had altered her metabolism even further. Experimenting on herself she curbed her body's absorbption of unnecessary heat energy. So she still froze objects and living creatures by absorbing their thermal energy, she longer overloaded and rendered herself powerless. Instead she now dissipated the energy in a halo around her.
Ace of Blades had been out of her mind with worry while Killer Frost underwent the procedure. Katharina Steiner knew all too well the costs of human experimentation. Because of lethal trials performed on her, the Super-Soldat and Unendlichkeit formulas giving Hitler super strengths and immortality, became a reality. Ace of Blades knew the Masked Leader was actually Adolf Hitler, but she didn't know where he was secretly located. Or she'd have killed him herself. If such a thing were still possible.
Like Bat-Woman and Bat-Girl, Chief Man-of-Bats had never faced a solar based foe before. And they were grateful Killer Frost had undertaken the perilous procedure to "fix" her glaring weakness. Even if most of the JLU and external powers-that-be didn't.
"Who is this kid?" Trajectory asked Wally West, a Justice League Founder, and the dominant Flash.
"I dunno. But I know he used to be Reverse Flash's sidekick trying to kill me," Flash answered.
"I am no one's sidekick! And I haven't been a kid for a long time, Wally," Inertia shouted over his shoulder as she raced along.
"Aaannnddd...he's touchy," Flash retorted.
Eliza Harmon giggled. People tended see her as the Flash's, take your pick, sidekick. Luthor, take your pick, saw her as a guinea pig for more teats to determine why she survived they flaw built into her artificial meta-gene and how she entered the Speed Force Force despite that. And Lena and Lex both worried about it never considering investigating their own sister, Luna.
The violet whiff smoke that delivered the Evil Queen and her disciples deposited them beside or in the Thames. A taxi driver laid on the horn as they ignorantly crossed a major thoroughfare.
Renfri scowled, "This is the rudest Realm."
the driver exploded inside his car at a snap of her fingers. Other driver's had stopped and were exiting their vehicles to flee on foot. The Evil Queen felt justified as she chided the remains, "Even evil can be polite."
She swatted away a giant green hand before it could reach her, "My point exactly! One does not simply lay hands of royalty."
Green Lantern looked perpexed about how she'd pushed aside his construct, "Look here…"
She held up her forefinger silence him, "You will defeat us, apprehend us, throw us in a dungeon for the length of our lives, which you wretches reeaally have no idea about, and then there will be merry making, songs, drinking, and lots of sex over it. Correct? Or close enough?"
Green Lantern looked to Power Girl who shrugged, "She's like this."
"Close enough," Green Lantern grated.
"Now those are breasts." the Evil Queen studied Power Girl's anatomy, "I could grope those for a year and never get bored. Poor Zara will be having quite the jealousy fit."
And the succubus was livid in her envy. Renfri wondered how her sex demon would respond upon learning about cosmetic enhancements of every kind. And Barbie dolls. You couldn't forget humans' beauty obsessions with those.
"People, select your victims," she commanded.
Young Justice came forward seeing as the Justice Society members had been claimed. And then hostilities began.
"Just so you know, she is mouthy and an epically annoying kind of mouthy," Kalea warned Green Lantern and Dr. Fate.
"We'll take it under advisement," Green Lantern tersely dismissed Kalea's comments.
"I don't require your help," Dr. Fate pouted.
Renfri saw a situation rife with strategic opportunities in the division between her foes.
"Surrender," Dr. Fate imperiously commanded.
"Why?" the Evil Queen scoffed.
"I am Lady of Order," Dr. Fate haughtily replied.
Renfri broke into hysterical laughter for a time. She finally caught her breath, "Thank you for that. I thought everyone in this Realm had lost their sense of humor."
She noted how everyone looked at her, "Oh, you were serious."
She broke in to a second fit of laughter. Nabu commanded Elizabeth to unleash his full power. Which, as a Lord of Order, was stunted by the Age of Chaos the universe had entered. His magic flowed over the Evil Queen. When she relented, Dr. Fate was dismayed to see the Evil Queen unscathed and….yawning?
"Care for best two out of three?" Renfri smirked. The Helmet of Nabu ripped off of Elizabeth's head and flew into her eager hands, "Ooh! Shiny."
She lobbed it over her shoulder and it cleared a distance of a quarter mile to land squarely in the Thames.
"Bring. That. Back," Green Lantern's ring flared to life.
"Hmm. Let me see...nope," the Evil Queen giggled.
"I've got it," Kalea testily declared.
Renfri snapped her finger and Elizabeth went to sleep. Green Lantern was enraged, "What did you do?"
"A sleeping curse. And the cure is nothing boring like 'true love's first kiss'. I've learned my lesson. You want to wake her up? You simply defeat me," the Evil Queen gloated.
"What are you anyway?" Green Lantern noted her elfin-like ears.
"Is rude just in the drinking water?" Renfri huffed.
"How is that rude?" he asked.
"Okay then, its in-bred," the Evil Queen sighed, "Note to self: eradicate conquered populace and import loyal subjects. Oh, and does your favorite ring have a teensy weakness regarding wood?"
Green Lantern saw too late that she'd uprooted trees from local parks to bury him under. The Evil Queen grinned, "Sorry, Blondie."
"Catch!" Kalea threw the Helmet of Nabu at her. Renfri motioned and it stopped several inches from her.
"I'm guessing you aren't a local," she ventured.
"Happily so," Kalea unleashed her Heat Vision.
The Evil Queen deflected it with the Helmet but Kalea had to cease fire when her beam seared its way towards the sleeping Elizabeth.
"Dammit!" Kalea snarled and super speed rushed Renfri.
"Ah, ah," the Evil Queen repelled her with a wagging finger, "Tem-per."
"Just where the hell are you even from?" Kalea wanted to know.
"An almost polite question," the Evil Queen joyously clapped her hands excitedly, "But, I'm not telling. Rather, let me marvel at the sociopath with a modicum of manners."
"Then, let's try: why are you here?" Kalea redirected the inquiry.
"Ooh! A decent ask. I am Renfri, the Evil Queen and Dread Mistress of the Realm of Fables, the Realm of the Courts, the Absolute Ruler of Oz, Wonderland, and Reclaimer of Neverland. And, just for shits and giggles, the feared invader of twelve other Realms of Existence. I came here to vacay and scout out potential footholds in the Universe," the Queen revealed,
"The universe. No longer the Multiverse," Kalea realized the Evil Queen was equally informed.
"You know!" Renfri eyes practically glowed with glee, "How nice."
"And these are your followers?" Kalea inquired.
"Absolutely. Anything else? `Cause I'm outta freebies. Anything more and it'll cost you dearly," the Evil Queen promised.
"How dearly?" Kalea wondered.
"`Kay, I'll give you that one. You ask, I answer, and you suffer the torments of the damned," Renfri rubbed her hands together in anticipation, "Ready?"
"Nope," Kalea tried another bum rush.
Black lightning arced out of Renfri's outstretched fingers. It hit Kalea a thousand different ways at once. She felt as though her innards were ripped out and burned to a cinder at the same time. She collapsed onto her hands and knees and smoke curled off of her.
