Star City- Heroes of Tomorrow IC

ChasNicollette said:

She hissed.

@StrongerTogether: Something's found my Fortress. Something... scary.

@StrongerTogether: Keep me in the loop about Gotham, but I need to secure Krypton's heritage.

@StrongerTogether: Blue, follow when you can. I might be out of my weight class on this one.

And with a rush of wind she was gone.

Faster than a speeding bullet.

Click to expand...

Jaime sat down with his back against a blasted concrete pylon and viewed the form of Supergirl receding over the wreckage. He sighed, something deep inside feeling like a hole had been ripped in him and his soul was pouring out of it.

"Yeah. Easy for you to say. Some of us haven't eaten or slept in days and we don't get our nourishment from sunlight."

"Jaime...there is a possibility. I could give you an...upgrade."

Reyes frowned, rubbing his stubbled jaw. "What kind of 'upgrade' are we talking about, Khaji?"

"I believe that I can take the portion of the New Genesis Life-Equation we have and complete it, by bonding it to your cellular matrix. But this would irrevocably change you. You would no longer ever be merely human."

Jaime felt his heart skip a beat and then race, pain spearing through his chest along with a terrible chill of fear. He swallowed and gazed after Kara Zor-El.

"What would that do to me, Khaji? To us?"

" I am not certain Jaime. I do not believe it has ever been contemplated. But I believe that it would allow us to help the Kryptonian woman, and save your other friends if they needed help. It would considerably advance our operational capacity."

Jaime Reyes felt his gaze drawn to the sky, where stars shone down on the war torn earth, where the moon-

exploded in red fireballs across it's surface.

Tides changed subtly, the gravitational field of the earth shifted slightly, the magnetosphere vibrated a little.

Jaime was stuck in a moment of total inability to make a decision or form a coherent thought. Whatever was happening now was too big for him.

At last, after a long time staring at that grin burned into the moon, Jaime closed his eyes, tears leaking from beneath bruised eyelids, leaking down his cheeks.

There really was no other choice, given the stakes they faced.

"Do it."

A cocoon of bluish metal sheathed the form of Jaime Reyes, and sank into the earth beneath the shattered battlefield...

ChasNicollette said:

@NegasonicTeenageArrowhead: Yeah, yeah, you got a great name, everyone'll be humming it for a week. Laugh it up, gearhead.

Trusting Thea and her horseman to keep an eye on Nightwing for a moment, she stood up and aimed one of her last trick arrows up through the "skylight" hole in the roof.

A magnesium flare arrow, burning like a small sun in the lightening sky over twilit early-morning Slaughter Swamp.

@NegasonicTeenageArrowhead: Eyes on the skies. Satellite coverage is a little on the blink right now but I sent a flare up over the tree-cover to help you zero in.

@NegasonicTeenageArrowhead: Pedal to the metal, okay? This masked lin kuei bitch beat the Hell out of him and I don't think he has a lot of living daylights left.

Click to expand...

Drive looked at the sky and steered towards the flare. Few minutes later he arrived at their location. Getting out of the Tridoron he makes his way over to Nightwing.

Alright, lets get started.

The Mad Doctor shift car comes driving into Leon's hand. Tire Koukan! Mad Doctor! Mad Doctor's energy injectors appear over Nightwing and start doing their work.

"Voodoo" - Godsmack

It stood to reason if there is an Anti-Life Equation then there is such an equation that is the essence of all life. This would be the well spring from which all living things flowed. It would be the Eden in the abyss.

He knew this was so. He knew because he was connected with all life on the small world known as Earth. He knew because he, himself, was such a strong life force that all things great and small felt him. They knew him and they spoke to him.

Animals, to a small degree, and plants.

Especially plants.

He was so in tune with the living and breathing Earth through The Green that he felt it when the Anti-Life assaulted and conquered J'onn J'onzz. And, somehow, he sensed it when Martian Manhunter was freed from his prison of iron and rock and directed his hatred towards those on Mother Earth.

Yes. Even in the dark and secluded swamp he felt it....

"View From Below," by Angels and Airwaves. (Supergirl)

The being.

On... was that a surfboard? A flying surfboard of all things?

Appeared to take a moment to collect himself.

Supergirl's guard didn't flicker for a moment.

She just hovered there. And while her uniform was so very badly damaged by all the day's fighting... she still looked regal. Powerful. And the crest of The House of El still stood bold over her eight-chambered heart.

AmenRa said:

Silver Surfer raised his eyes once more to look upon Kara Zor-El. He nodded, not knowing surely enough whether to bow or what manner of greeting would be appropriate.

"I am Norrin Radd," he said in a quiet voice of soothing bass. He then opened his arms, his palms facing outward towards Supergirl. "I come in peace. I mean no offense to this place or to you."

Click to expand...

She drifted a little right, she drifted a little left, narrowing her eyes at him.

His voice sounded... familiar. Perhaps not the exact voice but the command in it. Like maybe Perry White in another life.

His the panic intoned by Kelex about this visitor in The Fortress' databanks didn't suggest anyone who came anywhere in peace. And yet.

"You come in peace?" she replied, brooking no prevarications. "Then speak your piece."

AmenRa said:

He cupped his chin once more as the memories of his childhood came to him. After a moment's thought, he once again addressed the Last Daughter of Krypton.

"You are Kryptonian," he said to her. "Long ago, on my home world of Zenn-La, I met travelers from your world. One also wore the symbol that you do, also of the House of El." Surfer thought for a moment, "There was another with him, although this scientist was of a different family. The name of his house was Sen."

Click to expand...

A pang thudded in the core of Kara's chest.

She had just seen, only moments ago, the delegation of The House of Sen in her mind's eye-- seen Var-Sen and his dearly beloved Raya Ro-Zan--

--friends of her family, of her house.

Her ancestors must have visited this world. This... Zenn-La.

She would have to corroborate this story with Kelex. Perhaps even speak with her mother's hologram.

AmenRa said:

Silver Surfer willed his craft to glide slowly and silently closer to Kara as he maintained his non-offensive posture. He then stood to his full height and bowed slightly from his waist. "It is an honor to meet you, Kara Zor-El of Krypton."

Click to expand...

He closed on her-- but she didn't back up an inch. Tension ratcheted through her frame, her hands clenched into fists and the knuckles popped in the Arctic-frozen air.

He certainly seemed... more polite... than you'd expect from a harbinger of planetary destruction.

She inclined her head to him, eyes narrowed not quite to slits. The mutual honor of meeting him was a judgement she'd reserve until later.

AmenRa said:

He then glided back from her, widening the distance between them, and once again cast his gaze down. When he looked once more upon her, his argent face was creased with trepidation. "An honor," he worriedly stated, "that I fear may not be bestowed again, for I come to you with a warning of imminent danger."

He looked into her eyes, blue as they were, and he felt sorrow all over again for what he had unknowingly done.

"I have awakened something that should have been left to sleep."

Click to expand...

Squaring her shoulders, tilting her head up in almost instinctive defiance, ready to face whatever doom he prophesied.

"You may have heard of my House and my homeworld, but you've never met me. So you'll forgive me if I'm not immediately chilled to the bone. We've faced down terrible threats even just today that would make a Czarnian even whiter with dread."

She pursed her lips.

"Norrin Radd of Zenn-La. Whose slumber did you disturb?"

"Who follows you out of the dark?"

The Silver Surfer

ChasNicollette said:

"You may have heard of my House and my homeworld, but you've never met me. So you'll forgive me if I'm not immediately chilled to the bone. We've faced down terrible threats even just today that would make a Czarnian even whiter with dread."

She pursed her lips.

"Norrin Radd of Zenn-La. Whose slumber did you disturb?"

"Who follows you out of the dark?"

Click to expand...

He was being scrutinized on the most direct level. Rightly so, he knew.

He wanted to tell her he truly came in peace and meant no harm towards Earth or any of its peoples. She clearly knew who he was, who he had been.

He needed, now, though to answer her question.

Silver Surfer opened his arms towards the snow below them. There was a swirling of the surface as a disturbance gathered snow upon itself into a spherical mass about 3 meters wide. The sphere floated to him where he supported it on his open palms. The Power Cosmic surged from him again, and the sphere solidified into a pure form, a frozen ball with a center that was crystal clear.

As Kara surely looked on, the Silver Surfer closed his eyes and the clear center of the sphere was replaced by a star field. There were nebulae, gas clouds, star systems that rotated and coalesced. The field grew in size, in magnification, until a silver figure could be seen streaking through the image of the cosmos.

"When I was released from my servitude," he explained, "I traveled the cosmos in search of others like me. I can sense power, and I knew somewhere, out there amongst the stars, there were other powerful beings who used their abilities wisely and without the irreverence for life my former enslaver had commanded."

The magnification of the moving images increased again as it showed him nearing the planetoid where J'onn had sealed himself within. The lifeless rock showed clearly the signs of J'onn's impact. The projection in the sphere showed Silver Surfer approach the planetoid and study it.

"I was drawn to a great source of power at the edge of your galaxy. Upon looking closer, I learned this source of power was the last of the great Manhunters of Mal'eca'andra."

The image now showed Silver Surfer using his power to unseal J'onn from the tomb.

"Only I did not know what J'onn J'onzz carried within him. I did not know he had purposely sealed himself within the rock. I thought he had been imprisoned there by some great evil, yet I did not realize the very evil that did this to him was that which he carries inside him."

The sphere showed J'onn's release from the rock and his attack on The Silver Surfer.

"Imagine my elation when I knew this being was J'onn J'onzz!" Silver Surfer exclaimed. "Even on Zenn-La, his name was legend. He had been a traveler, once, like myself, and he aided so many worlds with his wisdom, guidance, and strength."

The image faded from the ice sphere and the sphere itself turned instantly to vapor.

Norrin Radd's voice was soft when he spoke next. "We fought and I was able to imprison him within a trans-phasic dimensional plane."

He looked around him, to the Fortress, the nearby mountain peaks, and finally settled his gaze on Kara Zor-El. "He will break free. It is only a matter of time. He is Mars' sole survivor. There is a reason for that.

"I have looked inside his mind and have seen what he intends," he continued. "When he frees himself from that place he will come for you."

"He will come for all of you."

"The Disease," by Angels and Airwaves. (Supergirl)

AmenRa said:

Silver Surfer opened his arms towards the snow below them. There was a swirling of the surface as a disturbance gathered snow upon itself into a spherical mass about 3 meters wide. The sphere floated to him where he supported it on his open palms. The Power Cosmic surged from him again, and the sphere solidified into a pure form, a frozen ball with a center that was crystal clear.

Click to expand...

Fresh alarms trilled from within The Fortress on frequencies specifically attuned to Kara's hearing-- that spike of power was most distressing to her robot companions.

But Kara's senses were broad and acute, and while she perceived the power surge, she also recognized that on infrared and a host of other electromagnetic spectra it didn't represent an immediate threat. Down by her side, by the tatter of her skirt, she gestured subtly and consolingly towards The Fortress, and the alarms reluctantly, awkwardly quieted. So far as she could tell, this was just a matter-reconfiguration effect akin to telekinesis, though the fine-motor control would shortly prove... impossibly elegant.

AmenRa said:

As Kara surely looked on, the Silver Surfer closed his eyes and the clear center of the sphere was replaced by a star field. There were nebulae, gas clouds, star systems that rotated and coalesced. The field grew in size, in magnification, until a silver figure could be seen streaking through the image of the cosmos.

Click to expand...

The sheer creative brilliance of this was undeniable. It had a certain beauty to it on a molecular level right up through the macro, this self-portrait in crystalline lattice.

Kara had not been able to confer with Kelex or the rest of The Fortress' systems on the specific nature of the threat The Surfer represented, but Kara couldn't help but wonder how capable he was of destruction if he had this much intricate, loving respect for the act of creation.

AmenRa said:

"When I was released from my servitude," he explained,

Click to expand...

It momentarily panicked Kara, her eyes widening, that there existed a power great enough to chain The Surfer into servitude, if an act such as this display was to him as untaxing as flexing the tiniest of muscles.

AmenRa said:

"I traveled the cosmos in search of others like me. I can sense power, and I knew somewhere, out there amongst the stars, there were other powerful beings who used their abilities wisely and without the irreverence for life my former enslaver had commanded."

The magnification of the moving images increased again as it showed him nearing the planetoid where J'onn had sealed himself within. The lifeless rock showed clearly the signs of J'onn's impact. The projection in the sphere showed Silver Surfer approach the planetoid and study it.

"I was drawn to a great source of power at the edge of your galaxy. Upon looking closer, I learned this source of power was the last of the great Manhunters of Mal'eca'andra."

Click to expand...

Kara's heart suddenly felt heavy in her chest.

The dark pall of foreshadowing had fallen across her sunlit soul.

"J'onn," she breathed.

AmenRa said:

The image now showed Silver Surfer using his power to unseal J'onn from the tomb.

"Only I did not know what J'onn J'onzz carried within him. I did not know he had purposely sealed himself within the rock. I thought he had been imprisoned there by some great evil, yet I did not realize the very evil that did this to him was that which he carries inside him."

The sphere showed J'onn's release from the rock and his attack on The Silver Surfer.

Click to expand...

Kara stared in horror. Clenching clutching ice-cold primordial Lovecraftian horror.

To see what J'onn had become. To see what he had become capable of.

He had ever been the absolute definition of power kept under control. But now this... Anti-Life... had unfettered him from his discipline, his morality, his wisdom... his honor...

...he had been turned loose.

AmenRa said:

"Imagine my elation when I knew this being was J'onn J'onzz!" Silver Surfer exclaimed. "Even on Zenn-La, his name was legend. He had been a traveler, once, like myself, and he aided so many worlds with his wisdom, guidance, and strength."

The image faded from the ice sphere and the sphere itself turned instantly to vapor.

Click to expand...

Kara watched the image disperse, a deep haunting in the deepest reaches of her eyes.

AmenRa said:

Norrin Radd's voice was soft when he spoke next. "We fought and I was able to imprison him within a trans-phasic dimensional plane."

He looked around him, to the Fortress, the nearby mountain peaks, and finally settled his gaze on Kara Zor-El. "He will break free. It is only a matter of time. He is Mars' sole survivor. There is a reason for that.

"I have looked inside his mind and have seen what he intends," he continued. "When he frees himself from that place he will come for you."

"He will come for all of you."

Click to expand...

One of the most powerful beings in The Universe.

A far more powerful being at his nadir even than her at her peak.

She bowed her head.

No longer grim, no longer defiant.

She was heartbroken.

"Norrin," she murmured. "Thank you for telling me this. Thank you for doing what you could to delay him. We owe you so much for that."

When she looked back up at him, the tears running down her cheeks had already frozen.

"But it's my fault he was infected. It's my fault he's... possessed. You should no longer blame yourself for his... condition."

"He gave up his Light and his Life to save me. In a moment of weakness I was overcome and he overcame that to save me, but he took that darkness into himself."

"Thank you for buying us time."

"But it's my fault that Earth and maybe even this whole Galaxy are in so dark a shadow."

Previously on "Star City" and "Beyond."

ChasNicollette said:

Years ago.
Early 2016.
San Francisco, California.
********​

It was early Saturday evening and a farmer's market was in full swing on one of those steeply-inclined San Francisco backstreets.

They were in town for a conference, the first of its kind-- a conference for police detectives and their consultants, a meeting of minds for law enforcement methodologies both conventional and unconventional.

"You know, I've been to my share of conventions," Cisco mused, examining a brochure studiously as he walked, with a lollipop lodged in his cheek, "and they always seem to skimp on the Sunday schedule. Like, they assume everyone's bailing at that point, so they just phone it in. Not these guys. Look, here's a panel held by two local detectives comparing and contrasting styles-- one's got OCD and the other claims to be a psychic, the whole thing's moderated by some guy named 'Bruton Gaster'-- that looks like it'll be a hoot."

Detective Joe West chuckled with his deep, deep baritone laugh. "If you say so, Cisco. It just seems a little bit too much like a set-up for one of those episodes where all these detectives are gathered in one place and someone gets murdered, and all the detectives have to detect which detective is the murderer."

"Don't knock those episodes," Cisco instructed Joe firmly, plucking the lollipop from his lips and wagging it at Joe like a lecturing finger. "One of my favorite episodes of Leverage used that bit. I'm still not sure why Timothy Hutton wasn't dressed up as Archie Goodwin from Nero Wolfe, but--"

Nearby, Bartholomew Henry Allen walked with his hands in his pockets, half-smiling wearily, shoulders hunched, so very zoned out, and he just sort of chuckled to himself lost in thought wherever he was.

Joe and Cisco shared a worried look, and Joe reached out with his oak-branch of an arm and patted Barry on the shoulder. "Bar'. You okay? You've barely said two words since you got back from England. Was Ravenscar that bad?"

Barry chuckled faintly, shook his head, shrugged, rubbed his palms together fidgetingly. "Not the worst. Slightly less demonic possessions than advertised, and my room-mate was cool. It was way better than Arkham, that's for sure. They helped me a lot. Got my head on straight. I don't blame myself for... for The Flashpoint anymore. Not... not as much."

