Even earlier, on a world far away...
The Hall of Justice, on a familiar, yet unfamiliar Earth.
The members of the JLA gathered around the meeting table in the Hall of Justice. Among them were Martian Manhunter, AKA J'onn J'onnz. In his natural form, J'onn stood nearly seven feet tall, but used his shapeshifting to shrink to t less imposing size of five feet and eleven inches. The last living Green Martian and a telepathic shapeshifter. Aquaman, AKA Arthur Curry. King of Atlantis in the line of Poseidon, lord of the seas. Arthur stood an impressive six feet, one inches, and easily weighed over three-hundred pounds, not an ounce of it anything but bone and muscle. Green Lantern, AKA Hal Jordan. United States Air Force pilot and member of the intergalactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps, Hal could use his willpower to create constructs of light through his Green Lantern Ring. Wonder Woman, AKA Diana Prince. Princess of Themyscira and a daughter of Zeus, the demi-goddess stood as tall as Aquaman, with beauty to surpass that of any mortal woman coupled with some of the most well-honed muscles on any humanoid body, Diana's mere presence was disarming to nearly anyone. The Flash, AKA Barry Allen. The fastest man alive stood just below Martian Manhunter at five feet and ten inches with reddish-blonde hair he usually kept hidden under a red mask. Batman, AKA Bruce Wayne. The billionaire vigilante, master martial artist and inventor, dark knight, and world's greatest detective stood at six feet and two inches. Though his body was covered in a black cape and gunmetal grey armor, it didn't take X-Ray vision to tell that Batman had honed his body to the peak any mere mortal could achieve without some level of mutation or divine intervention. And finally, Superman, AKA, Clark Kent or Kal-El, stood a towering six feet, four inches over the rest of the JLA. The gathering might have drawn attention as some sort of unusual occurrence if it had taken place on any other world, as its' many members appeared to be at their absolute physical peaks, and were all dressed in some of the most outlandish costumes known to man, but to the inhabitants of this world and many others like it, this gathering was commonplace.
Batman pushed a button on a remote control, and the main view screen of the spacious meeting room flicked from a screensaver reading "JLA" to footage of what appeared to be a man, covered head to toe in a feature-obscuring black suit.
"Surveillance cameras at the Chicago location of KORD Industries picked up this figure yesterday." The Dark Knight said as he flicked through camera angles of the figure poking around the laboratory. "It seemed to appear out of thin air after everyone left for the night, snuck around the building, and left."
"Did it leave any analyzable traces of itself behind?" The Flash asked as he lounged in a chair.
Batman shook his head. "Whatever this thing is, it's being careful, but we still have something to work with." Batman pushed another button, and a clip of the figure extending one of the three fingers on its' right hand and using its' glowing yellow tip to cut a hole in thin air and leave the building.
"Wait, that's not an exterior wall, is it?" Barry asked as he sprung to his feet.
Batman shook his head again. "Take a look at what's on the other side of that hole, then at the time stamp."
It was daylight through the hole, but the time stamp on the video stated it was two in the morning.
"So it can travel in space and time without a Boom Tube." Superman mused. "That's a new one."
"Maybe in this neck of the woods." Green Lantern quipped. "Out there in space, it's a different story."
"You're suggesting this creature is extraterrestrial in origin?" Wonder Woman asked.
"Nah." Hal replied. "For all we know, some guy named Dave who works at a hardware store fell into a puddle of magic goo. If we get a chance, we should run this past Zatanna and Constantine, maybe even Fate, see if they've got any ideas."
"Way ahead of you." Batman said. "John told me he'd never seen anything like it, and demanded I buy him a pint if I wanted to keep pestering him."
"His words exactly, I presume." Barry interjected. Bruce replied with a small, sly grin.
The signal lights in the conference room lit up red, and a siren wailed in the background.
A distress signal appeared on the main viewscreen, with an icon just outside the Metropolis city limits.
"That's from S.T.A.R. Labs!" Superman exclaimed as an image of the interior of the building appeared on the screen. The lights inside the S.T.A.R. Labs building flickered in and out as the figure from the KORD Industries footage waded through a sea of bullets fired by the security guards.
"Well, let's stop speculating and find out what this guy can do first-hand!" Hal said.
S.T.A.R. Labs, just outside Metropolis...
The daily life of anyone who worked at STAR Labs was an eventful one to say the least. Superheroes came and went at what seemed like all hours of the day and night. News discoveries were made in the labs on what felt like a weekly basis, and sometimes supervillains broke in and tried to steal things from the building, as was happening at the moment.
The creature's appearance was preceded by a glowing yellow line that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Then, it pushed the sides of the line apart and stepped through. The guards weren't sure what it was, but it didn't respond to verbal commands, and every weapon they tried on it had failed.