Kalea's stamina impressed the Evil Queen, "My, oh my. You survived. I guess that means you can play the game. Ask away. This time I won't hold back."
"Go eff yourself," Kalea managed to snarl.
"Tempting, but no," Renfri pondered it, "There's a price for besmirching royalty, as you'll discover."
This time the Evil Queen didn't hold back at all. Kalea's agonized screams could be heard for miles around and Londoners fled to their homes. She'd endured weeks of unspeakable tortures without a single noise. But the Evil Queen was true to her word. Kalea suffered torments beyond mortal reckoning.
Alan Scott picked his way the fallen timbers cast at him. Whether through fluke chance or design, he hadn't been crushed. Kalea's howling cries tore at him. No matter her crimes, no one deserved what she was enduring.
"Why does Supergirl stand with our enemy?" Hippolyta asked.
"I don't know. Linda's had a hard on for the queen ever since she arrived," Power Girl answered.
"Oh eff, we're so effin' effed," Black Kitten exclaimed.
"Bloody hell," Nyoka was dismayed as well.
Standing with Supergirl was the Witch and Zarina. Zarina's angelic wings burned with hellfire and her wrists were also ignited from the chains that Renfri had liberated her from. The Witch looked demented as she spoiled for her first major conflict. Zarina looked like a falsely beautiful poster child for evil incarnate.
Power Girl and Wonder Woman were experienced enough to realize the shift in power. Power Girl's eyes flicked towards Zarina. Hippolyta barely nodded her agreement. And the Argoan clone burst into action against the fallen angel. Wonder Woman struck out at Supergirl. That left the frenzied Witch against Black Kitten and Nyoka.
"Yes! This one is mine!" Zarina gleefully cackled as she confronted Power Girl as intended. She stretched out her supernatural senses and detected the fact Galatea was a clone. An artificially aged clone to be ten years older than her then-nineteen year old progenitor. Ten years had passed since then. But Kara had spent five years in the 30th Century while two years passed for Power Girl. So metabolically, Karen was only seven years older than Kara now. If not for an Argoan's slower aging process than a human's Power Girl would be thirty-nine now. By comparative human metabolic years she was vaguely thirty-two just as Kara was twenty-five in chronological years but metabolically twenty-one compared to a human.
The artificial aging boosters had long since burned themselves out of Power Girl's system. Something that disgruntled Zarina. But she sensed Karen's great physical power. So she placed her wrists together so flames fused and then spread arms apart and crafted a sword made from hellfire.
Knowing Zarina's occultic powers could harm her, Power Girl decided to fight dirty.
Wonder Woman studied Supergirl. Hippolyta had no idea as to why Linda had betrayed the Justice League and chosen to serve the Evil Queen. The former queen herself could barely understand Renfri's motives much less Supergirl's. Hippolyta was miserably unaware of Linda Danvers' past before she'd died and Matrix revived her by infusing her with her protoplasmic body. Or how the blended psyche from the merger of Matrix and Linda was one of Mae's superiority and Linda's constant rebellion to regain dominance.
And Supergirl never spoke of Linda's occultic demon worshipping past. She'd volunteered to be a sacrifice. No one had coxed her much less forced her to be. Linda had a deep and consuming desire to see humanity damned. And the Evil Queen provided an outlet for that obsession. Matrix's own passion for helping people was a source of constant torment for Linda and sickened her.
Supergirl eyed Hippolyta's obvious defiance with contempt. Hippolyta viewed Supergirl's apparent change of heart with anger. Everyone knew how Superman viewed as a protege but Wonder Woman was prepared to kill her ex-son-in-law's student. She pitied Clark. Diana thought her mother was as ignorant about "Alexandra's" origins as was Superman himself. But Hippolyta knew all about lying to others regarding impregnation and hiding who fathers were.
Hippiolyta had easily stepped aside so Diana could take Themiscyra's throne. But Diana's suspicions that her mother might fathom her infidelity with Bruce Wayne, and their daughter Elissa Wayne being disguised as Alexandra Prince, that Hippolyta was unceremoniously banished from Themiscyra forbidden to ever return and to die unmourned in Man's World.
Supergirl possessed Martian-level strength but her telekinetic "push-shove" could amplify that by ten-fold. But it couldn't be frequently used or the mental fatigue would lapse her into unconsciousness. Her TK Vision had an even greatly concentrated, if broader, effect.
Hippolyta had the enhanced strength of an Amazon. But the Greek goddesses had long ago blessed Hippolyta with even greater power. Artemis wore the Gauntlet of Hercules as Wonder Woman, giving that arm ten times her normal already enhanced strength. Nubia foreswore any tools relying instead on her faith in the gods. The same gods that had fallen and disappeared. But Nubia had faith in abundance and mistook her own cleverness as divine inspiration.
Diana was mistaken to be Hades' daughter but in the end was proven to be Ares'. With Ares and Athena out of the way, Diana had declared herself the goddess of war. Donna Troy was the child of the Titans, the parents to the Amazons' gods. Hippolyta frequentrly wondered just how much Donna had held back against Diana in the sparring ring during Donna's training on Themiscyra. But Donna, a founding Teen Titan, came into her own with the Darkstars. And now as Wonder Woman, Donna was fulfilling her destiny as an Amazon defender and leader of the Outsiders.
When Dagger Dan went to prison, he left his daughter in the system inside Suicide Slum. Raised and sculpted by a coven, the Witch reached her ascendancy by sacrificing the white magic Wiccans to secure her foothold amongst black magic users. All of which attracted the attention of Angelica Blaze, who as Lady Blaze, ruled Purgatory.
The Witch, like Enchantress, favored traditionally stereotypical witch's garb. Only the Enchantress favored green and the Witch smothered herself in purple. Only her copper locks broke the purple deadlock.
The Witch studied her foes. Black Kitten was obviously nervous but was battling to stay brave and strong. Nyoka wore a ridiculous cheetah hide bikini. Black Kitten didn't carry any obvious weaponry but Nyoka was festooned with leather crafted bandoleers, belts, and boot strapped knives of various shapes and sizes along with a bow and quiver. Most hilariously of all, Nyoka brandished a spear against the Witch. The Black Cat's sidekick's nervousness was understandable but Jungle Girl's overconfidence didn't seem warranted to the Witch. But then she didn't know that Nyoka's entire childhood had revolved around defending Africa from common criminals, warlords, militants, poachers, and rogue shamans and witch doctors.
Mr. Terrific, Dr. Mid-Nite, and Bluebird tested their tools and wits against Lura and Dawna. Although Realm mortals appeared human, Dr. Mid-Nite's unique vision was the first to detect that mortal bodies absorbed and deflected UV and infrared rays completely differently from humans. Mr. Terrific's T-Spheres fed him the same data just as Bluebird's drones reported to her. Lura and Dawna's flashing swords and swinging shields smashed all of the equipment. Mr. Terrific merely had two remaining T-Spheres in separate locations for an emergency teleport. Bluebird was just disgusted as she deployed her emergency quadcopter.
Dr. Mid-Nite had handed out IR goggles for when he smashed a blackout bomb to the ground. But the cooler heat signatures of the two otherworldly warriors made them infinitely harder to spot. And despite the near total darkness, Renfri's warriors could more easily see them.