Joe smiled faintly at him, and hugged one arm around his shoulders gently, firmly, paternally. "Damn right. It was Zolomon that tried to turn Central City into a radioactive ash tray. No way was that your fault."

"Tchyeah," Cisco snorted. "I've been meaning to ask. When you were in England... did it look like Vancouver?"

Joe and Barry both shot Cisco bemused expressions.

Cisco shrugged. "Look, you guys. You've never noticed that no matter where we go, it just looks kind of like Vancouver through different filters? Star City? Vancouver. Seattle? Vancouver."

Joe and Barry both paused at that, as though they were processing that information and were surprised they hadn't noticed before.

"I've been to Gotham," Joe pointed out. "It looked like New York."

Barry nodded, rubbed his palms together. "Yeah, and National City looks like L.A., and L.A. looks like L.A., I've run through there a bunch of times bringing pizza from Coast City back to Central."

Cisco tutted. "Nah, see, those are just exceptions that prove the rule. Coast City? Looks like Vancouver. Central City? Vancouver."

"I've never gotten that," Joe squinted. "How can an exception prove a rule?"

"Yeah," Barry grinned, stopping briefly by a fruit stand and checking out a basket of red apples. "Is there a rule somewhere that says that rules have to be proven by exceptions, and if so, is there an exception to that rule?"

"You're trying to distract me," Cisco snorted, "but I will not be deterred, good sirs. This is a bonafide conspiracy theory in the making, here. It's like that thing from The Matrix where everything tastes like chicken because our virtual reality overlords couldn't quite figure out what chicken was supposed to taste like, so they made chicken super generic or something--"

Barry paused and stared and blinked. "So you're saying. That Vancouver. Is The Matrix?"

"There is no spoon, y'all," Cisco insisted, "and we are getting black cat deja vu every time The Powers That Be break out the edit function--"

Barry busted up laughing, and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Oh, man. Okay. The Fastest Man Alive can out-think any supercomputer, and even I don't have enough brainpower to deal with you right now. This is way too much weirdness from our weird weird lives, we're here to chillax. You're just here to talk shop with some of the best Q Branch guys on The West Coast, I'm just here to compare notes with some of my fellow CSIs and Sherlock Scanners and pick up some new... techniques..."

...he trailed off.

He was staring.

At a woman.

Short, petite, adorable, with pale hair and equally pale skin, walking beside a formidable-looking black guy with a leather jacket and a turtleneck before pausing to haggle with a cart-owner whose wares consisted of an assortment of peppers. Her cellphone rang, and she answered it, and her companion stood with his hands on his hips looking... out of place.

Joe paused. "Is it weird that I'm still relieved when he's looking that way at anyone besides my little girl?"

"Hey," Cisco smacked Joe lightly in the chest with the back of his hand. "Iris and Barry are endgame, you know that, I know that, everyone knows that except them. Still, nothing wrong with our boy taking a couple of detours. And this one... seems nice."

He moved forward a bit, leaned in next to Barry. "Not bad, man. She got a whole 'Queen of The Undead' thing goin' on. What's the play?"

Barry didn't answer immediately. He just summoned up his courage and strode forward.

Cisco's eyes widened and he pressed a knuckle into his own mouth, making a nervous keening noise.

"It's okay," Joe encouraged him, "sometimes baby bird's gotta leave the nest without his wingman."

"Honestly, Liv, San Francisco," Ravi grumbled over the phone. "Need I remind you, I never did get to go on that tour with Peyton. The furthest I've gotten to travel for work is--" he paused for effect before concluding, with revulsion-- "Tacoma."

"I promise," Liv assured him, examining a green bell pepper before shaking her head and setting it down, "you'll get to go to the next one! I'm a mortician and a psychic detective, remember? The best of both consultant worlds."

"Yeah, yeah," Ravi grumbled. "See if I take you along the next time I go to SDCC. Right, I've got lab rats to clone, enjoy rubbing elbows with Nathan Fillion and Angela Lansbury."

"Look, I'll try to find some Vertigo-related souvenirs, okay?" Liv tried to mollify him. "Do they have a comic based on the movie? Best of both those worlds?"

Ravi paused. "Vertigo comics? That sounds awesome, but sadly, I don't think so. I appreciate the thought though, Liv. Safe journey, yeah? Make sure you eat before you fly back, finish off the rest of that organ-donor cooler I prepped you, I don't think they do in-flight meals for your special diet."

"Pinky swear," Liv chortled. "Talk to you later."

As she hung up, her companion, Detective Clive Babineaux, arched an eyebrow. "Dr. Chakrabarti still have his chakras in a bunch?"

Liv grinned softly, pocketing her phone. "If there's ever a murder over in Redmond at Nintendo headquarters, you should make sure he gets first dibs."

"No promises," Clive harrumphed.

It was right about that moment that Barry Allen walked up to the pepper cart, selected a tiny scarlet specimen, paid the lady running the cart, and held up the pepper to Liv.

Clive turned, squinted at Barry. "Excuse me, can we help you?"

Barry grinned nervously but determinedly, kept his gaze locked on Liv. "You're gonna go out on a date with me. And I'm going to prove it to you. This is a Naga jolokia, or the... ghost pepper. It is the world's hottest pepper, measuring 401.5 times hotter than Tabasco sauce. If you do not agree to go on a date with me, I will eat it. Right here, right now."

Liv stared at him for a moment.

Then reached out-- so unexpectedly that even The Flash's reflexes were caught by surprise --plucked the pepper from his hand, and took a huge bite out of it, essentially downing it in a single crunch. She chewed it almost thoughtfully, nodding as she went, and then swallowed it.

"Yeah, that's not bad, Scoville Scale approved. Put a few more of those in a bowl and we'll call it a salad."

Barry looked even more thunderstruck in that moment than he had when he'd been zapped with actual lightning.

Clive grinned his ass off, clapped Barry on the upper arm, shook his head. "You came to the wrong neighborhood, son."

"Yes," Barry mumbled, astonished that his pepper-date technique had gone so horribly wrong, even wronger than if he'd eaten it in front of her and puked, "I see that now."

Liv grinned softly, consolingly. "You are ridiculously cute, and I give you points for the most original pick-up maneuver I've ever received, but I'm not really in the market right now." She paused. "Okay, I'm in a farmer's market right now, but you know what I mean."

"Yeah," Barry smiled faintly, disappointedly, but good-naturedly. "I know what you mean."

As Liv and Clive moved on, Barry shuffled back over to Joe and Cisco looking amused but dejected, and both men did the slow clap as he approached.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," Barry shook his head.

Cisco punched him lightly in the chest. "No, c'mon, seriously, you did good. Baby bird crashed and burned, but any landing you walk away from. It's okay, man, we are single and we are go for mingle. Tonight, listen to me, tonight, we are gonna find some dance clubs around here, do a pub crawl, Karaoke night, c'mon, man, you and Joe'll score us so many honeys with your golden pipes. We are gonna tear. It. Up."

Joe squinted at Cisco dubiously. "Cisco, you're gonna get drunk in your hotel room and on-demand Hot Tub High School again."

Cisco didn't even look at Joe as he held up that lollipop again, sternly instructive. "Joseph, do not even be saying that to me like it's a bad thing."

And then it was his turn to stop.

And stare.

At a girl.

Because right next to them was a ridiculously handsome dark-haired man in a black suit and a white shirt and no tie, lighting up a cigarette despite the dirty looks from passerby, and right next to him was a slender, world-weary, beautiful woman with piercing eyes.

"Lucifer," the woman griped, "you know these people are health nuts. They flip out if you use the letters 'GMO' in their presence, and you're going to exhale nicotine at them?"

Lucifer sneered. "Oh, believe me, I know the value of picking and choosing the fruit you eat, I've just generally chosen to ignore it. You're all going to die of something, luvvies, don't kid yourselves."

Cisco's hand shot out and he grabbed Barry's upper arm. His eyes had never been wider.

"Cisco," Barry hesitated.

Glanced down at his arm.

Tried again: "Cisco."

Cisco blinked, half-aware that he'd heard his name. "Yeah, Bar'."

"You're vibrating," Barry winced. "If I were anyone else but, you know, me, I think you might have vibed my arm out of its socket."

"Oh, geeze!" Cisco flinched, letting go of Barry's arm in a hurry, shaking out his hand with the pulses coming off of his fingers. "Sorry, man. It's just... do you know who that is?"

Barry looked at Joe, Joe shrugged, Barry glanced at Cisco. "Not a clue."

The dark-haired gentleman however, had noticed this conversation, and regarded Cisco with an arched eyebrow. "Detective Decker, it seems as though you have an admirer."

Decker sighed miserably, rubbed her temples. "Please don't make a massive scene like you always do. Please don't make a massive scene like you always do. Please don't make a massive scene like you always do."

But he was already grinning, holding his cigarette low by his side as he towered over Cisco, his intense gaze burrowing into the younger man. "Like what you see, do you, eh? Think maybe you can be the one to score with your teenage pin-up goddess? Eh? Let's see what she thinks of your perverted little desires, see how that improves your chances... come on then, out with it, what's your most darkest, twisted desire... what would you do with this woman if you had her?"

Barry and Joe narrowed their gazes at this offensive stranger, what The Hell was he trying to pull?

"Lucifer," Decker groaned, hand covering her eyes. "Jesus Christ."

"Lucifer" jerked around to face her again, irritated to no end: "Oi, don't bring Him into this, He nicked my title of Morningstar, Father's only Son my arse--"

"Season 2 of Firefly," Cisco blurted.

Lucifer blinked. "Steady on. What?"

"Season 2 of Firefly," Cisco admitted, a little more sheepishly. "That's... that's my deepest desire."

Lucifer shook his head, took a drag off of his smoke and blew it back out between his lips in a dismal, chiaroscuro sigh. "Honestly. This generation astounds me. Obsessing over fictions? And I thought wars over religion were pointless. Look, young fellow-me-lad, they should have known what they were getting into when they pitched a sci-fi/fantasy genre program to FOX of all networks..."

Cisco would have had a vicious, nerd-rage retort to this, but then all of a sudden people started yelling and pointing at the sky.

And a beautiful flying woman descended, crimson hair billowing around her emerald eyes and her golden flesh. A lot of golden flesh.

She landed in front of Liv, smiling a beaming, angelic smile. And spoke in a language that was like nothing of this Earth: "Παρακαλώ επιτρέψτε μου να σας φιλήσω. Πρέπει να μιλήσω."

Liv took a half-step back, eyes wide, but didn't run. Clive reached behind himself, not sure whether to draw his gun or not in this crowded street.

And the woman stepped forward, cupped Liv's face in her golden hands, and kissed her, long and deep.

Liv wasn't gay, as such. But she'd eaten straight-guy brains often enough, and the occasional lesbian, so she remembered what it was like to like women. And this was... this was one Hell of a woman.

And with mingled surprise, bewilderment, and delight, she mumbled a muffled whimper into the golden woman's mouth.

Cisco stopped and stared, and made a very similar noise, and Barry made a startled cough, shaking his head slowly.

Lucifer tutted. "Oh, I don't need to be a Jedi to know what you two're thinking. Honestly, it's San Franbloodycisco, is anyone really surprised?"

Then Barry and Cisco paused, looked each other, and nodded as if in realization. "Ohhhhhkay."

Cisco punched Barry in the arm. "So that's why she turned your a-game down."

Then the golden woman drew back from Liv, looking puzzled. "La fel de bun ca și mort să-i sărute."

Liv shivered for a moment, and then came back to her senses. And frowned at the golden woman. "...did you just speak mean-girl Romanian?"

The golden woman frowned back, stepped forward, and kissed Liv again, more gently this time, Liv reaching up gently to graze the golden woman's shoulder with her pale fingertips.

This time, when she drew back, the golden woman spoke in English. "Sorry. This planet has so many languages! I did not know it would take me two tries to learn the right one."

"Did you just mind-meld me with a kiss to pick up a new language?" Liv blinked. "Who are you?"

"I am Koriand'r, of the planet Tamaran," she explained. "And I must find the superheroes, the ones you call 'The Young Justice.'" She paused, squinted, tried again. "Sorry. This new language, the etymology is absurdly amalgamated. I mean to say, they are 'Teen Titans.'"

"The ones who fought that big demon guy in the bay last year?" Liv hesitated, then pointed out towards the water, towards Alcatraz. "Big tower on a little island, looks like a 'T,' you can't miss it. Wait, do you know what a 'T' looks like, did you get the alphabet with that last kiss?"

Koriand'r nodded brightly, her eyes glowing green. "Yes. I know the alphanumeric you describe. Gratitude!"

She levitated off of the ground, her impossibly red hair billowing once more in the backdraft of her flight, turning to soar off towards San Francisco Bay.

"Wait!" Liv called to her, and she stopped, turning in mid-air as she hovered to blink back down at Olivia Moore.

"Are you a superhero?"

Koriand'r paused to consider this. "I am simply 'Koriand'r.' I do not have the second special name common to that ilk."

Liv squinted for a moment. Remembered... one of her earliest cases. Investigating the Blue Cobras. A nickname Ravi had suggested. "Have you considered... 'Starfire?'"

Koriand'r brightened, which was saying something considering she was practically incandescent already. "Yes! Starfire! I like it! Thank you, friend!"

Then she wheeled about once more and blasted off towards the sea.

The crowd murmured, mumbling, disbelieving, incredulous.

Cisco nodded to himself. "'Starfire.' That's pretty good."

"Cisco," Barry sighed heavily, again with the weirdness. "I think I need to go get drunk. And that... is gonna take a lot of alcohol."

"My man!" Cisco exulted, and fistbumped him.

Joe put his hat on, shook his head resignedly. "Guess who's stuck being the designated driver. Again."

Meanwhile, Clive pursed his lips, staring very bemusedly at Dr. Moore.

"Always the buttery skin with you. I think you got a type."

If it were possible for a zombie, Liv might have blushed. "Oh, don't start." She took a breath, and felt a serious quantity of tension ratcheting her spine. "Is it okay if we bail on the conference's last day? I'm suddenly all extroverted out."

Clive nodded wryly, examined his phone. "Yeah. You wanna bump our flight up to tonight, catch the red-eye?"

Liv squinted. "Please don't ever use the term 'red-eye' around me."

Clive arched his intense eyebrows. "Duly noted."

Satisfied that the show was over and that nothing else ridiculous was going to happen, the crowd had been going back to their fruits and veggies and milling about.

But through the middle of that crowd came a pair of people, one of them looking zealously determined-- the other looking alarmed but carefully controlled.

Director Hank Henshaw. And Agent Alex Danvers. DEO.

Alex touched her ear.

"Director, AWACS says we were too late, they're tracking her airborne moving west-- fast. Supergirl fast."

"Damn," Henshaw snarled. "No, no, we are not losing this one. Not like we lost The Martian. Again. Get me a chopper!"

"I still say The Martian's not the threat you insist he is," Alex frowned.

Hank growled so deep it practically rattled the cobblestones. "Chopper. Now."

As Lucifer put out his cigarette with the sole of his shoe, Decker stood there reading the brochure. "Hey, here's something fun for tomorrow. There's this professor from Oxford presenting a studious approach to cases involving the paranormal. You could expose him as a fraud like that auctioneer with your 'wings' a few weeks ago."

"Sounds drolly diverting," Lucifer mused. "What's his name?"

"Ichabod Crane," Chloe enunciated. "Representing the Westchester Sheriff's Department and the town of... Sleepy Hollow."

"'Ichabod Crane,'" Lucifer muttered. "Well there's a charlatan's pseudonym if ever I've heard one."

Chloe snorted. "This from a guy who insists he was christened with the name 'Lucifer Morningstar.'"

Then she looked up, and found Cisco Ramon standing beside her, looking nervous as all Hell. "Okay, come on, kid. I get it, you had a Farrah Fawcett moment with my hot tub scene when you were in puberty, that doesn't mean I'm going to give you my number."

Cisco winced. "No, um. It's not like that. Well, I wouldn't-- say no to your number-- it's just--"

"--your mom. Penelope Decker. Could you tell her I'm a big fan? Do... do you have her number?"

Lucifer looked like he was going to explode laughing.

Detective Chloe Decker just looked like she was going to explode.

Click to expand...

cross-posted for your reading convenience

ChasNicollette said:

"Norrin," she murmured. "Thank you for telling me this. Thank you for doing what you could to delay him. We owe you so much for that."

When she looked back up at him, the tears running down her cheeks had already frozen.

"But it's my fault he was infected. It's my fault he's... possessed. You should no longer blame yourself for his... condition."

"He gave up his Light and his Life to save me. In a moment of weakness I was overcome and he overcame that to save me, but he took that darkness into himself."

"Thank you for buying us time."

"But it's my fault that Earth and maybe even this whole Galaxy are in so dark a shadow."

Click to expand...