Doctor Emil Hamilton and two of the guards had locked themselves in one of the storage rooms, and barricaded the door with anything they could find. They pushed shelves full of heavy metal boxes over in front of it...
Then Emil saw a yellow light reflected in his glasses.
The creature was inside the room. It walked through the hole it cut in the air and reeled one of its' arms back...
Then, a hole opened in the ceiling and the thing's arm was restrained by a length of glowing golden cord. Wonder Woman held the Lasso of Hestia in both hands and yanked the creature toward her as she dove fist-first through the room and punched the thing in what appeared to be its' head. She landed on the ground and pulled the creature back toward her.
"What are you?" She demanded as she reeled the lasso in.
The creature made an otherworldly sound that might have been a chuckle. "I am Yl'geth, the Kingslayer, Amazon." The creature said in a deep, wet voice as it dug its' feet into the ground, making giant holes in the floor. "But I can stoop to ending a princess."
Yl'geth stood fast as Wonder Woman tried to pull the lasso back. In her surprise at the sudden resistance, Diana found herself pulled from her feet, and slung into a nearby wall.
Suddenly, a cloud of smoke filled the room with Yl'geth at its' center.
"Interesting." The creature said. "You believe your parlor tricks will work on me, human." Yl'geth whipped the arm Diana had restrained in an inhuman motion, and discarded the lasso, then lashed the arm out at a spot in the shadows, where it connected with Batman's body, and wrapped around his chest.
"Such a foolish creature to challenge me when you are so weak." The monster said as it hauled Batman face to (maybe?) face. "Such bravado. This one will die easily."
Batman grinned. "I got exactly what I wanted." He gasped out as the creature tightened its' grip. Suddenly, a blue-clad arm shot downwards into Yl'geth's, knocking Batman free of its' grasp, then it chopped across the thing's chest, sending it flying into a shelving unit.
"I think you need to pick on someone your own size." Superman said as he crossed his arms.
Yl'geth laughed a wet laugh again as it picked itself out of the shelf with a case in its' hands. "Find me one." It said, tauntingly. The creature grew, and grew. Its' arms split into three tentacles, its' head and body swelled, and the nearly featureless humanoid figure transfigured itself into a void-colored octopus large enough to fill more than half the large storage room.
Superman's eyes darted to the case the thing now held in its' tentacles. He couldn't see inside, which was already a bad sign, but he could see the label on the outside. "'K' Sample 1 of 2."
"It has Kryptonite." Superman whispered to Batman and Wonder Woman.
"It can hear you." Yl'geth said in a now booming version of the sickly wet voice it had as a humanoid. "And it knows what this is, Kryptonian." It reeled back one of its' tentacles and whipped it at Superman. The end of the tip glowed green the instant before it hit Superman, and sent him flying through the building.
"Justice League!" Batman shouted as he pulled a smoke grenade full of knockout gas from his utility belt. "Code red, we have a situation at STAR Labs, Metropolis!" He tossed the grenade at the giant octopus, but before it went off, the creature grabbed it with a tentacle and fed the projectile into its mouth parts as it expelled its' gas.
A red blur zoomed into the building through the hole the creature made when it knocked Superman away, and collided with the creature. The Flash landed a few hundred punches on the creature before it had a chance to notice him. Not that it mattered, punching it felt to Barry like he was punching a rubber wall covered in oil.
A glowing green sledgehammer came down where the creature used to be, but it slithered out of the way and whipped one tentacle at Barry, who stopped punching long enough to dodge out of the way, but that split second gave Superman and Martian Manhunter enough time to zoom into Yl'geth with a double punch.
"Kal, are you alright?" J'onn asked Superman.
"Yeah, I think so." Superman replied. "Let's stop this thing before it pulls out more Kryptonite!"
Yl'geth slithered out of the building through one of the many holes the battle had created with the case of Kryptonite clutched tightly in one tentacle.
Wonder Woman leapt into the air, and landed a punch on the creature as Batman launched a flashbang grenade at it. She bounced off, but she bounded back just as Superman, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter dove into the fray as well.
The creature made a noise that might have been of frustration, and attempted to make a slice in the air with the yellow-tipped tentacle, but Hal wrapped it up with a glowing green shackle.
"Uh uh, not lettin' you do that again." Green Lantern said.
"Then let me try something else!" Yl'geth screamed. It whipped all of its' other tentacles at the rest of the Justice League, knocking all of them aside. Superman was the first to spring back to his feet, and he flew at the monster faster than a speeding bullet, but a glowing purple tentacle reached out and wrapped him up tight. Yl'geth sliced a purple line in the air, pushed the door open, and poured itself through the window, taking Superman and the case of Kryptonite with it.
"SUPERMAN!" Batman yelled as the window began to shut. He fired a grappling hook through the window in the air, but the projectile was knocked aside by the thing's thrashing tentacles, and collided with a TV on the other side of the door. Then, the opening shut, and the Justice League was left outside STAR Labs with no creature, and no Superman.