Dawna and Lura herded the trio back out the radius of the slowly dissipating blackout bomb and into the light. And, even more disparagingly, the mortals eyes barely needed any time to adjust to the change in luminescence. So the JSAers each scrambled in their own thoughts of how to overcome their newfound foes.
Freda was an elfin warrior. One of the most feared in the Evil Queen's solidly held Five Realms. Wonder Girl was awed and dismayed at her swiftness and strength. She, like the rest of her companions, had never fought much less seen an elf before. And it seemed the storybooks got it right when they spoke of the fighting acumen of the elves. And Cassie swiftly discerned Freda's weapons were enchanted as well.
The sword could project a shield to defend as well as attack. And Freda wore a glowing charm around her neck. Or more precisely, a charm that glowed when it took effect. It enhanced Freda's already unnatural speed. Her ferocity unnerved Zeus' daughter. Of all the foes Wonder Girl had faced in her short life, she believed Freda had a chance at ending it.
Argana was a leathery winged fey from the Lesser Court of Faery. Which was substantially less than a sidhe even from the lesser Unseelie Court. Renfri's defiance of the haughty and self-absorbed Seelie and even her fellow Unseelie and hder fury in the face of the Greater and Lesser Courts made the Evil Queen a heroine in the eyes of renegade faeries, elves, pixies, nymphs, dryads, and gnomes in every Realm. Even those few left in the newly born universe.
Argana had chosen Hawkman as her prey. Not only did her capacity for flight lean her that way, but his innate savagery and Nth Metal weaponry inclined her towards crushing him and slowly bleeding him into helplessness before presenting his life forces as a snack for the Evil Queen.
Auron was not only a fearsome mortal warrior but she had an innate gift of controlling lupines and canines. So while she went into battle, she had every dog in Greater London converging on her location to rip the JSAers and Justicers apart. She'd let them feast on her enemies' flesh and bones as they lapped up the spilt blood.
Malika was a dark elf, nearly the last of her kind. The Greater and Lesser Courts had waged a genocidal war against her people, just as the Evil Queen did against her own kind. She was among a handful of dark elves still alive. And there weren't enough pure bloods left to repopulate. Especially under fey scrutiny.
The Evil Queen provided an outlet for Malika's hatred. And Renfri had been a fugitive from the sidhe longer than Malika's people had existed. So to serve under her was no ignominy but rather a delight as the sidhe had employed the fey to hunt Renfri over the last eight billion years. The Evil Queen sought their enslavement rather than eradication, but she'd already proven she'd give Malika any prisoners she wanted to strike down in the most horrific ways imaginable.
Argana proved more than a match for Hawkman. And her shapeshifting weapons defied Carter's magic defeating weapons. Argana's choices were made of a liquid, magically imbued "smart metal" that Rocki Ballantine would've given anything to analyze. Given the same mass, they could assume any shape as long as it was offensive or defensive weaponry. Argana had other weighted orbs that could transform into other tools of war in reserve. But she held of employing those just yet.
Starlet, like Moon Girl, stored lunar light and charged herself with it. The moonstone fragment she wore around her neck helped her channel and harness this energy rather than an indirect and uncontrolled discharge in a complete radius around her on every side.
Sandman directed her to deal directly with Auron. As the warrior's canine forces encroached, he pointed at Devilina Dare to deal with the enslaved dogs. Colina Amara Hill was the great-granddaughter of Bart Hill, the Daring Devil. He'd been a contemporary of the JSAers in WWII and continued his fight well after their disappearance in the Fifties. Neither his sons or daughters had been inclined to take up his mantle. And none seemed possessed of the same spirit that had him the Daring Devil. His hope then lay with his grandchildren. But again, there was void in interest an talent. But, Colina was his solution.
His grandson humored the old man but was willfully ignorant of Bart training Colina to take up the fight. And like he had been as a young man, Colina was possessed of a supernatural entity that gave her exceptional senses and agility and an unerring aim with thrown objects. And, she was also utterly fearless. She was obsessed and took up training over decade sooner than Bart had every tried to.
But he was killed in the crossfire of vying criminals and local police forces while trying to get civilians to safety during the shootout between the Chicago PD and Intergang. Colina had been ten. Four years later, after secretly continuing training, Colina devised the costume and identity of Devilina Dare. Armed with a belt full of the Daring Devil's boomerangs, Devilina Dare launched a one teenager war against Queenie Hart. And in so doing, drew the attention of police Capt. Margo Collins. Between Sonia Alcona's "miraculous" return and Devilina Dare's emergence, Margo knew strange things were afoot. Cities and people were just appearing and no one seemed to notice. Dead loved ones were also "magically" reappearing but different than before with seemingly altered lives and memories.
But Margo had heard the legends of the Daring Devil and wanted to believe Devilina Dare's story. So she contacted the Justice Society and got Colina's shocked and dismayed parents to sign off on enrolling her in the Young Justice program.
Devilina's inhuman precision with throwing objects allowed her to use razorangs like Capt. Boomerang had. Gaging that the dogs had been driven to be so feral that the scent of blood would create a feeding frenzy akin to that of sharks, she threw two boomerangs and sliced wounds into four separate dogs. The pack ravenously tore them apart. As a second pack of crazed canines appeared she repeated the exercise. Devilina Dare regretted diminishing the pet population here in London but she didn't regret staying alive.
Sandman dosed Malika and found his sleep gas merely awoke foul memories within her. She had visions of the slaughter of her village at the hands of the invading fey armies. And she wandered the frozen plains encountering very few survivors, like her they were children hidden from the butchers. and finally trekking to every Dark Elf stronghold and seeing firsthand the decimation that had been wrought. Her fellow survivors were supposedly safe as she she went forth to wreak vengeance upon their enemies.
But Malika had had no illusions of surviving her quest. But having been found and recruited by Dark Lady Saris and pledged to the service of the Evil Queen, the darkest embers of what could mistakenly be construed as hope burned in Malika's heart once more.
Through Morpheus' power coursing through him, Sandman could feel Malika's distress and rage. He felt no pity towards her. Neither did he condone the fey actions that drove Malika to this dark place. But he couldn't allow her to lash out against the freshly born universe and those that now dwelt in it.
Ashleigh was from Earth and had fallen through a portal to the Realm of Fables seeking three lost magical artifacts imbued with arcane powers far beyond her weak sorcerories. Narrowly eking an existence in Oz amidst the uprising against the Evil Queen led by Glenda, the last surviving witch after Dorothy Gale had killed the rest. Ozma and the Wizard had died combating the Evil Queen's invading armies., Ashleigh unearthed the three crystalline cubes that she'd searched for and as they called to her even as far as the universe's fiery birth.
The cubes held power derived from Creation itself. The three bonded with Ashleigh and unleashed their destructive power guided by the spells she wove to aim their power. The Evil Queen herself had sought Ashleigh out. And when the sorceress learned her cubes' power had no effect on Renfri, she realized she would never unseat the Queen. It was better to join her then die and lose her cubes to the Evil Queen.
Unlike Leirya and Hindi, Ashleigh was well aware of who the Justice Society's members were. And she'd chosen to target the Flash as a personal challenge for herself. If she could kill one of the Fastest Men Alive then she felt she'd have no difficulty slaying whomever the Evil Queen left alive for being beneath her interest.
