24
Legal disclaimer: I tend to liberally "borrow" character profiles and art from the Earth-27 wikia created by Roy Westerman with principle art coming from digital artist Phil Cho. Other creators and artists are found there as well and I will specifically list any creations with creator citations as I utilize them. In short, this is the single most comprehensive retelling of all things DC and beyond I have encountered. It's worth your time to explore.
Cover art provided by Martina Havlikova.
Free, commercial use art by her can be found at the following URL: martinahavlikova84 | Pixabay
She is also available for private commissions. Her art can previously be seen as covers of Renfri for Evil Queen, Hellequin for Hellequin and the Paragons, Oracle for Oracle and Oracle Sees All, Enchantress for Enchantress in Peril,Ace of Blades for Blades Free, Killer Frost for Killer Frost: Blades in the Heart, Dorothy Gale for Wickedest Witch, Goldilocks forInjustice Reigns, Hellequin again for Marian Drews, Renfri again for Evil Delights, Dorothy Gale in Something Wicked,Patti O'Brien in Plastic Woman, Claire Connelly in Repo Men, Disco Mummyin the Disco Mummy Strikes, Oracle for Oracle Undercover, Wendy Harris for Super Friends-Super Powers Continued Pt1: Wendy Harris, Jayna for Super Friends-Super Powers Continued Pt2: Jayna Penny Lark for Super Friends-Super Powers Continued Pt3: Penny, Clock Queen for Injustice for all, Dazaar for Dazaar the Arch Fiend,Li Harper for the Red Hood,Priscilla Rich for Super Friends-Super Powers Continued Pt4: Cheetah, Nazi era Ace of Blades for Frosted Blades and now Lightning Raider with more yet to come.
That having been said, the properties, and their variations belong to DC Comics through Warner Entertainment and its parent, AT&T, with 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 generally voided under CC-BY-SA, which governs this site, unless duly noted otherwise.
Open Source attributionsare listed after the story concluded to satisfy legalese requirements. And all "super" characters other than Open Source have been seen in comic books before barring any original characters coming from the Earth-27 Wiki or myself. You can look into Public Domain Superheroes Wiki and the DC Database Wiki's own vaults to verify this.
Although this is primarily set in the DCAU, I incorporate attributes of dozens of interpretations of each character, comic telling era, and medium into the telling.
Superman
Real Name
Bill Dunn
First Appearance
Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilization #3 (January 1933)
Created by
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
Origin
Professor Ernest Smalley was a mad scientist who specialized in chemistry. Needing test subjects for his experiments, the professor randomly chooses a homeless man named Bill Dunn from a Depression-era bread line telling him that in exchange for participating in the experiment Dunn would receive a new suit and a hot meal.
The experiment, a potion, granted Dunn telepathic powers. However, the man became power mad and decided to take over the world. Unfortunately for Dunn, the potion's effects are temporary and since he killed Smalley, the secret formula could not be duplicated. Dunn's powers begin to fade and he realized he will be returning to the bread line once more.
Public Domain Appearances
Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilization #3
Notes
Bill Dunn was inspired by Hugo Danner by Philip Gordon Wylie.
In 1934, after refusing editors, the two authors decided to recreate the Superman character who launched the Golden Age of Comic Books.
"Gah!" Lightning Raider nearly fell out of her wire harness. She'd spent the day in ventilation duct work waiting for the overnight security to get soft and complacent. She'd no sooner vacated the vents to attach her harness drive up above her target, timed out the increasingly lengthy periods of foot patrols and let the drive motor ;ower her from the ceiling's braces to touch the casing enveloping her targets and suddenly find she was no longer alone.
"Don't do that!" Lightning Raider hissed at Air Wave. The Eurasian girl looked every inch a Korean except for her nearly turquoise eyes. It turned out that her father had been the first Air Wave, a minor league superhero who'd been killed during a holdup he was interrupting.
He'd sacrificed himself when the robbers aimed at the owners of the store they intended to loot and instead killed Air Wave while his toddler daughter hadn't manifested any gen letancy. And didn't until she witnessed a hold up similar to the one that killed her father and it was even in the same store. The anxiety and stress levels that quickly accelerated out of control activated her gen factor and through trial and error, discovered she'd inherited her father's powers. So she secretly carved out niche in foiling local robberies all of them in Superior City. That was before Claire Montgomery chose Ar Wave to join her Young All Stars security group.. Her family back in Superior City were grateful for the infusion of regular incomes, sending nearly all of her pay back to her mother.
Lightning Raider just happened to be loosely affiliated with the Young All Stars. Enough so she had a spot held open for her to change her mind about rejecting the offer every time it was made. Lightning Raider was a premier thief and had never been caught. She too was a meta-human. Her power was to be a living paradox, manipularing probabilities so that she was, had been, and would ever be incredibly lucky. She outguess any challenge, escape from any secure area, and traversed and gallivanted across any rooftop skyline and evaded any pursuers. What she hadn't counted on was Air Wave's arrival.
"What are you doing here?" Lightning Raider asked in a hiss.
"I was curious to see how you did what you do," Air Wave shrugged all concerns aside.
"Are you effin' nuts?" Lightning Raider mimicked a "Hel-lo Megan!"
"I've jammed every signal leaving this room," Air Wave was self-congratulating herself.
"Go away!" Lightning Raider demanded. Alarms began to sound after being manually triggered. Luckily, Lightning Raider at the means and motives to cut into the bulletproof casing surrounding the Luthor diamonds. She then made her ascent and disappeared with a clean and lucky vanishing act. Lightning Raider made it safety before she switched her mobile back on. And Air Wave rode an incoming call to appear beside Lightning Raider again.
