Crisis Point Chapter 7: War: A Wicked Inclination, a teen titans fanfic

War, Part 2: A Wicked Inclination

Writer's Note: If you're wondering who most of these villains are, go to Wikipedia Dot Org and type in "The Society": most (though not all) have an entry there. Just in case you'd like some clarification.

Space.

Into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell.

"Buckle up boys." Hal Jordan yelled. " You're going for one helluva ride!"

And the Beetle ship charged, Hal Jordan forming a shield on the front to ward off attacks while John Stewart created additional rocket engines to speed the spaceship up even more, ramming it through the OMAC's before they could fully convene on the ship and its Green Lantern defenders, and then smashing through Brother Eye's second guard of miniature satellite probes, all made in their maker's image, even in the face of the concentrated horrendous amounts of firepower the defenses poured on the ship, Hal somehow holding it together.

And yet Batman remained as cool as a cucumber, piloting the ship through the inferno like it was a casual Sunday drive. Had Savior been there, he would have added it to the 12000th page of his 'Batman is awesome' book.

Jamie Reyes had quite another idea.

"That guy's insane!" He half-yelled.

"You don't know the half of it kid." Rex Mason, aka the element shifting Metamorpho replied: he'd been around a fair amount of time and knew what he was talking about.

Jamie would have added to his opinion, except Brother Eye's massive red namesake was looming in his vision, moments before impact, as a metallic shield retracted around it, trying to cut off the access route as well as play the windshield to the bug aspects of the ship…

"Everyone hang on." Batman said.

BOOOOMM! The ship punched through the eye roughly ¼ of a second before the shield fully closed, as Hal and John broke off, turning their attentions to the massive amount of OMAC's swarming at their rears.

It wasn't the first time they'd fought armies single-handedly, but it might prove to be the last, as the two nodded and went to work, firing intense green blasts of power as the OMAC's returned fired, a hundred beams to their two.

The group on the ship had their own problems. One, they were crashing. Two, the yellow bug eye windows of the front were just about to shatter from the impact they had suffered. Three, those windows shattering meant there was nothing between the group and the vacuum of space.

Which Jamie only realized when the windows blew and the air began to be sucked out, and he knee-jerk panicked, trying to unclose his throat to scream…

"Rex." Batman said.

"Already on it Bats. Breathable air coming right up." Metamorpho said, as he called upon his shapeshifting abilities and transformed into the mix of nitrogen, oxygen, and other gases that humans needed to live, filling the ship and the area beyond.

Which let Jamie hyperventilate: it was just too much…

But his main part was played, as Batman got up and walked past him.

He spared him a brief glance, and though Jamie couldn't really tell with the way the mask blanked his face, he thought he saw a note of approval. An unspoken word of thanks.

"Booster. Jamie. Stay with the ship. Protect it." Batman said as he walked on, a general striding onto the field. "We're going to need a ride back."

"On it Bats." Booster said, as Jamie watched Batman step from the shattered windows and onto the body of Brother Eye, his handpicked team on his heels.

"Sasha, link up to Oracle. Download every single computer virus on Earth into Brother Eye's system. Try to keep him from shutting the artificial gravity down. Black Lightning, Mr. Terrific, head to the memory banks. Fry whatever circuits you can. Black Canary, get to the surveillance rooms. Use that sonic scream to blind Brother Eye."

And then silence.

"Hey Dark Knight, what about me?" Green Arrow asked. "Why'd the hell you call a guy who shoots trick arrows?"

"Just to see if you'd show." Batman replied.

For a moment, Green Arrow had no idea if Batman was serious or joking.

Then he realized it.

"Brave and the bold, huh?" Green Arrow commented. "Heh. You got me all misty."

Nightwing, at a Beta level, was ranked immensely high for a normal human. But for all his training, his abilities, his skills, and his legacy, he was just a man. He didn't have hardlight shields, dark powers, alien warrior society crystals, or genetic mutations to protect him from injury and death. All he had was top-line body armor, easily negated…and a pliable layer about 1/8 of an inch thick that we called skin shielding his organs and bones from injury.

Swarmed by OMAC's, he should have been dead in four seconds, at most.

But Nightwing faced his supposed fate without fear. And not just because that was the way Dick Grayson the man was. It was also because of what Nightwing the hero knew. Knew when he formed the first Titans, knew when he'd adventured with their successors and offshoots, knew in his bones: a team is greater then the sum of its parts. Where one may falter, another will stand.

And that came true, as a massive series of giant flying green piranhas suddenly swarmed over his foes, and with three seconds he was free, surrounded by fallen humans in half-destroyed body armor.

"You all right Dick?" Kyra asked.

"Yeah. Thanks." Nightwing replied.

"Lead the way."

"I'd like to but…damn." Nightwing said, as he leapt away from another slashing OMAC. Masses of the cyborgs, AND villains. This was not good. He'd yelled to go to the tower, should he still try that and risk everyone being cut down from the rear? Was that even possible?

And then, he saw Superboy swoop down and smash Red Panzer in one punch, sending the cyborg villain tumbling away even as he fried an OMAC's outer head with heat vision, and he knew.

"TITANS! TO THE TOWER!"

"Sure thing Dick, why don't we make it a sack race while we're at it?" Savior cursed to himself, as he backflipped away from several OMAC's…and found himself face to face with a green suited villain that he didn't recognize.

It didn't matter that Skorpio, aka Dennis Samuel Ellis, a C-lister who had called Steel his main foe once, had no idea who Noel was either. His head was roaring with fury, a rage that demanded it be taken out on the heroes, and Skorpio was going to do just that, as he swiped a clawed hand tipped with fatal toxins at the teen.

"DIE!" He snarled, as he slashed again, and again, Savior flailing backwards, trying to look in four directions at once: at Skorpio and the surrounding OMAC's.

Which forced him to sacrifice, as to dodge an OMAC shot he had to form a Shimmer shield to keep from having his chest injected with fatal poison, as Skorpio's claws slammed down on it, piercing into the shield and drawing a snarling cry of pain from Savior.

Who decided he'd had enough right there and shifted to the side, as he curled back his leg and thrust it into the side of Skorpio's knee with a sickening crunch. The villain screamed in turn, which didn't last long as Savior leapt and slammed his knee into his skull (reinforcing it with the Shimmer, skull bones were stronger then knee ones). The villain collapsed, even as Savior was forced to dodge in mid-air three more OMAC's blasting at him. Savior hit the ground and rose to counterattack…

And then several razor-sharp playing cards slashed across his form, the body armor he had only providing some protection as he snarled again, turning towards his attacker.

"Oh so sorry. I was expected you TO DIE!" Double Down, a lesser Flash villain whose power was a cursed pack of playing cards that had bonded to his skin (yeah, I know), the magical weapon literally peeling off the villain to attack. Which he did, hurling another barrage of deadly daggers at the teen.

Yin completed his final twist and tensed his body, slamming Hammer and Sickle's heads together with a loud cracking noise. Yin unwrapped his form from the two villains and snatched up the innocents he had come to rescue, getting out of the area where he was so exposed.

The rock platform offered no sanctuary though. It was still being besieged by OMAC's, Hex being the sole one left in trying to hold them off because several villains had gravitated to it like a magnet. A giant bald man (Ibac, a Captain Marvel villain), had pounced on Metatron, trying to hammer the demon's head into the rock, while Ragnarok found himself besieged by both Murmur, a psychotic knife-wielding serial killer, and Girder, a living pile of scrap metal with an ego (both Flash villains). While pelting Murmur with rocks seemed to be keeping him back, Girder was just shrugging it off. Yin moved to help.

And then a yo-yo slammed down half a foot from Yin's body. A yo-yo that went right through the dense rock like it was made of toilet paper.

"Oopsie! My bad!" Came a rather silly-sounding voice. "I'll share properly now!"

Yin turned to see the Toyman introducing his yo-yo to Yin's face.

"EYAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Scorched Earth bellowed as he blew the snickering, laughing mob of lunatics known as the Madmen off him. Several hadn't gotten the message: he gave it to them with his fists (he couldn't hit as hard as Mom, but he could still hit damn hard).

And he wasn't used to watching his back, as several laser blasts slammed into him and threw him to the ground with a scream, as more OMAC's came to add to the power and finish him off.

Scorched Earth didn't let them, seizing the ground and projecting intense heat into it, melting down through the ice before the OMAC's could react.

By the time they'd begun a ground scan, Scorched Earth was already popping up behind him. He introduced them to a few of his close friends: the Scorch Bolts he fired.

But more came to replace them, but that only made Scorched Earth grin crazily: his Tamaranian blood was all fired up now and it wanted to wreck some havoc. And even on the side of the angels, Scorched Earth knew how to raise hell, as he clenched his fist and balls of violet-red energy exploded into being around it.

"Say hello, TO MY LEETLE FRIEND!" He snapped, and thrust out his fist, firing a wide spray.

"Hey lover, notice something?" Mary asked, as she slashed through four more OMAC's, sending them collapsing at her feet (man, despite all the warnings she'd been given, she didn't see the gigantic threat these things were being promoted as. Maybe she was spoiled after that twisted Viridian alteration…or maybe she was just that damn good).

"Yes. I am bored." Potent replied. He said that a lot in his life. Why wouldn't he? He'd been born with a direct line to the Speed Force, a great gift in and of itself, and when his mother had given him the Somethingorother Gem (it's real name had about nine syllables EJ never bothered to remember) at age 17 because it had been wearing her body out and she didn't want to die at age 42 he'd gotten immense strength and invulnerability on top of that. After that, nothing ceased to engage him any more: it was far too easy. He could cross the world in an eyeblink, toss a bus across a whole city without much effort, and have an ocean liner dropped on him and yawn. He didn't see how Superman kept from going out his mind with boredom: nothing EJ did from that day ever challenged him. Hell, some rookie superhero team boasting eight members had tracked him down to try and get revenge for something his dad had did (he always felt his old man, as cold as he could be at times, got a bum rap: he'd never seen his Dad do anything that didn't need to be done, one way or another, and hell when he'd finished he'd just asked to be left alone on his island, but could people do that noooooo…so he didn't really agree with other's opinions that he was a monster) one day: he'd beaten them all in less then two minutes…using only one arm. Life had become boring.

Then he'd met Mary, newly empowered with her Lord abilities.

She'd made life fun again. She didn't crumple after a punch, she didn't have three moves she used over and over again, she didn't become easier as he ramped up his speed: she just pulled out new and nastier tricks. Their brawls became his only reason for going on. Big surprise they'd ended up in bed together, and beyond. As utterly insane as it drove her father, and his wasn't exactly leaping for joy either. But he was Omnipotent (well Potent now, would the Speed Force ever return?), what were they going to do?

Well for one thing he kind of wished these OMAC's would do something other then blast and slash him: he felt the blows, but they were ignorable, while a slash or two with his gemsword (a trick he'd invented himself, his mom never really explored just what the gem could do) disabled them well enough to put them down for the count.

Hadn't some villains just shown up? Could he switch partners?

A blast of dark power from Mary's hand destroyed his last four opponents. He gave her a dirty look, and she grinned wickedly.

"You snooze, you lose."

And then the grenade flew at her.

Mary caught it.

Her hand exploded, her upper arm blown to bits from the force of the blast. She stared, incredulously, at the stump that had once been a hand.

"A farewell to arms." Intoned a mechanical voice, and the two turned to look at the thrower: a robot, dark gray in color, and one that had apparently seen some better days. Part of his covering and armor were removed, revealing inner workings, including tubes running from his shoulders from his arms, the hands housed in thick gloves. The robot had thin, almost fragile looking legs, and wore a helmet over his face with three lenses in an off-tilted triangle, two small and one big. The whole construct was covered in rust in more areas then not, almost obscuring the number printed on his segmented chest: H-041, with an E scrawled on at the end.

The two had no idea who this H-041-E was, but he was aiming a high power machine gun at them.

And…finding it wasn't working as well as it was supposed to.

"Argh! Lousy German knockoff junk!" H-041-E cursed, as he fiddled with the machine gun.

"Huh." Mary said, as dark power began to rise up from her stump, and within seconds her arm was back, good as new. She'd converted it into shadow power an instant before the grenade had blown: then she'd just called it back, reassembled it, and switched back to flesh once more.

Of course, she had new problems, as H-041-E finally got his gun working and opened fire, blazing a deadly line of hollowpoint bullets.

Problems only in the sense that if they hit her they'd hurt. That really wasn't an issue.

Potent blinked as they exploded on him, and then sighed, utterly unfazed by the shots as he looked over at where Mary was just glaring at the bullets, the shots stopping in mid air, freezing and falling before her, seized by dark power and stopped, her version of Neo's trick.

"Go ahead." She said. Potent snorted and started walking towards H-041-E, acting the bullets were a light summer breeze.

"Oh confound…!" H-041-E, as his gun jammed again: he threw another grenade, but Potent just knocked it aside, the blast and the shrapnel not phasing him at all, as H-041-E got his gun up and sprayed one last burst into Potent at close range.

The bullets broke. Potent didn't.

"OH FOXTROT UNICORN CHARLI-!"

Potent's punch smashed the robot into the proverbial thousand pieces. He sighed as he lowered his fist. Apparently the fact he didn't know what that robot had been was well deserved.

"Is there ANYONE here who won't go down after one punch?" He yelled, throwing up his arms as he twirled around, seemingly oblivious to the chaos around him (EJ was far more used to thinking selfishly then not, and most of his non-selfish thoughts revolved around Mary, so the obvious: go use his great power to help someone else didn't come quickly to him, if at all). "Anyone? Anyone at all?"

The answer probably wasn't what he expected.

"Solomon Grundy born on a Monday."

Potent turned into the grayish-white fist filling his vision, as the undead powerhouse smashed Potent off his feet and across the ice (Grundy? Wasn't he dead? Permanent dead? Smashed to bits on top of that? Had he been chaos-magicked back into this semblance of existence again? Had his never-dying nature just stalled for a bit and then kicked back into gear? Had Superboy-Prime magic crystal wall punched him back into the land of the not-quite-living? Who knew, he was back, in some form).