Norrin Radd looked sadly at Supergirl. He shook his head and spoke.

"There is no blame in this," he said to her. "For no one other than J'onn J'onzz, if such blame could be bestowed." Silver Surfer hovered before her as a light snow fell around them. "The words you speak tell of a selfless act borne out of compassion." He gazed into her eyes of blue with his of white. "This is the J'onn J'onzz of legend.

"This is the Light to the Light."

The Silver Surfer moved slightly away from Supergirl. He looked into the sky as if he was seeing into the cosmos beyond. When he looked back at her his face wore a troubled expression.

"I have no doubts it will be difficult to return J'onn J'onzz to his truest self," he told her. "It would be my wish to assist you in this task, yet.....I cannot."

Norrin Radd looked again at the Fortress, then he returned his gaze to the cosmos above. "My very presence here, on Earth, breaks a covenant that I sealed with a solemn promise. This is a promise made to an Asgardian, who sees himself as protector of this world as it is part of the Nine Realms. His words to me were should I ever set foot upon this world, even though I am no longer allied with Galactus, he would see me in ruin.

"I do not desire to incur the wrath of Thor Odinson and his hammer."

Silver Surfer looked down at his board in sorrow and guilt. Guilt and regret that he had ever been forced into Galactus' servitude and sorrow that such bondage had caused him to now not be able to assist Supergirl and her companions in their utmost time of need.

Perhaps, though, he still could help her.

He closed his eyes and maybe even shined a little brighter through his silvery coating as he released his consciousness. Fueled by the Power Cosmic, Silver Surfer's mind drifted over Earth and enveloped the planet. Within a few moments he had found what he sought.

It was shining brightly.

So very brightly.

When the Surfer opened his eyes, he looked into Kara's. He then extended his hand and pointed south.

"In that direction, in a temperate wetland a great distance from this place, there is a life force shining brighter than any I have ever encountered," he explained to her. "Seek out this creature, this........Swamp Thing. I believe he can show you the way."

Silver Surfer willed his board closer to where Supergirl floated. He reached out, tentatively, slowly, and he circled her wrist with his hand. He gave a gentle squeeze and then released her. His hope this gesture would mean to her what it did to him: respect, and friendship.

And Hope.

"Farewell, Kara Zor-El," he said with a quick nod of his head. Silver Surfer slowly floated higher, his white eyes gazing down at her. He moved away in this fashion for several meters until he tilted his head towards the sky. The board mimicked his movement, tilting skyward as well. Silver Surfer then pulled away so rapidly from Supergirl that it almost looked as if he had simply vanished.

"Irresistible," by Fall Out Boy. (Supergirl)

Even to Kara's vastly-accelerated senses, The Silver Surfer was there one moment.

And then gone.

Even if Barry had been there, even his lightspeed senses might not have seen the Surfer leave.

As it was, he was gone either way.

Leaving her with the echo of his words in her eight-chambered heart.

Leaving her with the weight of the world on her slender, mighty shoulders.

And even she... she who had once bodily heaved Fort Rozz itself out of Earth's gravity well...

...she sank to the icy floor of The Arctic and was too exhausted to rise again immediately.

She needed...

...she needed time.

Time to... time to not be Supergirl for awhile.

She needed a kind of solitude even The Fortress couldn't provide.

With trembling fingers, she touched her temple.

@StrongerTogether: Overwatch. I need to go radio silent for a bit. I'm sorry.

@StrongerTogether: The perceived threat at The Fortress was a friend. And he told us to look into... you're not gonna believe this... but 'The Swamp Thing.'

@StrongerTogether: But I need to. I need to go. I'm sorry. I'll be back online as soon as I can.

@StrongerTogether: I'm sorry.

And in a blur of blue and red and gold, she was gone.

Not as fast as The Silver Surfer, but The Girl of Steel flew fast enough that even Felicity's new capabilities couldn't track her.

"Jesus, Etc.," by Norah Jones.

Leaving aside the bomb of heartache and breached protocol that Venom had just left on the floor of the technopathic chat room with the words "one fatality," Felicity heard/saw/felt/experienced Supergirl's pings and signoff with increasing incredulity.

@Overwatch: Wait. Supergirl, wait.

@Overwatch: Did you just say you want me to track down The Swamp Thing. The Swamp Thing?

@Overwatch: You might as well ask me to locate Bigfoot. Or the Jersey Devil.

@Overwatch: (I found Blue Devil. A few minutes ago when I was populating my friends' list, here. Turns out he's in New York State. But the Jersey Devil?)

@Overwatch: What about Bigg Mixx of The Yakima Valley, that's not so far from Star City. Or Piltdown Man?

It was right in time for that post that Static linked up with the conversation.

@SayWattAgain: Uh, wasn't Piltdown Man a hoax?

@SheCanBeHeroes: Virgil! Rose's delight at seeing her friend was palpable over the Daughter Box connection.

And Virgil was no less glad to see that she was okay. He worried. He was good people.

@SayWattAgain: Yo, Rose. How are you holding up?

@SheCanBeHeroes: Is there some sort of sleep deprivation thing where time seems to stop? Because I think I'm there.

@SayWattAgain: Yeah, girl. Welcome to the life.

@Overwatch: Hey, Static. Yeah, Piltdown Man was fake. So was Bigg Mixx. So is Swamp Thing. That's the point! Can't find a needle in a haystack if the haystack is in Fabletown.

She sighed, rubbed the bridge of her nose.

@Overwatch: How's the West Coast?

@SayWattAgain: Rough, Fel-- uh-- Overwatch. (Sweet game, I should blow the dust off my PS4 later.) It's like someone called open season on supervillains out here.

@SayWattAgain: Soon as The Flash and I took down Team Turmoil, The Terror Twins showed up and started knocking down buildings. I can't help but feel like we're being kept busy. Running in circles.

@Overwatch: You're more right than you know, Static. I'll open a subwindow and we can compare notes for real.

@Overwatch: Speaking of running in circles... has anyone seen Impulse?

Rose hesitated.

@SheCanBeHeroes: ...not for awhile. He and I went for a run around Star City. But we got split up when I went after my dad in Metropolis.

@SheCanBeHeroes: Is he okay? Please tell me he's okay! I only met him for like five seconds but he seemed like a real sweetheart.

@Overwatch: I promise you, Rose, I haven't met the thing that could even slow Impulse down, much less stop him in his tracks. I'm sure he's fine.

Felicity managed, by some measure of will, to not let her creeping sense of dread and despair about Bart's fate creep into her signal.

@Overwatch: As soon as The Flash's mind stops racing so much that I can't sync with his brainwaves, I'll get him on the lookout for the kid. No worries, okay?

Zet_Cross said:

Drive looked at the sky and steered towards the flare. Few minutes later he arrived at their location. Getting out of the Tridoron he makes his way over to Nightwing.

Alright, lets get started.

The Mad Doctor shift car comes driving into Leon's hand. Tire Koukan! Mad Doctor! Mad Doctor's energy injectors appear over Nightwing and start doing their work.

Click to expand...

As the Mad Doctor began his work, Nightwing began to sweat. To shake.

Suddenly his eyes burst open wide, and he shoots bolt upright. Screaming in agony. His body is twitching, twisting. His flesh almost seems to be boiling. As his body begins to shift and roil, he wrenches himself to his feet as wings burst from his back, and he lunges into the air. Still screaming he streaks off into the night.

As he disappears into the night, Nightwing connects to the neural network that Felicity is extending.
@Nightwing: Don't.... don't know what this is... just.... ARGHHHHRRRGGHHHHHHH!!!!

@NIGHTTERROR: GRAYSON GONE....LEAVVVEEESSSS MEEEEE ALOOONNNNE.....

Even over the neural network there is something very wrong with the response. Almost guttural and primitive. Twisted and broken.

From somewhere deep in the woods of Slaughter Swamp comes an inhuman howl, and the sound of what might have been a very large tree splintering and crashing to the ground.

At that point there is an intense feedback across the Neural Network as it appears Nightwing, or whatever he has become, severs the connection.

Thea looks to the group gathered as she sheathes her weapons.

Ras' I believe we need to go. We should regroup. If it is your will my Liege." The young man, al-Saqr, kneels as he finishes speaking, bowing his head to his Master.

"We need to go after Nightwing, but not now. He is hurt, and there is something very wrong going on with him. But we need to figure out what. We need to regroup and test the serum that he was injected with and figure out what it is and what we need to do to fix it. Al-Saqr, put out the call to the rest of my Remnant. They need to secure the city. Once you have delivered my orders meet back at the police station."

It has been said the swamp holds secrets.

Perhaps, if the trees could talk the stories they would tell would be unlike anything told before. Or, there in that black water overhung by Spanish moss there could be voices and language unlike any ever heard.

But to him, these legends of the swamp secrets were known as truth.

He could hear the trees when they spoke.

He could listen to the water as it gave life to the World itself.

Indeed, did the swamp hold secrets.

His was the greatest secret of all. A creature born of the swamp, imbued with its powers, and at one with all life.

A plant with the memories of a man once known as Alec Holland.

But now, he is something more.

He is Swamp Thing.

Going Radio Violent. (Artemis/Felicity/Vixen)

Lunaramblings said:

As the Mad Doctor began his work, Nightwing began to sweat. To shake.

Click to expand...

"It's okay," Artemis assured the others. "This is normal. I think."

Lunaramblings said:

Suddenly his eyes burst open wide, and he shoots bolt upright. Screaming in agony. His body is twitching, twisting. His flesh almost seems to be boiling.

Click to expand...

Artemis hesitated. Took a step back. Her hazel eyes as wide as could be. "Okay, no, that's-- I'm pretty sure that's not normal. That is... way worse?"

Lunaramblings said:

As his body begins to shift and roil, he wrenches himself to his feet as wings burst from his back, and he lunges into the air. Still screaming he streaks off into the night.

Click to expand...

Artemis stood and stared for a moment, watching Nightwing-- literally-- take wing-- her heart in her throat.

And she whirled to face Kamen Rider Drive, her eyes blazing in her full-on trademark fury.

"You. WHAT DID YOU DO?"

Lunaramblings said:

As he disappears into the night, Nightwing connects to the neural network that Felicity is extending.
@Nightwing: Don't.... don't know what this is... just.... ARGHHHHRRRGGHHHHHHH!!!!

Click to expand...

Felicity's eyes widened. She clutched the edge of the desk. The chill that spiked up her spine--

@Overwatch: Oh my God. Nightwing. Nightwing, what's happening? Sitrep! Sitrep!

@VixMcCloud: Dick! Mari's hand flew to her mouth. Dick no!

Lunaramblings said:

@NIGHTTERROR: GRAYSON GONE....LEAVVVEEESSSS MEEEEE ALOOONNNNE.....

Even over the neural network there is something very wrong with the response. Almost guttural and primitive. Twisted and broken.

From somewhere deep in the woods of Slaughter Swamp comes an inhuman howl, and the sound of what might have been a very large tree splintering and crashing to the ground.

At that point there is an intense feedback across the Neural Network as it appears Nightwing, or whatever he has become, severs the connection.

Click to expand...

Not for the first time today, a massive squawk pierced the Daughter Box earpiece in Felicity's ear, and she cringed, crying out--

PING.
PING.
PING.

Base code isolated.
Firewall intact.
Neural-Net sanctity preserved.

A tear rolled down her face, and Felicity bobbed her head. "Th-- thank you."

That was something, at least. That they hadn't been exposed to some technopathic pathogen-- the enemy hadn't detected their psychic grid.

But this was... this was such a crushing loss.

Right up there with Supergirl, Barry, Ollie-- Nightwing was one of the best of them. The most human human...

In the heart of Gotham, in Cat's warehouse, Vixen had sunk to her knees, hugging herself, Laurel's hand on her shoulder as Vixen shook like a leaf-- a man she had loved-- transformed into a beast nothing like anything in this world... darker than the darkest side of The Red.

Lunaramblings said:

Thea looks to the group gathered as she sheathes her weapons.

Ras' I believe we need to go. We should regroup. If it is your will my Liege." The young man, al-Saqr, kneels as he finishes speaking, bowing his head to his Master.

"We need to go after Nightwing, but not now. He is hurt, and there is something very wrong going on with him. But we need to figure out what. We need to regroup and test the serum that he was injected with and figure out what it is and what we need to do to fix it. Al-Saqr, put out the call to the rest of my Remnant. They need to secure the city. Once you have delivered my orders meet back at the police station."

Click to expand...

Artemis damn near exploded. "Not-- not go after him? The sun is coming up! It's Slaughter Swamp-- if we don't go after him now, track him while we have the daylight, he could disappear forever in that-- Neverglade! Maybe your little wingboy there is going to kiss your ass, but you are not the Ra's of me!"

ChasNicollette said:

"It's okay," Artemis assured the others. "This is normal. I think."

Artemis hesitated. Took a step back. Her hazel eyes as wide as could be. "Okay, no, that's-- I'm pretty sure that's not normal. That is... way worse?"

Artemis stood and stared for a moment, watching Nightwing-- literally-- take wing-- her heart in her throat.

And she whirled to face Kamen Rider Drive, her eyes blazing in her full-on trademark fury.

"You. WHAT DID YOU DO?"

Click to expand...

Leon steps back as he switches to the Speed tire. I didn't do that. Mad Doctor doesn't have mutation abilities, None of the Shift Cars do. I don't know what happened. He rubs his helmet, mystified.

Blackbirds. (Artemis)

Zet_Cross said:

Leon steps back as he switches to the Speed tire. I didn't do that. Mad Doctor doesn't have mutation abilities, None of the Shift Cars do. I don't know what happened. He rubs his helmet, mystified.

Click to expand...

"What happened is you turned him into some kind of Kirk Langstrom vampire!" Artemis snarled.

Some rational part of Artemis' brain would later recognize that Drive could easily have activated some undetected latent metagene in Nightwing.

Or that the transformation could have simply been the result of that injection.

But right now she wanted someone to hit. And if she couldn't get that-- all the bad guys were down and her dad had made tracks--

--then she wanted someone to blame.

Mahha zenkai de tsuppashiru oretachi no aikotoba wa "Gō On!" (Artemis)

Zet_Cross said:

Look instead of throwing blame lets find him. If what you said is true and he did go into this swamp place then sooner would be better.

Click to expand...

"This is what I've been saying," Artemis snapped.

"What, are you waiting for me to call shotgun? Let's kick the tires and light the fires!"

Speaking of tires... Drive takes out a black Shift Car.

Tire Koukan, Dirve Type Wild

As Drive changes forms the Tridoron flips and changes to an off-roader.

Shall we?

Venom

He was still standing among the unconscious bodies of the last attackers, all around him signals came back to life as the towers linked back up with their original transponders.

@WeRVenom: "Wait did we just understand you correctly? Nightwing had just turned into some crazed flying beast, he severed the connection which felt like some wild beast and you want to go after him/it with some strange dude in a weird car? Am I missing anything here?

(Meta)Plot Twist.

@Thunderstruck: Okay, I'm here, I'm sorry, Tommy Terror took like three supersonic punches to stay down and my hand is killing me.

The Flash paused, and you could almost feel the squint as he assessed this situation.

@Thunderstruck: ...this is nice. Roomy, I guess? Definitely nicer than Dominator telepathy. Neat trick.

@Overwatch: Oh. Hey, uh-- The Flash-- look. There's a lot been happening, I'll give you the full mental download in a minute, just-- I need you to meet up with Rose Grant in Pittsburgh. She may have a line on-- on our missing Impulse.

@Thunderstruck: Wait, what?

Felicity was about to explain further, but Barry had already streaked off in a blur of red and gold and the neural net had lost its connection again.

@Overwatch: Oh my God, if people could stop speed rage-quitting and adding to my technopsychic headache, that would be just frakking peachy.


The Flash blurred to a stop on the roof beside Rose, looking panicked.

"Hey. Felicity said that you knew something about Bart's being missing?"

Rose blinked rapidly, adjusting to the legendary hero's sudden appearance, dusting herself off a bit so she didn't look like such a scuffed up, sleep-deprived mess. "Um, yeah. He and I were running together. I was-- Constant-C. But then I saw my dad was in Metropolis and I went to-- to get him. Bart and I split up after that. Hold on-- I'll-- I'll Dial again, I'll see if I can get Constant-C again, we can go looking for him."

Her watch lit up green, and she tapped the H-rune...

SWOOOSH

"I am... ELEMENT GIRL!"

Element Girl glanced down at her hands, and scowled. "Ah. One out of ten. Or is it thirteen, now? Figures."

Her power was to absorb any energy or matter she could touch, take on its properties temporarily. Not superspeed.

"It's okay," The Flash shook his head, "uh, Element Girl. I can carry you to Metropolis. If that's okay."

"Yeah," Element Girl nodded, holding out her hand to The Flash, and couldn't help a saucy wink. "You can pick me up anytime."

The Flash hesitated. "Uh, sure."

