Danny's girlfriend had lived in Metropolis. He'd been planning to propose. Got the ring and everything. When he'd gotten back from college for the summer, he was going to take her to Centennial Park, to that bench behind Superman's statue with the view over the lake she loved, and propose.
Danny hadn't had a girlfriend in five years.
Danny's parents had lived in Metropolis too. He'd grown up there. Made his first, best, and oldest friends there. Had his first car accident, his first kiss, helped get the Metropolis High School Spartans to fourth place in the regionals, even had his first encounter with a superhero there courtesy of Superman himself, taking time to nab a very optimistic would-be mugger.
Danny hadn't had parents in five years either, or visited the places where any of those things had happened. He couldn't. They weren't there anymore.
The Joker made sure of that, and then Superman made sure the Joker would never commit another crime.
So when Superman started looking for men, vowing "Metropolis: Never Again", Danny was all too eager to sign up. The uniforms made him feel powerful. The pills more so. But best of all was how Superman was changing the world.
No more corruption. No more fat cats sitting on their asses while people died in droves to maniacs with ray guns. No more murderers walking the streets without fear. No more clowns in pimp suits with body counts in the millions. No more Metropolises. All thanks to Superman.
The smart superheroes and supervillains fell in line. The dumb ones? Well, the Regime had no mercy left for destructive agendas. Or that's what, as a loyal soldier, Danny was supposed to say about it. Personally, he saw it as taking out the trash.
Danny was just happy to be a part of it. To know that in some way his small, all too human efforts were helping Superman and the Regime make the Earth a better place.
He was a lot less happy to be marching around the ruins of Metropolis in the middle of the night with a squad of his mates. Patrols had been stepped up because a squad just like his had gone missing, so of course the response is to send more guys in. It must look a lot more like a genius plan when you're not wearing the boots on the ground.
At least General Sinestro and General Yellow Lantern were sent too, in order to deal with any superhuman opponents the troopers found. Danny'd be surprised if it wasn't a metahuman. After the pills, he was faster, tougher, and stronger than ever before. Certainly more so than any normal human could hope to match, and the crash course in martial arts and marksmanship every trooper got in boot camp only made them all the more dangerous. No normal human, or even a lot of metas, would be able to handle that.
The arm, covered in a brown, leather motorcycle jacket, that hit his throat like a steel bar, before pulling him silently into an alley while he wheezed for breath, certainly felt like it belonged to a metahuman. Danny'd never met a normal person who could hit that hard before, or who could man-handle him in full armor like it was nothing, swinging him around, slamming him into the wall, and removing his gun belt, rifle, and knife with practiced ease.
"We have questions. You have answers." Flinty, narrowed blue eyes bored into the lenses of Danny's helmet over the impressively square jaw of the man holding Danny against the bricks. He flinched back for a moment, then remembered the pills, and the Generals, waiting for any sign of enemy metahumans. Surely his buddies would call it in when they noticed him gone, and double back to look for him. In that case…
"I ain't telling you nothing, blondie," Danny spat, "When the Generals find you, you're gonna wish you never crawled out from under whatever rock you've been hiding under for us not to have found you before."
"Son," The rogue metahuman sighed, staring at Danny with a mix of disgust and disappointment that made his stomach roil, "I fought a World War to keep jackbooted thugs off of America's streets. So finding you and your friends here, now? I'm more than a bit… annoyed. You're going to talk, starting with who these 'generals' are."
"I ain't telling you shit! I don't care what wars you fought or didn't, they're old news! The regime's put an end to war, and it's gonna put an end to you!" Privately, though, Danny was feeling a bit worried. Surely his squad had noticed he was gone by now?
"I guess we'll have to impress some urgency on you," The big blonde guy turned his head and nodded sharply at another blonde, a girl. Despite both having straw-yellow hair and blue eyes they didn't look much alike. The guy was broad, muscular, and imposing, like he'd stepped off a propaganda poster or the cover of an old 80s action movie, while the girl looked a lot younger, with high cheekbones, a slim frame, and a Mediterranean complexion. "Take us down."
The girl gestured, and the ground shook. A fissure opened up beneath them, and Danny yelped as they plummeted down. The big guy stuck the landing without a single hint of discomfort as the girl slid down the side. Another gesture from her, and the ceiling closed over, leaving them in a cave lit only by the lenses of Danny's mask, and a ruddy glow emitted from one of the girl's fingertips.
"That should confuse any rescue parties a bit," The girl's accent was weird, almost but not quite Italian. Danny knew Italian, his girlfriend's family was Italian, this girl's accent was close, but not the same.
"Still think help's coming quickly?" The big guy asked, taking his chance to slam Danny against a wall again. Danny tried to struggle, but even with the pills, what did the docs call them, Kryptonian nanomachines or something, making him stronger, he could barely make the guy strain. Danny could feel himself tiring under the pressure, but this other guy was like a machine. It was like he could just keep doing this all day no problem.