"Will you stop doing that?" Lightning Raider demanded to know.
"According to police traffic, your robbery was successful," Air Wave happily informed her.
"Shouldn't you have tried to stop me?" Lightning Raider asked.
"Maybe you shouldn't do things you feel other people should stop you from doing them in the first place," Air Wave cajoled her .
"And those diamonds are worth far, far more than the 25% market value your fence would've given you," Claire Montgomery stepped out of the kitchenette inside Lightning Raider's loft.
"And how did you get in here?" Lightning Raider groaned.
"Air Wave rode your router signals into the room and unlatched the door so I could get in," Claire explained, "And before you get all upset with her, I said 'would've given you' as a warning that Metropolis' finest already have your fence in custody so I really can't recommend him as a buyer. But I'm willing give you half of market prices, which is far, far better than a quarter. Then the Young All Stars will have recovered and returned the diamonds to Lena Luthor and we get free word of mouth about how effective we are when Luthor's Infinity3 and Team Luthor never got close to recovering the gems."
"And if I don't agree?" Lightning Raider inquired.
"My speed dial is on the team and I don't care how lucky you can get, even if you got past us, you'd still tracked down fence by fence until Infinity3 or Team Luthor captured you. Word has it that the Everyman Project especially loves to have gen actives for experimentation purpose.s"
"So I should count myself lucky that you're offering me terms at all," Lightning Raider recognized where the conversation was going.
"You said it. I wouldn't have but your mind went there," Claire deflected the verbal jab, "Look, I know the retainer I'm paying you barely cover living wages. That and you're an action junkie so it would take one helluva argument to get you to stand down on the whole B&E thing. But I can guarantee five times as much money if you were to come to work for me. I need advanced scouts to determine the security weaknesses to any and all sites the Young All Stars are deployed to. Clients never ever face up to the fact they're targets with bullseyes on their front and back sides. You are the professional here. I need your services and I need them quite badly."
"And now much will you for my talents and determination?" Lightning Raider inquired. Claire named her price.
Lightning Raider whistled, "Okay. You've got my attention. I'll need one of your agents to effectively check every corner and tech stowed there."
"Name them," Claire wasn't feeling choodsy
"Air Wave," Lightning Raider stipulated.
"Okay, I'm in," Air Wave delightfully agreed to the terms.
"Good. Because I need the pair of you to scout the areas surrounding the cargo the Young All Stars are making certain gets delivered," Claire confessed.
"How deep a perimeter do you want?" Lightning Raider asked.
"At least a three block radius around the route and the route itself," Claire stipulated, "And that's after the ship bearing the cargo to the Port of Los Angeles and off loaded the material into our hands."
"LA huh? I guess I could work on my tan," Lightning Raider softly laughed.
"California has a bunch of supers in the state now," Air Wave reminded them, "Three JSAers alone live Los Angeles. Then there's that new replacement Bat-Man, Bat-Woman, and Bat-Girl. Besides them, the Outsiders are in San Francisco."
"Except that every Bat is wanted by the police and you forgot to account for Manhunter," Claire warned, "Jade and Obsidian are known factors. The Thunderbolt less so. Even Manhunter is a large unknown."
"I'll need to fly in two days before you begin giving away whatever it your client thinks is oh so special to require a security team made up by gen actives," Lightning Raider specified.
"In that case you'd best get packing," Claire chuckled, "I have both of you tickets on a red eye tonight."
"First class?" Lightning Raider was bemused.
"Business class so savor what extra you get in leg room," Claire shot their quest down without a second thought, "But it's a direct flight from Kennedy to LAX."
"Well that's an extremely small favor," Lightning Raider conceded, "Anyone I should know about the snatch and grab team I'll be prepping you all to meet?"
"Let's just say both the Global Concern and the Syndicate Underground will probably try their damndest to get Brain Emperor's Evil Brain Trust to come aboard with them," Claire predicted.
"And both Dr. Zadar's Global Concern and the Brain Emperor's cronies all stage out San Fran," Lightning Raider clarified for Air Wave.
"So do the Justice League's Outsiders team," Air Wave was prompt to point out again.
"Then I guess it's just too bad that we'll be in LA, the home of the revived Bat Clan," Lightning Raider stated.
"Don't forget about Liberty Station up on Destruction Island in the Puget Sound," Claire added, "The MLJ will launch a Crusaders team up our asses so quickly we won't feel them."
"I have an idea or two about that," Lightning Raider smirked.
"I had to create an ID for you," Claire neglected to mention how or who just yet.
"Good," Lightning Raider wasn't an actual member of the Young All Stars and as an accommodation of that simple truth Claire paid her retainer in cash only. Air Wave was a known, but as yet, also an unknown quantity. Lynn Haley Jordan had become a quantifiable asset in the last few months she'd been with the team. And that Disco Mummy fiasco in Gotham had proven how well Air Wave worked with Lightning Raider.
Her uncle was Hal Jordan, once considered the greatest amongst the Green Lantern Corps. But his GL power ring had destroyed itself rather that than be used by Hal to kill John Stewart and no GL power ring had chosen him since. Yet a Ring of Volthoom chose him to lead the Power Ring Corps and join the Legion of Doom.
"Hey! You still with me?" Lightning Raider had a light grip on Air Wave's arm.
"Yeah?" Air Wave sounded uncertain and finally realized everyone was waiting for feedback from her, if she'd push back or not.
