Post by redsycorax on Apr 10, 2022 22:59:50 GMT
On Earth-500, the Justice Alliance is still expanding its membership. This is the story of its newest member, Evelyn Dent- Triad.
++
PROLOGUE: EARTH-3:
As the members of the Crime Syndicate soared over Metropolis, trying to hunt her down, Evelyn Dent turned to her old friend Alexander Luthor:
"Are you sure you and Lois won't come with me, Alex?"
"No, Evelyn. Ultraman knows better than to take me on and I'm more than a match for Owlman's intellect. Added to which, with the Jokester and Harlequin gone, and Eddie murdered, there needs to be someone to match wits with him. And given how they injured you, they're not playing games anymore. I'm just glad I was able to replace your sundered arm with a cyborg replacement. However, Superwoman is out for blood after she failed to kill you outright. And you deserve some chance of safety for the long years you, Eddie, Jack and Duella spent battling against Owlman, Talon and the Syndicate. And fortunately too, from what I've been able to work out, the alternate Earth we'll send you to is not directly quantum-entangled with our particular alternate universe."
"I'll never be able to repay both of you for this."
Lois Luthor kissed Evelyn on her forehead: "You won't have to. With any luck, one day you'll be able to return here and the Crime Syndicate will have been overthrown once and for all. But until then, you'll be safe and sound, somewhere that they can never find you. It's just as well Alex knew how to replicate and tweak that multiversal portal you saw Jack and those benign metas from elsewhere in the multiverse vanish into. Now go, Evey. Have a good life."
And with that, looking back at the alternate Earth on which she had been born, and on which she and the rest of her "Riddler Family" had fought the Crime Syndicate of America for what had seemed an eternity, Evelyn Dent ("Three Face") stepped through the portal, which died to a gentle blue glow and then disappeared to prevent her being traced to...
EARTH-500:
As Evelyn looked around her, she saw some telltale signs and her blood ran cold. Despite everything that Alexander Luthor and his wife had done to help her escape, had the Crime Syndicate been able to track her here after all?! But then, she gave a jagged sigh of relief. These weren't the Syndicate- the cowled crimefighter here was wearing a bat-shaped insignia and he had a female companion. And as for the assailant, he looked so achingly like Jack, for a moment she thought it was him. But despite the garish pancake makeup, the uniform and body language was totally different. Unlike the Jokester, this man was insane and possibly even psychotic. As she approached the battle, she shuddered at the sight of people with cavernous, almost hysterical smiles lying around her. She reached the conflict, shoving the Bat-Man figure out of the way as an explosive gas grenade was shot in his direction. With her cyborg arm, Evelyn crushed it and would not let even a molecule of the lethal gas escape until the chemical neutralisers within it had done their work. The young woman called:
"Thank you, Ms! Are you okay, Batman?"
The Batman figure nodded: "We're indebted for your assistance, but right now we have to stop the Jester there from running amok."
Jester. So he wasn't even called the Jokester here. And while he was a Jack Napier, he wasn't the man she had loved. That would make it easier.
"I don't appreciate being interrupted, Missy." There was a hard edge and bitterness at work there. But as she got up, she scowled back at him:
"Whoever you are, I don't respond well to threats." Evelyn stalked toward the Jester, her cyborg arm deflecting the assorted threats that the panicking criminal threw at her until she reached him and knocked him out with an upper cut to his fragile jaw. Ah well. Fortunately, despite not being even remotely like Jack when it came to his personality and morality, this "Jester" shared his glass jaw. From behind her, she heard applause as the Batman and his female companion indicated their approval of her actions:
"You're phenomenal, Ms! Thank you so much!"
"Batman... perhaps...?"
"Call me Three-F... no, on second thoughts, call me Triad."
"Triad, we're members of the Justice Alliance of America, a national metahuman crime-fighting unit. With your abilities, your self-discipline and combat prowess, you'd definitely be an asset to the team."
As she shook Batman and Robin's hands, she thought: Justice Alliance? Hmmm. All right. Safety in numbers: "Sounds fantastic to me, Batman. Where do I sign up?"
JAA SEABASE:
There were more surprises in store for Evelyn as she stepped from the teleporter for the first time, flanked by Batman and Robin: "Hey, everyone. We have a new recruit."
Captain Thunder looked up: "Yes. Merokee told Bella and I someone else was coming from another alternate Earth. Only...you aren't from ours, are you?"
"I'm sorry about my brother's lack of manners, Ms. I'm Lightning Girl, Bella Fawcett. The big lug is my brother, Willie, Captain Thunder."