But then he reached out and took her hand, and a spark of Speed Force energy jumped from his hand to hers and back again like lightning between the clouds and the ground, equalizing ionization...

"Ah!" Element Girl jumped, flexing her hand in its fingerless glove, and she-- stopped. And stared at her hand, and then stared at The Flash again, her eyes unfocusing, refocusing, a very strange deja vu feeling racing up and down her spine.

"Oh. So that's where that flavor came from," she mumbled.

Barry was very much in a hurry to go looking for Bart, Max had entrusted him with Bart's care, if this kid really was his grandson, what had he done--? But the look on Element Girl's face gave him serious pause. "...flavor? Is this more weird flirting? Because I'm--"

"No, shut up a second," Element Girl held her head in her hands. "I don't always get strong memory impulses from the Heroes that I Dial, the-- ectypes-- but this-- this means something-- it's like trying to tell me-- Bart is safe. He's... he's in the world that Element Girl comes from, the parallel universe, but he's safe, and he's... he's loved. Really actually loved."

Barry's face was a mess of emotions, happy and sad and terrified and devastated and even he couldn't blink back tears fast enough. "No, I'm sorry, Rose, Element Girl, I'm sorry, I can't... accept that. There has to be a way to get him back. There has to be."

@Overwatch: Flash, you back online?

Out of habit, The Flash touched his earpiece, and half-turned away from Element Girl.

@Thunderstruck: Overwatch. I'm here.

@Overwatch: I did a sweep with my latest facial rec program and I got a glimpse of Impulse near Glenmorgan Square in Metropolis not too long ago, his trail might not be all the way cold.

@Thunderstruck: I'm on it, Felicity. Thank you.

He turned and glanced at Element Girl. "You okay to get home from here?"

"Actually, I--" Element Girl began, but before she could finish Barry was gone-- in a flash.

Rose sighed dismally. "Well, great."

But then... then time seemed to stop around her. Even the lights blinking on the cell towers nearby stopped mid wink.

And a glowing green figure materialized behind her, sounding awkward and apologetic as he spoke through the shimmering, sparking aura of green-- the same green as her Dial. And he was wearing, of all things, a fedora and a Lone Ranger mask.

"Victoria Rose Grant of Earth-25, currently Dialing Rose Mary Anderson of Earth-1294500, you are needed. Come with me to The Exchange."

He hesitated. "Sorry about the ruckus."

"The Exchange? What can you tell me about it? I've been seeing alerts about it on my phone--" In a moment of exponential bewilderment, Element Girl frowned and stepped towards the figure-- if she could absorb his energy then maybe she could--

But then the green energy that enveloped him expanded in an eyeblink and swept her up with him, and

SWOOOSH

they were gone.

Martian Manhunter

"Blue suns are cold suns, even when they shine."

So it would be were this the Phantom Zone.

But, it was not. Instead, this trans-phasic dimensional plane where J'onn J'onzz found himself was.....nothing. Though he stood on some level ground, there was no ground to be seen. There was no light to shine. There was, simply, nothing.

And, this angered the Last Green Martian, consumed as he was by the Anti-Life Equation. This anger triggered his powers to their fullest extent, fueled by rage and a need to destroy.

The Martian Manhunter had been unleashed. Full, unbridled power now rested within his hands, his eyes, his body. The power to destroy.

Yet, within the great mind of J'onn J'onzz there was still that mind that belonged to J'onn J'onzz, the greatest of the Manhunters, the Light to the Light. But, this mind had been shadowed and squashed by the Anti-Life until its visage was now....afraid.

Within a small room in the deepest, darkest recesses of the Martian's psyche, the remnants of that once great champion of justice sat in a small, dark room. He was there, exposed in his pure Martian form, his knees pulled up to his chest and cradled with arms that ended in four-fingered hands. The Great Martian's head was bowed, and if he could have been heard, it would have appeared he was sobbing.

This small room closed in on him, tightening millimeters by the hour. Soon, as the Anti-Life fulfilled J'onn completely, the room was close its constriction all the way. Then, J'onn J'onzz would be no more.

There would only be the rage.

The hatred that now fired through his synapses and caused him to cry out.

"I WILL BREAK FREE!"

With power of will, power of force, the Last Son of Mars began to vibrate his body, molecule by molecule. This, a trick he learned from a speedster long ago, accelerated his very physical matter to a speed unmatched by even the fastest.

His mind screamed within himself. The physical effects of this feat took a great toll upon his body.

But, he did not stop.

Faster.

And, faster still.

Until there was a great flash of light within the dark place, and J'onn J'onzz seemed to wink out of existence.

And, on the other side, within the space/time continuum of physical substance, and in the vacuum of space, there was another flash of light and the Martian Manhunter appeared amongst the stars.

He turned red eyes around and looked at his surroundings. Familiar constellations, familiar planets.

He had indeed broken free from his imprisonment.

Now, others would break, as well.

The Cosmic Treadstone.

AmenRa said:

And, on the other side, within the space/time continuum of physical substance, and in the vacuum of space, there was another flash of light and the Martian Manhunter appeared amongst the stars.

He turned red eyes around and looked at his surroundings. Familiar constellations, familiar planets.

He had indeed broken free from his imprisonment.

Now, others would break, as well.

Click to expand...

As J'onn J'onzz reoriented himself in the dimension of his birth, there in the depths of space, the gulfs between worlds...

...there came a sound like those worlds ending.

krekkaBOOOOM!

...and a figure in crimson, gold, and green emerged from a circular rip in spacetime, a forcible wormhole, and nodded when he saw The Manhunter in the grip of Anti-Life.

Perhaps some remnant of J'onzz' consciousness would recognize this as the man who, with a mighty female consort, had taken possession of the defeated Dr. Arthur Light once a great stone hand had taken Billy Batson and Sara Diggle, and unleashed the Hellspores that had infected first Kara Zor-El and by extension now J'onn J'onzz himself with Anti-Life.

But recognition was not strictly necessary. Anti-Life resonated within J'onn J'onzz... and would see that this being was not a target of his hate, but an agent of The Faction of Anti-Life. He was a soldier of The Great Darkness, and his orders were to be obeyed as though they were of the will that Anti-Life had supplanted in The Last Green Son of Mars.

"You're gonna wanna hold that thought, J'onny J'onzz of Earth-25," he pointed out. "If we're lucky, you'll get to trash that planet within an inch of its life eventually, but right now, sorry, we need you somewhere else."

He took a cube out from behind him, presumably from a segment of his belt, and tossed it to J'onn-- it instantly latched onto J'onn, clamping and welding onto his left shoulder at the molecular level. Surely this would prove agonizing to whatever semblance of J'onzz existed still, but The Anti-Life Manhunter could bear it proudly as a medallion of office.

"This is a FatherBox. It'll generate Boom Tubes for you so you don't have to vibrate between universes-- or punch your way through, as some people have the habit of doing. It'll track your target across The Multiverse."

"Her name is Jamie Hamilton. She's called 'The Doctor,' and she's a tattered remnant of The Judex Luminary Authority of Earth-14. She poses a nuisance to The Master of The Great Darkness. And we want you to eliminate her... painfully. She's immensely powerful and versatile, but she has one great check on her power that you never will. ...compassion."

"Have fun, J'onny. Don't be disappointing The Master, now."

And with that, the Fatherbox would flare to life... and ignite the maw of yet another of those great and terrible portals...

krekkaBOOOOM!

...and The Anti-Life Manhunter would be gone.

Far and away.

The War of The Roses: Prologue.

ChasNicollette said:

But then... then time seemed to stop around her. Even the lights blinking on the cell towers nearby stopped mid wink.

And a glowing green figure materialized behind her, sounding awkward and apologetic as he spoke through the shimmering, sparking aura of green-- the same green as her Dial. And he was wearing, of all things, a fedora and a Lone Ranger mask.

"Victoria Rose Grant of Earth-25, currently Dialing Rose Mary Anderson of Earth-1294500, you are needed. Come with me to The Exchange."

He hesitated. "Sorry about the ruckus."

"The Exchange? What can you tell me about it? I've been seeing alerts about it on my phone--" In a moment of exponential bewilderment, Element Girl frowned and stepped towards the figure-- if she could absorb his energy then maybe she could--

But then the green energy that enveloped him expanded in an eyeblink and swept her up with him, and

SWOOOSH

they were gone.

Click to expand...

Things moved quickly after that.

The Exchange sat at the core of this Multiverse, this region of Hypertime, and it was rocked by war.

Much of it was a blasted grey wasteland, but at the heart of it-- The Heart of The Exchange, there was The Hub-- the place through which all Dial signals in The Multiverse and maybe all of Hypertime were routed, the place from which all Dials were cast out into The Multiverse, from which all Dialware had been downloaded into compatible artifacts scattered throughout 52 worlds and then some. Surrounding that Hub were pockets of buildings, the remnants of civilization, but these too were ravaged by violence and attempts to rebuild them were intermittent at best.

For a time, this had been a utopia, its gates open wide to all the vast diverse universes of this present Multiverse, all manner of species and being and incarna.

But then The Great Darkness had come, and The Master, and The Anti-Life Faction. The desire to use Dials for conquest, for oppression, for destruction.

The Wizard, mysterious and enthroned, had united The Life Faction against them, and ever since the balance had power had tipped back and forth here.

Not so very long ago, The Faction of Life had regained central control of The Heart and The Hub of The Exchange, and were still desperately trying to undo the damage done to The Multiverse while Anti-Life had held the keys to the kingdom.

And this was the worlds-wide war into which Rose Grant found herself thrust. The war at the heart of the war.

Just as quickly as he'd brought her here and given her a high-speed, pop-culture riddled rundown of the situation, the emerald-glowing figure had to leave again, off to do the bidding of this-- mysterious force for good-- The Wizard.

He put her into the care of another old soldier in The New Dial Wars.

He was a blond man with piercing blue eyes, dressed in black, leaning on a black cane topped with a silver ball. This was Johnny "Whispers" Smith.

Beside him stood a grey wolf with eyes of a matching blue. This was Whispers' daemon, McKennitt.

"I'm afraid that a lot has been asked of you already," Whispers intoned boldly, with the feel of a man for whom inspiring speeches were part of his every day conversation, "and I'm only going to ask more. We're understaffed locally and globally-- our faction's forces wear thin even as we scrabble to hold onto The Heart of The Exchange with the edges of our fingernails... and we ourselves are short-handed."

They stood in a line, side-by-side, four of them, in postures that suggested varying levels of "at attention," and he walked along the line like a general reviewing his ranks, he tip of his cane stabbing the grey, stony earth as he walked and McKennitt stalked alongside him.

"When possible, our strike teams-- traditionally referred to as 'Dial Bunches' --are patterned after the original Dial Bunch. One or more Hero Dialers, a Sidekick Dialer, a Gear Dialer, a Dial-Tapper, an AutoDialer, a technician (or 'Fixer') for Dial repair and maintenance, and a non-Dialing hero who supports our cause. Seven at the least. But our losses have been heavy-- so we are perhaps not as diverse as we could be. But I believe with focus, courage, ingenuity, we can survive to victory with these happy few."

Rose watched Whispers stride past-- and she nervously glanced down the line at those who stood beside her.

They seemed... tough. But most of them seemed just as apprehensive as she did.

Reaching the end of the line, Whispers pivoted and faced back down the line, the way he'd come.

He gestured to Rose. "We have Rose Grant, an H-Dialer using a smartphone/smartwatch combo, whose homeworld of Earth-25 is currently a major focus of The Master's efforts to expand, and a front-line battleground for the soul of this Multiverse."

Rose stood up straighter, sharply.

Whispers pointed with his cane at the brown-haired woman in a green and white hoodie beside Rose-- slightly younger, with fascinating green eyes-- and a watch very similar to Rose's own. "We have Bernice 'Ben' Tennyson, from a nearby Multiverse, wearer of The Omni Matrix, or 'Omnitrix,' a local proprietary version of an H-Dial and compatible with Dialware."

"Hold your applause," Ben took her hand out of her hoodie's marsupial pocket and waved to an imaginary crowd. "I know, I know, I'm kind of a big deal, but plenty of time for autographs later."

Rose shot Ben a grateful smile, glad someone here had remembered to lighten the mood, and Ben smiled back, holding up her Omnitrix-- she'd noticed the similarity in their Dials, too. "Hey," she murmured. "Samesies. Heavy is the wrist that wears the watch, huh?"

Rose chuckled softly, nodding. "No doubt."

Whispers continued-- indicating a tall, titanic silver robot who towered almost two stories over the others. His faceplate looked intimidating as all get out, but it slid back to reveal a warm, friendly techno-organic face. "This-- is Gullwing, an Autobot whose customized vehicle mode plays host to a Jump Dial."

Sheepishly grinning, Gullwing tossed a salute to the smaller bipeds on either side of him. "Hey, all. I'm just a Scout where I come from, but here's looking forward to earning our racing stripes together."

Cane in front of him with both hands atop the handle, Whispers nodded to a helmeted man just past Gullwing. "And this is Tenkuujii Takeru, known as Kamen Rider Ghost, or simply 'Ghost.' His Ghost Driver hosts a Kami Dial that allows him to summon powerful heroic ectypes channeling the spirits of venerable historical figures, or 'luminaries.' As a specialty Dialer, he replaces our lost Mage Dialer, Lori Morning."

"Oh," Ben mumbled. "With that helmet I thought maybe he was a member of The Deadpool Corps. Still, that's cool too, I guess."

Takeru put his fist into his palm and bowed to his new compatriots. "Ohayu. May our lives always burn this bright!"

As Whispers finished introducing the four of them, a smaller, black girl with blonde hair, goggles, overalls, floppy insulated gloves and a heavy-laden utility belt came hurrying up beside and behind him.

He smiled at her gently, and then nodded to the others.

"And this young lady has been with me and my Dial Bunches ever since they made me a squad commander. Her name is Natasha Irons, called Rescue Nat, and she was born here, in The Exchange. She's an expert technician in the ways of The Operators, and her own Gear Dial primarily accesses Operator technology that supports our Dials or stymies those of our enemies, partly making up for our lack of a Dial-Tapper or an AutoDialer. She'll be our Fixer. She might even be good enough to make repairs on you, Gullwing."

Gullwing grinned. "Good to know! Ba weep grana weep ninny bong, little lady!"

"Uh, hey," Natasha grinned awkwardly at Gullwing, waving to the rest of the team, then glanced up at Whispers. "Sorry I'm late."

Whispers smiled what seemed like a trademark soft, sad, distant smile. "There's still time."

McKennitt harrumphed. "He always says that."

Whispers then turned back to his Dial Bunch. "My name, as you've already been told, is Johnny Smith-- but you can call me Whispers. My wolf here is McKennitt-- he's my daemon, an external physical manifestation of my spirit. I would ask you not to touch him, not only because it's taboo and uncomfortable where I come from-- a parallel of the Earth colloquially known as Lyra's World --but because he's a grumpy ol' cuss."

McKennitt snorted. "I blame it on the company I keep."

Withdrawing an ornate golden compass-like device from his coat pocket, Whispers held it up for them to see. "I'm an intuitive alethiometrist, which means I use a sooth-saying device not unlike a combination of a Tarot Deck and a Ouija Board with which you might be more familiar? Only far more accurate and insightful. My alethiometer is also host to Hero Dialware, so when I ask it to tell a fortune, it Dials me a Hero based on the arcanum of the answer."

Pocketing the compass, he smiled encouragingly at the Bunch of them. "So. Any questions?"

The Dial Bunch looked at each other, and then-- somewhat hesitantly-- Rose raised her hand.

"Rose?" Whispers nodded, indicating her with the top of his cane.

"I think we're all grateful to be able to contribute," Rose enunciated. "And we're eager to get into it as soon as we can. When does our training start?"

Whispers immediately looked pained. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you knew. I'm afraid, Rose, that boot camps are a luxury of our enemies' that we cannot afford. Your training came in your own worlds, familiarizing yourselves with the basic operations of your respective Dials. But now you're here, in a very shark-infested deep end, and it's time to sink or swim."

Rose rocked back on her heels a bit, her eyes wide as could be. "Oh. Kay."

Ben put her hands through her thick brown hair, green eyes slamming shut. "Oh, God, that's-- that's so not cool. I've barely had my Omnitrix for-- I don't even know--"

Whispers held up a steadying hand towards them, palm out and open. "Listen. Listen to me. I know this is terrible, and my heart breaks every time I need to put another Bunch through these paces. But I know that you all have it in you to surpass any obstacle, overcome any foe. Ben, you yourself-- I know of a very similar, male version of you that had an Omnitrix for less than a day and saved his own Multiverse-- including, through the interconnectedness of Hypertime, your home parallel in this Multiverse --from an amplified Time Bomb."

"Anyone can be a Dialer. Literally anyone," Whispers insisted. "You don't need to be able to overcome fear, or instill it, or inspire hope-- you don't need a mutant gene or an alien heritage-- you don't need to be a perfect physical specimen or The World's Greatest Detective-- just a soul that's compatible with the Dial you find, or that finds you. All that remains is to take the amazing power in the palm of your hand, or on your wrist, or on your belt, or in your--" he gestured to Gullwing "--dashboard console-- and become who you were born to be."