"Good plan. Really," Air Wave conceded.
"Good enough. You'll deliver yourself to the airport within the hour. Your boarding passes are the gate. Here's the info and your identities for the trip. I have a rental car on standby and a condo off the books to give you two somewhere to stay," Claire outlined.
"I'll see you in a few," Air Wave dematerialized to ride the cell networks to get to her own apartment.
"I suppose I should get packed," Lightning Raider started to distance herself.
"Be sure to make it to the boarding of the plane. Every minute wasted on this coast increases Pirate Blue's probably alliance with the Brain Emperor. And cementing the Global Concern's interest in this event. And Air Wave is too green to do it alone," Claire advised her.
"You worry too much," Lighting Raider jumped out of the fifth story window of the building only to have vanished by the time Claire reached the window sill and looked out it to find Lightning Raider hadn't left a trace.
Having arrived without incident, Lightning Raider flagged a taxi and went to the address Claire had given her. Air Wave had pushed ahead to use the mobile hotspot Claire kept running at all times. There in the San Fernando Valley, she caught up with Air Wave.
"So, do you have a real name?" Air Wave inquired.
"Not any more," Lightning Raider had paid Cypher to erase all digital existence of Lightning Raider's past and present. Chloe Sullivan wasn't an Oracle or an Overwatch but she was still very much in the hacktivist elite. The hacktivist Network they all shared had been started by Oracle, Felicity Smoak, Barbara Gordon, Chloe and now included Vengeance Moth as well.
"If you're settled in, we can get to the Port Authority and see what there is to see," Lightning Raider had slept on the chartered flight while Air Wave was fidgety over not having a view in the wee hours of the morning before the sun had risen on the East Coast. .
But she did grab some healthier and tastier snacks to recover from the almost meal doled out on the flight. They shared a taxi to arrive at the sprawling Port District and as Lightning Raider's usual "good luck", all of the guards had taken their break at the same time, laying out the entire port vulnerable to penetration. Specifically a two-woman invasion.
"So, what do you sense?" Lightning Raider inquired.
"I'm detecting cameras but there are already CCTV units I can't access. Someone has duplicated the surveillance by setting up their own wireless grid," Air Wave reported.
"Have they spotted us?" Lightning Raider asked.
"I've spoofed the wireless into a loop before we came through the gates," Air Wave happily explained, "I think the wireless is meant to effectively do the same after they disabled the closed circuit cameras. Anyone could walk in here unnoticed except for the naked eye."
Lightning Raider's good fortune continued for the bold because as the guards reappeared they failed to notice the very visible Young All Stars.
"Can you overload the wireless cams?" Lightning Raider asked.
"Of course," Air Wave boasted a little, "But won't that tip off whoever planted these cams?"
"Actually, I want them to know," Lightning Raider reassured her, "And the Port Police will be on alert to help the All Stars rather than hinder them."
"Okay," Air Wave vanished for a few seconds. Lightning Raider watched in transfixed awe as cameras all over the port fried themselves.
Air Wave reappeared and pulled her goggles off of her eyes and rested them atop her head, "Now, how do we get away?"
"You ride the transmissions and get back to Claire's condo. I'll be along shortly," Lightning Raider promised her. Air Wave didn't like that but she dutifully placed her goggles back over her eyes and vanished amongst the alert signals going out across the Port. Amidst all of the confusion, Lightning Raider slipped in and out of visibility.
After checking all the sensitive areas and the foreign controlled docks and warehouses, she had a better understanding of just vulnerable the freighter really was. Even out to sea, Pirate Blue and her exclusively female crew manned an old Soviet-era Alpha-class hunter-killer nuclear submarine. But whatever the cargo was, Pirate Blue was showing restraint because she'd undoubtedly been following the cargo ship since it left its last port with the protected cargo within it.
But she was still unaware of what the cargo was and why it required the Young All Stars to safeguard its handing off from the Port Authority to the security team for exchanging hands again with the increasingly bloated corporate giant that Wayne-Powers was becoming. Lightning Raider was nearly certain now that Claire had been denied such knowledge when the contracts were being finalized. She managed slip out, lucky to have the guards all retire from their posts for the first time ever during a shift change.
The car rental agency Claire had contracted with had Lightning Raider's rental awaiting her pick up. She spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening scouting the perimeters around the selected route to get the cargo from the port down into the heart of LA where Derek Powers had expanded Wayne Enterprise's holdings in Los Angeles.
Wayne-Powers was now directly competing with LuthorCorp on everything. She'd go over the route and port again tomorrow but other than catching the bad guys setup she still didn't have a clue as to why the bad guys wanted the weapon, she was certain it was a weapon, so badly. Meanwhile, she'd enlist Air Wave's help in trying to determine just what, or who, was being shipped in the day after tomorrow.
"With the cameras down we need to check rooftops around the route in order to discover any surprises or emergency repairs," Lightning Raider told Air Wave.
"Or I could check rooftops in minutes rather than hours," Air Wave countered.
"But I want to be on scene in case you need help," Lightning Raider specified.
"So we go for a ride and get take out for when we're done," Air Wave requested
Lightning Raider was growing appreciative Air Wave's enthusiasm. They didn't surprise anyone that night. The next night though, Air Wave intercepted the signal from the technicians that reinstalled the "ghost" cameras that were wired into the LAPD and Traffic CCTVs.