"We got troubles," Wildcat predicted as Jay raced to face Ashleigh. Catgirl already knew it but was heartened to hear Wildcat admit it. Arrowette was cautious but not intimidated. Soon after Cissie had been sent to boarding school before joining up with Young Justice, there had been a series of rapes and the girls were all too scared to name names.
So Arrowette went hunting and learned that the victims weren't attacked by one assailant but four sexual predators. As two of Arrowette's dorm mates foolishly presented themselves as potential targets by sneaking out after curfew, Arrowette interrupted the would-be sexual assaults. The boys had pistols. Arrowette had one of her compound bows and regular razor tipped broad heads. The deviants never stood a chance. Later they would dimly be grateful she even left them alive. And Cissie convinced every victim to testify before she transferred to the K-Star Ranch to study under the JSA's assigned mentors.
Leirya and Hindi were impressed that Catgirl quickly overcame any doubts she may have harbored. Kitrina Falcone had always tended towards anger and recklessness rather than fear. Arrowette had been the hesitant one. But remembering her work at school, she pulled an arrow from her quiver with quiet determination.
Hindi glanced towards Leirya and tipped her chin in Wildcat's direction. Leirya subtly nodded her approval.
Hindi began her seductive dance to approach Ted. But she was annoyed to he was bored rather than distracted by lust. So she went full psycho assassin on him. Now he was intrigued.
Leirya sensed where the nearest vegetation was found and was horrified by the asphalt, steel, and concrete of London. She barely tolerated the Castle of Blackest Hearts during her infrequent visits. Her domain was the Enchanted Forest making life miserable for her fellow nymphs and dryads and periloius for mortals passing through.
Her only option was the seed pods she habitually carried with her to harvest traps against her enemies.
The pods could burrow to the soil beneath the cracks but the poisoned soil could only sustain them for tens of minutes at best. But Leirya had no weapons and wouldn't know how to use them anyway. Plants were her life and her weaponry. She quickly sowed her pod seeds.
"Stop!" Arrowette drew back her bowstring.
"Too late meat bag!" Leirya laughed.
Sprouts erupted from the pavement, tearing it off the long abandoned soil.
"What the eff?" Catgirl growled, "Is she Poison Ivy?"
"She's what Poison Ivy wants to be," Arrowette correctly surmised. She replaced her broad head back into her quiver and pulled an incendiary free, "Let's see how they burn."
And Leirya was homicididly enraged when the first sprout ignited.
Robotman and Guardian were immediately suspicious. Their foes were scantily clad and barely armed. The teenager wasn't even armed. The other two young women bore unusual weapons. One wielded a sword with a blade at each end of the hilt. The other swung a length of chain with sling blades at each end.
Secret and Static gravitated towards the mysterious Drusilla. Larissa attacked Robotman with her chains. Astrid came at Guardian. He appeared defenseless but his shield erected itself from his wristband. He took shots at her with his handgun. She swatted aside the bullets with her sword blades.
Larissa kept Robotman unbalanced as she swung at his head, torso, and legs. Secret tried to shyly introduce herself to Drusilla but Static noticed it just agitated Drusilla. Then a portal opened above her and she summoned a dragon through it. And it quickly became obvious Drusilla commanded it.
Hawkgirl was forced to confront the magical nonsense she said she didn't believe in. It was easier for Sand since he was a veteran of campaigns against Johnny Sorrow and the original Wizard. Blue Beetle's scarab refused to take magic into account and Windfall was afraid of her own powers since her sister had trained her in their use as one of the original Masters of Disaster.
Djarna hated mortals, humans, and anything else sentient. Fori was an elfin sorceress with absolute loyalty to the Evil Queen and a grudge against all fey and mortals. And now humans as well for their obvious similarities to mortals. It seemed Hawkgirl, Blue Beetle and Windfall would shortly become true believers.
Belina was an ice faery fashionista whose styles resembled the Victorian Age's sensibilities. Garin's dark magics came at the cost of lives. But his last sacrifice had been made days before being transported into the universe. So his power was waning so his brutality would be increased by his growing desperation until he could channel another living sacrifice's blood magic.
Red Tornado, Judomaster, Kid Flash, and Miss Quick had no idea of what nature of creatures that they faced.
Like most of the Evil Queen's barbarian mercenaries, Cedric and Rolan had physiques Solomon Grundy would envy. The Vine Witch seized "life lines" and severed them to kill victims.
Opposing them were the highly dismayed Tarantula, the Whip, M'Gann M'Orzz the Miss Martian, and Chief Man-of-Bat's son, Raven Red.
Jade, Jonni Thunder, Obsidian, the Wonder Twins, and Dolphin were confronted by Vara, the other fallen angel in Renfri's service. Donal was another hulking barbarian. Zircon was a war mage. Needles to say, the JSAers and Justicers felt baffled and outmatched.
Dark Lady Saris, the Evil Queen's general and war mistress and the very leader of the Dark Armies, was Renfri's ultimate warrior. And she recognized her polar opposite in the Shining Knight. And so, Saris felt the overwhelming need to vanquish Sir Ystin. It was a battle between valor and utter corruption. And neither woman hesitated but instead instantly went into the clash of arms.
Arwin, the elf princess literally branded a traitor for her defiance of the mores of the fey, selected Maid Maleen as her foe of choice. Arwin's journey, like Maleen's, began with her "deviancy" as a lesbian. But Arwin saw the joyous light in Maid Maleen's eyes as she gazed lovingly at Ystin and that enraged Arwin. The fey would always condemn Arwin whereas Ystin and Maleen, after the long centuries were seeing the light of tolerance and even acceptance beginning to dawn.
So if Dark Lady Saris couldn't deprive Maid Maleen of her joy in Sir Ystin, then Arwin would deprive her of her very life.
The Justicer squad tracked down the melodic spell casting from the siren-mage known as Sari Wren-Tofen. Jinny Hex was incredulous, "Is thet an effin' mermaid?"
"Yes," Red Robin confirmed it even though he didn't quite believe it. His street-level vigilantism hadn't prepared him for this or the mummies they'd fought during his first mission with Young Justice.
"Good. Ah like ta know whut it is Ah'm blastin' at," Jinny prepped her vibration gun she'd inherited from her great-great-great-grandfather, Jonah Hex. She didn't know where he'd gotten an alien weapon.
"Hold on," Robin said sternly, "We need to understand what we're dealing with."
Helena Wayne left no mistaking her tone.
Red Robin and Jinny were skeptical but allowed Robin to assert her self claimed authority.
The Corsair Queen pitted the Uralian Fleet against the hyper-sled piloted by Capt. Alicia Frake and Asteroid Witch. Yrina wanted to prevent Frake from reclaiming the Antares from Capt. Z-Ro. Yrina not only wanted to assume overall command of Saturn Queen's meta-human trafficking operation but to challenge Saturn Queen herself.
"Do it," Frake ordered as they came under fire.
