Crisis on Earth-17

[redsycorax]

In a hebephrenic, frantic hail of word salad, Overman bellowed his frustration and anger at the surrounding world. But to no avail. Whatever metahuman abilities OJP had gifted him with, they had limitations. All the better, given the viral shortcircuit in his brain from the sexually transmitted infection. His hands grasped the empty shell of the cobalt salted thermonuclear device- the so-called "doomsday bomb" in his hands. His hand plunged down repeatedly on the detonator, but there was no response from the deactivated remnants. In a last frothing snarl of impotent defiance, Overman heaved the projectile away and into the ocean.

On the Canadian border, Rabbi Barry Allen- the Flash- smiled to himself. It looked as if it was working. Granted, it had been an exhausting ordeal, but rewriting his world's history had been achievable. Overman was not power incarnate any longer, and his carnage was restricted to the United States. If he kept his mind on the adversary, he wouldn't think about.

Iris. No. That way lay madness and despair. So thinking, he activated his OJP signaller: "Hey, Barry. Credit for them." As he sped across the Atlantic, too rapidly to break the water's surface tension, Barry Allen looked up to spot the incongruous sight of the airborne, punk Kyle Rayner, Earth-17's Green Lantern:



"Kyle. Well, it looks as if it worked. Overman's been sufficiently downpowered enough so that we're a match for him. I wish I could have aborted his existence altogether, but there was too much turbulence in the timestream. Hey, since when can you fly?"



"Since this new gig turned up. Did you see that white $#!* in the sky headed for us? It seemed to blink on and off. Mind you, one consequence was this new ring I've got. Turns out there are these blue alien dudes called the Guardians and that they know what's happening down here."



"Then why didn't they do something earlier? I would've thought that with great power comes greater responsibility. Millions of people died and the United States no longer exists because-"



"Barry dude, I think I was one of them. I have these memories of being skewered by this sharpened wooden javelin thrown by the Big O. Thing is, apparently that white stuff was antimatter. It was going to #^@% up this universe until something happened. 'Rora's waitin' for us. Two to beam up..."







Orbiting 22,300 kilometres above the Earth, within the OJP satellite, Aurora Prince ("Wonder Woman") gazed forelornly down at the cratered, desolate remains of what had once been the United States of America. She was holding a cherished, often caressed photograph of Stephanie Trevor. It was the only remnant of the woman she had loved and lost and today was the anniversary of her death when Overman incinerated Washington. He would pay for that. That, and everyone else that he had murdered. The tall, muscular black woman was not an Amazon, but she ached for the day when she could take on Overman and tear his head from his body. But that would mean a definitive weakening of the assassin of steel and at the moment, there were just the three of them.







The teleporter flared and suddenly Barry and Kyle were standing there. Aurora placed her photograph of Stephanie on her console top and turned to face her two colleagues. She cleared her throat: "Barry, the instruments went crazy while you were away in the past. Did you tell him about the antimatter storm, Kyle?"



"There's something else, too. Turbulence in the timestream. It felt as if I was turning inside out."



"Well, you're the scientist, Rabbi Allen. What does physics have to do with this situation?"



"Remember I told you both about the multiverse theory? Well, there's something called the Heisenberg Alternate Probability Index. Yeah, I know. HAPI. With this world, definitely inappropriate. Anyhow, according to cosmological stats, our old HAPI score was 17.0124445633. Kyle? Can your ring measure that?"



"Now...blazes. 14.02333668. We're more probable now than before? Barry, about these alternate universes. Can we travel to others of them, get some sort of help? End the Big O's miserable, murderous existence once and for all?"



He motioned to the corner: "This is something I've been working on, a quantum tunneller."



Kyle shrugged: "$#!* man, looks like a treadmill to me. Hey, that's it! A cosmic treadmill!"



Aurora looked across at the screen: "Overman's still recovering from his power downgrade. We have a five hour margin of safety before his metabolism is sufficiently repowered. Damn shame that his metabolism generates an interference field so we can't go down there and stop him once and for all while he's weakened. Okay boys, you have that window of opportunity."





Rabbi Barry Allen climbed onto the treadmill, saying a silent and brief prayer and clutching his Star of David. Elsewhere, Kyle intoned his ringcharger chant:



"And I shall shed my light over dark evil/



For those dark things cannot prevail over the



emerald light of the Green Lantern..."







The two men paced each other and built up speed until they were invisible to Aurora, leaving her alone in the OJP satellite.
Several probability quanta away,  Earth 17 was being watched. As the light pulse faded from the outphasing Flash and Green Lantern, an age old obsidian face let an unfamiliar smile crease its solemn features. On a split screen, it watched the catatonic Overman. At some point, when they were all sufficiently weakened, he would descend on their exquisitely vulnerable world and then strike.  As their outlines firmed into solidity, Kyle raised an eyebrow: "Oh hell. That's him? But he looks so sane. And what's with the two women in wedding dresses?"



Barry bent over the newspaper: "Damn. Pre currency reform, they don't take our world's credits here. Back in a couple of seconds." There was a momentary red blur as the Flash sped into and out of an adjacent bank, depositing a gold ingot consisting of the credits formerly in their pockets.