While Lightning Raider caught up with Air Wave had blocked the cell transmissions as well. Air Wave fought with the confidence and skill set that her mother, especially when Air Wave hadn't even displayed a latent gen factor, made her take self defense courses. So Air Wave was just becoming surrounded when Lightning Raider's seemingly inexhaustible good luck found her relieving Air Wave of half her bad guys. Once they were all unconscious, Air Wave returned the cell towers back to their functional state.
Thousands of calls had been dropped and crew come out to inspect the towers in the morning. Lightning Raider had her own suggestions of what to do with the still unconscious techs. When enough techs had awoken, Air Wave had tied gags around their mouths, ones that Lightning Raider had happily supplied while she was zip tying their hands behind their backs.
"Okay, you can quite faking it now. You're all awake," Lightning Raider announced in a loud voice. She actually received a rooftop worth of glares in reply. Lightning Raider pulled one onto his feet and threw him off of the roof.
"Did you know about the open dumpster when you threw him over?" Air Wave was astonished.
"Nope. But having one there makes sense," she threw a second person off from a different point.
Air Wave vanished and reappeared again, "That's two for 0. But you ran out of dumpsters"
"Hear that?" Lightning Raider asked the third tech and pulled the gag down so he could spill his guts out.
"Pirate Blue is financing us," he practically shrieked in terror, "Other than that I don't know nuthin'."
"Too bad," Lightning Raider pitched him off the roof anyway.
"Omigod! You actually threw him into one of the open dumpsters," Air Wave was awash with relief.
"Funny thing that," Lightning Raider was determining who else to throw off of the roof.
"Does anyone here have facts worth enough to save his or her own life as well as all of your lives?" Lightning Raider inquired. There was a lot squirming.
"Call the cops and tell someone has hacked their cameras at the source," Lightning Raider asked of Air Wave. Air Wave had never been so happy to make a phone call and she didn't need a phone, she just patched in to the LAPD's own network.
The Young All Stars were flying in in a few more hours where Vapor would have them conduct a second round of searches while the brief on where and when to accept delivery, move the asset, and turn it over. As the day progressed and the Young All Stars sketched out the route and were openly embraced at the Port Authority, Wayne-Powers having a private slip and warehouse. The longer things went the more Lightning Raider felt something was amiss. Vapor asked all the right questions except for one: what was the cargo?
Lightning Raider was beginning to believe no inanimate object would get this much gen factored handling if it weren't alive. A living asset would explain why Pirate Blue didn't sink the freighter and salvage it from the ocean floor. In the advent of sinking, the cargo would be left alone in the scurry to abandon ship. Furthermore, a human or animal being transported as cargo was effectively being smuggled in.
Lightning Raider quietly voiced her concerns to Air Wave. Air Wave was non-committal without seeing the proof. So she rode ship to shore wavelengths to quietly scout the ship.
What found is that there was one and only one cargo container. Somewhere aboard they had a Prof. Smalley. Derek Powers sought to utilize Smalley's research to jump start Wayne-Powers efforts to create and splice artificially created meta-genes into candidates. Thus breaking LuthorCorps' monopoly.
The cargo was referred to as Test Subject One. Air Wave was getting the impression Smalley was the actual cargo and whomever was in that container was there to insure Smalley didn't get off script when they docked. She returned to Lightning Raider who wanted Air Wave to join with her in briefing Vapor.
Carrie Donahue had been an environmental activist before her latent gen factor was activated. That was before she joined the first and second Conglomerate teams and now the Young All Stars. Each time after the original Conglomerate team shut she'd joined to help safeguard her friend, Echo, from going off of the rails. Now Echo was besotted with Reverb and hardly listened to Vapor anymore.
Echo thought she was so worldly after resuming her singing career but she was still strikingly naive about a great many things in the world. So Vapor was staying put. But she wasn't buying into the women's "paranoia." But she was decidedly sanguine as she took custody of Prof. Smalley the next morning and Bill Dunn was released from the container into the Young All Stars' possession. To create a helluva stink like Vapor wanted to would only embolden whoever Pirate Blue had recruited into stealing both cargoes, both men. Prof. Smalley had chemically activated Bill Dunn's latent super powers. Powers that Dunn claimed made him the new Superman and like Superboy, wore the "S" glyph as proof.
But Superman was tightly bound in restraints he supposedly get enough leverage against to break free. The risk factors had just on the charts. Dunn was slightly more powerful than Majestic and was measured against Kryptonian and Daxamite standards. Thereby proving Smalley's proposition that the height of the classification, namely humans in the Majestic-levels weren't the upper extreme edge of human gen factors.
It had taken years since the original Superman appeared before the world to find his ideal candidate but Dunn had even exceeded Smalley's ambitions and that's where things got sticky. Because both Prof. Smalley and Superman II were Legionnaires in the fearsome Legion of Doom. Fu Manchu, operated the Legion in Luthor's absence as he played at making the Legion of Doom effectively pardoned around the world, using his position as Secretary-General to work within the system to make the Justice League blatantly operate illegally.
Max Lord's former Justice League Task Force had paved the way for the Justice League's outing as "criminals" again. Knightfall's proposed licensure system of crime snd vigilantism and International Operations filling that same gap just pushed that agenda that much closer to shoving the unlicensed or undeputized heroes into Belle Reeve to lock them away for good . Luthor had recruited a dozen of the off of the IQ charts crowd. They formed the Inner Circle of the Legion of Doom. Fu Manchu had been personally elected and installed by Luthor. While Luthor was a political figure he wouldn't retiurn to usurp Fu Manchu. But that day would come and forever alter the destinies of the Legionnaires.