Mary couldn't help but laugh, as with another comment of "Solomon Grundy born on a Monday", the zombie giant leapt after Potent.

Mary wasn't worried. EJ could take care of himself.

"Be careful what you wish for…" Mary taunted, waving a finger. "You just might…"

And then her nostrils filled with a scent, one even she knew, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose up as she herself whirled…

It came down on her, all snarling rage and swinging blades, Mary feeling a wound open up on her face even as another blade bit into her side, as she tumbled across the ground in a mad tangle, her foe trying her best to rip her to shreds.

Not today, as Mary bellowed and blew her attacker right off her with an explosive eruption of dark energy, as she sank into the shadows, reforming and remerging as her enemy landed on her feet. The furious look in her eyes was only matched by the one in Nightmare's.

"Rebecalnatrac." She growled: the White Hole grinned madly. Mary was only a tad surprised to find the worst nightmare of her dad here, alive and well: what with her cloning and her failsafes, death could only be an inconvenience to her.

Not to mention she was one of the deadliest threats in the universe.

But so was Mary Hastings. What she'd seen in the future indicated a new path would be followed soon for the White Hole: Mary would give her a gigantic kick in the ass towards it, as she snarled and formed her shadow glaive and daggertails.

"You will find you cannot walk all over me, you czuatgou wlonguoy." Mary hissed in a VERY nasty insult, in Blacktrinian, to a female of the same.

"I think that very much. Your blood stinks of weaknesses, just like his." The White Hole said: she seemed unperturbed at the thought of encountering a grown child of the Hastionfarlock bastard considering he hadn't lain with anyone but that disgusting human cow and this didn't seem to be a mutt mixture, strange…but with the voice in her head, her old ways had snap-reasserted themselves and she'd gone right back into her old viewpoints: kill now, ask questions never.

"You'll know how well your nose served you when it's sticking out the BACK OF YOUR HEAD!" Mary snarled, and leapt, the White Hole meeting her in mid-blade swing.

Donar's fists were almost as devastating as his hammer, as he smashed another OMAC down. He gathered up the humans and quickly flew to the heated rock safety platform, goggling at the way it was under attack. Well, he'd do something about that.

Hex was trying to get some air into her burning lungs and clear the blurriness in her eyes when Donar dropped down near her.

"Allow me m'lady." Donar said, as he began whirling his hammer: intense wind immediately seized up and blasted through the OMAC's, hammering them like a thousand fists. Donar did that for a bit, as Hex just stared in astonishment. She wasn't used to seeing such great power used for her benefit.

"Are you ok? Do you require rest?" Donar asked as he turned to her.

Hex formed her fingers into a gun and blasted a pink beam over Donar's shoulder, 'bad-lucking' another OMAC behind Donar with a blade arm into short-circuiting.

"Don't worry about me." She said.

"I see. All the same, I shall gladly lend you my hammer some more!" Donar said, as he launched into the air, meeting the first OMAC he met with Mjolnir. The next one also got a meeting, as Hex went back to work, thinking that this was lucky…she was never lucky…

Self-fulfilling prophecy.

"GOODBYE!" Came an odd voice in a cheerful tone, and then Donar was gone as a white and purple blur slammed into him, knocking him away, and even as he looked up Bizzaro laughed and punched him, sending stars exploding through the teen god's vision as he crashed down to Earth.

Bizzaro followed him.

Feet first.

Hex was left to face the legions alone, once more.

Well, she'd always said you couldn't wield bad luck and be anyway immune to it, as her hands glowed and she fired off another blast, trying to take down her opponents before she collapsed.

She had a feeling the latter would be coming a lot quicker then the former.

Brick Wall had seen a couple of odd opponents in his time. This was a new winner.

"DIE YOU GIG GASTARD!" A wooden ventriloquist's dummy, dressed up like a Prohibition gangster and complete with a scar on its face (it was a pretty malevolent looking dummy, Brick would give it that), yelled, as it fired a mini machine gun. Brick could only stare at the sight, as the dummy continued to fire, held by a short, squat white haired man who seemed rather nervous about the whole thing. It was very strange, if no less deadly: had Brick been human, those miniature bullets would have gone through him as easy as normal ones.

But he wasn't, as he slowly approached, the bullets registering as mosquito bites, if that. He thought he had an idea of who this was, some Batman villain, split personality, evil side manifested in his ventriloquist dummy, Albert something or other…whoever he was, he had a feeling if the man went down, so would his projection.

He also wondered why the dummy replaced every B in the words he spoke with a G. Maybe that was a sign of subpar voice-throwing technique. Brick didn't really know the measuring stick for such a thing though, as he walked up, the bullets bouncing and flattening off him.

Scarface, the dummy, the evil side of Albert Wesker's split personality, cursed as his gun ran dry, as Brick Wall stepped up and loomed over the short lunatic, who probably wished he was back in Gotham. He whimpered.

"DO SOMETHING YOU GODDAMN GUTTERGALL…!" Scarface yelled.

Brick lightly tapped the Ventriloquist on the head. As he expected, that was all he needed.

"Strange…days." Brick said, looking at the fallen lunatic. Maybe he should stick with the OMAC's, go back to…

"Hey, why don't you pick on someone your own size?" A gruff voice said.

The General, once Wade Eiling, punched Brick Wall so hard it sounded like a bomb.

Kyra wished that she had more backup, but Superboy and Wonder Girl had gotten tied up with one of Superboy's old enemies, King Shark, and Myth had listened to orders to press on, even as Wonder Girl tried to drag back the maniacal creature that was trying to eat her boyfriend's head (Kyra wouldn't have worried if she hadn't know that King Shark, the child of a 'shark god' and hence divinely empowered, actually had teeth so sharp they could punch through Superboy's skin). But Superboy could handle himself: when Kyra had been turning away he'd hammered King Shark with a mammoth punch, and then she'd gone back to Nightwing's side, as he tried to push his way through the OMAC's. Forming a squadron of TIE Fighters with her ring, Kyra gave him covering fire, picking away at the legions.

It was like picking sand out of a dish one grain at a time: progress could said to be being made, but how could you really tell?

Kyra didn't falter though, because Nightwing wasn't, as he leapt away from an OMAC blast and then found a green shield forming in front of him as several bombs exploded against it. Kyra turned the shield into an armored bulldozer and rammed the OMAC's backwards.

"Push on, brave volunteers." Nightwing found himself saying.

"General Isaac Brock, British Major-General during the war of 1812, moments before he was killed by American sharpshooters. If some accounts are to be believed." Kyra found herself replying. Nightwing looked surprised.

"You KNOW that quote?"

"Do you have ANY idea how much military garbage my dad force-fed me on…" Was all Kyra got out.

The shaft impaled itself in her leg, and even as the pain hit her, another shaft struck her in the upper chest, this one exploding and sending her backwards with a scream.

"Kyra!" Nightwing called, but she was already lost among the crowds.

Kyra hit the ground, groaning in pain as she tried to focus.

"Execute." An OMAC said, as it approached with intent to blow Kyra's head off.

A green shark surged up from beneath it and seized it in its teeth, slamming the cyborg into the ground as Kyra pulled herself up, hissing and looking at the length of metal buried in her leg. Damn it, it was barbed too. Her ring would help a bit, but still…

Kyra yanked it out anyway, screaming as she did so, and even as she tried to use her ring to patch the wound she heard her.

"Why do you reek like Stewart?" The alien said. She looked a fair bit like a Tamaranian: orange skin (though hers had more brown in it) and long bushy brown hair. Her outfit was green and black, a lot like Kyra's modified uniform…except hers didn't have a green ring on the chest. It had a split green ring, like it had been cleaved through. Her alien crossbow hung at her side, as her hands gripped a deadly energy staff, the end arranged as a club to make the weapon a bludgeon as well.

Kyra knew who this was. She'd haunted Stewart and a horrendous mistake he had made to her ringgiver's dying day.

"Yrra Cynril." Kyra hissed.

"FATALITY!" The alien warrior known as Fatality shrieked, as she tried to cave Kyra's head in. Kyra dodged, but the alien was so quick, immediately shooting after her, shattering Kyra's formed shield with her staff, the weapon crackling with a strange power that negated Kyra's constructs, as a knife appeared in her hand from nowhere as she tried to cut Kyra's throat. Kyra only avoided it by forming a green superball between the knife and her throat, the blade barely deflected enough as Kyra kicked her away with her good leg, trying to regroup.

"On second thought, I don't care why you bear the stench of that bastard. DIE GREEN LANTERN!" Fatality yelled, as she furiously attacked Kyra again.

Nightwing didn't see any of this: he had his own problems.

It was ironic that he'd quoted Gen. Brock. The man had a personal philosophy of not ordering men where he would not lead them, and hence he had personally lead charges, putting himself right out in the front. It had caused his death, but it was also a sign of character, one he shared with Nightwing.

And Nightwing knew that his own army would follow him if they could. They couldn't: the tide had overwhelmed them, and now it sought to do likewise to him.

He didn't have a choice, as he retreated backwards, just staying half a step away from the deadly weapons of the OMAC. His troops, as they were, were doing the best they could, but unless there was a turnaround, or others finally arrived in the answering of his distress signal, or they could reach the Golden Tower and free the heroes trapped on it, it seemed like they would simply be rolled over eventually.

Well, he'd go down fighting.

Which reminded him: he was starting to run out of utility belt weapons.

When it rained, it poured.

Detroit.

There was no rain falling, and that bothered Beast Boy more then anything, as he looked up at the angry sky, covered with flashing clouds as lightning streaked between them.

He then became aware of a movement, as he looked back to his team to see Nigel collapsing. The fact that Nigel hadn't been there three seconds ago made the fact that he was collapsing into Gauntlet's arms even more disturbing.

"Nigel! Are you all right?" Robin asked: the Titans had been moving in a checkerboard pattern across the states the past several hours, trying to deal with problems as they came across them. They'd eventually ended up in Michigan, and its main city, which was having plenty of trouble of the human variety.

"Riot quelled…let me go…I just need to…catch my breath…" Scalpel gasped.

"Catch your breath my butt. You're half-dead Nigel, and quite eagerly headed down the path to full-dead. Stand down: you won't do anything in this state."

"Such an order is irrelevant to him." Viridian, this time's Viridian, not corrupted into an OMAC, said as she stood nearby, eternally looking cool. "Nigel Hastings' natural urge for self-flagellation for feelings of betrayal and failure towards his species has only been aggrandized by the disappearance of Miss Sophie Mathews. You are attempting to soothe a deep needed for self-destruction with words Timothy Drake. I suggest you focus your energies…"

"BLISS!" Robin snapped. "Just stop talking!"

"Why? I am merely stating the tr…"

"I DON'T CARE!" Robin yelled. "Scalpel, rest. We'll find Sophie. She's a lot tougher then some would believe. But we won't do anyone any good if you die beforehand."

"Unlikely. Odds of total destruction of this planetary body have reached 53.98 percent." Viridian said.

"BLISS! MOUTH! SHUT!" Robin snapped again. "I don't care if you're using pure logic, it's quite possible to have the surest step and still be walking the wrong path."

"I hate to interrupt this little love in, but can I ask a question?" Terra said, and pointed to the sky. "At first I heard lots of thunder to go with that lightning…the thunder's stopped. And there's no rain. But there's still all that lightning. What's going on?"

"It is not a simple thunderstorm. It is a manifestation of the damage done to this planet. The electromagnetic field has been disrupted by the high-class reality alterations inflicted over the past several days, and this disturbance is beginning to materialize here: static discharge is building in the atmosphere to…"

"Wait wait wait wait wait…static discharge? Electromagnetic fields disruption? Didn't I see this in that movie The Core?" Gauntlet asked.

"Yes."

"Wasn't most of that film based on junk science?"

"Indeed, but with the constant assaults on the fabric of reality, this junk science is becoming the new science. From the levels of energy I am monitoring, this static discharge will erupt in a very similar way as portrayed in that piece of fiction, except I estimate it will be roughly four times larger. With the amount of metal in this city, it will serve as an excellent conductor, with an energy output that will produce enough heat from all the striking and conducted lightning strikes to transform most if not all of the water in an organic body into something resembling the mist emerging from a teapot. In other words…"

"Hold it! STOP!" Robin yelled. "Cut what will it do! How do we STOP it?"

"We cannot." Viridian replied. "It is not something that can be bludgeoned or blasted into submission. It does not have organs to target or a sentience to appeal to. It simply is, and while it is possible for us to flee, there is nothing WE can do, Robin." Viridian said.

"THERE MUST BE SOMETHING!"

"There is only one thing we can do, Robin." Viridian said. "We die."

The Matrix backwards dodge is not a recommended combat technique: it is far more flash then substance.

Usually.

Savior threw his body backwards, seeing the deadly cards fly over his head, even as his arms touched the ground and Noel used them and Shimmer strands to push backwards and up, throwing his legs up as he tried to avoid having them come into contact with the deadly cards, as he flipped over, landing on his feet again. He'd done it, he'd dodged the cards'…

First barrage.

The second came at him a second after the first. Double Down had been bluffing, so to speak, when he'd seemingly ended his attack.

The only blessing Noel had was that this time the cards came at him flat-first instead of edge-first.

What that meant was instead of ripping him to shreds, they wound him up like a mummy.

Savior collapsed, arms tight at his sides, legs clamped together, half his face covered, as his uncovered eye darted around in furious fear: OMAC's, he was exposed, he had to escape…

A shadow fell over him, as Savior turned his eye to look back up at the freakish Double Down, who looked furiously pleased, as several more cards peeled off his body and came to his hand, their edges shining.

"Last call." Double Down said, as the OMAC's closed in.

A Shimmer strand shot from Savior's eye, the end forming into a fist and slamming into Double Down's face, and even as he went down the strand grabbed his body as Savior put the unconscious form of the Flash Rogue between him and the OMAC's. It was pure selfish survival, but Noel would deal with that later: he had to escape, and he'd only do that if he had a shield, and if this bastard had to be filled with holes in his stead…

…He'd have to wait. It wasn't happening.