Asteroid Witch happily pulled asteroids located between Earth and the Moon and pelted the already battered pirate fleet. The rocks smashed against the fleet's defensive shields, breaking apart from the impact and the shards of rock continually backing away and the debris flying against the shields again and again in one circuitous pattern. As the shields collapsed, hulls were ruptured and atmospheric integrity was lost. Explosive decompression sucked bodies into space. Punctured and penetrated fusion bottles ruptured and became miniature stars.
Asteroid Witch spared Yrina's flagship until the end. The Corsair Queen fled in an escape shuttle only to be hunted by Frake. The shuttle was lightly armed, barely capable of deflecting debris and asteroids with a deflector pulse. Frake's hyper sled possessed two photon cannons, a laser turret, and two X-Ray laser missiles.
The missiles would have been a mercy. The X-Ray laser heads powered by fusion heads. The lasers capable of slicing through the strongest shields and even Kryptonian and Daxamite flesh. But Frake chose the photons. Their compacted light waves hitting with equal kinetic force and energetic cutting capacity. Surgically cutting away the shuttle's engines and hull, only the pressurized cabin remained.
"Frake! I beg you! Mercy!" Yrina desperately sought a way to strike back.
Silence loomed but the hyper sled ceased fire.
"No," Frake's voice proclaimed over garbled speakers. Yrina realized she had failed to make her final escape.
Strange Visitor caught up with Superman after he wove his way through the Uralian Fleet before Frake and the Asteroid Witch engaged them. His intention to capture and retrieve the Antares consumed him. Because of the lack of air to carry the sound of explosions, he was blissfully unaware of the destruction of the fleet or of Capt. Frake pushing her hyper sled into the dimensional translation into hyperspace so close to a system primary.
Strange Visitor knew she could reach the ship before it exited the solar system but Superman wouldn't have enough oxygen to make the return trip without commandeering the armed freighter even disregarding the inevitable combat. The evasive course he'd charted had already consumed most of his available oxygen due to exertion. And they'd only just reached Mars with their quarry being between Jupiter and Saturn's orbital tracks.
Strange Visitor took hold of Superman's arm and jolted him into unconsciousness. In the semi-comatose state, he would make it back to Earth. And would be oblivious to Yrina's fate for some time yet. She wanted to spare him that guilt he'd heap upon himself and push harder to catch Capt. Z-Ro and the victims.
Jessica and Deborah fought a pitched battle against the Power Rings. Hal didn't even regard Deborah with a glance as he attempted to murder Jessica. Hawke doubled down on her. Having been the bearer of a Green Flame power ring from another universe, a Fear Corps yellow ring, and a Red Lantern ring, he was adept at multiple attack forms and construct compositions. But he'd sorely underestimated her as just a pretty face.
Deborah had resolved never to abandon her post ever again after her cowardice against the Dominators.
Jessica could simply tell Hal was too used to a green power ring and hadn't mastered his Ring of Volthoom but rather it had mastered him. And the rings were sadistic but otherwise unimaginative. But given time, the once greatest Green Lantern would overpower his current power ring. Or it would consume him.
A Ring of Volthoom required mastery of two things. A bearer had to have an iron sense of willpower and utter control over their fear. So the hardened traits that divided the GL Corps from the Fear Corps were married in the Power Ring Corps. Hawke repulsed Debi into the upper atmosphere and he added his power ring's might to Hal's against Jess.
"J-Bird?" her power ring fearfully said before it exploded.
Jessica was knocked out but saved by Debi. The Star Sapphire prepared to battle alone against her former paramour and Hawke. But a green streak penetrated her life sustaining field and slipped onto Jess' finger. Her Power Ring Corpsman uniform had vanished with her ring shattering. But green energy enveloped Jessica and revealed a Green Lantern Corpsman uniform on her. A green lantern battery symbol appeared around her right eye and she awoke. And she was angry.
"Welcome Jessica Cruz to the Green Lantern Corps," her new power ring declared.
Hal was enraged that a GL power ring chose her and ignored him. He visually swept near space for a second ring but none was forthcoming, "You'll die for this."
"Like you weren't trying to kill me before?" Jessica sassed him.
A green battering ram bashed into Hawke and Hal, shoving them away from Earth. A masked Green Lantern had projected it.
"Hi, I'm Simon Baz. I'm to be your new partner in crime in defending Earth. Guy gets the sector gig," he announced.
"What if I don't want to?" Jessica queried him.
"Then you don't want to. Unlike a Ring of Volthoom, you can say 'no' at any time," Simon explained, "But I don't think quitting will stop Jordan from hunting you."
Hawke and Hal made one last effort at killing everyone before descending into the atmosphere and disappearing to join with the Legion of Doom.
"Does this thing come with a training manual?" Jessica muttered.
"I think we should worry about your Star Sapphire friend first," Simon suggested, "Before she bleeds out."
"Deb!" Jessica shouted in alarm.
"S'kay. I'm fine," Debi slurred.
Jess clamped the puncture wound that went through Remoni-Notra's body and raced her to a hospital Carol Ferris had recommended.
"Seems you're pretty handy with that ring already," Simon observed as they handed Deborah off to the emergency ward, "Look, we need to talk about this arrangement and it'll keep distracted until there's word."
"`Kay," Simon was discovering just how mistrustful Jessica could be.
"The hell wit ya," Guy streaked out of the solar system as his ring advised him of his revised mission.
"This just got easier," Capt. Atom admitted.
With the destruction of the Uralian Fleet, the mission had changed. Near Earth space was fill with asteroids of all sizes and debris of destroyed hulls. Dividing the area up, Capt. Atom reduced the various form debris into gravel or metallic shards. The Superwoman named Lois Lane used her Heat Vision and super strength to the same. The other other Superwoman, Lana Lang, blasted away as well. The remaining sizeable chunks were hurled out beyond Mars.
When they finished, they headed for Earth's surface just to find the situation there had worsened.
Azrael cut the Atomic Axe's handle in half and went for Persuader herself. Cyborg dealt with her while General Glory talked Azrael down. The Russian authorities operating the cosmodrome had informed Moscow of the situation and President Medvedev had dispatched the New People's Heroes to collect any prisoners taken.
Killer Frost overwhelmed Sun Girl's powers with her own. Chief Man-of-Bats joined with Bat-Woman and Bat-Girl in subduing Sun Girl physically. Killer Frost encased Sun Girl in ice and the Russian forces duly informed them of the Russian team's imminent arrival and assertion of jurisdiction.
Inertia fled when he saw Sun Girl get subdued. Flash halted Trajectory's pursuit, "We have other things to worry about."
Trajectory didn't like it but Wally had the edge on experience.
The spaceborn heroes regrouped with the JLers on the ground. Maxima quietly asked Superman, "Kal-El, are you unharmed?"
Clark was touched by her concern, "Thanks to Strange Visitor."
The sounds of vectored thrust warned them of the arrival of the Invisible Jet. The refraction systems on the modified B1-A bomber deactivated and the plane resumed visibility as it no longer bent light. Natalie Reed landed on the tarmac but the engines whined as the Justice League boarded.
"How did Sue know to contact the Blackhawks?" Superman wondered.
"I contacted her during a lull in the battles to request transportation. She'd already dispatched the Blackhawks in response to reports from London of the Justice Society in pitched battles against unknown foes. One news crew reported Kalea's presence. NATO is responding," Maxima explained, "But we can arrive first."