But the herein now the multinational corporations had become governments within governments. The three largest embattled against one another were LuthorCorp, currently run by Lena Luthor, Derek Powers' controlled Wayne-Powers, and Max Lord oversaw his Innovative Concepts absorbing smaller companies at pennies on the dollar. LuthorCorp patented every design and every gene they'd modified. Prof. Smalley negotiated selling the serum that transformed Bill Dunn into a Kryptonian-class human and they'd settled on a price.
A price neither Powers nor Lord were willing to bid over Lena's agreed upon price. Mercy Graves, the VP in charge of the Everyman Project and Team Luthor, was beyond excitement at the notion of getting her hands on the formula and begin processing candidates. So it was easy to spot the truth behind Lightning Raider and Air Waves claims.
She also was now instilled with a belief that getting Smalley and Superman to the awaiting site would be difficult at best. Air Wave had fried another layer of cameras and feeds before they set out. Lightning Raider rode with Vapor's driver and Air Wave. all the drivers and vehicles were Powers' own security measure.
Pirate Blue had hired the Global Concern's private security providers that weren't listed as the think tank's employees. The private concern within the Global Concern was a discreet mercenary hiring and operations agency wrapped up by the very Global Concern itself. There, Ariel. Pryde, code-named "Domino" selected contractors and ran overwatch over the assigned missions. She'd cultivated a sizable pool of contractors to choose from but sometimes still went outside of it. But not today. Domino was already angry with Air Wave repeatedly damaging her surveillance equipment.
Pirate Blue promised the Brain Emperor himself would be leading a cadre from his Evil Brain Trust. But he was avoiding her calls to confirm his inclusion in the working group assigned to retrieving the assets. Malik al Thaka was many things but subtle wasn't one of them. The Brain Emperor's only rivals for most powerful telepath on Earth were Psimon and Saturn Queen. Psimon had been killed before the Brain Emperor himself could do the world a favor. Saturn Queen was obviously his superior, though al Thaka refused to confirm or deny that reality. But Saturn Queen had returned to her past which was one thousand years in the future. It was unknown whether or not she would return to this era or not. Everyone was still guessing whether she was in either another century or whether she'd simply gone out to the stars seeking to bring even greater chaos to the current Age of Chaos now that the Lords of Order had retreated after the Crisis of the Multiverse/Near Apocalypse of 2009 and the subsequent Zero Hour had erased history after the Matter Universe was consumed by antimatter.
But the Antimatter Universe couldn't exist without an opposite. So Rebirth's Creation event spawned a New Universe and a New Earth and balance was restored with the sole existence of a single Universe and a single Antimatter Universe. But Saturn Queen had been tapped by the Blue Flame of Chaos to "reset" the New Universe as a bedrock of cleansing Chaos to rip the foundations of the New Universe and strip them away so that Chaos would own the Universe forever and would therefore never be reined in under an Age of Order if it ever came again. But whether Eve Aries had to be in the 31st Century or somewhere in-between the 21st Century and that mark still had to be seen.
Brain Emperor had a standing truce with the Global Concern's over-reaching Director over all, Dr. Zadar, one that was strong enough to induce Domino into coordinating with the Evil Brain Trust. Sadly for Ariel, Brain Emperor didn't share his own plans even after Dr. Zadar forced Domino into disclosing the intents and purposes she'd launched as well as the increasing struggle to disperse and activate her remote equipment that Air Wave was continuously hunting down and overloading. So it was that Dr. Zadar was unaware of Domino's side deal with Derek Powers.
Once Prof. Smalley and Superman were under her control, she would deliver them to Wayne-Powers so that the researches begun to repeat Smalley's success with Bill Dunn and Brain Emperor would always look towards Zadar and find nothing of conflicting interests between the Global Concern and the Evil Brain Trust. So, with the convoy headed out from the Port to the primary staging grounds where the Global Concerns' featured mercenaries were waiting for them, Domino's planning began to take account of itself.
Hercules himself was Domino's field commander. She'd enlisted some of the most feared and awe striking mercs. They included Deadly Force, Martial Law, Weapon, The Persian, Claw, Red Rogue and the useful like Dr. Melvin Harvey, known better to the world as Ozone and Adrian Haskett, the creator/controller of the human/animal hybrid Creeptures. But Domino didn't stop there. She'd also hired mercenary mystics such as the Druid, the Crone, the Magi, the Black Witch, Countess Siroon, the Countess of Tabor Castle, and Lady Debra Seeley, an adept who was trained by the Druid.
The convoy ground to a halt as the timing belts snapped on each SUV. The belts tore through the eight engine valves and permemtly halted the engines. As the driver of each vehicle stepped out to determine the cause of such a massive coincidence that easily understood that it was intentional. The Persian teleported herself to vulnerable security agents and put a bullet and each head before she winked out of existence again. The lead vehicle exploded anyways as Deadly Force made his completely armored entrance.
The semi-tractor trailer driver died as Martial Law, who'd mastered fifteen martial arts, broke the driver's neck with the greatest of ease. Ozone suffocated an entire vehicle's load of security men. Claw and Red Rogue took up positions to surround the Young All Stars as they each exited a vehicle. Weapon sighted in Vapor from the rooftops. Luckily for her, no one saw Lightning Raider disappear. A series of spells knocked out the All Stars with three glaring admissions. Vibe, Gypsy, and Air Wave proved immune to the spell casting of the witches and druid wizards. Lightning Raider's luck, as always, held and she pushed Weapon off of the rooftop into a parked car several stories below broke his fall. But he'd survived far more with less pain before so he knew he'd be all right.
