DC Underground
An Imaginary Tale by Dylan Roth
NOTE: This story abides by DC Comics continuity until 2 Months to Infinite Crisis. The story begins a few months after this point.
ONE
Kyle has never felt welcome as the Green Lantern of Earth. During his early years as the the galaxy's only wielder of the Oan Power Ring, Kyle Rayner was constantly compared to his predecessor, Hal Jordan. As the years went by, Kyle was still considered a rookie among the JLA. After recharging the Central Power Battery and giving a ring to former Lantern John Stewart, Kyle once again found himself in the position of a second-string hero. With the return of Hal Jordan to the mantle of Green Lantern, Kyle gave up on making a name for himself and took off into space.
After an extended mission negociating an armistice between Rann and Thanagar and defeating demigod Onimar Synn, Kyle is more than ready for a few days back home on Earth. Despite everything that has happened, Earth still has things to offer him. He thinks he will visit his mother, his friends Terry, John and Wally, or maybe lend a hand fighting crime in New York. But, like every other time Kyle Rayner has turned his back, the world has moved on without him. But, this time, more has changed than he could possibly have imagined.
Dropping out of his faster-than-light travel in a high Earth orbit, Kyle descends on the moon to check in with the League. The Watchtower, however, is not there waiting for him. Puzzled, Kyle merely assumes that the JLA had relocated, perhaps moving back down to the surface. Still, it puts a chill down his spine to see the empty lunar surface where his home-away-from-home had once been. Shaking off his concerns, Kyle continues this journey back down to the planet.
About twelve thousand feet above Coast City, CA, home of Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner expects to see Hal waiting for him. Hal's ring should probably have sensed his arrival by now, and Hal Jordan is a class act; he would never keep a guest waiting. Instead, Kyle is met by no one. Floating above the moonlit city for a few minutes in a floating hammock, Kyle's patience quickly runs out.
"Ring," Kyle yawns. "Locate Hal Jordan." Kyle has only recently learned that his power ring has the ability to communicate with him and perform significant tasks on it's own.
"Unable to locate GL 2814.1," replies the Ring. "Power signature not detected within scanning range." Kyle is beginning to seriously worry, since his ring's scanning radius is a distance measured in hundreds of miles.
"Alright, how about John Stewart?" Kyle asks the ring, as the hammock is replaced by an armchair.
"Unable to locate GL 2814.2," the Ring explains in it's usual monotone. "Power signature not detected within scanning range."
Kyle begins to break a sweat. "Search for JLA Communicators and give me the coordinates for the nearest signal."
"Searching..." Kyle waits impatiently for a reply from the ring. "Signal located. Signal ID: Conner Hawke. Origin: Star City. Signal Type: Distress."
"Distress?" Kyle mumbles to himself. "Lead the way, ring. Sounds like our old pal Conner could use a hand."
Kyle, nervous and confused, makes the journey from Coast City to Star City in about fifteen minutes. Along the way, he is unable to make contact with any other Lantern or League member. Trying to stay focused, Kyle follows the ring's directions and lands on a rooftop high above Star City. He searches though green binoculars for his comrade. After about a minute of surveillance, the Green Lantern finds what he was looking for and flew towards his target.
"Die, Goddammit!" Conner Hawke, bleeding from his lip and a from a cut on his forehead, draws another arrow from the quiver on his back. A blue, one-eyed figure takes another step forward, forcing Conner to backpedal towards the dead end of the dark alley. He releases the arrow, floating directly at the figure's head, but breaking on impact. The figure steps forward again, grabbing Conner's throat with it's left hand and making a fist with the other. Conner frantically grabs onto his enemy's arm to prevent his neck from snapping. His head starts swimming, his vision a swirling mix of red and black. And green...?
Conner finds himself sprawled on his stomach, face in the pavement beneath him. He fights the pain in his neck and raises his head to see that his old friend Green Lantern has his enemy trapped in a giant emerald wine bottle.
"Yo, Conner," Kyle calmly states. "Who's this creep?" Kyle chuckles a bit at the odd blue cyclops he has just captured.
"You mean you really don't know?" Conner rises slowly from the concrete, believing for a moment that his comrade is pulling his leg. "What, have you been on Mars for the past 3 months?"
"Rann, actually," Kyle says in his matter-of-factly manner that both makes him feel smart and sound like a complete asshole. Kyle isn't conscious of how often he uses this tone, but Conner has gotten used to it by this point and doesn't say anything. "I haven't been able to reach Hal or John. What's going on around here?"
The archer opens his mouth to speak, but before he could begin, he is interrupted by the sound of shattering glass. The creature has broken free from the bottle construct and already has Kyle by the throat. Conner reaches for another arrow, leaps into the air and plunges the arrow into the cyclops' eye. Temporarily impaired, the beast drops Kyle, who lands on his feet and aims his ring, preparing to attack. Conner steps up quickly, grabbing Kyle's arm.