Savior blinked (well it looked like he winked) as he shifted and finally got the proper leverage to rip himself free from the cursed playing card bondage, as he reached up and grabbed Double Down, shifting his position to keep the villain in front of him as he got up.

The OMAC's were there, at least fifteen: they could have easily blasted them both. But instead, they tried to move around Savior's guard.

And it came to Noel. Of course. OMAC's hunted metahumans, and they didn't care about morality. But Alexander Luthor did: there was no point calling villains for added defense if his OMAC's also went after them.

Which meant Noel had a loophole.

And like a good tactician, he exploited the hell out of it, as he hurled the body of Double Down at the OMAC's. He would have collapsed laughing if they'd tried to catch him, but they didn't: they just moved out of the way…long enough for Noel to fly into the fray and start tearing them to pieces, dancing around them so they kept trying to target him without hitting a fellow, which proved their undoing.

Nearly a month ago, this same number of OMAC's had nearly killed him and his whole team. Either he was getting better, or they were getting worse. Neither made much sense, unless Brother Eye was…

Distracted.

By Batman.

Yeah, that hypothesis definitely made sense.

Time to spread the word.

Their weapons slammed together as Nightmare and the White Hole met in the air, the two furiously clashing together for the brief seconds before gravity reminded them they couldn't naturally fly. They didn't let gravity slow them down, as the White Hole fell and Mary zapped to the side, landing some distance away…as the White Hole leapt and brought her spiked mace down on Mary's interlocked weapons.

It nearly drove Mary to her knees, as she struggled furiously. She couldn't underestimate Rebecca Styles (the White Hole's English approximation of a name), even empowered by the Lord's demi-god abilities: the White Holes hadn't been feared across the galaxy because Blacktrinian propaganda was good at spreading a reputation. They were feared the old-fashioned way.

Mary broke the clash and leapt backwards, thrusting out her daggertails as they lanced together, piercing the air where the White Hole had been as she flipped to the side and charged, and before Mary could block the White Hole swung her mace into her side, a loud cracking noise shaking the air around them as Mary flew, out of control, finally crashing into a wall of ice that was provided by another plateau like the one the Titans had been standing on when this had begun. She growled as her eyes glowed black, and as the White Hole charged in she let loose with a piecing blast of dark power. The White Hole leapt over it…and into the series of blasts that flew out of Mary's spinning glaive, knocking her down. Mary leapt herself, slashing out her glaive again and sending a dark wave of power tearing through the ice…but she missed the White Hole again, as she was on her feet and in the air a second before the blast detonated, meeting Mary weapon to weapon.

There was a touch of smugness in her face, and that made Mary even angrier, as the glaive and mace slammed together again and again, almost too quick for the human eye to see.

The White Hole kicked Mary in the gut, and she flew backwards, flipping over and impacting against the ice wall of the plateau again, feet first this time, as she ran along the wall for a few seconds and leapt off again, streaking towards Styles. The White Hole laughed and raised her weapon…

And then Mary vanished in darkness. The White Hole, still floating in mid air from her upward jump, blinked…

Movement to the side. The White Hole swung, and tore through a disappearing mass of shadows…as another appeared above her, and to her left again, and…

Mary emerged from a portal behind the alien and introduced Rebecca to her own fist, sending the alien crashing violently into the ice. Mary landed on the ground and charged, swinging her glaive overhead in a rapid spin and slashing it down.

The White Hole caught it.

"Disappointing." She snarled, and yanked, pulling Mary into a devastating mace roundhouse that sent her flying across the ice again.

"UGH!" Brick Wall grunted as he hit the ground, shaking his head. He was seeing stars. That didn't happen to him often.

"Come on kid. Shouldn't I be having trouble keeping up with you?"

The General's fist slammed into the back of Brick's head, smashing his face into the ice, as the massive hand then seized him by the head, lifting up the gigantic teen as he prepared to slam him into the ground again.

Brick elbowed the General in the side of the head, and then whirled and smashed his massive fist across the General's face. His blow would have sent a tank flipping across the ground like it was a blown leaf.

The General no-sold it.

"You kids, too much reputation these days."

The General's twin-fisted uppercut sent Brick flying backwards again: Brick would have dodged it if he could, but he had never been quick on his feet, while the General was, animal quick, sometimes even running on all fours after Brick, as he hit the ground, trying to recover, only to find the General's fist slamming into his face once more.

Potent was no longer bored, though he wished he was: Solomon Grundy hadn't found him after his tossaway punch. The bad news was, two others had: Mister Atom, a nuclear powered robot who served as a foe for the Marvels (Captain, Mary, and Junior), and Ubermensch, a recently appeared villain who had been part of a team of 'American supremacists' (re: Nazis). While the teaming of a bullet-headed robot (and why he was helping in the attack when he should have been immune to Psycho-Pirate's mind influences was puzzling, or maybe he was getting instructions from the OMAC's, or maybe he was just programmed to recognize and attack heroes), and a skinhead juggernaut with a red cross scar across his face was quite odd, they didn't seem to have any problems with it nor with what they were doing: raining down blows on a fallen Potent, who was trying to get back up and not having much luck with the slippery ice and snow and the constant assault.

At least until Mister Atom smashed a punch into his nose…and produced a trickle of blood.

Blood?

He was BLEEDING?

He NEVER bled. Even…

"ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Potent screamed, as his personal force field renewed and expanded itself, pushing his two opponents away as Potent got to his feet, ignoring his fallen gem sword as he tackled Mister Atom, knocking him to the ground as he tore into the robot's chest. Massive radiation poured out, but Potent ignored it, as he continued ripping out parts and wires, smashing in Mister Atom's face when he tried to stop him.

And then a punch knocked him off the robot. Potent rolled to his feet as Ubermensch charged in.

Potent held out his hand, and his lost gem blade flew into it. He introduced the point, and what lay beyond it, to Ubermensch's thigh.

The giant man roared, which gave Potent a perfect place to introduce his fist, slamming it against the skinhead's jaw, even as he yanked the sword free. Ubermensch stumbled, and Potent buried his fist into his gut, and as he doubled over Potent grabbed his head with both hands, yanked the Nazi back up, and slammed his forehead down on Potent's knee. As the giant went limp, Potent grabbed him and hurled him off into the distance.

"WHO ELSE WANTS SOME!" The furious teen declared.

"Solomon Grundy born on a Monday."

The punch somehow took Potent by surprise, AGAIN, but this time he didn't fly: he slid, going backwards a dozen feet before he stopped, his eyes flashing with rage as he raised his sword, yelling in fury again as he charged towards the undead behemoth that was causing him so much trouble.

Scorched Earth slammed two OMAC's heads together, added a blast of power in the process to fully disable them, and then turned as he fired a piercing ray from his hand, catching another OMAC's eye beam and driving it back, all the way to the source, the faceplate frying as Scorched Earth cut off his attack.

"Yeah!" He said, thoroughly enjoying himself despite the situation.

The orb hitting him, as it shattered and incased his whole form in ice, probably put a damper on that.

Of course, he commanded the fiery powers of suns: a little ice wasn't going to slow him down, as cracks started appearing almost immediately, Scorched Earth breaking himself free with a scream.

He got met by more orbs, several of them slamming into his body with more impact then fists, throwing him to the ground. He cursed and looked at his attacker, who he didn't recognize: he or she was wearing black and a blank helmet…and was firing more orbs at him. Scorched Earth hurled himself out of the way as they exploded where he had been and hurled a Scorch Bolt, which exploded on the ground in front of the black-clad attacker and sent them flying.

Scorched Earth went after them, and pounced on the figure when he saw he or she hadn't gotten up yet, pinning them to the ground as he charged another blast.

"Ack! Wait! Time!" The black figure said, their voice muffled.

"Yeah right."

"Just wait! Argh…my head…"

"I'm not falling for it buddy."

"You idiot! I don't…argh…kill…no…won't…" The figure gasped, as he/she reached up and pressed something on the side of her head. "Ugh, that seems to help…get off me! I'm not your enemy!"

"Me and a sudden icing beg to differ."

"Look! I don't WANT to fight, there was a voice in my head…!"

"You might want to listen to her." Came another voice, and Scorched Earth looked up to see Savior standing there. "Remember, the Psycho Pirate's over there with Alex, more likely then not. It wouldn't be hard for him to him to make a few people go against the grain with his powers. Not that that excuses your behavior, young lady. Get lost, if your helmet can protect you from it."

"Believe me, I didn't plan on coming here."

"Whoa wait how do…?" Scorched Earth said, confused.

"Doesn't matter. Scorched Earth, the OMAC's can't attack the villains. Use that if you can. I can't hang around." Savior said, as he ran on.

"…I'm so confused."

"Start by getting off me." The black-wearing figure said, as she wriggled free. "Now if you don't mind, I'll be going, so you can…"

"Awwwww leaving already birdie? But you just got here!"

The strands of red power slammed against Scorched Earth's face and chest, knocking him down, even as he saw that the same strands were striking down Scorched Earth's previous attacker. He shook his head and tried to get some sense back…and then the thread wrapped around him and slammed him into the ground. Headfirst.

"Get lost freak. Three's a crowd." Asphyxiation said, as he hurled Scorched Earth away. "And you, little bird, looks like your ugly friend isn't around. Which means…"

"You STILL…!" The female said as she tried to fire one of her launchers.

Jack seized it and crushed it, bringing a cry from the girl as he slammed another line across her face, cracking the faceplate as he pulled her in, ensnaring her with strands that kept her from fighting back.

"I made a promise birdie. And the heroes, the thief, they can wait a bit. You first. Sing." Jack Djinn smirked, as he cracked his fingers and then closed them around her throat.

While some of the villains were apparently having disagreements on how to operate, others were working together fine, as Ragnarok furiously tried to hold Murmur's dagger away from his eye: Girder had knocked him down and Murmur had pounced on top of him, and Ragnarok was so busy to keep the knife away from him that he wasn't thinking of using the Catalysts.

At first anyway.

"Mbrce th slnce." Murmur said through his sewn up mouth.

As Ragnarok reached up with his free hand and yanked off the psycho's mask.

"EAT DIRT!" Ragnarok yelled, as a section of the heated rock shattered into dust and flew into Murmur's face, blinding him, and Ragnarok quickly pulled himself free.

"Hey Rag! Be careful!" He heard a call, and glanced over to see Savior. "Try not to touch him! His whole outfit's rigged with…" Was all Ragnarok could make out as Savior ran out of earshot, stopping temporarily to help Hex with a few OMAC's (and maybe he said something to her, Ragnarok wasn't sure). But he'd heard enough.

"Don't touch him?" Ragnarok said, as he turned to look at the recovering Murmur.

And then he kicked the ground, as a large chunk of stone flew up and hit Murmur right in the face. He went down like a ton of bricks.

"That'll do pig. That'll do." Ragnarok said.

Then the shadow fell over him. Ragnarok turned around.

"You shouldn't have forgotten about ME!" Girder yelled as he reached out to crush Ragnarok's head.

"Didn't." Ragnarok replied. "Glomp off."

And the section of rock under Girder sprang up like a Jack-in-the-Box, hurling the metal mutant off into the air with a faded yell. Ragnarok didn't care where he landed: his metal body would keep him alive, and he was out of Ragnarok's hair…

"Terminate."

A shield of rock flew up to protect Ragnarok from the blast, as he thrust out his hands, the Dark Catalyst in his chest surging with power as Ragnarok fired off blasts of flame modified by his central artifact, frying the OMAC's systems much like Scorched Earth and Metatron were.

And speaking of Metatron, he was still trying to fend off the giant Ibac, and much like Potent, he was getting really pissed off at the whole process. Enough screwing around: the claws were coming out.

Literally, as Ibac, having pinned Metatron to the ground much like Potent had been by his two attackers, tried to punch Metatron's head in, something that had already failed three times (the two had been pretty much rolling on the ground, Metatron foiled in his attempts to get fully to his feet by Ibac's grip). Instead of just escaping this time, Metatron sacrificed his shoulder, hissing loudly as the fist came down on it, but it gave him the opening he needed, as his claws snapped out and Metatron dug them into Ibac's arm, yanking down as hard as he could. As he expected, Ibac's much tougher skin kept him from ripping the muscles to shreds, but he still ripped a deep gash. Ibac recoiled away, yelling in pain, and Metatron struck, shoving himself along the ground, twisting on his shoulder, and slamming out his foot into Ibac's ankle. Ibac yelled even louder and nearly fell down, finally allowing Metatron to push himself away and get to his feet.

"YOU LITTLE PIECE OF…!" Ibac roared, and then he got a face-full of Metatron's golden energy, staggering back, even as Metatron threw himself into gear and ran, twirling around Ibac in a circle as he fired blast after blast, all of them striking Ibac in his face and upper torso, the giant unable to grab Metatron now that he was up and in gear.

Metatron finished by blasting Ibac in his wounded ankle again. The giant went down to one knee, and Metatron sprinted away.

"COME BACK YOU…!" Was all Ibac got out.

As Metatron ran back, leapt, and slammed both his feet into Ibac's face, throwing him backwards into a boulder with terrible impact. Ibac shuddered and then went still.

"You asked." Metatron said, as he cracked his neck and looked around.

"Hey Met, heads up!"

"Huh?" Metatron said, as he whirled around…and saw Yin stretching himself back in preperation for something. "Yikes!"

Metatron dove to the ground as Yin completely his pullback and sprang, hurling the trapped midget in his grip off into the distance.

"WE WERE JUST PLAYING…!" The Toyman wailed as he vanished into the distance.

"…You know, he could land badly." Metatron said to Yin as he resumed his normal form.

"I can live with that." Yin said, and stretched over to aid Hex and Metatron with the OMAC's. Metatron would have helped, but they seemed to be holding their own, so he took a moment to look over the battlefield…

Donar slammed Mjolnir across Bizzaro's face.

"Fun!"

And again.

"That tickle!"

Bizzaro returned the blow twofold, blood spraying from Donar's mouth as he staggered back, and then Bizzaro did a little leap and slammed his fist down across Donar's head and shoulder: the godling went tumbling across the ice, losing his mystical hammer in the process.