A star bolt split the air and blasted Deadly Force back but his armor remained undamaged. Starfire landed beside Gypsy, "Miss us?"
"How? Why?" Gypsy was flummoxed.
"Lightning Raider called Titans Tower in San Fran knowing the Justice League's Outsider branch headquartered there," Air Wave explained as more Outsiders arrived by air and even more through site to site teleportation.
"You will stand down and submit or we'll make you do so," Wonder Woman commanded.
"Donna Troy," Hercules chuckled, "Or should I call you 'Auntie' Donna?"
"Call me 'auntie' anything and I will break you, son of Zeus," Wonder Woman warned.
"So be it, 'auntie'. Everyone! Attack!" Hercules bellowed and to unleash his fabled strength against Donna, who really was his aunt since she too was child of Chronos and Rhea like Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon.
The demigod, Hercules, was possessed of a strength that it dwarfed even most of the gods themselves. But Donna had fought both of Zeus' demigoddess daughters, Diana, Queen of Themiscyra, and Cassie Sandmark. Those had been all out, all strength combatant venues to demonstrate that strength wasn't anything without the wisdom to know how to deploy it. Hercules was nigh immortal but even he hadn't ever ascended to Olympus before it was abandoned. Wonder Woman had as she met with her brothers for the first time with their entangled origins revealed to them. It hadn't been a cordial greeting.
Yet Donna won her right to exist under some very strict caveats. She wouldn't directly challenge any of them or she would join the Titans themselves in their imprisonment. Wonder Woman wore her armor and possessed three weapons. One was defensive, that was her shield. Her Lasso of Persuasion was like the shield, primarily defensive but could be changed its status to an offensive weapon should she so desire it to do so. The last was her sword.
Her sword and armor had been made to exacting demands. The sword was so finely balanced she could hold it up with a single finger and it would dip or sway should she employ its center point. Hercules was brash enough to foprgo armor or a shield. Lassos were for women in his mind and he was a burly strongman. He carried a single ten inch long fighting knife and even then, he unsheathed only in moments of crisis. The likes of which he hadn't encountered since the Hydra.
Donna saw the eventual doubt come over his prideful features. He was strong. There wasn't any doubt that in a straight up hand to hand contest she'd lose. But war wasn't about strength. Troy had held off the whole of Greece when they traversed the sea to reclaim Helen for the Spartan king. War was about intelligence and with it one could defeat any foe and Hercules was a weakling in the areas of strategy, tactics, and the innate ability to pinpoint a foe's weaknesses.
Donna had mapped Hercules' strength and his prodigious weaknesses. But he was relentless. Any shield composed of anything with less tensile strength than that of hers, forged into a new alloy that blended Amazonium and Nth Metal, could not have withstood his brutality. She feigned fatigue to draw him in. To make believe she was faltering in an effort to lure him in closer and ever closer.
But his arrogance made the ploy effective. She flipped over his back and spun to throw her lasso and loop around Hercules.
As it tightened she merely said, "Stop"
He froze in mid-motion.
"You seduced Hippolyta. You raped her sister, Antiope. You and the other Argonauts enslaved the tribes that would become the Amazon nation. And through the last few thousand years, you haven't changed or regretted a single moment," Wonder Woman listed off the charges against him, "Unfortunately for you, nephew, I'm that day of reckoning. I command you to walk this Earth, wandering without purpose or with malice towards human beings until you either die or someone lifts my power of persuasion as harnessed through this lasso. Let my brothers free you, if they can," the blue lasso released Hercules.
"Go! Now! Before I really do decide to kill you" Wonder Woman commanded and Hercules left as in a daze.
Tempest controlled water but to the degree that Mera, Queen of Atlantis could. But he had enough training and raw power that he held the Druid at bay. Meanwhile, the insect sized Bumblebee blasted away at him with her "stingers."
"You are not worthy of the pittance I was paid to eliminate these young upstarts," thre Druid pronounced and vanished in a waft of smoke.
Garth sighed in relief and let the water collapse.
"I guess a partial victory is still a victory," Bumblebee decided as she grew back to her natural size.
"Is it?" Tempest wasn't so certain. All that had happened was that the ultimate price that would be paid from those that captured the Druid once and for all would be high indeed.
Red Rogue threw balls of nuclear energy at Thunder and Lightning. The sisters had trained together under their father's tutelage. With Rebirth conforming history to the disparate needs of Glorith and Dr. Manhattan, no one every realized that Thunder had died a few years back even before Lightning had joined the Justice Society. But in the reshaped reality, both sisters were still alive and recruited to the Outsiders by the Justice League rather than place them within the Young Justice training program.
Thunder's strength and Lightning's electricity kept Red Rogue at bay. But thanks to the same nuclear disaster that created Red Rogue's powers, he'd defected to the West to free himself of external controls as the Soviet Union collapsed under its own economic disaster killed it and the hidden meltdowns their reactors had endured.
Red Rogue should have been killed, instantly or by cancer after the radiation exposure but instead, the energies activated his gen factor. Even with his Russian containment suit, he felt Thunder's blows and Lightning's attacks. And though it seemed to stretch into an eternity, Red Rogue was successfully captured in less tnhan five minutes. The sisters celebrated their win when all hell broke loose.
The Crone was a witch of the first order, not unlike the Enchantress. But Enchantress used mortal host bodies to walk upon the Earth again. The Crone siphoned life energies to return to her youthful self. But the parasitic energy was quickly depleted as she waged war against Raven and Omen. Defeat occurred once she was the ancient terror once again. Her price of her magic hitting her so hard that she drew magic from her core and passed out moments later because any more depletion and the Crone would finally die.