Evelyn shook the other woman's hand: "I'm Evelyn. Evelyn Dent. My costumed handle is Triad, because I have dissociative identity condition and three personalities. Eve and Effie aren't particularly nice in combat circumstances if you're on the other side. And you're right, Bella. I'd certainly have remembered you if I'd met you before. So how and why did you and your brother come here?"
A shadow crossed Captain Thunder's expression: "We're... refugees from Earth-964, an alternate Earth on which there was a devastating nuclear war in 1964...and Bella...Bella and I were the only survivors."
An expression of empathy crossed Evelyn's face: "I'm from a world that is apparently known as "Earth-3". It's dominated by supervillains. A friend of mine, Alexander Luthor, found a way to generate a multiversal portal and sent me over here for sanctuary. There are these twisted versions of your Alliance over there, called the Crime Syndicate."
Superwoman came from the main reception area: "Oh, them. So, Evelyn, you're a hero there?"
"I was...sorry, you're clearly a virtuous counterpart to my world's Ultraman, but..."
"I'm sorry. I'm Kara Kal-El, Superwoman, originally from Krypton. My husband's Superman. Yes, the Luthors are wonderful people. We...lost our Lena Luthor to breast cancer a few years ago, She was a good friend and I miss her so much, particularly her prodigious scientific skills."
"Wait a minute," Captain Thunder said, "did you say Dent? Any relation to Harvey Dent?"
Batman raised an eyebrow: "I'm not sure how, Willie. Sorry, Evelyn. There's a particularly brave district attorney in Gotham named Harvey Dent, one of the most courageous men I know. He endured months of cosmetic surgery after a vitriol attack which otherwise would have left him scarred on one side of his face."
Captain Thunder whistled:"Yeah, that's not quite how it happened on our original Earth though, Evelyn. Like this one, it had a Batman and a Harvey Dent. However, on ours, Harvey went off the rails after the vitriol attack and became a schizoid villain called Two Face. He died on our world when the nuclear holocaust overcame it."
Evelyn considered this: "Hmmm. I had a kid brother called Harvey, but he developed a brain aneurysm and died when he was only fifteen."
"You should have seen her in action, though, Kara. She knew exactly how to counter the Jester and where to hit him." Robin enthused.
A wistful expression was evident on Evelyn's face: "Yeah. Yeah, funny thing. On my Earth, Batman's counterpart is called Owlman and he's a villain. And Jack Napier is, or was, a hero named the Jokester. He was...he was the father of my daughter, Duella, Harlequin. He was similar enough to your Jester in details of anatomy for me to take a chance on him sharing Jack's physical vulnerabilities."
"About your arm...I'm sorry if this is a rude or painful question, but..."
"No, it's okay. I sustained it when the Crime Syndicate attacked the Riddler Family and killed my former boyfriend Eddie Nigma, the Riddler, another hero. Superwoman was a vicious and brutal Amazon warrior and gives no quarter. She ripped my arm off. If Alexander Luthor hadn't been there and fought the Syndicate off, I would have bled to death. Alex replaced my arm and saved my life. I think Eve and Effie relish the edge it gives me."
Superwoman was horrified: "Rao. They did that to you? Oh, Evelyn. Don't worry. The Alliance protects its own and we will make sure nothing like that ever happens to you again."
"So I'm in, then? A member of the Justice Alliance? Thank you for the privilege."
"No, Evelyn. It's we who should be honoured. Now come in, meet the others. You will be a terrific addition to our team."
And once inside, her eyes met someone who looked remarkably like another old familiar face- but with some differences:
"Hey, Tom, get over here! Evelyn Dent, Triad, meet Thomas Gordon, mild mannered Gotham librarian and son of the late Gotham Police Commissioner Barbara and her husband Jim. Although he's no relative, he calls himself Batboy."
As the tall red-haired young man stepped up, his eyes met hers:
"Er, hi. Wow, so they let you in the Alliance right away? Envious."
"I can't think why. If you're with the Alliance, then you must be an excellent crime fighter in your own right."
"Oh, I'm new at this. I only started a few years ago."
"And we haven't let him into the Alliance quite yet. He's in charge of our adolescent protege's group, the Young Defenders, along with Beast Girl, Wonder Woman's kid brother Hippolytus, Ms. Flash and Starbolt. One of these days, though..."
Batboy blushed. As Evelyn turned away to meet the others, though, there was definitely reciprocated interest in their eyes, though. And when Evelyn Dent bedded down that night, she slept more peacefully than she had done for many, many years, safe on a new world and definitely, within a new home. And who knows? If what she saw in Thomas Gordon's eyes was any indication, perhaps she could form a new family here. Earth-3 was a past nightmare. Earth-500 was her present and now also also a burgeoning and promising future
THE END
++
PROLOGUE: EARTH-3:
As the members of the Crime Syndicate soared over Metropolis, trying to hunt her down, Evelyn Dent turned to her old friend Alexander Luthor:
"Are you sure you and Lois won't come with me, Alex?"