Donar rolled over to his stomach and gasped. This was not going well. But he was far from beaten. His grandfather hadn't faltered in the face of Jormungandir, and his father hadn't when his grandfather had needed aid trapped under the body of Hrungnir: he could beat an imperfect duplicate!

Of the world's greatest and mightiest hero, Donar reminded himself.

"Now me not use pretty hammer, like you!" Bizzaro said, as he landed nearby and bent down to Mjolnir.

And remained bent down, as he tried to lift it.

"Ugh! Uh! This light! Light as feather!" Bizarro said as he strained mightily, but the hammer wouldn't budge, the ground cracking under Bizarro's feet as he tried mightily to lift it, to no avail.

And then Donar's hand came down on top of it.

"Please, allow me my assistance."

Donar swung the hammer up in a vicious uppercut, staggering the duplicate. Mjolnir, forged in great furnaces by the dwarves Eitri and Brokk, could only be lifted by someone in his grandfather's bloodline. If anyone else tried, the result was clear, as Donar whirled and rammed the hammer into Bizzaro's gut, then spun and slammed him across the face again.

"Wheeeee! This terrible! Now me not act like you, in turn!"

And Bizzaro inhaled and blew out, spewing a terrible gout of fire that engulfed Donar, who yelled and staggered back, leaping from the flame, his hair and clothes on fire, which Donar managed to extinguish with a summoned blast of wind.

"Odin's beard, fiery breath? How did that…" Donar said, and then he remembered: bizarre BACKWARDS duplicate of Superman. Where Superman had freezing breath, Bizzaro had fiery…

"Me lose now!"

The punch sounded like a thundercrack, and sent Donar flying across the field, smashing through some OMAC's and nearly into Nightwing, who dodged at the last second. He saw a purple and white blur fly past him and another thunderous blow, and decided this was a battle he'd best stay out of. He had plenty of his own problems, like…

Another cracking blow, and then a screaming gray form flew past him as well, crashing into a giant boulder of ice that collapsed on him, burying him. Nightwing turned to see Superboy and Wonder Girl, still in the mid duel-punch pose that had finally disposed of King Shark.

"Nice." Nightwing said.

"Why thank you." Superboy replied, and gave some attacking OMAC's a dose of heat vision again, while Wonder Girl settled for her fists. Nightwing bounded over to them, and was about to say something, when he heard something else: someone yelling his name. How he heard it over the din of battle, he wasn't sure…

"NIGHTWING!" Came the scream, and Nightwing tried to follow it…his eyes briefly saw Savior, before a squad of five OMAC's attacked him from the side and Savior vanished into the masses again.

Had he been calling for aid? Or…

"Dick watch out!" Wonder Girl said as she suddenly dropped down in front of him and deflected several thrown daggers with her bracelets. Nightwing looked at this, surprised, and briefly cursed: they couldn't just keep brawling out here, they needed to move forward, or they'd end up exhausted and vulnerable.

"Hey missy, this is personal business that was about to be settled here!" The killer known as Brutale cursed as he pulled more knives from his many bandoliers of them: he was an old friend of Nightwing's from Bludhaven and he had a few scores to settle.

"I'm ok Cassie. Help Conner with the OMAC's." Nightwing said, and leapt to the attack.

Savior was ticked. He'd been close, so close, and then he'd been forcibly sidetracked. And life kept rubbing salt in the wound, as no sooner had Savior dealt with the OMAC's (and that wasn't getting any easier, for him anyway) then he'd come under fire by four different types of sub-machine guns: he'd thrown up a shield and borne it out as he glared around it, looking at his garishly dressed attackers, who had to be wearing some kind of personal heating device to keep from freezing, as they fired at him with such mad joy. They were the Body Doubles, professional assassins, and they'd fallen in love with the idea of pumping Savior full of holes.

Like hell, as Savior sent twin strands of the Shimmer through his foot, under the ground, and out around the Body Double's ankles, the lines seizing both and yanking on them so violently the crazy women nearly did a complete 180 switch of where their feet and heads were, as Savior dispelled the shield, yanked the strands up through the ground, and violently slammed the screaming girls together. Three times in quick succession.

He discarded the limp bodies and ran on, trying to find Nightwing again.

Only to find an ancient looking man with a long beard and a gray outfit and coat trying to stab him in the chest with a lightning bolt shaped dagger.

"Give me your LIFEEEE…!" Cicada hissed as he lunged.

Savior kicked the dagger out of his hands.

"Oh get a life!" Savior cursed, and Shimmer-whacked the Flash villain aside so hard he nearly flew twenty feet before he landed, as Savior ran on.

Two more OMAC's lay ahead. Savior dove onto his hands and flipped high into the air, sending twin lines flying from his hands and plunging into the OMAC's heads from above, as he landed behind them and yanked, both tearing through their design and slamming them into the ground. Savior removed his lines and whirled around…

The power-charged nightstick almost pulverized his skull, as Savior jerked and then threw himself backwards, flipping over and landing on bended knees.

Then he truly saw his attacker, and his mouth went dry.

"Very nice dodge kid." The man said, as he spun the nightstick around so it was pointing away from Savior. "I think I know you, but do you know who I am?"

"Prometheus." Savior said. Clad in a purple outfit with a white cape, golden armor on his arms and shoulders, the material ridged with strange balls (Savior couldn't tell why), and an electronic helmet on his head exposing only his mouth behind a glass shield, Prometheus was a pretty recognizable villain. And Noel wished he wasn't there. He may have been a relative newcomer, but people in the villain community called Prometheus the 'Anti-Batman': his villain debut had been nearly beating the entire JLA. Armed with synthetic armor that greatly augmented his fighting progress as well as being a genius and an Olympic caliber athlete, you'd think Prometheus wouldn't needed a weapon like his crackling supercharged nightstick. But Prometheus preferred it. It made it more fun. For him.

"So you do know me. You must be in with the Bat somehow then." Prometheus said, as he flipped his nightstick around again. "Good. This will make this even MORE enjoyable."

Robin hated being at a loss.

And he hated it even more when it SHOWED that he was at a loss: leaders led by example, and if you put forth a poor example…which is what Tim really wanted to do, in the form of grabbing Viridian and yelling in her face. Of course, that would serve no purpose: Viridian would be unaffected, his team would be disturbed, and it wouldn't make the static buildup from the bad sci-fi movie problem magically go away.

So he compromised.

"So you are telling me there is absolutely NOTHING ANY of us could do?" Robin snapped.

"I didn't say that."

"You have to…what?"

"I said we cannot do anything. By that, I meant you and I Robin. We, as two, can do nothing." Viridian said.

Robin stared, and for a moment he almost punched the robot: damn machine precision.

"All right then Bliss, who CAN do something?"

"Myself and Terra have a possibility. Terra would have to elevate me into the sky with a rock platform of sufficient strength: while up there I believe I could manipulate things so I could call the electricity discharge and direct it in a far more concentrated way into the Detroit River. Of course such an action will probably ruin the ecosystem that remains in the body of water, and there is a chance anyone actually on the river will be cooked alive, but considering how choppy the waters are only lunatics would have to still be on the water and if that is the case one could say they knew the risks…"

"ARGH! Why didn't you mention this before?" Robin yelled.

"Because I cannot do such a thing and shrug it off. It will require me to channel electricity far beyond my safety parameters, most likely resulting in my complete systems and structural failure. And I have no desire to commit suicide for a temporarily solution to a problem."

"Viridian, you wouldn't be committing suicide. You're a robot."

"Racist."

"WHAT?"

"You take my inorganic nature and use it to decide whether or not I should seek destruction without consideration of the consequences. You may as well considering all Asian people math geniuses, or all African-American males possessing extraordinarily large…"

"Argh! Viridian, we don't have time for this! I just want to save these people!"

"I fail to see the ultimate reasoning. The world is so damaged, reality so abused…" Viridian said, glancing up to the sky, where through the brief gaps in the clouds one could still see the sky filled with Earths. "That you may save them just to damn them. I say that if it all comes down to a dice roll, then we should move on to a more suitable area and let your species' gods' play."

Beast Boy felt a chill go down his spine when he saw the look that came over Robin's face.

"All right then." Robin said, as he reached for his utility belt. "You wish to play that way?"

He unsnapped a small black device.

"Short range EMP. And it WILL get around your protections, Viridian. So either do as I say, or you can cease to exist right here and now."

"How droll." Viridian replied in her eternally unconcerned tone. "Threatening my destruction to get me to go to my destruction. How very human of you."

"Argh. BLISS. You can back up your brain. Our communicators would have more then enough space to store all of you, why do you think I'm always upgrading them? When this is done, you can build another body. YOU CAN COME BACK! Call me a racist or a machinist or whatever you want in that regard, but it doesn't change the fact that YOU CAN COME BACK! WE CAN'T! Don't you see? We NEED you! You can commit an act of great sacrifice and survive it! And right now, such an aspect is very desirable."

"It does not change the fact I will most likely be destroyed, nor do I want to be." Viridian replied.

Robin's fingers tightened on the device in frustration.

"But it is clear you are being ruled by your irrationalities, like most of your species are in this time of crisis. Yours is simply projected through different channels." Viridian said. "And I am aware of the wisdom of dying later rather then dying right now. So I will do it. But know that this changes nothing. This will save no one, and you are still a racist."

"Fine. You can file a hate crimes suit against me when this is all over." Robin said. "Terra?"

"Already got it." Terra said: she'd called up the biggest piece of hardened bedrock she could find while the two had been arguing. "Your ride, miss."

"Goodbye meatbags." Viridian simply said, as she stepped on the rock. Robin grimaced, but he gestured for Terra to send it up.

Viridian sighed as she rose. Why did she stay with these teenage heroes? They'd cost her her original body, and now it looked like they'd do it all over again. Maybe she should have joined the Society: self-preservation probably fit in much more strongly with their overall viewpoints.

It didn't matter though, as she hadn't, and hence here she was, as she rose up into the crackling sky, every inch literally dripping with power, begging for an outlet, a release.

Viridian had modified her systems on the way up, as she un-shrugged her massive gun and locked onto the body of water beside the city.

"Hear me." She said calmly. "I am a machine. To any and all meatbag gods, I defy you!"

And she activated another part of her that would serve as an excellent conductor for electricity.

The concentrated blast of lightning that struck the rock nearly blinded the Titans and almost caused Terra to lose her concentration, and even as the Titans tried to blink the spots out of their eyes a gigantic bolt of lightning surged away from the strike point and struck the Detroit River. The focus blast was followed almost immediately by another, and another, in rapid fire, a gigantic lightshow that only a very few people got to see because most were cowering in their homes awaiting the end of the world.

And then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over.

The Titans lowered their hands from their eyes, staring up at the sky, now relatively calm, and, almost on reflex, Terra began calling her rock platform down, even as Robin blinked the last of the spots from his eyes and pulled out his communicator for a scan.

"…Static building negated, levels down to much safer…" Was all Robin got out before the rock came back down to the roof.

Viridian stood there, frozen in place, her body scorched a midnight black. The Titans looked at the sight.

"Viridian?" Nigel finally asked.

And then Viridian's head collapsed, swiftly followed by her whole upper body, the lower region following suit, the entire structure completely devastated and unable to hold itself together, shattering into a thousand incinerated shards. It was a pretty damn unpleasant sight.

Robin sighed deeply.

"I'm sorry Bliss. I really am."

"It doesn't matter. You're still a racist." Viridian said from Robin's communicator. Robin managed to keep his jerk from surprise minimal.

"You said to download myself into your communicators. I did. Though I'm afraid I had to delete a majority of your personal files in each. Robert, does one really need so much…"

"OK!" Robin said. "That problem's solved. Let's go deal with the rest and move on!"

"The problem is not solved. I negated this static buildup, but only briefly. Even now it begins to rebuild. The maximum amount of time before another eruption, which I will not be able to stop, is 64 minutes at most. I told you to leave this city, that sacrifice was pointless, but you would not listen. Therefore I am not sorry." Viridian said.

"A lot can change in an hour." Robin replied grimly, as the Titans leapt and flew from the roof.

"I fail to see what could." Viridian replied.

Raven's eyes blinked open.

Her room looked so strange brightly lit was her first thought.

The second was she was alone, as she sat up.

She felt much better then she had moments before, so either magic was back on track or it was currently in a surge: in any case she didn't feel like her limbs were made of lead any more. She slipped out from under the covers, and to test herself she tried calling her cloak to her. It came, and she slipped it on. Well, that worked, but that didn't mean she was fully restored yet.

Her communicator was resting by her bedside, and Raven picked it up, turning to the general channel, even though she probably knew the result.

"Raven here. I'm back, for the moment. Anyone respond?" Raven asked.

Nothing but static. She was truly alone.

Raven sighed and dimmed the lights back down: they were hurting her eyes, as she sat on the bed and tried to decide what to do. Where were the Titans?

She tried to reach out to find them, but all she got was a patch of faint, scattered jumbles: Raven had no idea if what she felt were her friends or just some random people somewhere. And considering the state of the world, brief touches of pain, fear, and adrenaline-charged anger didn't mean much.

Of course, it was better then the old days. Such a strong outpouring of emotion would have sent her into a near catatonic state, terrified of the feelings awakening her dark side, the side of her father…it seemed like an eternity ago, a lifetime ago.

She wondered where Noel was. She didn't think he was dead, she could have sensed that, she was certain, but the rest…and what of Kyra, their daughter?

The thought bothered Raven. She was barely still out of childhood herself, the thought of having a fully grown one of her own was…disturbing.

But all the same, she hoped Kyra was all right. Like father, like daughter.

Kyra was all right, in the sense that she wasn't dead yet.

"Groddy grahhba…!" Kyra hissed through her teeth as she sent a giant bull at Fatality, only to have her effortlessly dodge it and come back at her, swinging her deadly energy staff. Kyra's chest was saved from being crushed as Kyra formed a giant slingshot around her own body and rapidly threw herself backwards, as she tried to get her thoughts organized.

But Fatality was relentless, merciless, a factor that had served her well in murdering Green Lanterns across the galaxy. Lanterns that had not deserved to die, but Fatality certainly thought they had.