Rose and Ben shared a look, and Gullwing reached down to fist-bump Takeru.

Rose met Whispers' gaze.

"Okay."

"Let's go."

"Allons-y."

The War of The Roses: First Avengeance, Part 1.


Gunfire raged in the small city, frightened figures darting between the rustic houses that under any other circumstances would have seemed welcome and inviting. The moon shone in the sky, but her light barely penetrated the thick clouds that swathed the night-- if ever there were a metaphor for hope in this place, that was it.

A Norwegian lad burst through a pair of heavy, ancient wooden doors in a stone-brick chapel, hauling it shut behind him.

"[They've come for it!]" he cried to the place's caretaker, an old watchman who hurried down the stone steps towards him.

The slender, hawkish watchman sneered derisively, confident in their hiding place, and in the tunnel vision of men who believed themselves superior. "[They have before.]"

"[Not like this,]" the younger man panted, shaking his head.

"[Let them come,]" the watchman asserted. "[They'll never find it.]"

But then the building began to tremble, the cast-iron chandelier swinging, the knightly helmets decorating the wall falling lopsided upon their sconces, and both man and boy stood for a moment staring around them in wonder at what could shake this place-- the footfall of a god?

And then that foot seemed to fall-- a heavy steel construction vehicle rammed its way through those wooden doors, caving in half that wall and showering the younger man with debris.

The watchman staggered back, eyes bulging, heart in his throat, then tried to dig out his younger counterpart--

--only to find him dead under a stone.

The only light that could pierce this misty, smoke-filled night were the lights of that massive devastator on its caterpillar treads-- and the headlights of a sleek, sinister automobile whose hood ornament depicted a skull wreathed in serpents.

The driver of that car disembarked and strode across the damp cobblestones with an air like-- like his were the footfalls of gods, and that devastator's onslaught had only been overture.

Ahead of him, grey-clad soldiers of a fascist regime attempted to shove the graven lid off of a stone sarcophagus depicting a knight in repose, their commanding officer screaming at them as even their combined strength was unable to dislodge the cover: "Open it! Quickly before he gets--"

The watchman lay disheveled upon the floor, staving off panic despite having been physically overwhelmed.

But when the soldiers stopped and turned and stared, he too looked up at that which they feared.

Their superior-- in how many ways was that true? --stood in the gaping cavern the devastator had made of the door way, and then picked his way effortlessly across the rubble, the soldiers and their officer instantly snapping to attention.

Silence ruled the room save for his footsteps, and even the watchman, staunch to the last, felt a chill up his spine at the ill omen of the superior's coming.

"It has taken me a long time to find this place," the superior intoned, even his voice was ominous, but oddly-- respectful? "You should be commended."

"Help him up," he demanded simply, and the soldiers obeyed, picking the haggard watchman off of the stone floor, dragging him to his feet.

The superior's face was angular, conventionally handsome. He wore a uniform but covered it with a coat of black leather, and wore the hat of a general.

He radiated malevolence. And he radiated power.

But the watchman was cowed by him not at all, simply mystified, as they came face to face.

"I think that you are a man of great vision," the superior decided, "and in this way we are much alike."

The watchman shook his head, eyes narrowed, disdain etched in his craggy features. "I am nothing like you."

"Of course, but what others see as superstition," the superior pressed, "you and I know to be a science."

"What you seek is just a legend--" the watchman dismissed, but the superior instantly trod on this--

"Then why make such an effort to conceal it?" he wondered, then turned and handed his hat to one of the soldiers, standing grimly over that sarcophagus. After a moment's calm consideration, he shoved that lid away with almost casual ease-- the might in his arms dislodging a thing alone that even several grown men could not remove.

In that sarcophagus was indeed the withered form of a swordsman, the blade lain across the corpse like a holy man might wear a cross.

And in the bony hands of that long-dead knight sat a cube, pallid and translucent and without a hint of the dusts of time. An otherworldly thing, even in that place so devoted to ancient faith.

With his own gloved hand, the superior pried the cube free, and gazed at it with judicious eyes. "The Tesseract was the jewel of Odin's treasure room."

And then he turned to face the watchman, and just as casually let that cube slip from his fingertips.

It shattered when it hit the floor, nothing more than smoky glass.

"It is not something one buries," the superior continued, as the watchman and the soldiers gazed on with mixed and mingled consternation and dread. "But I think it is close, yes?"

"I cannot help you," the watchman flatly denied him.

"No," the superior nodded, again with the air of respect for the man's idealism, but then twisted the knife that made vulnerable all good men, "but maybe you can help your... village. You must have some friends out there. Some little grandchildren, perhaps. I have no need for them to die."

As if in response to this statement, the devastator turned its turret, showing off a tank cannon that could easily lay waste to the countryside.

Ache welled in the watchman's eyes. And those eyes shifted, slightly, almost infinitesimally, but it was enough for the superior to perceive.

The superior turned, contemplatively, to follow the watchman's gaze. And beheld on one stone wall the carving of a great tree.

He approached it with grace and confidence. "Yggdrasil," he identified it, "The Tree of The World. Guardian of Wisdom, and Fate also."

Running his piercing gaze down the tree's trunk and to her roots, he stepped closer still-- and pressed a secret knot on those roots as though he had known it were there all along, despite its being impossible to find.

And thus a drawer popped open for him, a box which he then removed from its place in the wall.

And when he opened the box, and his face was bathed in the glow of magenta light--

--he stiffened. "Vas los?"

He reached into the box and pulled out a small, metallic, glowing magenta gauntlet.

"What?" he demanded of the watchman, snarling. "What is this? Where is The Tesseract?"

Instantly he had gone from a man of refinement and assured victory to one of fury, of unrighteous indignation-- one did not come between a zealot and his Heaven.

"I told you," the watchman replied, standing up straighter, "I cannot help you find the legend you seek. Even with this, you cannot hope to wield the power you hold-- you will burn!"

"I have already been through every Hell you can imagine," the superior spat, "and I do not think you shall fare nearly as well."

He darted his gaze to the officer. "Give the order to open fire."

And then he drew his pistol, firing a single shot through the watchman's heart, the backsplatter of blood painting red the skull of the snake-wreathed symbol he wore on his lapel.

"The search continues," he snarled.

But as the tank cannon reported concussively in the near distance, as he moved to shove the disappointing metal mitt back into its box--

--the glove shifted, transformed, wrapped itself around his hand, it put itself upon his hand and his fingers, and a sheath grew from it up his forearm.

"Nein!" he roared.

"I feel you in there, crawling around the edges of my mind! I will not be taken so easily! I will not be possessed! I will not settle for a lesser prize than The Tesseract!"

And then another voice echoed in that place.

"Ah," it spoke, a male voice, attached to a man descending the stone stairs from whence the watchman had come before, dressed in a uniform that covered him from head to toe. "But Herr Schmidt. That is not a lesser prize. That is The Tactigon, left here hundreds of years ago in place of The Tesseract when a warrior from beyond the stars died as he and other bounty hunters retrieved it for a being called The Collector. And it has the power to form any weapon to defeat your foes, to emit any energy that might destroy them."

Flexing the hand that wore this glove, this Tactigon, Johann Schmidt glared down at those magenta-clad digits. "It is but one weapon. I desired the power to create weapons for an army that will remake the face of the world!"

The figure shrugged, and pulled out of one of the pouches of his belt a device that looked-- of all things-- like an electric kazoo. And he pressed a button upon it, and it emitted a curious electric hum... a series of notes with metronomic precision...

"Then it's your lucky day, because I've decided to waive your activation fee."

...and a rotary dial morphed on the inside forearm of the gauntlet, etched with characters of no Earthly origin.

"Hydra seeks not just conquest of this world, I know this," the figure mused. "It seeks a particular world in the stars, to bring back an old friend, an old god. Hitler seeks to create a Reich that will last a thousand years, but with this Tactigon, now enhanced with Gear Dialware, you can create a thousand Reichs on a thousand worlds that will last a thousand thousand years, reaching across the universe to handcraft a throne out of constellations for you and for that darksome abomination."

Johann Schmidt... arched an eyebrow. "If this is hyperbole, if these are lies, you will know no end of torment."

9-X chuckled. "Oh, I've already been to a Hell that's beyond your imagination. But it made me stronger. All I want... is to share that strength. Hail Hydra."

Schmidt smirked a slow, slow smirk, and curled his Tactigauntleted hand into a fist.

"Hail Hydra."


Carved into the heart of a snowswept Alp, there hid a compound bustling with a hive of singlemindedly dark purpose. And in a laboratory whose wide windows gazed out upon the stony snows, the guiding intellects of that hive narrowed in on that purpose.

Johann Schmidt stalked away from his desk, 9-X looking on and lingering behind him, watching with an air of being-- it was difficult to place his demeanor, with that mask over his whole face, but he seemed --mildly intrigued.

"Are you ready, Doctor Zola?" Schmidt demanded of a diminutive, nervous, fidgety fellow gazing into a scope.

"My machine requires the most delicate calibration," Arnim Zola replied, playing it as safe as he dared without risking Schmidt's wrath. "Forgive me if I seem... overcautious."

"And are you certain that those conductors of yours can withstand the energy surge long enough for transference?" Schmidt pressed, examining notes and texts and photographs of his fabled long-sought Tesseract.

"With this... artifact," Zola hesitated, indicating the Tactigon on Schmidt's arm, "I am certain of nothing. I fear that it may not work at all."

Schmidt harrumphed, and conceded slightly: "We are admittedly in uncharted waters, Doctor. But this is the very essence of science, is it not? To push back uncertainty, that we need fear nothing."

He then turned to eye 9-X.

"As for our... benefactor? ...consultant?" Schmidt remarked. "I assume you would not be standing here with us if this was about to self-destruct and wipe this range of peaks off of the face of The Earth."

9-X chuckled.

"Oh, I'd live. But no, this should work nicely."

"Ordinarily, The Tactigon would adapt to any foe you faced. In the heat of battle, you would find yourself armed with whatever weapon or energy you needed to triumph. Now that it's enhanced with G-Dial tech, you can summon the desired power at will, regardless of your target or the lack thereof. In fact, most Gear Dialers would require a Compendium to Dial in the exact Gear they wanted-- but since your Tactigon has a built-in sentient operating system, you can let its fingers do the walking."

Schmidt seemed... mollified. He nodded once. "Very well."

He held up his arm, flexed his fist, gazed down at the rotary dial on the inside of his forearm. "I summon the energies of The Tesseract!"

The Dial spun-- the characters blurred-- he felt power such as he had never known crackle in his fingertips--

--shhhhhCLICK!--

--the magenta hue of The Tactigon turned to a deep blue like a searing sky, and Zola hurriedly donned dark glasses against its brightness--

--and plugs shapeshifted out along the sides of his forearm, plugs to which Arnim Zola hurriedly attached his array. He then manned a console, adjusting switches and knobs, eyeing a gauge and watching the needle rise... "Twenty percent... forty... sixty... stabilizing at sixty percent."

Dragging the cables with him, Schmidt grimaced, glancing down at his arm even as he adjusted those knobs and those switches with impunity. "I have not come all this way for safety, Doctor."

Then sparks flew, and power screamed from The Tactigon-- blue energies like lightning but alive crackled around the room, screaming like siren songs from another world, like a glimpse through the cracks in reality, and then just as suddenly everything fell back to silence, and The Tactigon went back to being magenta, and Zola and Schmidt wondered on what unholy soils they had just trod unbidden.

Zola was just the only one to put it into words: "What was that?" he hissed.

But of what else Schmidt knew of the true nature of The Tesseract and its power, he gave no sign. "I must congratulate you, Arnim. Your designs do not disappoint."

He indicated a canister... a reservoir oozing with that selfsame energy, the brightest of blues.

He then glanced around, at the burn marks on the floor and the frayed, flayed cables that dangled from his arm. "Though they may require some slight... reinforcement."

Arnim Zola gazed intently, cautiously, incredulously at the canister, shaking his head in wonder. "The exchange is stable. Amazing! This energy we have collected... it could power my designs. All my designs. This... will change the war."

"Doctor Zola," Schmidt corrected him. "This will change... the world."

9-X seemed to smirk behind his mask. "...for starters."


But all was not lost in that world.

An ocean away, a would-be hometown hero named Steven Grant Rogers had been transformed into the pinnacle of physical perfection. Though he had initially been relegated to a sideshow attraction, a fundraiser and a USO performer and a propaganda prop, a tour date near the front lines brought him face to face with the tragedies of war.

Johann Schmidt's Hydra forces had killed and captured almost all of the 107th Infantry-- and with them, Steve's only childhood friend, "Bucky" Barnes.

But Steve Rogers wasn't going to let them go without a fight.

Or he wasn't--

"Captain America!"


Fire raged throughout the facility as the self-destruct took hold-- and fire raged outside, as The 107th turned Tesseract-powered weapons against their captors.

Steve and Bucky staggered through the catwalks criss-crossing the upper reaches of the facility, trying to find a way out through the fire and flames. And as they did-- Steve heard a voice cry out across the manmade chasm, and skidded to a halt to turn and look.

"How exciting!" chortled Schmidt mockingly, standing with Zola across a span of catwalk that ended near an elevator. "I am a great fan of your films!"

He strode out onto the catwalk, and-- silent, stern, grim-- Captain America moved out to meet him.

"So Dr. Erskine magaged it after all," Schmidt observed. "Not exactly an improvement, but still... impressive."

Deigning at first not to speak to the man who'd ordered his friend and mentor's assassination, Cap hauled off and slugged the German across the jaw.

Schmidt... grunted.

Normally when Cap punched a guy, they stayed down hard, but-- Schmidt... grunted.

Dauntless, Cap glared at Schmidt. "You got no idea."

Straightening, his hair mussed, one eye rimmed in red, Schmidt grinned as though already triumphant. "Haven't I?"

And he hauled off with his right hand, the hand that wasn't encased in a magenta gauntlet, and those knuckles drove a fist-shaped dent into Cap's ever-ready steel shield.

And then, with less effort than it takes to tell, he flexed the gauntleted hand, and it sprouted three blades from the back of its own knuckles. A single slash cut the shield to ribbons, and it fell away from Rogers' arm and to the catwalk floor with a series of dull, apologetic clanks.

Cap went for his gun, but Schmidt decked him with a right cross, and the pistol skittered away and tumbled off of the catwalk. Again undaunted, Cap kicked out with both legs, putting Schmidt on his own back...

Frightened not of Schmidt losing the fight, but of getting caught in the continued fireblasts, Arnim Zola hauled a lever, retracting the catwalk and forcing both super-soldiers to their respective sides.

The shards of Cap's (admittedly largely decorative) shield tumbled into the fires below.

As he straightened, Schmidt called out again to Captain Rogers: "No matter what lies Erskine told you, you see, I was his greatest success!"

And then he reached up, and peeled the faux-flesh mask away from his face, revealing that the red around his eye had not been blood, but his true skin. His face... oh, his face... he looked like a red skull.

Bucky, still shell-shocked and half-delirious from whatever horrid experiments Zola had visited upon his body and mind, still struggling to adjust to the concept of his tiny, fragile best friend having been transformed into this chiseled god-man-- perhaps could be forgiven for quipping: "You don't have one of those, do you?"

"You are deluded, Captain," The Red Skull trumpeted, tossing his false face into the flames far below to join Cap's shredded shield. "You pretend to be a simple soldier, but in reality, you are just afraid to admit that we have left humanity behind! Unlike you, I embrace it proudly! Without fear!"

He turned, as he spoke, and with Zola boarded the waiting elevator.

Steve retorted: "Then how come you're running?"

Schmidt didn't answer as the lift doors closed, just stood there crossing his arms in front of himself-- letting Steve's perfect eyes drink in the sight of him--

--as powerful as Rogers physically, and yet armed with this strange new weapon, he had left humanity even further behind than Rogers had.

It was a sight that would haunt Rogers for a good many months.

But for now, Cap first had to save his friend. And take back what he had learned to the Strategic Scientific Reserve.

Armed with cursory knowledge of Hydra's battle plan, Captain America was tasked by Colonel Phillips and The SSR to foil that plan with all due ass-kicking. Though Phillips sought to fill out Cap's task force with the best and brightest of the Allied militaries, Cap had a different idea-- to tap the indomitable, madcap skills of the very howling commandos he had freed from that Hydra base-- who had turned it on its ear and routed their captors at a moment's notice.

This turn of events was not without its pitfalls, however-- a schism formed sharply between Agent Carter and Captain Rogers when she caught him receiving a very patriotic kiss from the sultry Private Lorraine. Their nascent relationship tailspun.

Fortunately, Steve didn't let that heartbreak stop him from getting his head in the game. Suiting up with a new Captain America uniform-- and a replacement vibranium shield beta-tested by that selfsame blisteringly furious Peggy Carter --taking the fight to Hydra quickly became a blur of fire and steel.