"We don't have time for this!" yells Hawke. "Get us out of here, fast!"
"I can handle this freak," Kyle growls.
"Get us out, NOW!"
In a flash of emerald light, the two heroes are gone, and their attacker quickly vanishes, replaced with a normal, albeit confused, human being.
In the dank sewers of Star City, Conner leads Kyle through the pipes. Kyle, annoyed and confused, tries not to push for information, but can no longer contain himself. "Alright, since you're obviously not going to volunteer any information," Kyle blocks Conner's path with a life-sized question mark, "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?"
Conner, not having much choice but to stop, lets out a sigh. "I wasn't really looking forward to explaining this." As two green chairs appear just above water level in the sewer, the two of them sit down and Green Arrow begins his tale. "This is not and easy story to tell. A lot of these facts are unclear, and it's... difficult for me to keep my head when I think about it. It started not long after you brought Hal back from the dead and went back into space. Without a host, Spectre lost his mind and set out to destroy all magic. Some people say Eclipso was involved, but personally, I think Hal was the only think keeping the Spirit of Vengeance grounded these days. The Phantom Stranger, Dr. Fate, and the rest of the big guns in the mystical realm were taken out first. A few second-stringers tried to take him down by recruiting Black Alice, but they failed, and eventually all the magic on Earth, including Captain Marvel, was eliminated. Then, Spectre destroyed himself to remove the last trace of mystical energy.
"Non-magic users barely noticed this at the time, since we were busy with three other threats. Maxwell Lord, some guy from the old Justice League International, turned out to be in charge of this metahuman surveillance/elimination project known as OMAC. I think it stands for the One Man Army Corps. First, Lord hijacked a spy satellite network that Batman built to keep an eye on the JLI members that mind-wiped him back in the day. After he'd gained info on all of us, be activated the OMACs, these blue androids that hide inside regular people. You fought one of them up there in the city. They're nearly unstoppable, and they know exactly where we are and how to beat us. They took a big dent out of the superhero community, even after Wonder Woman snapped Maxwell Lord's neck. We're not entirely sure who they killed. Almost all of us have gone into hiding.
"Even as OMACs started popping up everywhere and slaughtering our comrades, Lex Luthor was mobilizing nearly every supervillain on Earth in a full-scale attack on us. We don't know much about how they operate or how they formed. All I know is that they killed my father and both Speedys. They somehow managed to plant bombs in both the JLA Watchtower and the JSA Building in New York. A lot of friends were killed that day. I'm sorry, Kyle... we lost Alan. I know he was a mentor of yours.
"As if that wasn't enough, Wonder Woman's killing of Maxwell Lord led to a split in the superhero community. Most heroes joined up with Superman, who held to his idealistic philosophy of redemption. Some follow Batman in scaring criminals, but never resorting to murder. A small group pledged their allegiance to Wonder Woman, who's enforcing her own death penalty on supervillains. With the superhero community split in three, we've been that much more vulnerable to the OMACs and the Society of Supervillains. Now most of us have gone underground- literally- to escape Brother Eye. I've been living in the Batcave with a few others, but I haven't seen Batman himself in almost a week. Today was the first time I'd been back to Star City since the bombings, but I had to refill my quiver. I got cornered by an OMAC. I'd probably be dead right now if you hadn't arrived exactly when you did. So, that brings us here."
Conner looks up from his feet up at Kyle, who looks like he is about to collapse, head in his hands. "My god... Ollie... Alan... How could this happen?" Kyle's hands quickly close into fists. Kyle, pulsing with rage and white-hot energy, picks his head up. "Where am I needed?"
Conner exhales heavily." I don't know if there's anything we can do at this point," Arrow laments. "With the Big 3 split like this, what can the rest of us even stand for?"
"How can you just give up?" Kyle gets up out of his chair and hovers above Conner's head. "We're heroes, dammit! If we don't fight, who will! We can't let them get away with this!"
"You weren't there for the bombings, Kyle!" Conner looks his friend in the eye. "You weren't there when the OMACs stormed Metropolis! You haven't seen the broadcasts of Wonder Woman snapping Max Lord's neck! We've been shunned, Kyle! Anti-vigilante legislation is already being considered in Congress! The people we've defended for all these years won't even harbor us in their homes!"
Conner takes an angry breath. Kyle glares at his friend maliciously. "They've called me a coward, you know. They say I'm not tough enough to be a hero. But look at you, Conner. You're no hero. Heroes don't give up. I'm done talking to you." Kyle phases through the roof of the sewer, leaving Conner alone in the soiled water as he drops to his knees and buries his face in his hands. In the past month he has lost his father, his best friend, and himself.