"I could've just teleported us there," Silver Sorceress was overheard complaining.
London was transforming into a war zone. Brits had a traditional fondness for the JSA but it was waning now.
Green Lantern fended off the Evil Queen in time to spare Kalea, "Are you all right?"
"Forget me. Get her," Kalea rasped in a throat seemingly scorched to a cinder and filled with ashes.
While exiled on Argo, she'd been too close to one of the innumerable kryptonite meteor showers. It had permanently damaged her lungs. A long hidden explanation of why she never displayed breath powers like her father, Kara, or Power Girl.
She'd spent month recuperating enough to survive and was still on the brink of death when Marcus liberated her from the dying world.
Green Lantern went flying by and she could hear Renfri's mirthful peals of laughter, "So? How did you like your reminder of home? Your real home. The one that forged you despite everything Almerac had for you. I loved your second coup. Dictatorship called democracy. Priceless!"
A giant green fist generated by the mightiest power ring on Earth, and only Earth, smashed into the Evil Queen. Green Lantern approached Kalea again, "Let's try this again, how are you really?"
Kalea didn't trust herself to answer. Green Lantern could see the brash upstart was rattled. And given her history and the scars she now sported, that said a lot regarding what had just been done to her. But he could ready her body language. She wanted back in the fight. And frankly, he needed the help.
Alan went to one side of Renfri and Kalea took the other. He projected the full might of the Green Flame at the Evil Queen. Kalea unleashed her Heat Vision to a degree she'd never dared before. A degree she could barely control.
Renfri was surprised to have met a near match as she deflected the power aimed at her. Pushing back with her reserves she shoved Green Lantern past England's southern coast and swatted Kalea into the highlands.
Renfri had burned through every iota of power that she'd drained from others. But she was still the equal of any Lord of Order or Lord of Chaos on her own. The Evil Queen wanted to extend her dominion into the universe, now that the Crisis had passed. But she was beginning to reevaluate her goal. Earth's heroes would not simply roll over. And her forces, though formidable, were barely suppressing revolts back home. Her wraiths were utterly loyal and bent to her will. But the trolls, ogres, goblins, and other foul creatures sworn to her could get their own ideas while she was away. If she stayed away long enough for their dim brains to think of it.
Zarina and Power Girl battled with a reckless abandon that was destroying everything around them. But Power Girl got distracted and Zarina took advantage of that and stunned her by running her hellfire sword through Power Girl's chest. But the Evil Queen had taken an interest in Karen so Zarina spared her.
Hippolyta hit Supergirl so hard it spun her in the air and she flew twenty feet from it.
"Ow," Supergirl groaned, "I'd rather stay bad."
"Linda? The real Linda?" Wonder Woman asked.
"As real as I'll admit," Supergirl sat up.
"I'm so sorry that was necessary," Hippolyta offered.
"Just don't hit me again and we'll be good," Supergirl offered.
The Witch easily overpowered Jungle Girl and Black Kitten despite their resolve. The Evil Queen shook her head in disappointment regarding Supergirl's apparent betrayal, "I must admit, Linda, I thought you'd have more spine when you were confronted. I suppose Matrix will have a lock on your personality now that you've revealed yourself."
Her power subdued them both, "Awaken them all. And let them realize their only fate from this point forward is endless tortures."
Hawkman and Argana terrorized Downtown London with their clash of arms and near strikes on pedestraina and motorists. Zarina felled Hawkman with her infernal sword through his chest. She left Argana behind to carry to him back to MI-6.
Starlet's raw power kept Auron engaged enough her control over the dogs slipped and they ran for home. Devilina Dare approached just in time for Starlet to get knocked out by Auron. She threw her razorangs but Auron plucked them out of the air and launched herself into a midair spin kick Devilina was totally unprepared for.
The Witch cast a levitation spell that ferried the captives to the Evil Queen while Auron bayed her triumph over two teenagers.
"My, my. Someone's been imbued with the power of the Endless," the Evil Queen smirked, "This Realm is full endless surprises."
She began to feed off of Sandman and Morpheus' power siphoned to her, augmenting her own considerable power to a greater degree than the earlier sacrifices had combined.
She released her grip on the unconscious Sandman, "It seems this Realm may be ripe for conquest after all."
Malika saw that Renfri's hair had shifted from raven black to a deep violet and her eyes flashed with power. The dark elf felt it was a confirmation once again she'd chosen her allegiances wisely.
Green Lantern and Kalera rendezvoused at the MI-6 building as violet smoke whiffed Renfri, Malika, and Sandman there. Kalea was angered beyond measure. At that moment she hated the Evil Queen to a greater than she'd ever hated her parents. And she had no intention of taking her alive despite the earlier planning the JSAers and Justicers had partaken of in anticipation of this moment.
"Back so soon?" the Evil Queen taunted them both.
Her black lightning seared through both of the bodies and souls. They were barely able to breathe afterwards much less recuperate. Renfri tapped a finger to her lips as she thoughtfully studied them.
"You, I could use. You, not so much," the Evil Queen decided.
Kalea knew she was the useful one even as Green Lantern realized he was the useless one. But neither felt anything about it either way at that moment.
Wildcat was embarrassed that Hindi rolled off his mightiest blows and delivered near crippling ones in reply. But she was stunned as Ashleigh missed the Flash and sent three mystical stun spells into her cohort.
"Together?" Jay asked.
"Always," Wildcat agreed. But Ashleigh's next spell leveled them both.
Arrowette expended her four incendiary arrows and four explosive head arrows against Leirya's pods. They withered and died leaving the nymph vulnerable. Catgirl lunged at her. She was startled when her diamond tipped claws drew sap and not blood.
They were each blasted aside as Ashleigh shifted focus, "You owe me, Rose Bud."
Leirya glared at her but the Evil Queen's arrival caused her to subside, "Give me the one dressed as a cat."
They blinked. Renfri clarified, "The man dressed as a cat."
She siphoned all of Ted's "Nine Lives" remaining and aged him to the sixty-years old he'd been when the last charm took effect, "He'll thank me, I'm sure."
The Evil Queen couldn't help but snicker at her own joke.
Drusilla's dragon peeled off and fused Robotman's legs with its fire breath. Guardian was losing to Astrid despite having every modern technological advantage. Only his augmented body armor spared his life when she felled him.
Larissa saw through Secret's fog and clubbed Static upside the head with chain as it wrapped around his body. Secret solidified long enough to check on Virgil and get knocked cold herself by Astrid.
"Paltry pickings," the Evil Queen announced her arrival, "Gather them and dump them with the other prisoners."
Djina made her first wish, "May the flying fool suffer the agonies of those roasted on a spit."
Hawkgirl screamed and fell to the pavement below. She lay helpless, writhing from the pain. Sand went to intervene but Djina cast her second wish upon him.
"Let this man be mortal once more," she uttered.
Sand reached for his geokinetic powers to smother Djina. Nothing happened and he no longer had a sense of them. He tried to convert to sand but that failed as well. Finally he flipped open a knife and cut across his forearm. For the first time in seventy-six years, he bled.
"You can thank me by standing aside so that I'm unopposed," Djina proclaimed.
"You know I won't do that," Sand replied.