The Granger sisters studied the Black Witch as Hawk and Dove.
"Weren't you a part of the American Crusaders?" Hawk asked.
"You have me confused with me," Black Witch enjoyed a deep laugh.
"Careful," Dove cautioned Hawk, "She's both more and less of who she's been."
"Eff it! Why can't you speak English?" Hawk bellyached.
"This isn't the Black Witch we have on file," Dove explained, "And she's both more powerful and weaker than she was before"
"This is what I get for letting you date Deadman," Hawk groaned.
"You didn't have a choice," Dove promised her.
"Enough!" the Black Witch commanded, "You are now under my thrall."
Hawk and Dove broke into uproarious laughter.
"That's funniest joke I've heard to day," Hawk was almost in tears.
"Let's just end it for now," Dove was still belly laughing.
"Gah!" Black Witch exclaimed before whiffing away in a cloud of smoke.
Hawk and Dove composed themselves until they looked at one another and broke into another bout of laughter.
"I am the Claw!" he announced.
"Another Bronze Tiger wannabe," Beast Boy groaned.
"I have him," Terra promised. Claw was swept under a wave of dirt and stone. His head, hands, and knees protruded out.
"I think we're done with him," Terra gloated.
The Weapon had once been one the most elite assassins on the planet. Until he came under the Shield's gaze. That brought the entire Mighty and Shadow Crusaders' agencies watching over him. His recent commissions had all been failures. Today would be the day he atoned for those losses. Except Argent and Prysm simply stunned. him before he could threaten them.
Girl 13's magic wasn't enough to completely capture the Magi. Arclight bought her own armored weaponry and her gen factor powers as enhanced by her armor. The Magi fled as the field of battle and chances of success eluded him.
Ozone controlled the element in the air as well the ability to convert his own body intro a cloud of ozone. Gimmix waited while Tigress put him in peril and then vacuumed him up so he couldn't solidify again.
Gimmix disconnected the canister from the vacuum and tapped a few times, "This is airtight so he isn't going anywhere."
"I can see why these guys are considered the best of the worst. They're simply the worst," Tigress was relieved and annoyed all at once.
Starfire's solar energy bolts punched Lady Debra Seeley back. Where Blue Devil awaited her. Blue Devil used her pitchfork to spew hellfire at the Lady Seeley. So she whiffed away as well.
Countess Siroon vanished without even threatening Batwoman and Hawkfire.
"This has all been too easy," Batwoman warned Hawkfire.
The Persian teleported from location to another but Nightwing and Batgirl were cautiously engaging the Persian in-between teleportation jumps. Stephanie Brown and Carrie Kelley being the handpicked successors to the Nightwing and Batgirl legacy names.
The Persian appeared and said, "Oh!"
She then vanished for good .
"Aw crap," Nightwing saw what the Persian had seen.
"Eff me," Batgirl whispered.
Black Bat fought Martial Law to a standstill. Cassandra Cain having been raised since her birth to be a living weapon. But something distracted Martial Law at the end and she prevailed in knocking him out. then she turned around and witnessed what Martial Law had feared.
Deadly Force found his armor was locked down by Cyborg.
"Enjoy it, man," Cyborg suggested, "You've got front row seats".
"I certainly do," Deadly Force malevolently chuckled.
The Brain Emperor led as his Evil Brain Trust arrived with him. Wonder Woman rallied the Young All Stars to get their help as well.
"We need you," Wonder Woman tried to rally the All Stars, "Whatever is in that trailer is too important to let them simply have it."
"Wayne-Powers is trafficking Prof. Smalley and the new Superman," Vibe hated to admit.
"All the more reason to deal with this threat and then release them into the LAPD's jurisdiction," Donna implored them.
"You heard Wonder Woman," Vapor took up the marching orders, "Let's kick some ass!"
Combatants chose each other. Donna had briefly read up on the Eraser. A human that had been exiled to oblivion only to discover oblivion wanted to exile him as well. Which brought the Eraser to the Blue Ribbon. The pathway between Realms of Existence. Eraser found his way home at the cost of his own sanity. Even now conversing with images only he could see and hear. As he swiped his hand across the fender of a SUV, it "erased" underneath his palms as he made physical contact.
Wonder Woman momentarily feared that included her own weapons and possibly her body. To her relief, the Eraser's touch didn't evaporate her gear. But a brush of her bicep with Eraser's hand caused agonizing pain. Her weapons seemed useless offensively. But she'd gotten through to him she wasn't an actual enemy and well as now being his focus on the world. So as she steadily retreated, while trying not to provoke him further, she was leading him right to where she wanted him to be.
Vapor transformed into her acidic cloud form and in that state of being she was generally someone's worst nightmare. But neither Phantasmon nor Phantasmatrix seemed aware of that fact. They were at a stalemate while the Evil Brain Trust members tried to reform Vapor back into her human body but until then, they were in a stalemate.
The force grown and heavily mechanized armored Mann-X and Maxx-13 both came out of their growth vats to participate in the ARMS Control development project that failed so many volunteers and abandoned them with the hope and with that would simply die rather than embarrass the DoD. But Brain Emperor had other plans. As Hawk and Dove joined forces with Thunder and Lightning, they used teamwork as their leading weapon to destabilize the two lumbering powerhouses. But they made Mann-X and Maxx-13 so angry, they wouldn't leave and the next task became containing the amount of damage the two dimwitted behemoths could inflict.