The thought enraged Kyra: her training had been like any boot camp. She'd been taught to form that special bond with her group of neophyte Lanterns, the kind that had made the brotherhood among soldiers so strong, the kind that made soldiers dive on grenades to save their 'buddies'. And here was this alien, a murderer of her fellows, and all because…

"All right!" Kyra snapped, as twin spears formed in her hands and four more materialized around her, floating in mid-air. "Come on you…!"

Another crossbow bolt flew at her head: Kyra snapped her head to the side, and as Fatality charged in Kyra turned her six spears into a whirling, slicing shield of death, which would tear through anything that tried to attack it.

Except Fatality's staff: it smashed right through the constructs and forced Kyra to retreat. Damn, as she reformed her spears: she kept forgetting that blasted weapon could disrupt the hardlight constructs like OMAC Viridian had. If she just played defensive, she'd be toast.

Well, the best defense was a good offense as the saying went.

Fatality was charging in swinging again when Kyra zapped to the side and stabbed out with all six spears, the alien furiously dodging, even as Kyra flew upward, the spears whirling around her, and lanced down: Fatality dodged once more…and didn't dodge the seventh spear Kyra had trailing behind her, the weapon whacking her over the head and stunning her, as Kyra rammed into her and sent her falling down into the ice. Fatality snarled and flipped away as Kyra tried to land on her again with the spears, furiously giving chase when Kyra leapt away in a long flip from the blow. Fatality snapped out several throwing knives and hurled them at Kyra, but her whirlwind of spears battered them away, and then Kyra jerked back from Fatality's follow up skullcrusher attack and thrust her spears out again, this time in a spread out pattern that swung around Fatality. Enraged, the alien smashed two of the spears…and was left open as one slammed against the front of her knees a moment before another slammed into the back of her head: the fact that it was the shafts and not the points didn't lessen the pain much, as Fatality lost her staff in the process. Kyra called her spears back and lanced them all out again, only for Fatality to dodge them all and lunge, grabbing Kyra by the throat as she tried to pound her head in with the other hand: Kyra hit the ground and used the leverage against the alien as she hurled Fatality over her, flipping back up as Fatality landed well, flipped back over to her staff, and charged in again.

It was ironic that Kyra and Mary's foes had nearly mirror weapons, as the White Hole swung her mace down, shattering the ground once more as Mary leapt back and vanished into shadow, as six dark manifestations sprang up around the White Hole, and even as the White Hole recovered they attacked, besieging the alien warrior with rapid-fire strikes all over her body, her form jerking and writhing under the impacts.

However, the six shadows only managed a few combined 'drive by blows' before they surged away and reformed into Mary, as the teen gasped for air: she was getting tired.

And the White Hole looked as fresh as ever, as she reached up and placed her lost hat back on her head.

"What's wrong mutt? Spend too much time in the kitchen with your genetic trash of a mother? It doesn't matter how much power you have: you haven't the slightest clue how to use it."

"RAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!" Mary screamed, as an energy bolt flew from her mouth and exploded against the White Hole. She didn't even stagger.

"Pathetic." The alien said, and leapt in. Mary recalled her weapons and met her in mid air with her own slash, but the alien expertly deflected the attack with her own, causing Mary's arm to slam into the ground and leaving her flank wide open, as the White Hole spun and slammed a devastating kick into her side, sending her flying once more.

"Uh…" Metatron thought, as he saw all the chaos: maybe he should help. But then again, out on the ice he would weaken rapidly. Maybe he should stay here and be the rear guard as Nightwing had ordered. Then again…

"Ah man…" Yin said, looking at the same thing Metatron was seeing. "This isn't going very well!"

"Maybe we should help?" Ragnarok asked.

"Help? Oh you'll be needing it!"

They could be called hands, except they were nearly the size of people, as they slammed Ragnarok and Hex into the ground, as Yin recoiled and looked up.

"Madame Rouge?" He said in confusion.

An extended arm whacked him aside, as the woman set down. And she wasn't Madame Rouge. She looked like her, but she was too young.

"Wrong generation." The young woman snapped. "I'm Gemini. And you're ALL DEAD!" Gemini snarled as she leapt forward, shapeshifting into a Xenomorph as she tried to bite Yin's face off.

"Crap." Metatron said, as he saw this happen from a distance. "Well at least I can…"

"You will serve nicely."

The vial exploded in Metatron's face, and Metatron immediately began choking, his lungs filling with a vile gas…as his systems suddenly went crazy, his heartbeat speeding up so much it felt like his chest was going to explode, as Metatron tried to find his attacker, even as he was suddenly struck by intense vertigo…

"Yessssss…" The Scarecrow said, as he watched the teenager writhe in the grip of his fear toxin. "Very nicely, indeed."

The Psycho-Pirate gasped, as he recoiled, a backlash of his mental control running through him. Ugh, it wasn't like the old days: he couldn't constantly control so many strong minds, trying to drill through various safeguards, and everything.

He'd done enough. Without his emotion manipulating the effects on the villains would fade with time or distance, but he'd accomplished his goal: the heroes and villains were tearing each other apart, even as uncountable masses of OMAC's swarmed around and through the whole thing. Alexander was right: the heroes were finished. He was done worrying.

He could focus on other things.

And he had something he wanted to do very much…

Alexander was almost regretting his chosen strategy: the battle was making so much noise. He'd gotten used to quiet: the quiet of the false paradise, the quiet of his Arctic base, and now…

It didn't matter. His goal was closing in. He could feel it, as his gaze came to another Earth. A very familiar Earth.

"Earth-3. My home." Alexander said to himself. "Perhaps there is something there…"

Alexander brought Earth-3 closer, as his eyes spied something else. Something he also recognized.

Earth-2.

Scorched Earth came groggily back to life…in time to see Hellhound, or rather the new Hellhound, reaching down to stab him in the throat.

"BACK OFF!" Superboy yelled as he hurled Black Spider (another very new villain) into the red-garbed Hellhound. Scorched Earth blinked.

"You all right?" Superboy asked.

"…Yeah, thanks."

"Ok then, GO BACK TO BLASTING!" Superboy said, as he flew over and slammed into an OMAC that was sneaking up on Wonder Girl. Scorched Earth floated up and shook his head: that Australian had hit him hard…

And then Hellhound and Black Spider were back, eager to extract their pound of flesh.

Scorched Earth made them settle for a pounding.

Donar saw this briefly, having used a concentrated whirlwind to briefly distract his immensely powerful foe. Scorched Earth seemed to be handling himself all right. Some weren't: Donar caught a glimpse of Brick Wall, who was still getting the utter hell beat out of him by the General, the General's greater speed and agility serving him immensely well against the ponderous giant on the side of the angels. And he…

"ME AWAY!" Bizzaro yelled joyfully as he swung down, his axehandle blow slamming up against Mjolnir, the impact nearly driving him Donar to his knees, and before Donar knew what was happening Bizzaro had seized the hammer and yanked, spinning while holding it and whirling Donar around, Mjolnir's effect not kicking in because Donar WAS holding the hammer…

Key word was, as Donar let go purposely and tumbled painfully to the ground.

"Boo!" Bizzaro cheered, as he triumphantly held Mjolnir above his head.

For the second it took for its magic to kick in as the hammer dropped right down on the clone's head, smashing him down into the ground face first with a thunderous crack.

"Owie." Bizzaro's muffled voice came from the snow.

Donar ran back over, looking down at Bizzaro's limp body. The freakish being seemed to be out.

Donar nudged it with his foot. Nothing. He kicked it. Still nothing. He looked around: well, others needed help…and was that Jack Djinn? Donar owed the future version of him a few good blows for what he'd done to the fledgling Titans of the future. He was fighting, or choking, someone Donar didn't recognize, as he seized his hammer and lifted it up.

"Me am master of obvious!" Bizzaro said as he sprang up like nothing had happened and hammered Donar with a thunderous uppercut, sending the godling flying again. Bizzaro merrily went after him.

"Oh please struggle girlie. It makes it more fun for me." Asphyxiation said as he continued to choke the life out of the black-clad female. "And let's get you out of this helmet…"

The girl stomped her foot at the right angle finally, and a section of her boot opened and a noxious gas sprayed out, enveloping Jack Djinn. He recoiled, gagging, as his Grimmer grip loosened…and his victim broke free, as she viciously drove her fingers into his eyes and then kicked him in the side of the head. Jack staggered and cursed, as his former victim gasped air and tried to escape.

"OH NO YOU DON'T!" Jack roared, as he grabbed her by the ankles and yanked her off her feet, causing her to fall suddenly and violently, striking the side of her head and rattling her brains around inside. "No one gets away from me, birdie. Come here, you just made it worse…"

In the distance, Mary bounced across the ground and came to a rest on her stomach. She briefly rose, and then collapsed again, face down on the ground, her shadow weapons disintegrating. Blood pooled around her from several wounds.

"I expected nothing less from Nigicalnack's mongrel spawn." The White Hole said, landing as she swung her mace onto her shoulder. "Get up. So you can at least die on your feet like the small part of you that is actually Blacktrinian."

Nightmare stayed down.

"As you wish. Down, up, I SHALL FEAST ON YOUR FLESH TONIGHT!" The White Hole bellowed, and charged.

Nightmare stayed down, which actually infuriated the White Hole: she hated to kill an opponent who had already given up mentally.

"GET UP!" She roared, as she closed in.

And Mary looked up, her eyes burning with black power.

"I can't. I'm CONCENTRATING."

The White Hole's eyes went wide.

As Mary surged up and fired.

The blast was so powerful it shook the whole ground, blasting a cloud of icy dust and inky black smoke into the air, as the White Hole exploded from it like she'd been launched from a catapult and flew far far off into the distance.

Mary's ears heard her land, as she lowered her arms. But she wasn't done, as she spied the White Hole's shattered mace…and lost hat. Mary snatched the hat up and filled her nostrils with her scent. She'd show that White Hole just how powerful her bloodline was, as Mary sank into the shadows.

Nearly a mile and a half away, the White Hole sat up from the small crater she had made in landing, none the worse for wear…though she looked very confused.

"Ugghhhh…what's going on? Huh? Ugh, drugs must have kicked in again…" The White Hole said, sounding noticeably more calm and benign. "What happened, I remember that human city called New York…"

"STYLES." Came a voice dripping with malice, as Mary rose up from the shadows, clutching the discarded hat, as she tossed it aside, and, as darkness flowed out from around her, called up the nastiest glaive that had ever been wielded by a Blacktrinian. "You deride my father, made him sick with fear, left him in pain that never went away. What you did to him, I will repay TEN TIMES OVER…"

"Oh, you found my hat." The White Hole said, as she picked it up and put it on. "Thanks."

"….HUH?" Mary said, utterly floored by this sudden change. The White Holes did not do trickery in their combat styles: they used their mouths to chew up and spit out rather then try and lie.

"Do I know you miss? Could you tell me what's going on?" The White Hole said as she got up. "I see a huge fight. But I'm not sure of the stakes."

"…What? Styles, you and I were…and then…and all…!" Mary stammered.

And then she remembered the future. In the heat of battle she'd forgotten.

A change in her path. Apparently, she was already walking it. Before someone had forced her on a detour.

"Was I in there? Damn, someone must have induced my original mental state before I started medicating." The White Hole said as she got up. "Well, if we were fighting, we're done. I'm leaving…wait. Was anyone else with me?" The White Hole said.

"What?" Mary said, still not believing what was happening…never realizing her gigantic attack had knocked the White Hole clear of the Psycho-Pirate's fading talent, completely cutting off his influence like a switch.

"Was anyone…oh man, OMAC's, those are nasty little…SINE!" The White Hole called, as she sprinted off, back towards the battle.

"…It's official. We're in the Twilight Zone." Mary said, as she headed after the radically changed Blacktrinian.

Unlike the White Hole, whose brain had been vulnerable to such mental control, Prometheus' helmet protected him from such influences. He was completely calm and in control, which explained why he'd strolled around a bit and watched some of the fights before he decided to get involved.

Savior didn't know that fact: probably best. It would have terrified him even more.

"Yes, I think I recall coming across you in my research. Would be acolyte of the bat, sniffs around him and his wards like a puppy. Would that be accurate?"

Savior didn't say anything. For once, he couldn't think of anything to say.

"Well then, no need for any of the GOOD stuff." Prometheus said, as he reached up and pressed a button on his helmet. "I suppose the combined fighting styles of David Cain and Lady Shiva will be enough."

Twin appendages, on each side of Prometheus' helmet, began to crackle and surge with power, electricity coming off in long waves from them. Savior actually took a step back.

"Come then, Savior, as it were. Let me show you the folly of standing in Batman's shadow." Prometheus said, and lunged, swinging his nightstick around in a complicated pattern as he attempted to distract Savior away from where the fatal blow would be struck.

Savior leapt backwards several feet, and then, amazingly, he actually threw up his hands.

"I surrender!"

"You WHAT?" Prometheus said, actually stopping. "You just give up? What kind of a sycophant to the Bat are you?"

"The smart kind. Spare me. Please." Savior said.

"Oh this is the wrong tack kid. I HATE beggars." Prometheus said. "I'm just going to hurt you even more. I think I'll start by breaking your arms and jamming the broken ends into nerve clusters."

"Please. I am beneath you. Out of your league. I don't deserve you."

"As a certain cowboy once said, deserve'd got nothing to do with it." Prometheus replied as he approached.

"Oh no…" Savior said, as Prometheus spun his nightstick some more. "This is not a fight I can win."

"Too bad for you."

"Maybe. Because I happen to know someone who can." Savior said, and bowed.

As the Nightarangs flew over him. Prometheus made a brief yell and got his nightstick up, the energy-charged weapon expertly wielded as Prometheus knocked the weapons out of the air, though the process peppered Prometheus with tiny albeit sharp bits of shrapnel. He lowered his nightstick and growled, as Nightwing dropped down next to Savior.

"Nice guess. How did you know I'd come to save your bacon?" Nightwing said.

"I have little faith in many things Nightwing. One of them is with you."