He and his rescued POWs quickly bonded as a unit, and as dubious as everyone had been that the so-called Howling Commandos had been up to the task, they quickly proved assets in the field.

Everywhere they went they were kicking down doors guns blazing. Steve was a real one-man army and that shield rapidly become an extension of his arm. Hydra forces scattered around him like tenpins, like dominoes.


As a Hydra facility exploded around and behind him, Steve roared clear on a specialized Stark-built motorcycle-- and he glanced back over his shoulder with a satisfied smirk, as if to say Nice work, boys.


Captain America moved slowly, quietly, through mist-cloaked woods with the frozen earth lightly frosted with snow, a large complement of Howling Commandos picking their way along behind him, taking their cues, watching him for changes.

Steve turned and surveyed their surroundings as his men approached him, and his keen blue eyes detected movement in a treetop-- without hesitation, a well-oiled machine, Steve threw his shield like a Frisbee and it knocked a sniper out of his tree-stand and into the snow-- the shield ricocheted back to Steve's hand like it had never left.

As he paused to slip his shield back onto his arm, he took stock of their surroundings--

--and stopped, as he and The Howling Commandos stopped, as he overheard a whistling, a humming, somewhere high in the trees, as though from some form of electricity.

"What the Hell is that?" demanded Dugan, pushing up the rim of his trademark bowler hat and pointing.

And there, through the briefest of gaps in the mist, they glimpsed a silver-steel automobile... flying through the air, suspended on some kind of-- gravitic reversion technology?

Bucky squinted, glanced at Cap. "Is that one of Stark's?"

Cap frowned. "I dunno. Guy never tells me anything."

But the mist was thick and ever moving, and mere instants later even the vehicle's headlights were again lost from view.

It was then that a man dressed in black from head-to-toe with a yellow utility belt... like a darker, more anonymous counterpart to Captain America himself... stepped out of the mists before them. He had a small telephonic device in one hand, and was dialing it.

Almost as one, the entire contingent of Howling Commandos drew beads on the newcomer. Almost as one because as fast as these men were, Captain America had his gun clear of leather and his shield poised faster than most men could blink in a hurry.

"Stand down," Cap grimaced, "and identify yourself."

The man nodded. "Yes, quite right. I'd like to keep this as... transactional as possible. My designation is '9-X,' and while I have nothing but respect for your mythological status, I'm tasked with helping The Red Skull create the foundations of a power structure that will span a goodly portion of this galactic arm, and you're just enough of a nuisance to hamper that goal."

"In that case," Cap replied grimly, his aim never wavering one micrometer to the left or right of the red "third eye" in that mask's forehead, "I'm going to have to ask you to put down the communicator and surrender."

9-X tsked. "Or you'll what, shoot me? That won't do you any good. Besides, you're going to want to save your ammunition. You see, this isn't a communicator: it's a Gear Dial."

He pressed send.

shhhhhCLICK!

In the waiting palm of his other hand instantly materialized a small, metallic orange cube.

Everyone stopped and stared at the cube for a moment.

Gabe Jones leaned in to eye Jacques Dernier, the team's explosive expert, and murmured, in French: "[Some sort of grenade?]"

Dernier could only shake his head nervously and shrug.

"Now," Cap grimaced, "I'm going to have to ask you to put down the 'Gear Dial' and that magic-trick box."

9-X chuckled, and let the cube roll off of his fingers and into the snow that formed a thin layer over the ground.

It burbled upon contact with the snow. And somehow, mitotically, it regurgitated an almost identical cube-- which then sprouted, expanded, grew, mechanically and yet somehow organically, into an android warrior evocative of the samurai.

"I believe the traditional command," 9-X drawled, "is 'Get them!'"

The android swung up its left arm, the hand retracting to reveal a cannon-- which immediately unleashed a storming bolt of saffron light--

--Cap barely got his shield up in time, and while the vibranium easily absorbed the concussion of the blast, Cap felt the air boil around him as the energy cascaded on either side.

"FIRE AT WILL!" he bellowed, and at his command The Howling Commandos unleashed hell--

--Bucky with his sniper rifle, Dugan with his shotgun, Jones with his Browning M1919A6, everyone with a clean line opened fire--

--a hail of hot lead, the proverbial whole nine yards.

But it seemed impervious to such small-arms fire, wading through the bullets as they caromed away and reaching for Cap's shield with its right hand, ready to yank it out of the way so it could fry Cap point-blank.

Cap came up swinging, firing a straight right into the machine's chestplate-- a punch hard enough to stop a speeding car, and it managed to drive the armored android back about half a step without so much as a dent. Grunting with effort, Cap lashed out, slashing at the robot's grasping hand with his shield and severing it at the wrist before jumping high enough to knee it in the faceplate.

This staggered it back another half-step, but when Cap landed he saw that from the right wrist there had already sprouted a skeletal growth of servomotors-- it was already growing a new hand!

Cap squinted. He was already a bright lad before Erskine's serum had turned his nervous system into superconductors, and his brain didn't fail him now.

He closed the distance with the robot in a single whirling move that gashed his mighty shield across the robot's chestplate, tearing the machine wide open to reveal the mechanical equivalent of guts and a chest cavity--

--it was already healing, circuits growing back into place, but Cap turned his head sharply, held up his hand--

"JACQUES!" he demanded. "MAINTENANT!"

"Mais oui!" Dernier was already moving, an explosive cylinder already beeping in his hand, and he hurled it to Cap--

--Cap snagged it from the air, and crammed it into the receding gap just as it closed, then dropped to one knee and ducked and covered under the shield--

BOOM.

The walking tank blew to bitty shards, its orange shrapnel raining down around them like a hail.

9-X stood there for a moment as the explosion echoed in the wintry woods, and he clapped a slow clap. "That is... beyond impressive. You do not disappoint, stuff of legend. Cavemen triumphing over the astronaut."

The cube burbled again in the snow.

"Except," 9-X noted, with no small amusement, "it's not just one astronaut. It's a whole troopship."

The cube kicked up another android, and another, and another--

"Damn," Jim Morita breathed, glancing at Falstaff. "Wish we'd brought that Hydra tank, huh?"

Falstaff snorted in bitter incredulity. "The boffins always must play with their toys before they share them with the rank and file."

Cap hesitated. Not a lot could make him do that, even this early in his career. And still fewer things could make him utter the words: "Fall back! EVERYONE FALL BACK!"

9-X whooped like he'd just won The Super Bowl, fists over his head. "Captain America retreating! Oh, that's almost as good as making him swear!"

But then that whistling-humming electrical-esque noise sounded again in the sky, and that flying silver car swooped down out of the mist, headlights blazing, and it hovered just over the heads of The Howling Commandos as they made to run.

"Ah, Hell," Bucky glowered up at it. "Now what?"

9-X seemed to hesitate, and lowered his hands. "That, Sergeant Barnes, is an excellent question."

As if in response, the car's doors swung up and open-- gullwinged upwards-- and the car itself seemed to shout: "Shit! It's the Cavalry!"

And a pointy-eared figure in black leaned out from the driver's side, glowering at 9-X. "Rescue Nat! Analyze the robots and develop a countermeasure! The rest of you keep them off the soldiers while Nat works! I'm on 9-X!"

"Ah," 9-X seemed to chuckle. "...Whispers."

The figure dove from the hovering car, seemingly flying under his own power and diving at the speed of a crossbow-bolt to slam both fists first into 9-X' chest--

--the concussion shattered the trunks of nearby trees and knocked 9-X fifty yards straight backwards, but when he landed he was laughing.

The figure didn't let up-- he hurtled after 9-X with violence aforethought.

The hover-converted vehicle seemed to hold a lot more people than it should have, like one of those clown cars--

--a plant-like creature dropped to the ground beside Bucky, igniting fireballs in her palms before flinging them at the robots--

"Hey," she crowed in a voice like she had a frog full of swamp-muck in her throat, "big fan! Oh my God, you guys are living breathing legends, this is gonna be sweet!"

Bucky stared at her and wondered if Arnim Zola's experiments had driven him mad after all. "What?"

"PUT ON YOUR WAR PAINT!" Out of the passenger side of the car there swooped a woman in blue who was also unleashing storms of flame from her hands, blonde hair billowing in the slipstream of her flight, and Bucky glanced up at her, too, in bewilderment.

"I know, I know," the plant-girl chortled, hosing down a robot with searing fireblasts from both hands, "I'm like a Human Torch, she's like a Spitfire wearing a Union Jack, the guy in black over there actually is Namor the Sub-Mariner-- it's like getting the whole original-universe band back together!"

"Nothing makes any sense," Bucky grimaced, drawing a pistol to fire now that he'd emptied his sniper rifle, unloading this now in the face of the same robot that the swampy, fiery creature attacked with her flame, "but at least you're shooting the right side."

A hooded figure in black and red dropped out of the vehicle next, drawing two swords as he fell--

--bisecting a robot in a shower of sparks and whirling into a blinding series of moves that hacked it limb from limb--

--bounding back a step to make sure he had sliced the parts far enough away from each other that they couldn't immediately grow back together, he glanced up to find Jim Morita next to him, and he nodded briskly and respectfully. "Ohayu."

"Uh," Jim nodded back, astonished. "Fresno, actually. I've never been to Ohio."

A decel cable dropped from the hovering car, and a black girl with blonde hair and goggles slid down it, with a grey wolf strapped to her back--

--she landed in a crouch next to Cap himself, who was taking fire from a number of robots and parrying each blast with his shield--

--drew a massive sledgehammer with a red-and-yellow "S" out of one of the (surprisingly capacious) pouches on her tool belt and with a cry of effort, slammed it down--

--crushing the orange gauntlet that Cap had severed earlier, which had been intently crawling unnoticed along the ground to attack him.

"Thanks," Cap grimaced, blocking another blast. "Mind telling me who the Hell you people are?"

"I'm Rescue Nat," she nodded, pulling a strap that released the wolf to drop to the ground. "This is McKennitt. It's an honor."

"More importantly," McKennitt growled, "can we talk about the robots that are on our honored asses?"

"Don't approve of the talking dog's language," Cap grimaced, weathering another stormblast, then another, "but Toto's got a point."

"Right!" Nat nodded, dropping her hammer and yanking a scanning device out of another belt-pouch-- a sonic screwdriver --which immediately started whistling and glowing blue at the tip.

Apparently everyone was finally out of the car, because the car itself-- changed--

--reconfigured in mid-air into a titanic silver robot--

--landed with an impact that shook the ground and scattered Howling Commandos on either side of him. Immediately, his own fists folded away, retracted, transforming into cannons not unlike those used by their enemies. "Hey, little Junkions. How 'bout a little thunder--" he unleashed a massive sonic boom of a blast from his right arm-cannon-- "--a little lightning--?" and then a bright-white crackle of electric power arced from his his left arm-cannon, filling the air with the stench of ozone.

"Jesus H. Buddha Fucking Christ!" Dugan roared, sprawled on his back from diving out of the falling silver robot's way, staring in astonishment up at the machine-monster that had emerged from that tiny two-seater flying car. "Doesn't anyone drive Buicks anymore?"

"Sure!" the transforming robot replied cheerfully. "Some of my best friends are Buicks!"

Then an orange robot creature sprinted for Dugan's fallen form, and the silver robot's left hand reconfigured from a lightning-cannon into a bladed melee weapon that ripped the smaller robot near in half. Without even blinking, Dugan grabbed a grenade off of his belt and threw it into the healing gap like he'd seen Dernier do with Cap, and the thing blew up from the inside out.

As the red-hooded figure pirouetted with his swords, gutting an orange robot that instantly started to heal, Morita and Falstaff-- no doubt inspired by Dugan --ran up and immediately began hosing their machine-guns into the gap, the spray of their bullets withering the circuitry and cogs even as they grew back--

--allowing the man in the red parka time to reach down, grab a grenade from Falstaff's belt and, with ghostly power, phase right through the robot to leave the grenade in its healing gap. He then spun round immediately and tackled both Morita and Falstaff, shielding them from the resulting explosion that turned the robot into a cindery mess.

"Thank you, gentlemen," he nodded to both men. "Be careful not to throw your lives away! But thank you."

"No way that rustbucket wasn't going down before we were," Morita insisted.

"And why should you lot have all the fun?" Falstaff quipped, dryly.

"As fast as we blow these tin can wankers up," the flying girl cried, dropping a hail of fireballs on the latest batch of tank-like robots, "they stitch themselves together, and that box is still spitting out more-- how's that tech support coming, Nat love?"

Nat squinted at the screwdriver as it whistled, switching to the red settings. "Yeah, yeah, keep your shoulder-pads on, Rose!" Then she narrowed her blue eyes. "Wait! They're-- they're a dehydrated Techadon army! From Ben's neck of The Multiverse!"

"Hey-hey," the plant-girl scowled, as a robot cannon-blasted her near in half and she grew back in mere moments as though borrowing a page from the robots' book, "I'm not affiliated with them! I've barely fought like three supervillains back home and almost no-one from space!"

Nat ignored Swampfire's protests, and glanced back up at Valkyrie Missile. "Rose! They're reconstituting because there's so much water here! The mist and the snow! Can you clear it, get it away from that box?"

"Consider it done, yeah?" the flying blonde woman nodded, and the molten-golden fire from her hands died away-- and instead blue-white lightning that seemed to drip icicles crackled around her fingertips, her eyes--

--the snow billowed up from the ground, the mist funneled together, all of it for hundreds of yards around--

--all of it swirled into a ball in the air in front of Valkyrie Missile--

--a number of the robots leveled their arm-cannons up at this newly-increased tactical threat, but red-hooded Kamen Rider Ghost pinballed amongst them, hacking and slashing, severing arms at the shoulders, heads at the neck, disemboweling and eviscerating--

--and while cutting wounds didn't slow the robots down much, the silver-steel titanic Gullwing moved in perfect concert, carefully timing sonic blunderbuss-blasts to shatter each robot that Ghost weakened with his swords.

--all the moisture hardened into a massive, massive hailstone in front of Valkyrie Missile, and with a cry of cryokinetic effort she sent the hailstone hurtling up for the top of the sky, as far away from that bastardly orange box as she could manage.

The cube stopped burbling, and then sat there for a moment, quietly ticking over, before falling fully silent and still.

9-X was still laughing, there on the forest floor with all its snow ripped away, no matter how many times Whispers hit 9-X with Namor's tremendous strength, he kept laughing. "How many of your Dial Bunches have I slaughtered, Smith? And yet here you are with another one, scraping the bottom of the bottom-most barrel."

"You're invulnerable," Whispers observed, grimly. "Whose powers have you pirated this time? Unus? Kimura?"

"Actually," 9-X considered, "I'm more interested in your Dial, Smith. This is the second time in a row your old-timey steampunk trinket's given you a water-themed Hero against me, and it really should know better."

"Maybe it knows something you don't," Namor!Smith growled, hauling Whispers up by the shirt of 9-X' Insider Suit. "Maybe it knows that if I just keep hitting you, the ectype you're channeling through that damned outfit will time out and I'll take you down hard."

9-X' smirk was audible despite the mask's covering his mouth. "Well, It should know that that sexy blonde number with the fire-and-ice powers just siphoned off the very thing that keeps Namor at the peak of his imperial might. And it should know that I've discovered that this suit's limitations find the passive powers significantly less taxing than the active powers, leading to a longer window. And it should know that I'm currently channeling Ultra Boy-- and that I've just switched his ultra-energies from invulnerability to flash vision."

The eyes of 9-X' uniform instantly poured forth twin streams of super-heated golden-white light--

--beams of sufficient power to kill even the mighty Atlantean hybrid in a literal eyeblink--

--Namor!Smith barely moved in time, and rays intended to explode his heart like a popcorn kernel instead merely lasered their way clean through his ordinarily nigh-invulnerable shoulder-- "NYAHHHH!"

Namor!Smith staggered back, clutching the cratered, cauterized hole that 9-X' eyeblasts had made. "Agh! Ahhh! How? How are you-- Ultra Boy is a Hero, you should only be able to Dial Villains!"

9-X rose to his feet, laughing. "Well, Ultra Boy started his career as a criminal, so maybe that counts. Or, more obviously, in a transfinite omniverse there's whole universes where everyone you know as a Hero is a Villain instead, so all your precious Heroes are fair game. Another example of the irrelevance of your moral binary: All is One in Dark Side."

He paused for a moment. "Ah, that blast did it. I can feel the ectype timing out, coming like an epileptic's aura. Sooner or later I'll get the kinks worked out of this suit, and then you're in real trouble. For now, though-- ultra speed!"

And with a rush of displaced wind, 9-X was gone, able to cross untold miles before his Dial finished timing out-- he could be anywhere by now.

Namor!Smith slumped to the dirt and--

shhhhhCLICK!

--he was Johnny "Whispers" Smith once more, pushing himself back up to his feet on the cane that had rematerialized in his grasp. "Getting real tired of your shit, 9-X."