Djina sighed, "Of course. I just wish you'd sleep until this was all over."
The sleeping curse took immediate effect and Sand collapsed. Djina saw Fori was having her fun with Windfall and Blue Beetle. All fey were all inherently magical. Some more than others.
Windfall had her powers reversed. Blue Beetle was separated from his scarab interface and trapped within the armored carapace. Djina released Hawkgirl as Drusilla and her dragon arrived alongside Auron. Sand was left asleep and Windfall's powers were still inverted as Blue Beetle was carried away.
Belina crafted a full scale blizzard to counter Red Tornado's cyclonic power. Garin slowed Kid Flash and Miss Quick to a crawl. His staff did the rest of the work. Malika downed Judomaster without ever touching her.
"The Queen is pleased," Malika promised.
"As far as assurances go, that's slim praise," Belina complained.
Malika gave her a sour look. The Evil Queen's tortures could go on for weeks as she worked out her displeasure at failures.
"I see. She is our queen," Belina consented.
Renfri was just a few thousand years younger than existence. She'd literally seen it all. And she was unerring in detecting betrayal and disloyalty. And her response was merciless. Death was considered a boon she wouldn't grant.
Cedric and Rolan contended with Tarantula, the Whip, and Raven Red while Vine Witch dealt a blow against Miss Martian. The Queen's forces were victorious. M'Gann reverted back to her true White Martian form.
"She is ugly," Vine Witch mused. And this came from a compatriot of monsters.
Vara contended with Jade, Yz, and Obsidian all at once. Donal and Zircon struggled against Zan and Jayna with Dolphin. The barbarians seemed on the wrong of it when the Wonder Twins and the aquatic were suddenly and swiftly defeated. Vara downed the fateful trio.
The Evil Queen strode up and pinched the bridge of her nose, "Why did it take so long?"
"Why did it happen at all?" Donal wondered aloud and Zircon winced.
"Enough!" Renfri shouted, "Gather them up and bring them to me."
Hourman and Superboy fought each other for the right of having sex with Zara until they experienced death by orgasm. Tolph and and Tarkos seemed unable to best Spider Queen and Blitz when the humans were mysteriously defeated. Tolph and Tarkos shrugged and went with it.
Hourman and Superboy ended up knocking each other out. Zara pouted, "Now no one will feed me."
"Oh, shut up," Leirya snarled as she approached, "All you do is whine."
"Tree hugger," Zara accused.
"At least trees are quiet and loyal," Leirya retorted, "The Queen wants you all to gather your prisoners and follow me."
Zara scowled but Tolph and Tarkos complied. To their credit because after Leirya's report of Zara's triumph and disgruntlement, the Evil Queen would make plans to chastise the succubus by starving her for a few months.
Dark Lady Saris had enjoyed herself initially but Sir Ystin was proving to be a more capable foe than she'd have imagined. Arwin was also having difficulties defeating Maid Maleen. The quartet had fought to a standstill.
Sari conjured creatures out of water. Jinny's vibration gun could shatter them since they were as sturdy as paper mache but as deadly as sea monsters. Robin and Red Robin were fighting just to stay alive. But both Helena and Ulysses desperately strategized plans to deal with Sari herself.
The mermaid deduced that Jinny was her greatest threat so she manipulated her voice to paralyze them all. The Thames acted as a living organism and beat Robin into the sodden turf. When Red Robin made to intervene, the waters turned on him instead and pummeled him into unconsciousness. Jinny was half drowned in a bubble of water she couldn't escape from.
Only then did Sari submerge to revitalize herself as best she could in the polluted waters so unlike the streams and lakes of the Queen's other Realms.
Renfri appeared to address Ystin and Maleen, "You two have held off two of my greatest champions. You've impressed me. Point in fact, I want to give an opportunity to be the women you've always wanted to be, free from discrimination and hatred for who you are and are meant to be."
"And what happens when we say 'no'?" Sir Ystin inquired.
"I'd be terribly disappointed that you refused an offer to become what is your destiny to be," the Evil Queen shrugged as she prepared to pull their hearts out.
"And what would happen if we agreed?" Maid Maleen asked.
All of the Evil Queen's forces vanished in whiffs of smoke returning them to the Realms to continue their campaigns against the rebels, "Then you persuade your fellows to join with me, or at least stand aside when I claim this world."
Waves of sonic harmonics assaulted the Evil Queen and she clutched at her particularly sensitive ears as her perceived world shattered. Cyborg's white noise generator agonized the Evil Queen even as it announced the arrival of the Justice League. The Invisible Jet accelerated as it passed by overhead and its variable geometry wings swept back as it did so.
The JLU took up position in a semicircle around the Queen. And the supposedly fallen JSA made up the rest of the circle. Renfri was barely aware of the development but she was aware enough to realize that the Justice Society had planned this. Their strategy was to feign defeat in order to lull her into dismissing her forces and await reinforcements. It had been a good plan and one that convinced her to wait on her conquest of the universe.
Green Lantern had deduced that while Renfri was equal to Dr. Fate, she was vulnerable to the Green Flame's power. So he and his daughter were her greatest threats. But she would still be vulnerable to physical harm as well. As Blue Beetle's sonic cannon added to Cyborg's debilitating attack, the others had an ad hoc conference between the JLU and JSA. Alan had given Sue the bare bones of the Justice Society's plans and she'd conferred them to Maxima.
The Evil Queen unleashed a wave of accursed magic that flattened her enemies. She caught her breath and gauged her chances. There was still a slim possibility of victory but then again it was too close a margin for comfort. Heroes maximized desperation. Renfri preferred to shock and awe her foes.
The various Justicers had already recovered. The Evil Queen shouted, "Enough! You idiots think you've won when all you've done is delay the inevitable. This was a scouting foray. I don't even have to do anything and your world will end. And then I will manipulate the fires of creation itself to make your universe mine."
Superman and Supergirl seemed ot be struggling with dim memories of what the Evil Queen was boasting of. The Evil Queen enjoyed a nasty chuckle promising pain and death, "This isn't over. It's merely begun."
Now she herself vanished in a swirl of violet smoke.
"I don't think we should see this as a victory. Just as a delaying tactic," Superman said sourly.
The former Dark Justice members that had joined, or rejoined, the Justice League briefed the assembled JLers, the Justice Society, Young Justice, and the Outsiders. Roxy made it so the JSA, YJ, and Outsiders were present through holographic avatars. As a courtesy, Maxima and Kalea sat in.
"These people went waaay off the grid," Roxy complained.
"These people don't know what a grid is," Zatanna pointed out, "Their lives revolve around magic, not technology."
"But the Queen is too well informed about everything to claim ignorance," Green Lantern countered.
"She's lived forever and has traveled the breadth of the Twenty-Seven Realms of Existence," Madame Xanadu replied.
"Even ol' Lucifer himself sees her as a threat," John Constantine pointed out.
"And you'd know this how?" Trajectory asked.
"Satan and I are old drinking buddies," Constantine boasted.
Jay and Wally nodded confirmations to Eliza. She scowled. Owlwoman interrupted, Jack, Chief Man-of-Bats, Fire, Ice, Blue Jay, Silver Sorceress and I immediately recognized her. We fought her alongside Dark Justice. It was that confrontation that brought the two teams back together."