"They'll find you eventually!" Danny blustered, letting his arms go limp as fatigue burned through his biceps.
"But will they find you?" The girl asked, "If we collapse this chamber and leave?"
"Letting your buddies find you, and you report in isn't exactly in our best interests, is it?" The big guy noted, "You'd better make it worth our while."
"S-Superheroes don't kill, you're bluffing!" Superheroes do kill, Danny'd seen them do it a few times, but maybe these guys hadn't got the memo. These two definitely weren't villains since they hadn't started torturing him yet, so maybe he had a chance. The Insurgency doesn't kill. Batman won't let them. So these guys wouldn't leave him here… right?
"Son, I served in World War Two," The big guy stated, eyes hard and merciless, "This wouldn't be even close to the first time I've made sure a fascist couldn't tell his superiors I was here."
"In war, such things are inevitable," The girl nodded in agreement. Danny could feel the heat radiating from her fingertip through his armored uniform, but the big guy wasn't even sweating. "This man is clearly very loyal, though. Perhaps one of his comrades would be more agreeable? Or if we wish to loosen his tongue, my old Centurion did speak highly of crucifixion as a motivational tactic."
"Let's not go that far," The big guy smiled at Danny, suddenly looking far more like the reasonable one, "After all, our friend here was just about to tell us all about his bosses, right? We wouldn't leave someone who'd been so cooperative buried here… or crucified. Christ, kids these days."
"This must be one of these modern customs that I am still unfamiliar with," The girl looked distinctly disappointed that she wasn't going to get to crucify their captive, and that thought sat in Danny's stomach like a boulder of dread. If he didn't want to get left to the girl, he'd better start talking.
"The generals are Sinestro and Yellow Lantern! They make things out of yellow energy with their rings! They're part of High Councilor Superman's council, along with the other superheroes and supervillains that decided they weren't dumb enough to go against him! Please don't bury me alive where nobody knows where I am but her!"
Whatever the blonde guy was going to say was cut off as a sickly-pale yellow, translucent backhoe bucket tore through the roof. The guy grabbed his friend around the waist and leaped out of the hole, getting clear just before a huge cylinder of translucent yellow slammed down, filling the hole and missing Danny by centimeters.
Just in the nick of time. A real superhero rescue. Grinning under his mask, eager to see the insurgents get what's coming to them, Danny started climbing out of the hole.
He made it to the top just in time to see General Yellow Lantern, surrounded by his signature glowing, yellow aura, hovering in the alley before the two rogues. The big guy stood in front of the girl, with a large, round shield on his arm, bearing a silver star on a blue background in the center, surrounded by bands of red and white.
"Surrender, insurgent," Yellow Lantern ordered, menacing them with his raised fist, bearing his power ring. The most powerful weapon in the universe, according to the Generals. "I assure you that you will not be harmed… seriously."
"Better men than you have tried, son," The shield guy didn't seem intimidated at all, which boggled Danny's mind. Didn't he know who this was?
"Better dressed too," The girl glared up at Yellow Lantern with distain, "I have no idea how you found an uglier shade of yellow than the X-Men trainee uniforms, but I fervently wish you hadn't."
"Right, it's lights out time, have fun in the re-education camps," Yellow Lantern fired a blast of energy from his ring, a move Danny had seen him do several times before. A simple stunning blast to knock out weak opponents long enough to get them in shackles. But to Danny's horror and the Regime general's shock, it bounced off the insurgent's shield and slammed into Yellow Lantern's face! As Yellow Lantern blinked the flash of light out of his eyes, not really hurt, the big guy threw his shield at the pavement underneath the general.
"I'm going to enjoy this," Yellow Lantern snarled, as the shield bounced off the pavement under him, and a streetlight behind him, "Tell me, what do you fear UUUGH!" With an odd metallic ringing, the shield bounced off the back of Yellow Lantern's neck, at the base of his skull. His glowing yellow aura winked out, and he fell on his face in the alley. He didn't move, even as the shield soared through the air to land in the big guy's hand.
Just as Danny was considering whether he'd need to run over and cover the general's body with his own to keep the possibly murderous insurgents away, he heard what he'd swear from now on was the most beautiful sound to ever grace his ears. The rumbling of engines, the clatter of tracks, and over them General Sinestro's voice, "Hal's last known position was over here! Find them! Now!"
The two insurgents exchanged a quick glance.
The last thing Danny remembered of that evening was the edge of a shield approaching his face far too quickly to dodge.
-
"Any progress, hubby?"
"Well, I can confirm where they're not," With a sigh, Doctor Hank Pym, sometimes also known as the astonishing Ant-Man when he puts on red and blue tights to fight crime, pushed back from his computer, rubbing at his eyes. "They're definitely not in the Microverse, or that zombie world, or any of the realms of Asgard."