"Heh. Your jaw must get heavy with that silver tongue Savior." Nightwing said as he produced his escrima combat sticks. "You go rally the troops. I'll deal with Prometheus."

"Deal? I single-handedly dissected your mentor, boy. I am not some villain you can just beat up and throw back into an asylum!" Prometheus said.

"You sure you can do this by yourself?"

"I got it." Nightwing said, his eyes intense.

"Before I go, I noticed a flaw in…"

"The OMAC's won't attack the villains. I know. I found that out when they didn't blast me while I was re-introducing an old friend to some old acquaintances of his." Nightwing said (meaning his fists to Brutale). "Go! Quick!"

"Yes sir." Savior said, and leapt away.

"Henh." Prometheus said, as he twirled his nightstick one more. "You should have kept the kid. Might have bought you an extra five seconds. I think I'll mail you to Batman eyeless, earless, and limbless, so all he can do is hear you scream."

"Are you actually going to attack, or try and talk me to death like most of those villains I've locked up in Arkham?"

Prometheus' hand was a blur, as he hurled several darts at Nightwing, who leapt to avoid them, as Prometheus leapt to meet him, his nightstick going straight for Dick's heart.

Kyra hit the ground and flipped over, trying to ignore the pain in her side as the spears continued to whirl around her. God. Damn. It. For every move she had, Fatality had a counter.

So far, as the alien charged in again.

Kyra hurled a spear at her, and then again, and again, the alien dodging rapidly as she closed in.

As Kyra instantly reformed the spears, having successfully drawn Fatality in for her close range attack, as she seized her hands on two of her spears, swinging her left arm in a wide arc and then her right arm after it in an up and down sweep arc, then leaping and flipping as she stabbed with two spears and slashed in an outwards arc with two more, then leaping forward as she rapidly spun two more spears, and then finally reared back and whirled all her spears around her in a wide range circle of death.

It was a magnificent display of weaponmanship.

Unfortunately, Fatality blocked every single blow.

"GUH?" Kyra gasped, as she realized she hadn't lured Fatality in for her trap: FATALITY HAD LURED HER INTO HER OWN.

The staff end pierced into her chest, and as Kyra screamed Fatality thrust her weapon up and swung it down hard into the ground, and then swung it back up and hurled Kyra away.

She glanced at the blood on the end of her weapon, and then licked at it, grinning madly.

Then she saw the girl moving: damn, she'd thought her blow wasn't deep enough. But she'd fix that, as she went after the girl for the last time…

Raven sucked air between her teeth. Was this her daughter? Could she even tell with how badly the magics were screwed up? Raven didn't know, and that made her feel even more helpless.

She had to do something. Even if she couldn't locate her friends, her…family…surely she could do something. Jump City surely had problems. It was better then just sitting around.

Yet…she didn't go.

Instead, she rose from her meditative position, her efforts to find her friends fruitless (even if she had briefly located her daughter, it didn't tell where she was), and walked over to her cabinet, covered with mystical artifacts and charms. Including one quite special to her.

It was in the rough shape of a T, and it was bound and sealed with a part of each and all of her friends. It was her 'homing beacon', a magical creation of her own design that would serve to call her back to the Tower if she was lost. It was it she had seized on during the teleportation accident, otherwise she and Noel would have been scattered on the literal winds.

Maybe she could use it…no. Magic was too damaged, too uncertain. The risks far outweighed everything else.

…Still…

And then she sensed it.

A moment before it appeared, a shifting portal of black, opening up in the middle of her room.

And as Raven stared at it, she realized one thing: she'd seen a lot of stuff, and hence her perception was drastically different from the average human.

But she knew damn well when she was in the presence of something that shouldn't exist.

But it was here.

And it was coming for her.

"Solomon Grundy…"

"YEAH YEAH I HAVE IT MEMORIZED!" Potent yelled as he violently kicked Grundy across the head, staggering the zombie. What was going on? How did Grundy keep shrugging off his blows? Had whatever brought him back this time pumped him full of steroids before sending him off? It was REALLY starting to make Potent angry…

Especially when Grundy backhanded him, sending him flying back several feet. He flipped after his second landing on the ground though, snarling and raising his gem sword.

"All right, then! I'll just hack you into so many pieces they'll need to invent a new day of the week to find the time to count them all!"

Potent charged.

Solomon Grundy did as well, as they collided…

And then were shoved aside as the White Hole barreled through them, knocking them both down.

"Huh?"

"Grundy?"

Potent was first up and took advantage of it, as he slashed out, slicing a deep wound into Grundy's chest, greenish blood spurting out as Potent slashed again, and again, carving Grundy up…

"Solomon…" Grundy gurgled.

Potent leapt over his punch and buried the hilt of his gem sword into the top of Grundy's skull with a sickening cracking noise. Grundy staggered…stumbled…and fell on his face.

"Born on a Monday…" Grundy whispered, and stopped moving, as Potent stepped back, taking deep breaths.

"EJ!"

Potent turned as Mary appeared before him.

"Did you just see an alien run…wow you're a mess. You MUST be slipping." Mary teased.

"Oh shut up! This is all minor surface damage! You can't hurt me…and yes, alien! Went that way! What gives!"

"You got me!"

"Pretty man fun to play with!" Bizzaro said, as he slammed an elbow into Donar's back, sending the teen godling falling to the ground once more. Donar hurt all over, and he was nearly at a loss. He'd used virtually everything he had except…

"Me coming down!" Bizzaro said as he dove towards his 'playmate', his simple mind easy to manipulate by the Psycho-Pirate into being so violent.

It was his last trick, but a good one, as Donar rolled out of the way and sprang to his feet, as Bizzaro stomped where he had once been.

"Hey! You not move! Fair!" Bizarro complained.

"As you say." Donar said, and raised his hammer.

Bizzaro didn't understand what Donar yelled: no one in the villain group probably would have, as it wasn't likely any of them spoke ancient Norse.

But Bizzaro didn't need to puzzle over it long, as Donar thrust Mjolnir up and a blast of lightning flew from it and up into the sky, Bizzaro following it.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!"

As it came back down.

On Bizzaro.

Ten times harder.

The massive form jerked under the sheer power of the electricity, as Donar lowered his hammer.

Blackened and smoking, Bizzaro slowly lowered his head.

"…Ears tingly." Bizzaro said, and fell on his face.

Donar dropped Mjolnir and leaned down, hands on his knees, taking deep breaths as he wiped his face.

"Well, at least I still have it." Donar said.

"I gotcha!" Jack Djinn said, as he yanked his target back into his grasp. "It's time for you to learn birdie: I do what I want, when I want, and I want you. SCREAMING." Jack said, as his hands closed over the girl's throat again, the Grimmer holding her down as he pressed in on the windpipe, the girl gasping in the helpless way he loved…

A finger tapped on his shoulder.

"Buzz off! This one is mine! Get your…!"

A clawed hand came down, shredding the Grimmer like paper before another one seized Jack and whirled him around, as the misogynistic Australian suddenly found himself staring into the cold, hateful face of the White Hole.

"…Oops." Jack said.

The White Hole seized him by the throat, lifting him up effortlessly.

"Oops doesn't begin to cover the beginning of it." The White Hole snarled. "Normally, I would eat your living organs, but I don't have the time to hang around. So I'll just settle for the next most painful thing." The White said.

Then she slammed Asphyxiation into the ground. Hard. Four times.

And that was just the warmup.

"ANYONE WHO HAS A GRUDGE AGAINST JACK DJINN, FREE PICKINGS!" The White Hole yelled, as she wound up and hurled the murderer away. She was sure someone had heard her: she could yell VERY loud.

Jack Djinn crashed through a wall of ice and tumbled around, cursing as he tried to get the Grimmer back in order. Stupid alien, he'd get her, her and her friend, he'd find a way, as he got up, reforming his hands, getting charged…

"DJINN!" Came a bellow, and Jack looked up as Donar came down, hammer charged. "FOR ODIN! FOR ASGARD! AND ESPECIALLY FOR ME AND MINE!"

"BLOODY HELL!" Jack screamed, as he tried to form a Grimmer shield.

Mjolnir smashed right through it and sent Jack flying backwards like a bullet, as he smashed through the same ice wall AGAIN and bounced violently across the ground before coming to a stop nearly 75 feet away, as he groaned and then passed out.

"Now that, tis satisfying." Donar said, as he swung the hammer around and then turned to see who needed aid.

"NAP DONE!"

Donar's trip through the ice wall was the one that finally shattered it to pieces, as Bizzaro laughed at the destruction and followed, eager to continue 'playing'.

"Sine? Are you all right?" The White Hole asked, as Jack's victim sat up, coughing violently as she pulled off her helmet, freeing a long mane of red hair.

"Stupid…bastard…next time, rip his head off and shove it up his ass so he can watch me kick the crap out of him." Sine cursed.

"It's a promise." The White Hole replied. From a psychotic butcher to a concerned woman, it was quite a jarring change.

"Beck…you ok? Someone was messing with our minds…I was somewhat protected but you…"

"I'm ok now. Got far away enough to snap out of it. Let's get out of here before it really goes to hell."

"It hasn't already?" Sine said as she stood up, coughing once more. "Ugh, it's official. Joining the Society was a mistake."

"Entirely?" The White Hole said, as she actually looked sad.

"I didn't say that." Sine replied. The White Hole grinned.

"…What…the….hell." Potent said, as he and Mary watched the two run off, quickly disappearing into the masses. "I was told the White Hole was an irredeemable butcher, the scourge of civilizations, and a woman who drank oceans of blood and thirsted for more."

"You'd be amazed what one person…well, and a metric ton of pacifying drugs can do to a person." Mary replied.

"What?"

"Don't you ever read history? The Society broke her out of prison, they wanted her power. But she was too damn unpredictable on her own, they didn't want her slaughtering half their number on a whim. So what did they do? Drug her to the gills. Take away whatever made all these villains so mad, it appears said gills-level of drugs reasserted themselves. Hence, the White Hole you just saw."

"…But you'd think the drugs would…and they can't just turn on and off, the drugs themselves couldn't do it, so how did they and...so...wait, did we just see two villains break the hold over them through the power of friendship or bonds or love or SOMETHING in that vein?"

"Looks like it."

"UGH. I cannot believe how sappy that is."

"Canadian forest in winter level."

"Promise me that will never happen to us."

"Sure."

"In fact let's go trash some more things to make sure. I call…"

"Monday." Solomon Grundy said as he charged into Potent's back, carrying him off once again. Mary stared for a moment in surprise, and then she laughed.

"I think he likes you!"

"JUST HELP ME DAMN IT!"

"Oh ok, if you can't do it yourself." Mary grinned, as she raised her hands. "I call upon the shadows…"

"No, you don't."

Mary's shadow literally rose up in front of her and hammered her with a punch to the face, causing Mary to stumble back, caught completely off guard as she landed on her rear, as the shadows took shape before her.

"My, aren't you just overflowing with dark power." The Shadow-Thief said. "I think I'll take it all."

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Hex cried as she flew back, an ugly slash wound on her sternum, as Gemini reformed the hand that had clawed Hex into a hammer and swung it faster then Ragnarok could react, the hammer impacting into the side of his head and pitching him onto the ground, a crack running across his goggles.

"Stop it you…!" Yin snapped as he stretched up and around Gemini, trying to entangle her shifting form with her own.

"What is this?" Gemini laughed, as she expanded outward, and Yin found he couldn't keep up, yelling with pain as he felt his skin painfully tense and his bones pop. "You call yourself a shifter? You aren't worthy to be in a slingshot!" Gemini laughed as her neck surged forward, her face and head transforming into a mass of cables that closed around Yin's upper half and contracted violently, even as her shifting lengths, er, shifted and smashed Yin into the ground.

Scarecrow saw this in the corner of his eye, but he didn't pay much attention: he wanted to see how long a teenager's strong heart held out before it gave out.

"Yesssss…do you feel the terror?" Scarecrow hissed/laughed, as Metatron continued to agonize, caught in whatever terrible visions the fear toxin had induced. "Perhaps we need even more of a motivation…"

Metatron tore his hands away from his eyes…even as Scarecrow shoved his own masked face into his. This would startle even normal people, much less someone given as big as a dose of the fear toxin Metatron had been given. Of course, he had to get close to the teenager…but he was so freaked out that the risk was minimal.

"Stare into the face OF FEAR!" Scarecrow thundered.

Metatron recoiled, clamped his hands to his face once more…and then yanked him down, his golden eyes now clear and blazing. Scarecrow had erred. He'd assumed Metatron was human. He wasn't. It had taken him a bit to shake off the fear gas, but his system had rapidly broken it down and cleared it, leaving him normal, and angry.

Something Scarecrow could see only too clearly.

"Oh dear."

"STARE INTO THE FIST OF MET!" Metatron yelled, and punched Scarecrow so hard his children probably felt it, sending the lanky psychopath flying backwards, spinning in mid-air as he landed on his face.

"Ow." Metatron said, shaking his fist. Well, so much for him. If he only had a brain…

"You…"

The sound that came from the Scarecrow's mouth was even nastier then before, and even as Metatron watched, worse was to come, as Scarecrow's body jerked violently…and then began to expand.

Metatron's eyes widened. He didn't know all the details of this world. Didn't know that here, Crane was forever experimenting with his fear toxins as well as other chemicals, and that that had finally had a new horrific effect, contaminating Jonathon Crane's body and mutating it into a brand new form, as the Scarecrow's form racked and shifted, growing ever larger, as he stood up, Crane's burlap mask having merged into a terribly twisted and organic face. In times of great stress, or to save his life, like a familiar green-skinned character from another comic company, Crane would undergo the transformation…and emerge even worse then before.

And he was done, as he turned and roared, towering over Metatron, now a twisted giant scarecrow/creature, a Scarebeast. Spittle dripped from his fanged maw, a trace or two of string still interwoven around the deadly teeth.

"NOOOWWWWW…" The Scarebeast growled, as it lurched forward. "Youuuuu…will learn…the TRUE MEANING OF FEEARRRRRR!"