"No, Evelyn. Ultraman knows better than to take me on and I'm more than a match for Owlman's intellect. Added to which, with the Jokester and Harlequin gone, and Eddie murdered, there needs to be someone to match wits with him. And given how they injured you, they're not playing games anymore. I'm just glad I was able to replace your sundered arm with a cyborg replacement. However, Superwoman is out for blood after she failed to kill you outright. And you deserve some chance of safety for the long years you, Eddie, Jack and Duella spent battling against Owlman, Talon and the Syndicate. And fortunately too, from what I've been able to work out, the alternate Earth we'll send you to is not directly quantum-entangled with our particular alternate universe."
"I'll never be able to repay both of you for this."
Lois Luthor kissed Evelyn on her forehead: "You won't have to. With any luck, one day you'll be able to return here and the Crime Syndicate will have been overthrown once and for all. But until then, you'll be safe and sound, somewhere that they can never find you. It's just as well Alex knew how to replicate and tweak that multiversal portal you saw Jack and those benign metas from elsewhere in the multiverse vanish into. Now go, Evey. Have a good life."
And with that, looking back at the alternate Earth on which she had been born, and on which she and the rest of her "Riddler Family" had fought the Crime Syndicate of America for what had seemed an eternity, Evelyn Dent ("Three Face") stepped through the portal, which died to a gentle blue glow and then disappeared to prevent her being traced to...
EARTH-500:
As Evelyn looked around her, she saw some telltale signs and her blood ran cold. Despite everything that Alexander Luthor and his wife had done to help her escape, had the Crime Syndicate been able to track her here after all?! But then, she gave a jagged sigh of relief. These weren't the Syndicate- the cowled crimefighter here was wearing a bat-shaped insignia and he had a female companion. And as for the assailant, he looked so achingly like Jack, for a moment she thought it was him. But despite the garish pancake makeup, the uniform and body language was totally different. Unlike the Jokester, this man was insane and possibly even psychotic. As she approached the battle, she shuddered at the sight of people with cavernous, almost hysterical smiles lying around her. She reached the conflict, shoving the Bat-Man figure out of the way as an explosive gas grenade was shot in his direction. With her cyborg arm, Evelyn crushed it and would not let even a molecule of the lethal gas escape until the chemical neutralisers within it had done their work. The young woman called:
"Thank you, Ms! Are you okay, Batman?"
The Batman figure nodded: "We're indebted for your assistance, but right now we have to stop the Jester there from running amok."
Jester. So he wasn't even called the Jokester here. And while he was a Jack Napier, he wasn't the man she had loved. That would make it easier.
"I don't appreciate being interrupted, Missy." There was a hard edge and bitterness at work there. But as she got up, she scowled back at him:
"Whoever you are, I don't respond well to threats." Evelyn stalked toward the Jester, her cyborg arm deflecting the assorted threats that the panicking criminal threw at her until she reached him and knocked him out with an upper cut to his fragile jaw. Ah well. Fortunately, despite not being even remotely like Jack when it came to his personality and morality, this "Jester" shared his glass jaw. From behind her, she heard applause as the Batman and his female companion indicated their approval of her actions:
"You're phenomenal, Ms! Thank you so much!"
"Batman... perhaps...?"
"Call me Three-F... no, on second thoughts, call me Triad."
"Triad, we're members of the Justice Alliance of America, a national metahuman crime-fighting unit. With your abilities, your self-discipline and combat prowess, you'd definitely be an asset to the team."
As she shook Batman and Robin's hands, she thought: Justice Alliance? Hmmm. All right. Safety in numbers: "Sounds fantastic to me, Batman. Where do I sign up?"
JAA SEABASE:
There were more surprises in store for Evelyn as she stepped from the teleporter for the first time, flanked by Batman and Robin: "Hey, everyone. We have a new recruit."
Captain Thunder looked up: "Yes. Merokee told Bella and I someone else was coming from another alternate Earth. Only...you aren't from ours, are you?"
"I'm sorry about my brother's lack of manners, Ms. I'm Lightning Girl, Bella Fawcett. The big lug is my brother, Willie, Captain Thunder."