"How dangerous is this woman?" Steve Trevor IV asked.
"She could eradicate all life on Earth and we couldn't stop her," Xanadu's sister Vivian Lachlan, answered.
"Then how do we defeat her?" Sue asked as Ralph held her shoulders.
"She's never known defeat before," Cabala revealed.
"So this will piss her off," Shayera Hol stated.
"Which will unbalance her," Mr. Terrific deduced.
"The Evil Queen is uncertain and unbalanced in our world nearly bereft of magic. This unsettles her. We need to amplify that," Sandman advised.
"And her troops as well since they can seemingly do the impossible," Sand added.
"But we need to find her if she's still on Earth or monitor for her reappearance," Superman stated.
"I'm on it," Roxy grated.
"She's on it," Power Girl deadpanned.
Superman subsided rather than further annoy the most powerful AI on the planet.
Back inside the Castle of the blackest Heart in the Realm of Fables, the Evil Queen angrily simmered, "I never lose. You idiots lose all the time. But this is a personal first and I. Don't. Like. It."
The quiet menace in her voice was far more terrifying to her followers than if she'd been ranting and raving, "Don't think me merciful just yet. I want information on our enemies prior to our invasion and if anyone fails to report EVERYTHING then I will flay each of you collectively and leave you alive so I can do it each and every day for ten years. Understood?"
There were noises of confirmation before the crowd was whiffed away. Dark Lady Saris remained, "I could use their help."
The Evil Queen's oh so warm and loving smile bespoke of horrors to come, "Nonsense. You're my War Mistress and I'm here with you. Gather field reports and let's unleash nine levels of living hell on these various rebel factions. Tell the shock troops to bring me Snow White and Rose Red's heads within the week or I'll be dealing with next generation of foul creatures."
Saris bowed and went to work. Renfri felt the sting of humiliation. No mortal, fey, or demon had ever bested her. But take some humans and suddenly she lost? She had plans for Earth and she would gladly convert it into a hellscape to achieve them.
"Strange Visitor picked up the hyperspace entry point for the freighter taking away the gen latent childrem," Superman informed Kalea, "She thinks she's deduced their exit vector."
"Just another acolyte wearing the family crest," Kalea scowled.
"As the Scion of the House of El, your father can bestow the emblem upon anyone he desires to," Maxima scolded her.
"And you're really moving to Rann?" Kalea wondered.
"Lois, Lana, and Linda can more than carry on my legacy with Sharon's help," Superman told her.
"Is she your only disciple that doesn't have a name beginning with an 'L'?" Kalea snorted.
"They aren't my disciples. Lois and Lana suffered under Lord Superman. They can barely tolerate me," he admitted.
"Seems to go around," Kalea snarked. She'd witnessed how the Superwomen viewed him. Up until now, only Kalea had hated him with that much interpersonal animosity.
"Karen worked with me by spying on New Krypton. She found it odd living on an alien world. She refused to return with me to Almerac because she missed Earth despite your being on it," Kalea sniped.
"I owe it to Maxima and your unborn sister to be content," Kal-El growled.
"Now you want to play father. Good luck with that. All your children seem to end up hating you," Kalea stormed off.
"You need to push less and give her more time," Maxima advised.
"It isn't just me she hates, Max," Kal-El warned her.
"I know," Maxima allowed, "When she put back on my throne it was for the good of Almerac and her peoples. As long as I stayed Empress she was invested and loyal. But now that I've abdicated, there's nothing for her to be loyal to. Or to protect me from her."
"Did she ever tell you how she got those scars?" Superman asked.
"No, and I don't think she ever will. Not because of what they did to her but because of what she did in reply. Kalea eradicated planetary populations in my name and thinks I don't know the extent of it. Her empress condoned eliminating the threats but her mother was horrified," Maxima told him, "Someone developed the tools to do all that to her. Specifically her, other Kryptonians and Daxamites. That requird a lot of research, hate, and planning."
"We'll have to be careful on Rann," Clark conceded.
"Very careful," Maxima whispered so that only he could hear it.
An Almeracian courier boat landed and Kalea turned back to her parents before boarding, "We'll meet again. It's inevitable whether we want to or not."
The ship lifted with her in it. The Fleet was going all out to support Kalea's missions despite the Ministry being independent fo the military. But then again, Kalea had been independent of the military her entire life yet the entire serivices would live and die at her command if she so wished. But she didn't. But the Evil Queen's prediction that she would exterminate all life on Earth rang true.
"Is this weird?" Superman asked as the ship lifted away.
"Of course it's weird. Until the age of six, Kalea resented your absence but dreamed of meeting you. Then she did and afterwards, she dreamt of killing us both after applying extended of torture. Now we just have to see if she shows up one day to steal her sister and slit our throats in our sleep," Maxima warned him.
It took him a minute to realize she was serious.
The Evil Queen brooded in her castle until her guest arrived. Her new Huntsman was her most capable yet. He'd reported discovering new developments regarding Snow White and Rose Red.
"Speak," she commanded from the twins' rightful throne.
"Snow White and Rose Red have been turned in order to combat you to a more effective degree," The Huntsman was one knee, "They felt doing so would enable them to confront you on an equal footing."
Renfri laughed until she cried, "Vampires being equal to me? How desperate they've become."
"I know their location. Shall I destroy them?" the Huntsman asked.
"No, herd them to the Wishing Well in the Enchanted Forest. I'll be there waiting and I'll the instruct the brats in the folly of being vampires."
"Yes, my Queen. I'll set out immediately," the Huntsman bowed his head and then rose and departed the castle.
"This will be all too easy," Renfri predicted.
Footnotes: This comprises yet another installment in the sideways DCAU Anthology Series attached to the Justice League: DCAU Series. Like the majority of the stories it takes place after Justice League Realms: DCAU Series Part 26. Therefore it shares continuity with both the Anthology series and the main DCAU Series. Each DCAU Part is integral to the Anthology and the reverse is also true.
The original intent of the Anthology stories was to provide in-continuity one-shots that explored topics and situations that wouldn't be developed in the main series. Now they're carrying the bulk of the content as I make the transition from the Justice League to reboot into the Justice League Beyond after the Crisis of the Multiverse and Zero Hour concluded.
I still have my notes regarding completion of the DCAU Series Parts 27-28. And while my intention remains the same about completing them, and they each have necessary components for reaching Justice League Beyond, I'm uncertain as to the timetable of their completion.
The following attributions need to be made for Open Source (and unnecessarily for one Public Domain) characters:
Cabala
Real Name
Cabala
First Appearance
BIO47 #2 (1998)
Created by
Miguel Rude and Leandro Silva
Notes
Cabala was open-sourced in 2009 and, thus, every aspect of the character prior to then can be used by anyone, so long as the creators are cited.
Daring Devil
Real Name
Bart Hill
First Appearance
Silver Streak Comics #6 (Sept. 1940)
Original Publisher
Lev Gleason
Created by
Jack Binder & Don Rico
Devilina Dare
Real Name
Colina Amara Hill
First Appearance
August 28, 2018
Original Publisher
Open Source Superheroes Facebook Page
Created by
Marz Workman