Metatron watched as the monstrous new creature approached, raising a hand with clawed fingers and hard, needle-like straw that secreted a natural fear toxin, a hand that would either tear Metatron to shreds or condemn him to madness…

As Metatron held up his own hand, and his golden power ignited on it.

"How about a little fire, Scarecrow?"

WHOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSH!

"ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!" The Scarebeast bellowed, his body igniting from the concentrated blast of heat, the flames quickly spreading to engulf his whole form, as he wailed and ran, fleeing from the rock and off into the ice.

"…He'll fall down, the ice will put him out. Yeah." Metatron said, and turned to where the other battle on the rock was.

At least the OMAC's were keeping their distance, Metatron noticed. What he didn't know was that was because Gemini was thoroughly thrashing his three companions, and per their programming they were not allowed to interfere. The master shapeshifter, Yin still prone at her feet, was once again laying a beatdown on Hex and Ragnarok, the bad luck blasts and rock projectiles seemingly having no affect on her, as she transformed her limbs into deadly spiked whips and lashed at the two, battering them down.

"This is the best you can offer?" Gemini laughed, as she stretched upward like a snake, her legs having merged together into such a tail. "Why should I even bother?"

"Oh dear." Metatron said, and broke into a run, as he sprinted to a wall, ran up it, bounced off, ricocheted off another wall, and unfurled his wings briefly to give himself the proper boost as he soared up, bounced off Gemini's elongated back, and flipped over as he landed in front of her via grabbing her shoulders.

"Hello." Metatron said, and viciously clawed her across the face.

"ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!" Gemini screamed, as Metatron dropped himself down and leapt away to get away from the flailing mass that Gemini had become.

"Nice shot." Hex said, back on her feet despite her injuries.

"Not really. I was going for her throat." Metatron replied. Yin bounced over.

"This isn't good guys. I can stretch and bounce and all, but she can do it better, and transform as well. We…" Yin said.

"KILL YOU!" Gemini shrieked, as her mass expanded and her form took on the shape of what looked like some demonic creature from some horror comic or anime. "EAT YOU!"

"Will kick her ass anyway." Metatron said.

A massive clawed hand slammed down where the group had been, as they scattered in different directions.

"Keep her away from the recovered people!" Ragnarok ordered.

"Got it." Metatron said, as he charged another shot of power and hurled off twin golden blasts. They exploded against Gemini's large face, and she recoiled and wailed. A slight ghost of a smirk crossed over Metatron's face.

"They don't like heat." Metatron remarked to Yin, who was near him. "They never do."

That was the last thing Metatron said.

The wave of ice came from nowhere, and before Metatron was even aware of it it washed over him, freezing him into a statue.

Yin's eyes went wide, almost bugging out in a comical effect. Cold affected him badly, but nowhere as badly as it affected Metatron. Frozen solid he could be dead in a minute, less, and…

Who had frozen…

"Funny…" Killer Frost said from her platform of ice. "Neither do I."

Mary found herself hitting the ground again, and she growled and surged back up. But the form she slashed at just moved and shifted away, untouchable, living shadow. And she couldn't…

Shadow-Thief punched Mary in the gut and then slammed repeated punches across her face. Mary snarled in rage and fired black beams from her eyes, but Shadow-Thief just stood there and took them, the darkness stopping dead.

"Ohhhhhhh delicious." Shadow-Thief said, and kicked Mary under the chin. She hit the ground again.

Nightmare got back up, but her eyes were cloudy and dull, dead on her feet. Pleased, the Shadow-Thief surged in.

"I can use these powers better anyway darling." He commented, and grabbed her by the neck.

Mary screamed, and the Shadow-Thief laughed, as the darkness began to be drawn into him, his size increasing, so much power, he could…

Wait…the power! It was stopping!

It was…reversing!

Shadow-Thief tried to recoil, but his hands were stuck, as Mary's glazed eyes cleared in an instant, cold fury beneath them as she reached up with one hand and seized Shadow-Thief by his throat in turn.

She'd been bluffing. Luring him in.

"No one, and I mean NO ONE, beats ME when it comes to the power within the shadows!" Mary snapped, and pulled with all her might.

Shadow-Thief screamed…and then the darkness tore off him, revealing a man in a shirt-circuiting suit, as the man spasmed and then went limp in Mary's grip. Mary tossed him away in disgust and cracked her shoulders and neck. That had been a nice little recharge actually. Now to help her…

Three beams hit her in the back. And unlike some other things, this hurt. A LOT. A cry of pure agony escaped Mary as she was thrown down, once again, her back and shoulders in agony, as she whirled around.

OMAC's. Approaching slowly, floating in the air, their eyes still glowing…solar power. They'd zapped her with solar power. It had hurt the Lord and it could damn sure hurt her, and if they hit her with too much she was…

The three fired their solar beams again.

A shield of black energy sprang up between them and Mary, Nightmare barely managing to hold it, but she did…long enough for her to send the power outward and envelop the OMAC's. A gesture from Mary, and their armor and circuitry was torn from their human hosts, as the innocents fell down onto the ice.

Mary stood once more, taking deep breaths. Damn. They'd found her weak spot. And how many…

And Mary's eyes slid to the side.

OMAC's.

Beside her.

Behind her.

And as Mary turned and looked around, all around her. Dozens of them.

And there wasn't any help near her. She was on her own.

They floated there. Why? Battle planning? Probably. Wipe out the hero and do it in less then two seconds…

Yeah, right.

Mary held out her hands, and once again the shadow glaive and daggertails formed.

"Well come up blue boys. I ain't getting any younger." Mary said, and flew forward.

The beams flew to meet her.

Deadly beams of heat flew from Superboy's eyes, burning another OMAC into submission. Heh, he remembered when his heat vision had first started kicking in: it'd be so random he'd find it not activating in battles and activating when he was doing something much more benign, like say, swimming. Such were the problems of being a hybrid clone…but he'd overcome them: he could now fine tune it to such an extent that he could take down an OMAC and not harm a human host…

…So where was this fine control, this learning, when he had needed it earlier? It had vanished, to the wind. Maybe it had as much substance as the wind…

Another OMAC crashed down near him, and as Superboy was snapped back into reality Wonder Girl leapt into his field of vision, her bracelets holding off two OMAC's slashing blades. Damn. Was he still having these doubts? This was not the time…!

Superboy would have gone to help, except someone beat him to it, as Savior leapt in from behind and smashed his feet into one OMAC, knocking it down as he disabled it, leaving Cassie to handle the other one.

"How goes the breakthrough?" Savior asked, and Conner realized he was talking to him.

"…Not so well."

"Sucking." Cassie added, as she indicated the seven OMAC's that were coming to replace the two, and the many many more behind them.

"I gathered. Well, no fault of yours."

"Says who?" Superboy asked.

"Says ME. I study battles as a hobby Conner. And…JACK!"

"I'm here!" Scorched Earth said as he flew over their heads and fired off another wide range Scorch-Wave, sending yet more OMAC's smoking to the ground.

"Thanks. How are you feeling?" Savior asked the future hybrid.

"Part of me is thinking it would like to nap, the other part wishes this would never end. Bar's kinda in the middle at the moment."

"Don't do anything too big. You're a valuable asset. As are you Conner." Savior said.

"Look Noel, I don't want a pep talk…"

"Yes, very bad time! But Conner, it is also a bad time for…" Savior said.

His eyes had just been looking around, keeping an eye on their flanks, and at the sheer distance Savior should have never seen it. But he did, and once he did, his eyes locked onto it.

"…You." Savior said.

"It's a bad time for me?" Conner asked in confusion.

"No. Yes. I…all right." Savior said. "Dick is occupied, he may not be able to return to lead the charge. And I…I can't either. So Conner, you're in charge. You're the front line. You have to break through. I'll send all the help I can muster, which may not be much, but it's up to you. We have to get to that Tower. We've already outlasted our welcome out here, by far. You have to do it."

"But…"

"Conner, there are two kinds of men. The righteous who think they are sinners, and the sinners who think they are righteous. I know what kind you are. So do they. We all do." Savior said. Wonder Girl and Scorched Earth nodded. "Time for you to realize it. I know you can do it."

"You're just saying that."

"Like the other Superboy said. Both words. One truth. But I, or he, can't reveal it to you with talking. Only you can, with action. So go. Be the hero. Superboy." Savior said.

And then he was gone.

"…Yeah, he was always doing that in the future too. Oh look, here I am with my magical talking powers! I swear he could balance a car on that tongue, he works it out so much." Scorched Earth said, trying to lighten the mood. "I believe him Superboy. I know that with you, I'll come back alive."

"As will I." Wonder Girl said. "Go on. Superboy."

"…Well first could you lean back for a second…" Superboy said as he gestured to Scorched Earth, who, confused, did so…as Superboy blasted yet another OMAC away.

Leaving roughly the 8,000 behind him.

Despite it all, Conner Kent, Superboy, found himself grinning.

"Titans, GO!" Superboy ordered, and the three charged.

Savior was unaware that while giving Superboy a brief pep talk before running off that maybe there were others who could use his help in a more solid way.

Like his daughter Kyra, Myth, a Green Lantern, who was finding out just why Fatality had left a trail of slain Green Lanterns in her wake, as she got up to one knee, hand pressed against her chest. Her armor had served her well, keeping her ribs from breaking or her organs from being pierced, but it still hurt like hell, along with the half dozen or so wounds elsewhere on her body.

And Fatality was coming.

To her, Kyra was just another notch on her belt.

Kyra'd belt her alright, as she stood up, her rage flowing through her, as her ring began spitting sparks, a condition that occasionally happened when a Green Lantern was filled with a certain kind of intensity (or if you were Guy Gardner, all the time). She hadn't known Stewart very well when he'd died, but his friends and allies had told her much of him afterward, and in his ring she could almost feel the sorrow that had haunted him to his heroic end…the sorrow only addled by this woman…

Kyra was a Green Lantern…and more. And she'd see if she couldn't do something about the mistakes of the past, while in the past.

"You took his ring. How? Why?" Fatality asked, as if she'd read her mind (or maybe she'd realized it before and was just mentioning it now). "It doesn't matter. All you've done is ensure an end more painful then most. I wonder if Stewart will weep when he finds you."

Kyra locked eyes with Fatality.

"YOU. STUPID. TWIT." Kyra hissed. "You KNOW the truth. Xanshi wasn't destroyed by John Stewart. Stewart tried to SAVE your planet. He made a mistake in doing so alone, and because of that he could not stop it from being destroyed. That mistake, that failing, weighed on him for the rest of his life. He didn't go a day without thinking about it. He never forgot it. Ever. But you…you turned his tragic mistake into a self-righteous reason to murder Green Lanterns. You know that's true! And you know why you can't ever face it…"

"BE QUIET!" Fatality screamed, as she swung her deadly staff down.

Kyra caught it, by the shaft, with her ring hand, away from the deadly energy that disrupted her powers.

"Because you need that excuse to cloak your bloodthirst. Maybe at first you were misguided, but you're not any more. You just LIKE to kill. The Green Lanterns are just a convenient target for your own inability to control the sadistic desires you've developed. And in that you're more of a disgrace to your race then STEWART COULD EVER BE!"

The energy staff shattered in Kyra's grip, as Kyra followed that up by forming a dome of energy over her body and shoving Fatality back: her accusations may have stunned the psychotic alien for a bit but that wouldn't last long, as Kyra flew backwards, and indeed Fatality followed, screaming at her again, cursing her in her native tongue, but Kyra didn't care: the rage in Fatality was mirrored in her, as she kept their eyes locked and brought her ring to bear.

"And I think it's time you tasted some of the suffering that he carried. EAT UP!" Kyra yelled, and began firing rapid-fire discs, razor sharp, that whirled towards Fatality in a storm of deadly projectiles, but Fatality still dodged them all, effortlessly, as she brought up her crossbow and fired again, and again, Kyra dodging the shots as she continued firing her discs.

"YOU CALL THIS A RIGHTEOUS ASSAULT! THIS IS PATHETIC! DISMAL! WRETCHED!" Fatality shouted as she kept dodging. "YOU KNOW NOTHING! YOU WILL SUFFER! I WILL EAT YOUR HEART…!"

And then Fatality was suddenly jerked back, stopping dead as she gasped. What had happened? She had avoided all the projectiles, she was…

Fatality looked down and saw it.

A green line lay across her body, a thread composed of hardlight, holding her back. She snarled and tried to get her arms up so she could break it…

Except another line appeared across her, and then another, pulling her arms back again, ans Fatality looked up at Kyra, floating there, as one of her green discs whirled back around Fatality…

And then Fatality saw it, like they appeared from thin air: the discs were not alone. They were all at the end of long thin threads…threads she had not seen until now…but how…

She didn't know, and it was too late: Myth hadn't been firing a series of projectiles. She'd been weaving a web, as the discs had flown around Fatality, their lines trailing around her…and around the chunk of glacial ice that was behind her.

And with that they contracted, yanking her backwards with a scream as they slammed her back first into the ice, even as more and more threads wrapped around her, pinning her to the glacier, she couldn't move, how, she had seen the discs clearly, no threads, HOW…

Kyra floated down in front of her as Fatality shrieked and thrashed, a tiny web of lines snaking from her ring, connected to all her whirling discs, as she closed her eyes and nodded solemnly.

"Rest in peace John."

And Kyra threw back her hands, and with a scream fired a gigantic blast of power: no shapes, no fanciness, just pure, unrivaled impact.

Fatality saw it fill her eyes, a vision of green.

The blast smashed the alien through the glacial ice and beyond, as Fatality flew off into the distance, so far away she disappeared. She hit a mountain side, and did not get up when she came to a stop.

Kyra lowered her ring, as the glacier collapsed before her. She snorted.

"Flawless victory." She quipped.

"No, far from it actually." Came a new voice.

Kyra knew that voice.

And it turned her heart to ice.

No.

NO.

Kyra turned around, slowly, hoping, wishing…

Wish not granted. She'd dealt with a nightmare to one Green Lantern…only to find herself face to face with the greatest nightmare any and all Green Lanterns had ever faced.