Evelyn shook the other woman's hand: "I'm Evelyn. Evelyn Dent. My costumed handle is Triad, because I have dissociative identity condition and three personalities. Eve and Effie aren't particularly nice in combat circumstances if you're on the other side. And you're right, Bella. I'd certainly have remembered you if I'd met you before. So how and why did you and your brother come here?"
A shadow crossed Captain Thunder's expression: "We're... refugees from Earth-964, an alternate Earth on which there was a devastating nuclear war in 1964...and Bella...Bella and I were the only survivors."
An expression of empathy crossed Evelyn's face: "I'm from a world that is apparently known as "Earth-3". It's dominated by supervillains. A friend of mine, Alexander Luthor, found a way to generate a multiversal portal and sent me over here for sanctuary. There are these twisted versions of your Alliance over there, called the Crime Syndicate."
Superwoman came from the main reception area: "Oh, them. So, Evelyn, you're a hero there?"
"I was...sorry, you're clearly a virtuous counterpart to my world's Ultraman, but..."
"I'm sorry. I'm Kara Kal-El, Superwoman, originally from Krypton. My husband's Superman. Yes, the Luthors are wonderful people. We...lost our Lena Luthor to breast cancer a few years ago, She was a good friend and I miss her so much, particularly her prodigious scientific skills."
"Wait a minute," Captain Thunder said, "did you say Dent? Any relation to Harvey Dent?"
Batman raised an eyebrow: "I'm not sure how, Willie. Sorry, Evelyn. There's a particularly brave district attorney in Gotham named Harvey Dent, one of the most courageous men I know. He endured months of cosmetic surgery after a vitriol attack which otherwise would have left him scarred on one side of his face."
Captain Thunder whistled:"Yeah, that's not quite how it happened on our original Earth though, Evelyn. Like this one, it had a Batman and a Harvey Dent. However, on ours, Harvey went off the rails after the vitriol attack and became a schizoid villain called Two Face. He died on our world when the nuclear holocaust overcame it."
Evelyn considered this: "Hmmm. I had a kid brother called Harvey, but he developed a brain aneurysm and died when he was only fifteen."
"You should have seen her in action, though, Kara. She knew exactly how to counter the Jester and where to hit him." Robin enthused.
A wistful expression was evident on Evelyn's face: "Yeah. Yeah, funny thing. On my Earth, Batman's counterpart is called Owlman and he's a villain. And Jack Napier is, or was, a hero named the Jokester. He was...he was the father of my daughter, Duella, Harlequin. He was similar enough to your Jester in details of anatomy for me to take a chance on him sharing Jack's physical vulnerabilities."
"About your arm...I'm sorry if this is a rude or painful question, but..."
"No, it's okay. I sustained it when the Crime Syndicate attacked the Riddler Family and killed my former boyfriend Eddie Nigma, the Riddler, another hero. Superwoman was a vicious and brutal Amazon warrior and gives no quarter. She ripped my arm off. If Alexander Luthor hadn't been there and fought the Syndicate off, I would have bled to death. Alex replaced my arm and saved my life. I think Eve and Effie relish the edge it gives me."
Superwoman was horrified: "Rao. They did that to you? Oh, Evelyn. Don't worry. The Alliance protects its own and we will make sure nothing like that ever happens to you again."
"So I'm in, then? A member of the Justice Alliance? Thank you for the privilege."
"No, Evelyn. It's we who should be honoured. Now come in, meet the others. You will be a terrific addition to our team."
And once inside, her eyes met someone who looked remarkably like another old familiar face- but with some differences:
"Hey, Tom, get over here! Evelyn Dent, Triad, meet Thomas Gordon, mild mannered Gotham librarian and son of the late Gotham Police Commissioner Barbara and her husband Jim. Although he's no relative, he calls himself Batboy."
As the tall red-haired young man stepped up, his eyes met hers:
"Er, hi. Wow, so they let you in the Alliance right away? Envious."
"I can't think why. If you're with the Alliance, then you must be an excellent crime fighter in your own right."
"Oh, I'm new at this. I only started a few years ago."
"And we haven't let him into the Alliance quite yet. He's in charge of our adolescent protege's group, the Young Defenders, along with Beast Girl, Wonder Woman's kid brother Hippolytus, Ms. Flash and Starbolt. One of these days, though..."
Batboy blushed. As Evelyn turned away to meet the others, though, there was definitely reciprocated interest in their eyes, though. And when Evelyn Dent bedded down that night, she slept more peacefully than she had done for many, many years, safe on a new world and definitely, within a new home. And who knows? If what she saw in Thomas Gordon's eyes was any indication, perhaps she could form a new family here. Earth-3 was a past nightmare. Earth-500 was her present and now also also a burgeoning and promising future
THE END