Arclight and her girlfriend, Girl 13, were already knee deep in the containment theory. Radiation Rogue drew radiation out of his body but the power he pulled, the more unstable he became. Which greater exposure for the residents as well the Outsiders.
Argent and Prysm had miscalculated and now they faced a similar trend with Radium King everry time he unleashed a wave of radiation it grew more powerful with each pulse. And increasingly out of Argent and Prysm's ability to cope with it.
Echo bounced Burnout's pyrokinesis back at him while Reverb vibrated him until he peed. It was then that Echo and Reverb spotted the building calamities.
Dragonfly was solid enough to garner Tigress' intentions. While they fought, Gimmix found a way to spot the Invisible Terror and inflict a little of her own Buzzard met Flying Fox in the air and the battle was on. Iron Munro battled the other Sting. Like Dragonfly, more than person carried the name. But the skull faced Sting had been active since before the insect sized Sting ever joined the Legion of Doom and transferred out to the Secret Society. The situation soon devolved into a war of endurance.
Destructor and Wolf had Tsunami and Dyna-Mite's attention. Tsunami was crippled by lack of free standing water or any body of water to draw from. Dyna-Mite had simply met his match
Tempest had the same problem in fighting Dolphus and Beastkiller as Tsunami. But he still had his Atlantean strength and fighting skills. So yet another stalemate was treached.
Bumblebee went about harassing General Mechanix so that his remote devices were all obliterated. Miss Owl had no love between her and her former mentor, the Owl. And it briefly appeared that he had trained her too well for his own good.
Both the Creeptures and Chromium were immune to the usual brand of punishment Starfire and Cyborg could bring against a foe. Resulting in anther deadlock.
Black Bat confronted Lady Spider who weaving psychokinetic webs to ensnare Black Bat. Cassandra sliced way through them anyway. Until she reached the inner web where she couldn't hack her way through and Lady Spider's power kept webbing things iup.
Batgirl fought against the Spider. His webbing was chemically based and was a refined silk-like substance. But Batgirl was determined to thump rather harshly. That left Nightwing using Mighty Man's own brawn and brute force against him but both Outsiders were still at a loss of how to derail this train wrecks and get Superman and Smalley to justice.
Studs and Templar were both former WEB Agents. But Batwoman and Hawkfire had received arduous training as well they had confidence in taking their foes into custody. if they still a wellspring of fighting fatigue to do so.
Both Strangler and Stunner were complete gorgeous to most men. Beast Boy was no exception. So Terra buried them up their necks in debris and then began tongue lashing Beast Boy.
Crow, Bullfrog, and Pantherman were just delaying Raven and Blue Devil. every fight was a delaying action cementing Brain Emperor's plan into its final culmination.
Omen was a powerful psychic but Brain Emperor was wearing her down and he reveled at every small step he took further inside her mind
Gypsy lured Gadgeteer and Elasto to where Vibe had hidden from them. Vibe hammered away at them with his vibration powers .
Air Wave was one of the first to realize the Evil Brain Trust wasn't trying to win. Just stall for time and they were doing a helluva good job at it. So she gathered electrostatic energy and maser fired at the Magnetic Monster and the Jackal.
Lightning Raider was holding the Queen of Hearts and the Clown when Air Wave maser blasted them unconcious.
"Here it finally comes," Air Wave warned Lightning Raider. Tremor activated his earthquake inducing powers to rattle everyone. Void opened the portal within him. Every Brain Trust and Global Concern agent wore a signal device putting out a very specific frequency. Tendrils of energy hungrily sought those lacking the signal to drag them through Void himself. Air Wave scrambled the signals so the Outsider and Young All Stars seemed to be casting the signal and Void snared all of his own teammates and sucked within himself to teleport them to an undisclosed location where the Outsiders and All Stars would've been put to death. Tremor simply went with it and vanished within Void before Void himself to get sucked in and vanished.
Wonder Woman took note of Air Wave's explanation for the sudden reversals in fortune.
"I'd like to offer you a place in the Outsiders," Donna privately explained to Air Wave.
"I'd love to!" Air Wave enthused.
"Then return to San Francisco with us and we'll make the final arrangements to officially induct you in," Donna was pleased with this result she knew talent when she saw it. Air Wave had even alerted the Federal Marshall's Service to come collect Superman and Prof. Smalley.
"So, she gave me a reason to visit San Fran and rob the city blind?" Lightning Rider chuckled.
"Of course you can visit. Just...do the world a favor and just come when you're on a break between robbing cities blind and too board to do anything else," Air Wave requested.
"You know me too well, already," Lightning Raider winced.
"Not my fault you're an open book," Air Wave and strolled off to gather with the Outsiders as they summoned an MLJ derived teleportation. Lightning Raider had no set home base. She'd did manage to have some rentals in a few cities she could expand or contract her "opportunities" from. Opportunities being larceny. She'd played out the bulk of the east coast and at one time down the same throughout the mountain and great plains states. Now she'd look towards the future to opportunities in the west coast.
Not-coincidently setting up shop in San Francisco. Los Angeles had its defenders. Seattle had its own. Superior City was effectively controlled by the Injustice Society so San Fran it was.
That and when they thought they were about to die Air Wave notched off one her bucket list moments by sharing a kiss with Lightning Raider. One she still couldn't get over and she couldn't figure why that was so, until she figured that out she'd stay within proximity of Air Wave, look out for her, and finally resolve why she responded so strongly to an innocent moment before it made her mental.