Now...
Once the plane was on the ground, Homelander tried to put on a happy face, despite the seething he'd felt inside. He'd thought over every possibility on the way to the airport, but he couldn't come up with anything he could do that wouldn't completely destroy his image. So, he took a seat in the co-pilot's chair next to the not-quite decapitated corpse of the pilot and tried not to burn another hole in the nose of the plane. He wondered how this oaf managed to steer the plane so steadily, when he'd thought over every possible approach in seconds and concluded there was no way to do it. He couldn't have missed the solution, right? Then, when he saw them approach the ground and land with nary a single solitary bump, he groaned, and stood up.
John exited the plane with dread in the pit of his stomach. The guy who'd grabbed the plane looked ridiculous in his blue tights, and bright red cape... John tried to keep the little voice telling him that he didn't look any less ridiculous than the guy with the S on his chest and cape as quiet as possible. Hell, he might even look more ridiculous, with the padded suit, eagle pauldrons and American flag for a cape. Homelander was constantly trying to build muscle mass, but no matter what he tried, they stayed lean. They were the strongest muscles in the world - At least, as far as he knew - but because of that, he couldn't get enough resistance from anything to build them up. Focus groups said that a bigger physique was better, so they added fake muscles into his suit on top of the real ones. Hardly anyone looked close enough to notice, and they expected him to be as jacked as a regular human bodybuilder, so they looked past the suit, and lied to themselves about it. "He's definitely jacked, that was just your imagination." "If it is padded, there's gotta be a reason for it!" And other such things he'd seen on Twitter.
This guy... This interloper... His suit was obviously skin-tight. You could see every fiber of his muscles through that fucking thing.
These thoughts sprang back to mind as the man in question popped into the cabin of the plane.
"Does anyone onboard need medical attention?" The man asked.
Maeve shook her head uncertainly. "I think uh, I think we took care of that." Maeve had taken care of it. Homelander shut himself in the cockpit and allowed the wailing of the wind to drown out the questioning of the passengers.
The man looked around the plane, seemingly at nothing in particular. His eyes briefly settled on Homelander, but he broke eye contact fairly quickly, and kept looking around. Then, he nodded, and exited the plane.
Homelander rolled his eyes, then put his happy face on again, and exited the plane. A crowd had gathered at the airport runway, and they were already cheering before he'd even left the plane. He knew they weren't cheering for him.
How dare he. Homelander thought bitterly as he disembarked with a happy grin on his face.
He sidled up to the man as he observed the emergency crews unloading passengers.
"They uh... Didn't tell me they were sending backup!" Homelander said through his teeth. The man raised an eyebrow, and looked at him.
"I just happened to be in the neighborhood. Figured I'd lend a hand." He said, matter-of-factly.
"Gee, thanks." John said, sarcastically. How fucking dare he?! "Who- who are you, again?" He stammered out, barely containing his jealousy.
"Kal-El." The man replied. "Most people know me as Superman."
Homelander's eyebrows shot up, and he scoffed. "Is that what the 'S' is for?" He asked, indicating the symbol on Superman's chest. "That's kind of a-"
"It's not an 'S'" Superman said, cutting him off. "On my world, it stands for hope."
Homelander's face twitched, and his lips quivered as he exhaled. What the hell did he just say? He wondered. "Ho- How did you..." Superman raised an eyebrow again as Homelander stuttered. "How did you land the plane? I've practiced this kind of situation before, and every time I've done it, the plane crashes."
Superman's brow furrowed. "It's not hard. You put your hands lengthwise along the plane and dig your fingers into the metal to maintain leverage and keep the plane flying straight, then steer with your own body gently. Move too fast, you'll tear the wings off."
Homelander opened his mouth, then turned his look of baffled shock into a fake smile. "Well, Kal-El, I look forward to working with you! I think we can learn a lot from each other!" Homelander extended his gloved hand to shake. Superman took Homelander's hand and shook it with a small smile of his own as the cameras flashed. Then, Homelander squeezed tightly. He squeezed hard enough to juice a diamond, but Superman just stood there, shaking his hand briefly. Then, he disengaged, took one last look at the plane, levitated into the sky, and zoomed away at the speed of sound.
Homelander gasped, and dashed away from the crowd himself. He went somewhere, anywhere. Anywhere he couldn't be seen. He felt like a regular man would have if he'd tried to wring water out of obsidian. John landed in a place where no humans lived for millions of miles, and removed his glove.
Underneath the material, his hand was bruised. It felt like he might have cracked something, too. This was the first time in as long as he could remember that he'd felt actual pain. The first time he'd felt fear.
Note: Yl'geth, the Kingslayer is an original character created for this series.