Captain America's shield came down to cut the head off of the last active Techadon robot as he knelt on its chest. "Hnah!"

But of course it was already trying to grow back. Techadons were always trying to grow back. "I'm not sure attrition is the best strategy here! We need a solution, and fast!"

Yanking a Compendium and her Gear Dial out of belt pouches, Nat hurriedly Dialed a bit of Gear, looking up the number on the Compendium--

shhhhhCLICK!

--which dropped into her waiting hand, a gleaming hardlight token edged with pixelation-- it looked almost like a quarter, if a quarter were to appear in the world of Wreck-It Ralph.

"Ben! I got you an Instant ReDial buff!"

She flung the coin to Swampfire, who reached up with a stretchy arboreal limb and grabbed it. "You got it! Who'm I gonna call?"

"That telekinetic Twi'lek looking lady! Pick up the pieces!" Nat instructed.

Swampfire nodded, and slapped the coin into the Omnitrix symbol that adorned her chest, the hardlight dissolving into component pixels and photons as The Omnitrix processed its code. "MINDTRICK!"

SWOOOSH!

And became a beautiful green alien which did, yeah, kind of look like a Twi'lek.

Holding her hands up over her head, she engaged that aforementioned and formidable telekinesis, sweeping the battlefield for every last fragment of the Techadon troops, picking up even the tiniest crumb of shrapnel and gathering them back to the source cube like Valkyrie Missile had gathered the water from the area, clustering it all into one massive lump with all her telekinetic might.

Nat pointed at Ghost. "Takeru! Go Edison, quickly!"

Ghost nodded briskly. "Hai!"

He produced an eyeball-shaped device-- an Eyecon --and, takking a key on the side of it, then opened the chamber on his belt-buckle to drop the Eyecon inside and clapped the chamber shut.

EYE! BACCHIRI MINAA! the belt trumpeted, broadcasting Ghost's transformation and unleashing the spirit-form of a pale white hoodie with yellow trim which swooped down to take the place of the red and black hoodie Ghost already wore, replacing Miyamoto Musashi with Thomas Alva Edison. KAIGAN! EDISON!

[ELECTRICITY! IDEAS! INVENTION KING!] the belt crowed in Japanese, and as the kami-ectype, the Damashii, took hold, Ghost straightened and glowed with this new powerset, Musashi's swords reconfiguring into a gun weapon.

Nat pointed sharply at the cube, quivering there with all the bits of Techadon Robots around it, held there by Mindtrick's teke-- "Vaporize it!"

"My life is burning bright!" Takeru agreed, his belt roaring: DAI KAIGAN! GAN GAN MINAA!

Electricity sparked like wildfire upon the antennae of his form, coalescing around the barrel of his gun, and he aimed it squarely at the waiting Techadon debris--

OMEGA SHOOT!

And unleashed a bolt of that gathered electricity as big around as a giant redwood, the brightness causing almost everyone there to shield their eyes-- except Gullwing, who nodded, impressed. "'Burning bright,' no kidding. That boy's got one Hell of a spark!"

The bolt was so powerful it blew even Techadon nanotech into atoms. And then it was over.

As the dust settled, and the badly-splintered, war-torn forest rustled back into a kind of relative quiet, Johnny "Whispers" Smith came limping out of the trees with his cane, nodding to the gathered crowd of heroes.

"Well done," he noted, as McKennitt hurried to his side, "that can't have been easy, but you fared much better than I did."

Cap stepped forward to meet the man with the cane, squinting. "Excuse me. I'll shake the hand of any good man. But I'd really like to know, now rather than later, what happened here and who you people really are."

Johnny extended his hand to shake Cap's. "We are the latest incarnation of Team Adventitious, The Junkyard Posse-- The Dial Bunch. And who we are and where we come from may-- shift your paradigm a bit."

Steve smirked a dubious, resigned smirk, clasping Johnny's hand. "At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me."

Johnny laughed at that, faintly, a knowing, apologetic light in his blue eyes. "Ten bucks says you're wrong."


Their crusade across the map of Europe continued, much to the delight of people back home. So bright and shining was their Star Spangled Man with a Plan that someone from the home office-- probably Senator Brandt trying to get Cap back on the propaganda bandwagon-- sent someone with a movie camera to record Cap and The Commandos preparing for battle.

Hanging back out of sight of the camera, Rose, Takeru, and Ben-- all in their natural forms and civilian attire --climbed into the back of a truck that was getting ready to roll out to their next hotzone.

"So, uh," Ben wondered to Takeru, "your Electric Type is Edison, huh?"

Takeru glanced up at her and smiled brightly. "Ah, yes, The Invention King! I prefer Benkei in a fight of brute strength, and I think Newton is my most powerful Eyecon, but Edison is very useful!"

Ben squinted. "Yeah, but-- he wasn't really that nice of a guy. He was like the Pat Lee of inventions-- paying off a bunch of people to make him look good and acting like a tool when folks called him on it. He even roughed people up that tried to create more successful versions of 'his' inventions. If anyone's the Invention King-- we talked about him in comics class when we went over Atomic Robo and The Five Fists of Science --it was Nikola Tesla."

"Or Waldo Glenmorgan!" Rose nodded brightly. "He worked closely with Tesla, and historians say his advances and adventures in science-heroics made personal computing and cellphone technology possible as early as the 1970's."

Ben and Takeru stared at her, and Takeru admitted: "I have never heard of him."

Ben shrugged and made a kind of I dunno noise.

"You guys didn't have a Waldo Glenmorgan?" Rose blinked hesitantly. "Oh. Well. I'm-- I'm sure your technology is still quite lovely."

"Bah," Ben snorted, poking at Rose's shoulder with a fingertip. "My universe has First Thinker Azmuth, and while I've only met the guy like once I still bet he trumps that... Waldo."

"Perhaps the Edison of my history, given the differences," Takeru considered, "is not as bad as you say. He must have some redeeming qualities in order to become a luminary. My father used to remind me that all coins have two sides. In any case, his spirit helped me do much good against The Ganma and their dark forces before I was asked to join this mysterious cosmic war."

"Whatever," Ben huffed playfully, arms crossed over her stomach. "Any dude who'll help out in a pinch, I guess. He sure schooled those-- uh-- Teknoman guys, or whatever they were. But as far as electric Heroes go, I'd still put my Feedback up against your Edison any day of the week."

"It is good to challenge ourselves to improve ourselves," Takeru nodded brightly. "I welcome the chance!"

"Yeah, bring it!" Ben crowed. "You me and Gullwing can have a lightning-off. Maybe Nat and Whispers can join in if they promise to go easy on us noobs." She glanced at Rose. "What about you, Rose? You got an electric-caster?"

"Um," Rose hesitated awkwardly. "Sort of. She's-- she's a Thor Girl."

Ben's green eyes went way wide. "Oh. Whoa."

Outside as trucks rolled by, Cap, Bucky, and the core Commandos stood with "Whispers" Smith over a map of the battlefield spread out on the hood of a Jeep. "I'll need Tennyson and Grant here as their, uh, 'superspeedsters,'" Cap expressed. "To draw off Hydra's artillery fire for a few minutes while we make an incursion here."

"XLR8 and Constant-C," Whispers nodded, standing immediately to Bucky's left. "We'll make it happen."

The guy with the movie camera hovered near them about then-- making sure to zoom in and film Cap's open compass sitting on that map, complete with photograph of the lovely Agent Margaret "Peggy" Carter-- a heartwarming moment of humanity for the folks back home. Cap looked stung at the camera for a moment, and hastily clapped the compass shut before hurrying off, seeming for all the world like the prototypical celebrity dodging the paparazzi.

Moving along beside Cap and matching his long-legged pace after the camera fell behind-- which was no small feat for a man with a cane --Johnny glanced wryly over at Steve. "Never underestimate the importance of a good compass."

Steve glanced down at himself for a moment, marshaled himself for another grapple with social cues. "It's easy to get lost out here. It's good to know I have something to get back for. I only wish I hadn't-- I don't know anything about women-- I think I might have ruined things. I don't know how to fix it and I don't even know how to try."

Johnny looked pained, didn't quite keep looking at Steve as he kept trudging along. "She seems like quite a woman, Captain. More than your match, if I might say so. I would say-- that if she's of the same feeling about you-- that you should do whatever it takes to-- oh, how did Ben put it? 'Lock that down.'"

Steve harrumphed. "Every time I let myself forget you guys are from some kind of outer-outer space, some other world? You go and put familiar words together in ways I don't understand at all."

Johnny squinted. "I had a lady, once. Childhood sweetheart. Absolute-- love of my life. We were going to be together forever. And then I had-- an accident. A crash at an aerodock. I slept for a long time, for years, wandered in dreams through many dark distant astral planes, dead zones... and when I came back, I had changed. And the world had changed. My lady had moved on, married a strong, brave, local lawman. Call it a cautionary tale. Live your life while you can, my good Captain. I would hate for any such thing to happen to you. Not while... not while there's still time."

Steve looked at Smith again, and touched him briefly on the shoulder. "Yeah. Thanks. I need to get ready. Brief your team, I'll see you out there."

"Of course," Johnny nodded, and stood watching Steve go with both hands on the head of his cane.

McKennitt slunk up beside Johnny, squinting at the Captain as he walked away. "Fer a de facto shaman, that wasn't the wisest thing you've ever done. Didn't you tell me we were only here to counterbalance the damage 9-X was doing to this timeline until we could stop him? Didn't you tell me we weren't supposed to interfere with events?"

Whispers shrugged slightly, and began to walk off in another direction, his cane stabbing the ground as he went. "If an alethiometrist cannot speak truth, then who can?"

"Usually the daemon that's callin' him on his bullshit," McKennitt scoffed, and trotted after him.


They stood overlooking a snow-swept mountain pass, did a handful of Commandos and two members of The Dial Bunch-- Ghost and Ben 10, channeling Billy the Kid and Big Chill respectively. Below there waited a winding cliff path on which there had been crafted train tracks leading to a tunnel. This was their target.

Further still above, Gullwing circled in his Flying DeLorean mode, with Rose Grant sitting in the driver seat, hands folded in her lap, and in the passenger seat sat Johnny "Whispers" Smith, peering through binoculars through the side window down at the train tracks below... and at their people on that cliff.

Nat was elsewhere, helping Howard Stark try and salvage a chemical compound that had been commissioned by The US Army but had thus far been a disastrous failure. Whispers had assigned McKennitt to stay with her-- and though Rose had read some of Phillip Pullman's books and knew that daemons could not ordinarily stray more than a few feet from their human, yet McKennitt, to Rose's wonder, was now hundreds or thousands of miles from Whispers without effect-- she also decided that perhaps this was a personal question and should be asked in complete privacy if at all.

In the meantime, there were other things she'd been grappling with that would rest her mind easier if she knew them.

"Hey, Gullwing?" Rose wondered. "I've been meaning to ask, but I wasn't sure how to go about it."

"In my experience," Gullwing replied, the Autobot emblem on his steering wheel flickering with light blue light as he spoke, "the best way to ask something is sincerely but as politely as circumstances permit."

"Okay," Rose nodded. "Um-- are you the actual actual DeLorean? Are you from a world where Transformers landed in Hill Valley in 1985 and you just happened to copy Doc Brown's time-traveling DeLorean for your alt-mode?"

Gullwing laughed. "Oh, scrap, if I had an energon goodie for every time a human's asked me that question. No, really, I'm not. But I did just happen to copy a painstakingly film-faithful customized DeLorean DMC-12, right down to the Porsche engine, which means, hey, I'm no Urbana 500, but I'm a sweet sight better than a standard-model DeLorean (poor Swindler!). I didn't know what I was getting at the time, but I've watched the trilogy since and I thought it was pretty good! Because I'm a triple-changer, I was able to take a few liberties with the baseline DeLorean model and shape it into a flight form for my secondary alt-mode instead of turning into a plane or something."

"Heh," Rose nodded. "Well, I just wondered. Because of the whole breaching dimensional barriers thing-- I wondered if that flux capacitor actually, you know, capacitated fluxing."

"Nope," Gullwing replied. "Everything was just for show, really, though it was a really good show. Except since I have a number keypad for tapping in dates on the 'time circuits'-- and these LED displays on the dashboard to look like destination times and arrival times and such, that was close enough for me to get infused with Dialware. It just so happened to be Jump Dialware."

Rose squinted. "That... that is a pretty awesome coincidence. You're basically a living Dial. 'Anything with numbers and a face.' But here's another question-- when you're Jumping us from world to world, how the Heck do we always fit inside? It doesn't seem any bigger in here than a two-seater, but we sat like five people and a wolf with elbow room to spare the other day when we fought those Technodons."

"Cybertronian mass-displacement technology," Gullwing replied easily and cheerfully. "All Transformers have their own-- well, think of it as a personal pocket universe. It lets us kind of bend the rules of physics-- why such large robots can be as small as a car or a tape deck or a cellphone. Speaking of tape decks, it's also how my old friend Blaster can fit all of his little Recordabot friends into one tape slot. Not to mention, it sure makes dimension jumps easier, I'd hate to have to make multiple trips every time!"

Johnny grunted, and Rose glanced at him. "Whispers, uh, sir? You okay?"

"It's our people," Smith harrumphed. "They look like they're having an argument. They need to stay focused! The train can't be far."

Down on the cliff, Dugan narrowed his gaze. "You've never known me to not speak my mind, Cap, and this has been stuck in my craw for too damn long. How can we trust them? They're from other worlds, they don't give a damn about our US of A, they've got their own homes to go back to, I bet they'd sacrifice this whole damn-- parallel universe or whatever The Hell they call it for an advantage in their war. Besides the talking wolf and the robot straight outta that Halloween radio show, and a Jap--!"

"Dugan!" Steve snapped in surprise.

"Oh, hey, not cool!" Big Chill protested.

Takeru bristled, glaring at the man. "'Jap?' How can you say such things as automatically meaning bad, with no chance that I could be a good person?" He gestured to indicate Morita. "One of your own teammates--!"

"Hey, hey, hey," Dugan scoffed. "He's from Fresno, kid. About you, I know bupkis. You could be from one of those cities with all the k's and the y's and could have dropped the word 'surrender' from your vocabulary, and have kamikaze tattooed all over your--"

"Ah," Morita squinted, from where he knelt helping Gabe Jones tune into Nazi radio frequencies. "C'mon, Tim-- Dugan-- I got family at home in camps because of talk like that!"

Dugan gestured to Morita, narrowing his gaze. "Look, Jim, I know you're on the side of the angels, there's no question in my mind, and shouldn't nobody be a prisoner of war that doesn't deserve it. I'm just making sure our bases are covered, all right? That we're at least considering the possibility we might get backstabbed by these wild cards."

"There is no nation without sin," Takeru replied, pointing, not backing down. "And when Nihon pays for our sins a few years from now, many innocents, men, women, children, will be wiped in fire from this world into the next, ghosts without a chance of resurrection. Pray that when one day America may pay for her sins, the compromises you make in the name of 'security,' the punishment will not be so... exacting, and that you will be spared the pain my country feels even now."

He shook his head fiercely, then sighed, and hung his head. "These are dark times for my country, just as they are for Italy, and Germany. But even in dark times, there can be men of honor, men who stand up for what is right even when their nation, their Emperor tells them to do what is wrong. This is why they are called 'luminaries,' aren't they? Because no matter how dark it gets, they live their lives burning bright, and they will shine like a light even if all the people around them give themselves up to darkness."

Big Chill put their hand on Takeru's shoulder, solidarity, and Takeru nodded gratefully to them.

Dugan paused. A long pause. And quiet save the whistle of the wintry wind settled upon that cliffside until Dugan spoke again: "Damn if he doesn't sound a lot like you, Cap, all that idealism and optimism. Almost enough there for a second I instantly wanted to buy him a drink."

"The day that DumDum Dugan wants to buy someone that isn't DumDum Dugan a drink," Bucky snorted. "I've lived too long."

Cap stepped forward, eyes cool and blue even in those cold wastes. "Gentlemen." He glanced from Morita to Dugan to Takeru. "Are we done, now? Are we back? Because we've got work to do--" he locked his gaze onto Dugan again here "--trying to fight against men who stand themselves above other men solely because they're different."

Dugan winced a little bit, his lips pressed into a thin line behind his mustache. "No, no, we're-- we're-- I'm ready. I'm not gonna 23 Skidoo someone who's devoted to the cause." He hesitated, and-- this was something only Cap's influence could bring about-- apologized. "I'm sorry, Cap. Morita. Ghost. What can I say? DumDum by name, DumDum by nature."

Morita, a little bit sullen still but appreciative of the apology, nodded to Dugan from where he knelt in the snow. "Yeah, Ace, okay."

Takeru nodded to Dugan. "Ignorance can be hurtful, but it is a good place to start when you are learning to grow." He tilted his helmeted, hooded head. "And also: in the works of the luminary H.G. Wells, the machines from Mars were tripods. My good friend Gullwing has two legs... when he has legs."