Purple skin. Black hair and neat mustache. An outfit of black and blue that mirrored her own. And a ring of Qwardian yellow.

The Green Lantern's greatest foe. Their greatest failure.

"But I think you'll provide me with some amusement." Sinestro said.

Donar may have never met Bizzaro before today, but he was rapidly approaching the top of Donar's enemy list, as a combination punch/shove sent the godling sliding back on the ice before he stopped, hunched over, breathing heavily, Mjolnir gripped in both hands. How could such a mortal creature be so mighty, so indestructible? It seemed the blows that Donar had rained down on Bizzaro would have left every Frost Giant that had ever lived in their graves, but Bizzaro barely seemed affected at all, his mad grin eternal, his medallion of BIZZARO NO 1 only somewhat dented from the glancing blows it had taken.

"Me am still very amused! Me think me not end this now!" Bizzaro said, and charged forward once more.

Donar blinked, and then grit his teeth. Was this the end? Was this his Ragnarok? (Not the hero).

…Then so be it. He would fight with every drop of blood shed, with every breath left in his body, as he raised Mjolnir…

And then Savior came down on Bizzaro's shoulders, the Shimmer firing out and going into each ear.

Bizzaro stopped dead in surprise, a look of confusion crossing his face, as Savior jerked downward, putting his mouth near Bizzaro's ear.

"Bizzaro, listen. I am YOUR WORST ENEMY." Savior hissed.

Silence.

"No. Me not do what you wish." Bizzaro said, as his hands went limp at his sides.

Donar almost dropped Mjolnir. He'd been battered across the Arctic by this creature, and then Mr. Collins…

…lived up to his reputation: a great tactical mind. If you couldn't beat 'em, join 'em, or in this case, make them join you.

"All you all right?" Savior asked.

"…my bloodline can sustain far more then whatever thrashing this creature could present…but I must ask…how did you do that? So quickly?"

Savior's brow was furled, and he took a second before answering.

"Let's just say…I had a bit of a road map." Savior replied. And he did. He'd tried to hack into a Kryptonian brain no more then 24 hours ago. Of course, that didn't exactly make him an instant expert, and if this had been anything else Savior would have never tried it…but he'd made a desperate gamble. Bizzaro was the imperfect clone of Superman, instinctively doing the opposite of whatever he would do (including beat up superheroes, if one didn't count the Maxwell Lord factor)…so it stood to reason that his brain would be the same, or quite similar, to Superboy-Prime's…just with everything backwards. And so, Savior had gone into the brain with the concept that everything would be like that…reversed.

And lo and behold, he had been right.

Of course, that was just half the battle. Bizzaro's brain was more then a backwards Superman's. It was a place of utter confusion and madness, a place utter alien to the human mind…a fact that was already clawing at Savior's own brain. It was like trying to manipulate a puppet with the wooden sticks covered with razor blades, to describe it one way. Savior couldn't do this all day: hell he estimated doing it for more then two minutes would risk brain damage on his part. He had to be FAST.

"Go help Superboy! He needs all the help he can get! Hurry! I can handle this!"

"Are you…"

"YES! GO!"

"Yes sir. Thank you, and fare thee well." Donar said, as he flew off.

"What we not doing?" Bizzaro asked, as Savior fought furiously with the lunacy within Bizzaro's brain to try and issue him commands.

"We're NOT playing "Follow The Leader". STAY!" Savior yelled, and Bizzaro flew forward, whooping joyfully.

The squad of OMAC's that Savior directed Bizzaro to never knew what hit them.

Unfortunately, he didn't direct them at the squad of OMAC's that was currently trying to blast Nightmare out of existence.

Then again, Mary probably would have yelled at him if he'd tried.

The blasts of solar power flew over her shoulder as she dodged and spun, slashing across the OMAC's in front of her and tearing through their armor like wet toilet paper. Mary's control of her dark power could let her set her 'offensive state' so it only affected certain things: steel but not wood, concrete but not plastic, and in this case, robotics without flesh. One thing was for certain, she at least wouldn't have any innocent deaths on her hands.

Except maybe her own.

And she was far from innocent, as she leapt away and spun again, her daggertails tearing through six more OMAC's, and then leapt and spun again, her glaive leaving four more OMAC's on the ground. More solar beams blasted at her, but Mary just leapt backwards and then to the side again, using her powers to scramble their targeting units.

Another wide roundhouse slash disabled two more OMAC's. Another leap to the side, and Mary stabbed out her daggertails, impaling three OMAC's and hurling them into three more, as Mary blasted all six and then disappeared into the shadows on the ground, popping out elsewhere in the mass and slashing three OMAC's across the back.

The cyborgs converged on her once more, as Mary dodged, spun, and slashed, carving a vicious circle as she shattered OMAC's left and right (man, were they getting weaker? What gave?), but more came.

And some were adapting, as they flew up above their fellows, trying to blast Mary from above. Mary did a high leaping backflip away from the first converged blast and looked up, and then snorted as two more OMAC's tried to ambush her from behind. One leaping slash took them down, as Mary landed in a crouch and then sprang upward, flying upward into the air, slashing and tearing through OMAC's on the way up, and then she snapped back her right arm and hurled the glaive out, the shadow blade whirling through the air and tearing across the OMAC's scattered above Mary, as she fell once more, her daggertails taking down four OMAC's below her before the glaive flew back into her hand behind her back, and Mary slashed them both down as she landed, blasting eight more of the robots into inactivity as she landed. Yes, she was definitely getting somewhere…

She sensed it more then saw or heard it, a sudden terrible sense of danger that screamed at her to move, and move she did, as she leapt and twirled away…

A second before a blast of massive power utterly obliterated the spot she had been on. Mary spun once more and landed, slashing thrice to deal with the OMAC's surrounding her, and then turned to look at where she instinctively knew the source of the blast had come from.

Someone had tried to back-shoot her.

No…not just someone.

He stood off on the distance, on another tall pillar of ice (were they natural? Thrown up by the abuse of the ground? Both? Who knew), his white cape flapping gently in the wind as he looked down at the young woman.

Mary knew who he was. Surprised she hadn't seen him until now…when he'd wanted to make an entrance. Of all the things that had triggered this Crisis, he was perhaps the first in line.

"Dr. Arthur Light." Mary growled.

Dr. Light didn't know the girl, didn't know if she knew him. She wasn't his 'type' so to speak, and he'd been fine with just watching the battle and waiting to deal with the scraps (they were Titans after all, he HATED the Titans). So why had he suddenly felt the urge to blow this girl into oblivion? And more importantly, how had he missed?

Maybe something primal in Light sensed a threat, light and darkness. Or maybe it was just bad timing. But Dr. Light figured he rarely missed twice, as he thrust up his hands.

The blast obliterated the ground where Mary had been…a second ago.

A second later, she emerged from the shadows of the ground nearby. And she did not look happy.

For a moment though, she hesitated. This wasn't some punk she could easily thrash. Dr. Light's goof days were long gone, the damage to his brain fixed and his skills restored to their previous peaks. And he was a master of all forms of light. If he got her with one good solar blast, or maybe one good blast period…

But…he'd tried to kill her when her back was turned.

Just like all the cowards who had called her freak and said she shouldn't exist. None of them had the slightest courage to do it to her face. Always from behind. Always.

Not this time.

"Light." She growled, and charged towards the spire of ice.

Surprisingly, Dr. Light did not fire again, as he watched the girl sprint towards him on the ground below. No, for some reason…he was intrigued.

"Hmmmmmm." He murmured. Well, he needed a warmup before he put his plans into action.

She'd do just fine.

"Heh." Dr. Light said, as radiant power lit on his hands. "Come on girl. Come to The Light."

The Arctic wasn't the only place that war raged.

In Detroit, the Titans fought furiously against a gang of six ragtag metahumans who had decided they'd rather loot the city then hide in it.

In space, Hal Jordan and John Stewart, not yet dead in this time, fought as skillfully and valiantly against legions of OMAC's as Mary had, as the many heroes within Brother Eye fought their way through defenses and hardships to accomplish their tasks.

And on Earth-2, the Elementals and their allies in the Justice Society fought the Scientist and his Air Elemental. At the moment, the good guys weren't doing too well there, despite having knocked the Air Elemental away just then.

"Aid, alone, it matters not Elementals. Your fate was sealed the second the second I learned of…" The Scientist said, and then gaped.

Everyone had stopped fighting. Everyone. None of them were following the Air Elemental to keep up the attack. They were all, instead, looking up, past him, as the Scientist turned around…

What he saw chilled even his black heart.

Elsewhere on Earth-2.

"My telescopic vision still can't find…" Superman had been saying, trying to locate Earth-1, when he'd seen it.

A gigantic golden hand. A hand witnessed by too many other worlds. The hands of a man who would be a god.

"…What is that?" Wonder Woman said breathlessly.

Kal-L knew all too well.

"Alex."

"…Maybe Superman was right." Alexander Luthor said, trying to block out the carnage behind him as he reached for Earth-2. "Maybe Earth-2 has some level of MORAL value. Something pure to add to the mix."

And so Alexander Luthor seized it, drawing it in.

The only blessing was that none of the heroes on Earth-2 were caught under the areas Alexander gripped to bring the planet to him.

That would not seem like a blessing in a moment.

She was Donna Troy.

She had returned from death, found her true purpose, assembled heroes to aid her in it, gone into space to try and stop a war and then save a universe…and yet, as she watched the hands emerge from the purple rifts of energy, above the glowing golden cauldron that Alexander had made of the center of the universe, all she could do was stand and watch.

"…'A few seconds will make all the difference'.That's what the Titans meant. I can see it." Donna said: she did not mean the superhero team but the Titans of myth, who had brought her back from the brink after her supposed death and cleared the confusion of her life, even though it meant the end of theirs. "…They're going to die."

"What? Who is Donna?"

Donna watched, with the impotent rage and sadness of those who believed themselves powerless, as she saw the two Earths the hands had brought this time. Earth-3…and Earth-2.

"…Superman and Wonder Woman are going to die…"

Earth-1. The Arctic. The war.

"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Bizzaro laughed, as he ploughed through more OMAC's, Savior manipulating his blows so that even Bizzaro wouldn't hurt the humans inside…but inside Savior's head, it felt like he was taking those blows. He'd overestimated even the brief amount of time he'd had, spent too long trying to thin the herd while riding on Bizzaro's back like a horse (he was standing, the Shimmer strands in Bizzaro's ears serving as his reigns, so he didn't look too silly, he hated looking silly…)…when he should have been moving faster. Getting to where he needed to be, with what he'd seen…

And he couldn't just let Bizzaro loose afterward: he was way too powerful. He had to get rid of him.

"BIZZARO! LISTEN!" Savior snapped as he cleared the latest group of OMAC's. "When I let you go, I DON'T want you to fly to Pluto! Then, I DON'T want you to go back to the JLA Watchtower. Then, I want you to GET IN A REALLY BIG FIGHT WITH SUPERMAN." Savior ordered, hoping he'd found a suitable opposite for 'surrender to him.'

"No way!" Bizzaro said.

And then he turned upward and shot into the sky like a rocket, taking even Savior by surprise: argh, he was leaving already! He was still too far away from his destination! But…he couldn't make any changes, the strife radiating back to his mind was too great, he had to sever the connection, hope he could make it…

Savior pulled the Shimmer strands from Bizzaro's ears and, hundreds of feet above ground, leapt backwards and seized Bizzaro's ankles, swinging in a wide arc even as Bizzaro kept going up and hurling himself forward, towards the tower of ice and who stood on top of it. Bizzaro flew on, grinning obliviously, no longer a factor in the fight as he broke the atmosphere and flew on.

And Savior, once again, really wished he could fly.

He wasn't going to make it. It was too far. And a fall from this height, even with the Shimmer, was no picnic.

He tried forming wings: no dice, as he began to fall. A helicopter and a glider fared little better: he was still moving far more down then forward, plunging towards the Earth…

And then he came! Flying from somewhere, replacing the recently deceased Garfield Lyons, dead at the hands of OMAC's, the brand new FIREFLY!

"Do you know who I am!" Firefly II said as he flew in front of the falling Savior.

"Nope!" Savior replied, and bounced on Firefly in a way that would have made Mario proud.

That just stunned the flier, not that it mattered, as Savior already was executing the followup, as he fell past Firefly II…and shot out twin Shimmer lines, the ends biting into Firefly's armor.

"Wh-"

And Savior yanked, throwing himself back up into the air with the elastic effect even as he hurled Firefly down, the poor new villain screaming as he crash-landed, but Savior had already forgotten about him: he'd gotten the boost he needed, the ice tower was in sight, in reach…

Savior fired off another strand as he began to fall again, and the end bit into the ice wall of the pillar, as Savior waited another 2 seconds and then pulled the line taunt, sending him in one final spring in a wide forward and up angle, as he just managed to clear the top…

Right over his head.

How he'd recognized him at the distance he'd been at, standing on this giant tower, like a master of all he surveyed, Savior didn't know. But he had.

And he'd known his task in this battle.

Nightwing and Superboy would lead. Savior would do this.

He landed on the wide flat surface on top of the ice pillar, the giant column stretching nearly a mile into the sky, providing a wonderful view of the whole battlefield, as Savior landed and slid along the ice, never taking his eyes off him, as he slowly came to a stop.

Up there, for a moment, silence.

And then he turned.

The form so familiar to Savior, a Titan, he could tell from so far away.

The man who would make him do such a thing.

Even if it killed him.

Which it most likely would.

Looking at him, outfit so familiar, colors so well know…one sole eye looking at him from a mask of orange and black.

"Slade." Savior said.

"Collins." Slade calmly replied.

"They're going to die…"

The act of merging planets to form new ones is as unnatural as it came. And such an act could have utter catastrophic effects on living beings…even the mightiest on the planet.

But even the mightiest mortals were helpless before a god.

"Yes…I think so…" Alexander Luthor said.

And his hands began to push the Earths together.

Jack Djinn and Sine created by the author. The White Hole and H-041-E created by Jedi-And. Every other villain created by the writers and artists of DC Comics.

To Be Continued!