"Well, that's more than we knew before," Arms around his shoulders from behind his chair, Janet van Dyne, Hank's wife and when costumed known as the winsome Wasp, affected a slightly strained smile, "I'm sure you'll find 'em. You're a bona-fide, certified super-genius, after all. Best there is!"
"I'm glad you're sure, because I'm not," Hank turned away from the computer with a scowl, "Interdimensional travel just isn't my field. If we had Tony or Bruce here, together we might be able to get something done, but…"
"Bruce is hiding from General Ross somewhere, and if we had Tony here, we wouldn't need to find a way to rescue him from another dimension," Janet pouted, "Not the worst thing that's ever happened to the Avengers, but usually when something bad happens I can just punch it in the face! I'm no good for this science stuff."
"As much as I hate to admit it, I need help for this," Hank turned towards the other occupant of his lab, standing carefully by the phone, cape held back with his free hand to keep it from sweeping any of the delicate glassware to the floor. "Any luck getting Reed Richards on the horn? I bet he's got a dimensional portal in his closet or something."
"Nay, verily, tis most disappointing," Thor, yes, that Thor, muttered something probably uncomplimentary in a Scandinavian language neither of his friends spoke, "The Baxter Building's mechanical receptionist doth have me on hold. It hath been three hours, and I grow vexed." The grey overcast skies outside the lab's window rumbled ominously as their master expressed his irritation, "Dost thou know of any other scientists who could assist in this endeavor?"
"Doctor Strange said he'd be in another dimension for at least another month, Hank McCoy's a biologist, Forge probably can't help because he makes stuff with his powers and not by knowing how it works," Janet ran down the list of the Avengers' allies and acquaintances who might be able to help with a slowly deepening frown, "Who else can we call? I assume we're not ready to go beg Doc Doom to get our friends back."
"Let's call that plan C," Hank agreed wryly, "He could probably do it, but we're not that desperate. Yet. Thor, do you know any other sorcerers?"
"The Fantastic Four are in space? And you could not have informed me of this before I held for three hours? Know that you have this day gained the enmity of Thor, machine!" Thor went to slam the phone down, before visibly reminding himself to set it down gently to avoid shattering it. Outside, rain began to fall. "Richards will not be able to aid us," He reported, somewhat redundantly, "I could inquire around the halls of the wise of Asgard, but while travel about the Nine Realms by magic is commonplace, travel outside it is far less so. I am uncertain if even my mother would have mastered such secrets."
"Scraping the bottom of the barrel a bit, but what about Spider-Man?" Janet snapped her fingers, straightening up, "Tony wanted to invite him for an internship at Stark Industries, right? He said he was really impressed with the kid's work."
"Yeah, and Stark showed me why," Hank shared, "The kid built a microtransmitter that only his superpowers could pick up and a miracle adhesive polymer, plus emitters to shoot it like webs, from a bunch of crap in his basement. If this was a materials science problem, I'd call him up in a heartbeat, but it's not. Unless Thor gets lucky and gets us a wizard, or I somehow make a breakthrough, Steve, Tony, Jen, and Amara are stuck."
"The X-Men are not going to be happy," Janet groaned, crossing her arms with a frustrated huff, "They send their newest rescued mutant, Amara Aquilla, stuck in the Amazon living like an ancient Roman until like three months ago, to talk to our own man out of time, Steve, and they both get shanghaied out of Central Park along with Tony and Jen by someone from another universe. We barely had her for two hours! And isn't she the official ambassador of Nova Roma too? We look like idiots! Idiots who've caused an international incident!"
"Are you certain the X-Men hath no one who can assist us?" Thor asked, "Surely they hath more great minds than Hank McCoy and Forge, just as the Avengers hath more great minds than yourself and Stark."
"X-Men members are a lot less likely to have had to make their own powers in a lab," Hank pointed out, "Most of them aren't as science-oriented. Professor Xavier's doctorates are in genetics and psychology, Emma Frost's are in business… Excalibur!"
"A powerful artifact to be sure, but I fail to see how it helps us," Thor raised an eyebrow.
"Not the sword, the British superhero team that split up a year ago," Hank exclaimed, "They parted ways after they discovered that the lighthouse they used as their base was an interdimensional nexus, which sent them on a journey through universes in this weird train made by Merlin. Excalibur had three former members of the X-Men on it, who returned to their old team after the breakup. Nightcrawler, Rachel Summers, and Kathrine Pryde. Pryde didn't make the universe hops happen, but she did program the computer that did the calculations that got them safely from one universe to another. She also cracked the NSA when she was like eleven. Scary smart with computers. Maybe as good with software as Tony is with hardware. Thor, call Xavier's School! We need to borrow a genius!"