Dugan snorted, grinned, shook his head. "Yeah, okay, Kid. Fair enough."

The cliffside quieted again, then, as rattled nerves settled in long enough for people to prep their minds and bodies for what was to come.

Morita and Jones worked methodically to pick up any transmissions that might be of use.

Falstaff eyed the train tracks below with binoculars.

And Bucky stepped up beside Cap at the cliff's edge, hesitantly regarding the zip-line that ran down above those tracks.

"Remember when I made you ride The Cyclone at Coney Island?" Bucky wondered.

"Yeah, and I threw up?" Steve replied, looking no less unhappy about the situation.

Bucky glanced at him. "This isn't payback, is it?"

Steve grinned. "Now why would I do that?"

"We were right," Jones reported, holding a headphone up to his ear as he turned to look at Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes. "Doctor Zola's on the train. Hydra dispatcher gave him permission to open up the throttle."

Gabe lowered the earpiece as Cap and Bucky approached him. "Wherever he's going, they must need him bad."

Cap shot Bucky a look as he donned his signature "A"-emblazoned helmet, and final preparations immediately began.

Falstaff, acting as lookout, spotted the train whipping across a bridge in the distance and onto the cliffside tracks. "Let's get going, because they're moving like The Devil."

Captain America grabbed hold of the zipline trolley that Dernier had prepped for him. "We only got about a ten-second window!" he reminded Bucky and Jones. "You miss that window, we're bugs on a windshield!"

"Mind the gap," Falstaff remarked with knowing irony.

"I understood that reference," Big Chill chuckled.

"Better get moving, bugs!" Dugan bellowed encouragingly as Cap braced himself for descent.

"Maintenant!" Dernier shouted, and Cap kicked off, whistling down the line towards the tracks below as the train roared into position under him, then Dernier sounded off for Bucky and Gabe to follow him.

As the Commandos sailed down the line, Big Chill and Ghost dove off of the cliff after them, using their respective abilities to defy gravity to glide along just behind Gabe Jones on either side.

One by one by one, the Commandos dropped to crouch and hug the roof of the speeding train, and The Dialers landed side-by-side just behind Gabe. All five figures immediately hurried down the center of the train's roof, picking their way from car to car, heading towards the front, all the while squinting into the slipstream that threatened to tear them from their icy, steely perch.

As Cap and then Bucky descended a ladder to enter the train itself, Big Chill stuck with them while Gabe Jones kept moving up towards the locomotive, Ghost with him.

Bucky, Cap, and Big Chill slipped into a train car, moving up past shelves filled with long, grey lidded crates-- no doubt filled with Hydra weapons.

Cap had his handgun and his shield ready, Bucky his machine gun-- but both men glanced at each other, intrigued by how empty the train seemed.

And then, as Big Chill and Captain America stepped from one car into another, Bucky lingered in the previous car to cover their six-- and the doors slammed shut between the cars, separating the heroes.

Cap whirled to face the door, desperate to protect his friend-- glimpsing Bucky exchanging fire with a conventionally-armed Hydra operative--

"CAP!" Big Chill yelled in alarm, at the same time as sounded the telltale whine of an energy weapon cycling up--

--Cap whirled again to see Big Chill facing off with an armored Hydra agent, armed with no mere machine gun but with a back-mounted dual-turreted energy cannon.

"Ben!" Cap snapped as he brought his gun to bear, and Big Chill instantly used their powers to become intangible, translucent, and Cap fired right through them at the Hydra guy before diving for cover--

--the Hydra agent opened fire, blasting blue white energy at the same time Big Chill lunged for him, expecting the coruscating power to phase right through their ghostly form and allow them to freeze-breath the Hydra goon's face off--

"Chill, Cap, I got this!"

--but as the crackling power ripped through Big Chill's phased body, they felt it, it staggered them, blue white infused them and they dropped to the floor, curled fetally, wings splayed, screaming in molecular agony--

"AHHHHH!"

--so extensive and sudden was the damage that Big Chill--

KHZH

--reverted to Bernice Tennyson, still curled in a heap on that train-car floor.

"AHHHH!" she writhed.

Bucky had his own problems, fending off multiple gunmen from a position with minimal cover, and he grimaced as he reloaded.

Popping up from behind his own cover to provide covering fire for Tennyson-- blue Tesseract fireballs sizzling through the air just over Tennyson's pain-wracked body --Cap noted a hook on the ceiling. The moment the cannoneer had to pause to recharge, Cap dove out from behind the stack of crates, jumped over Tennyson, held his shield up before him with one arm as he grabbed that hook overhead and sailed once more through the air-- another zipline! --kicking the cannoneer to the floor and then decking him in the visored face with the rim of the shield.

Barnes' machine gun clicked empty, and he switched to his handgun, darting back and forth between stacks of crates to squeeze off rounds against his enemies.

"Tennyson, get clear!" Cap ordered, and Ben-- even injured, even in her natural form, Ben was as agile as a jackrabbit --rolled aside so that Cap could use the cannoneer's weapon to blast the sealed door between him and Bucky.

As Cap hurried to the door, Ben took another moment to recover-- she didn't seem to have carried injuries over into her human body, it was more the psychosomatic memory of the agony that Big Chill had endured, but-- hooboy. She glanced down at her Omnitrix, activated its commlink function.

"Takeru-kun," she rasped. "Be careful! The Tessercrap can hurt you when you're go-go-ghosted!"

Bucky's handgun clicked empty, and Bucky groaned in dismay.

In the whistling wind atop the train with Gabe Jones, Takeru glanced down at his belt as Ben's voice emanated from it. "Ben-dono!" he fretted. "Are you all right? Do you need back-up?"

"I'm okay!" Ben winced, crawling towards better cover while hugging her midsection. "I'll be fine! Finish the mission, get that pudgy nerd bastard!"

"Ten-four," Takeru nodded firmly, and exchanged nods with Jones.

Cap elbowed the last latch holding the door shut, and tossed his handgun to Bucky after a moment of silent, gestural communication--

--then charged into the room with shield up, knocking a stack of crates askew to drive the remaining Hydra agent out of cover--

--so that Bucky could deftly headshot the gunman.

"I had him on the ropes," Bucky assured Cap as they took a moment to catch their breath, instead of thank you.

"I know you did," Cap reassured him, instead of you're welcome.

"YO, STUCKY!" Ben crowed in horror--

--the cannoneer had staggered to his feet and was framed in the doorway, the cannons already whining to power--

"GET DOWN!" Cap roared, shoving Bucky down and aside as he swung his shield to bear, not fast enough, not fast enough, the blast angled off of Cap's shield and blew out the side of the speeding train car, and Cap tumbled one way and his shield skidded the other.

Before even Cap could recover, Bucky scooped up the shield, gun in hand, stood stalwart and brave and stubborn and fired back at the cannoneer--

--Zola's voice echoed over the train's P.A. system, demanding death, demanding immediate murder--

--the cannoneer's next blast glanced off of the shield, knocking it off of Bucky's arm and sending Bucky spinning out through the gaping hole in the side of the train--

--gritting his teeth, Cap surged to his feet, scooped up the shield, and whipped it with all his considerable might, pegging the cannoneer center-mass, right in the sternum, and knocking him halfway down the next car.

Panic singing in his blood, Steve hauled his helmet off and lunged to the hole-- to find his oldest friend in the universe, still stubborn as all Hell after all these years-- hanging onto a thin metal rail on a patch of sheared steel that dangled him out over the mountain pass as they careened along.

A wide white wintry abyss opened out under James Buchanan Barnes, ready to swallow him.

"Bucky!" Cap cried, edging out towards Barnes by clinging to that selfsame railing. "Hang on!"

Bucky couldn't reply, he was too focused on hanging on for dear life, veins standing out in his neck-- the railing started to give way with a heart-rending clank--

--Steve shoved his hand out towards Bucky, desperate to snag him-- "Grab my hand!"

--the railing snapped as Bucky reached--

--for an instant the world seemed to hesitate--

--then Bucky tumbled backwards in an arc that would be blazed into Cap's perfect memory for the rest of his existence--

"NO!"

--Steve's hand grabbed only empty air and he was forced to grab the railing again lest he fall too--

--his powerful heart was shattering in his chest--

"OVER MY GODDAMNED DEAD BODY!"

--and Bernice Kirby Tennyson, unDialed, blown all to Hell, and with the fury of a fangirl scorned blazing in her green green eyes, dove out of the train car past Steve's back, arms back by her sides to maximize dive speed and minimize wind resistance--

"TENNYSON! NO!" Cap howled in disbelief.

But Ben was already out of Steve's lunging radius.

Bucky hurtled straight back and down, the length of railing whirling beside him, his body flat against the upward rush of air, and this drag allowed Ben to catch up to him in mid-air, wrapping one arm around Bucky--

"Gimme something I can use!" she demanded of her Omnitrix--

--any of the fliers-- Big Chill again if they're better, Mindtrick would be perfect --Swampfire could use her fire like retrorockets-- Upgrade could stretch into a parachute-- Spider-Monkey--

--and she slammed The Omnitrix' face into her chest.

SWOOOSH!

In a crash of emerald light, the slight, nimble young woman became hulking, green, ridiculously strong, tough as diamonds-- "DIAMONDHEAD!"

"Holy Hell!" Bucky screamed as the massive, gleaming creature materialized next to him, arm around him--

--"Not if I can help it," Diamondhead growled in her deep-blue-hero voice.

And with one diamond hand, she tilted, leaned for the rocky wall of the canyon, dug into it with all her might, one hand and both feet, ancient river-carved stone cracking around them and under them but slowing, slowing, barely slowing their descent--

--and with a deft application of her crystalkinesis, she caused a craggy cliff of the same diamondstuff as her body to sprout out of the canyon wall beneath them, catching them though it still cracked under the force of their impact.

"Jesus," Bucky mumbled, clutching his left shoulder, his arm had nearly been pulled out of its socket, "Jesus Christ!"

"Language," Diamondhead rumbled, and then smirked. "And you're welcome."

Steve's eagle eyes widened up there on that train-- he could see them safe far below even at this distance, this speed, and he gratefully punched the metal wall of the car before hauling himself back inside.

"Oh, my God. Oh, thank God."

Up at the front of the train, Gabe shattered down through a skylight with Takeru ghosting down beside him--

--Gabe's machine gun and Billy the Kid's two ultra-powerful handguns both aimed at the startled Arnim Zola and a hapless, panicked train operator--

"Surrender," growled Kamen Rider Ghost.

"Hang on, you two, where we're going we don't need roads!"

Down by the canyon wall, Bucky and Diamondhead glanced up as Gullwing swooped low to hover beside them, one of the doors swinging up and open to show a stricken-looking Whispers Smith and a breathtaken Rose Grant staring blue-eyed and bewildered at the two of them.

"Ben," Whispers breathed, absolutely incredulous, remembering his conversation with McKennitt about not diverting this timeline any further from its intended course. "What did you do?"

Diamondhead narrowed her amber, crystalline eyes. "I regret nothing."

As Whispers helped Bucky climb into Gullwing's open door into the curiously-capacious interior, The Omnitrix timed out--

KHZH

--and when Ben climbed in as well, Rose hugged her ferociously, tightly. "Oh my God, that was the bravest thing I've ever seen. How could you jump like that without a Dial even in place? How did you know what you were going to get-- if it could even save you both?"

Ben drew back from the hug, grinning with self-satisfaction, still a little achy from the Tesser-zap. "I didn't know. I just had to have faith in myself that I could figure out how to save us with whatever it gave me. It's like parkour-- you use your mind to overcome your environment, not just be sheltered by it."

Rose let out a sigh of relief mingled with dismay. "I'm never gonna be that kind of hero, am I?"

"In my experience," Ben noted, "which isn't, you know, a lot, we all find our own ways to be a hero."

"Your courage is to be commended, Ben," Whispers grimaced grimly as Gullwing pulled his own door closed and flew them up and out and towards a rendezvous point. "I just hope that its consequences aren't-- disastrous."

"Hey," Bucky rasped, tucked in the back near the flux capacitor, "if one of those consequences is that I get to live and keep fighting--"

"Of course," Whispers smiled tightly at Bucky, nodding to him. "Glad you're still with us, Sergeant Barnes."

Rose and Ben fist-bumped.


Peggy Carter and Bucky Barnes picked their way through the darkened rubble of a half-bombed area of the city, a victim of The Blitz.

A radio warned Londoners that blackout conditions were still in effect-- the slightest gleam of light could be used as a target; London and other cities were living in a dark age indeed.

Peggy glanced quietly at Bucky, and Bucky returned the glance, but-- whatever hung in the air between them remained unspoken. Whatever they might think of each other, they both cherished above all one Steven Grant Rogers, and that common denominator would suffice to cover a multitude of grievances.

They found him sitting alone at a table in a half-shattered pub, a bottle open and an empty glass before him.

He poured himself a fresh glass as they approached, and noted: "Doctor Erskine said the serum wouldn't just affect my muscles, it would affect my cells. Create a protective system of regeneration and healing. Which means I... can't get drunk."

Bucky made an incredulous little noise, shook his head with a tiny grin.

Steve's eyes ticked up to look at Bucky inscrutably for a moment, and then glanced at Peggy. "Did you know that?"

"Your metabolism burns four times faster than the average person," Peggy replied, then picked up a chair out of the rubble, and continued: "...he thought it could be one of the side effects."

Bucky found his own chair a little further away and sat at it backwards at the same table, arms draped over the back of the chair. "More for the rest of us, I guess."

Steve made a soft little disbelieving noise of his own, and smiled for a moment, but then looked pensive again.

Peggy gazed at him contemplatively. "Right now, Colonel Phillips is getting Arnim Zola to sing like the proverbial canary. You should be celebrating, but you still look like someone died."

Steve laughed faintly. "Someone almost did." He shook his head. "It's a miracle someone didn't. Like, as close as I've ever seen to an actual miracle. Even with all those-- 'super powers,' we just barely made it out of there with all hands."

"C'mon, Steve," Bucky shook his head. "Any landing you walk away from, right? We both rode The Cyclone, but you're still the one throwing up."

Steve's wild-yonder eyes searched both of them. "There's something-- something that Whispers guy with the cane said to me-- something about not leaving it 'till it's too late. And I almost did. And if I leave it-- if I don't say it now-- tomorrow after we go into whatever Hell Schmidt has waiting for us-- it might be too late all over again. I've been mocked my whole life for wearing my heart on my sleeve and being passionate about what I believe in. All my life I've been admonished to not-- conspicuously display emotion. Men don't act like that. But why the Hell not?"

His powerful jaw jutted, his hand curled into a fist on the table. "If we're as brave as men are supposed to be, we should be unafraid of what we feel, and unwilling to hide it. From anyone."

Bucky looked haunted for a moment.

Peggy pressed her lips into a thin line.

Both of them knew they were teetering on the edge of a precipice, and that somehow, whatever Steve said next would change everything forever.

"I love you," he told Bucky Barnes. "I always have."

"And I love you," he told Peggy Carter. "From the moment I laid eyes on you."

"I love... both of you."

Peggy and Bucky shared a look, they both looked panicked for a moment, but then both of them-- each saw a flare of surprised hope and joy in the other's eyes, and were made in turn still more surprised, still more hopeful, still more joyful.

Bucky hesitated, swung his gaze back to Steve. "Steve. Buddy. We-- we talked about this when we were kids, okay? Those long nights awake talking, before we realized how things really worked, what we had to do to live like people. We-- we can't live like that and be happy, all right? Not in the real world. You and me. We're Irish, Steve, they'd stone us to death, we come within a block of Brooklyn or The Kitchen."

Steve sat back a bit in his chair. "And does that sound right to you? Does that sound like the sort of world we should be living in? Or does that sound like the sort of world we should be standing up against? It sounds to me like the sort of world we're fighting against right now. I'm fighting for a world where people don't have to live scared about where they're from or how they worship or-- or who they love."

Peggy was as white as a sheet, struggling to process. "So all this time-- all this time I was just-- just a mask? Love who you love, Steve, I just want you to be happy-- but all that time we spent together-- that cab ride through Brooklyn-- was all that just layers of a lie?"

Steely-eyed, earnest, imploring, Steve clutched her hand. "No. Never. There's one thing that the serum never changed, and that's the size of my heart. There's always been room in it for the both of you. And if you'll both have me-- if you're both willing to-- go on that adventure-- I shouldn't want to have to kick one of you out of my heart to love the other when I--."

"You're--" Steve gestured helplessly with his free hand "--you're the right partners. Plural. I don't know if there's a word for what I am, for what we'd be together-- if there'd ever be a place in this world for us, whatever we'd be--"

Bucky gently, gently reached up and took that gesturing hand. And then his other hand reached out and slipped into Peggy's.

"You never did know when to pick your battles."

"But I'm with you to the end of the line."

Peggy squeezed both men's hands.

"You won't be alone."