Kyle was busy scanning this world's media for clues about the puzzling anniversary photograph:



"Ah ha! This world diverged from our own around 1890. Turns out that the US Supreme Court heard a case related to Utah Territory's practice of plural marriage and ruled that the US Congress could not impose a religious test on the admission or otherwise of the Territory into the United States based on its practice of polygamy. As a result, polygamy became legal throughout that version of the United States. This Overman..."Superman"... wasn't a human genetic engineering volunteer, he's an alien from a dead world in another planetary system, "Krypton." Apparently his species did polygamy too."







Barry grimaced: "I hope there aren't any problematic major areas of divergence between our worlds. Is there an OJP parallel in this world?"



"Yeah, a Justice Federation. Lunar base. I'll take us up there..."







Seconds later, they were at the Justice Federation of Columbina's lunar base, the Watchpost. Kyle had used his ring to explain the situation to the officers on duty, but they weren't prepared for what they found. A black-clad muscular woman ("Antiope") was leading a man clad only in red briefs around the Watchpost on a leash. Kyle whispered: "Check that out. That dude is a dead match for Stephanie Trevor, Aurora's partner back home. Obviously BDSM is legal and quite public on this world."



Barry pointed to a tangential corridor: "That's not what worries me. Who's the four-armed alien?"



"Uhhh... J'edd J'arrkus, the "Martian Manhandler." Turns out Mars was inhabited millions of years in the past in this universe. Oh. Capital punishment is legal here. And ole J'edd there is an anthropovore."



Barry's eyes widened: "No way. Cannibalism is permissible here?!"



"Apparently, he/she only eats convicted murderers or those convicted of crimes against humanity." Mercifully out of sight, there was a bone-chilling scream and a sickening crunch. It was followed by a grinding, cracking and splintering chewing sound.



Kyle and Barry looked at each other: "Okay. The metahuman female domme and her sub I can take. As a rabbi, I do have some individual religious differences with this polygamous Superman and his two wives, but not enough to rule them out. But given their reactions, this Justice Federation tolerates that Martian's consumption of living human flesh for nutrition. I suggest that we discuss matters further with this 'Superman." Does he have a base of operations?"



"Yeah. It's called the Fortress Astral, converted Near Earth Asteroid towed into a distant orbit around this Earth. Let's go."



En route, Kyle's power ring related some of the other Earth's additional differences. Promisingly, xenopregnancy was possible in this world. Superman had had a bottled Kryptonian city, Argo, abducted from that world by an alien AI, "Brainiac" before Superman rescued it. Five years ago, Argo had been enlarged and its inhabitants had decided to settle on one of the three habitable zone planets of the red dwarf sun Tau Ceti, ten light years distant. He and his wives had two children, Superlad (Jon Lane-Kent) and Superlass (Lyla Lang-Kent), who had grown to adulthood in the half-century since their father had married both their mothers. They were waiting as Kyle and Barry left the airlock. Superman was visibly older:



"Ah, so you're the alternate Flash and Green Powertorch. In terms of the assistance that we can render against the renegade on your world, I'm afraid the answer must be no."



"It's not that we don't want to," Superlass remarked,"but we face a major interstellar threat in our universe. It's called the Khu'und Empire and it has tried to invade our solar system four or so times. Neither we nor the JFC can spare the time needed to neutralise or disable your Overman. I am truly sorry. I wish I had better news."





Boarding a transmatter cube, Kyle sighed: "Scratch that world, Earth...46. Next up, Earth...49."

Aurora checked the Watchpost's print out and kept an anxious eye on Overman's status. Kyle and Barry were currently on Earth 28, an alternate Earth where there was no non-metahuman "Batman" vigilante resident in Gotham, but another alien "Superman" instead. Instead of vulnerability to a red sun or isotope of the extinct planet Krypton, this "Superman" displayed vulnerability to thulium, instead.



Hm. That was worth checking out. Abruptly, the OJP's teleporter activated. Aurora picked up a stunner from the rack of anti-personnel weapons as two unfamiliar figures formed in the focal point of the device. It eventually resolved itself into a small, bald boy and a black clad figure with a twisted, crepuscular body. The boy raised his hands: "Hi. I'm Robin the Boy Wonder. The grinning fellow behind me is The Bat-Man. He's the result of a cloning cerebral cortex experiment and some accelerated ageing on my part. I'm forgetting my manners. Richard. Richard Graustark."



Aurora deactivated her stunner: "So you're from the United Kingdom?"



"My parents were originally from Germany. They were factory owners so they had to flee Thalmann's socialist revolution there in 1930. I was born with a mutated brain stem that increased my intelligence and agility somewhat. Bat. Stop salivating at the surroundings and sit down, Wonder Woman and I are conversing."



With an inane grin, The Bat Man did so: "Holy technologically advanced satellite headquarters, Robin!!!"



"And keep quiet. Sorry. He's quite good at combat tactics but socially awkward. We've come to join the OJP."



"You're welcome. We haven't had time to recruit new members since that bastard in the ruins of Washington slaughtered Whitecat, Atlantean and Raptor. Since then, it's all been containment tactics. Barry managed a minor but significant modification to our world's history so that Overman is largely restricted to the United States, as well as neutralising a cobalt bomb that would have obliterated everything. Overman's speed, invulnerability and strength have been compromised. We would have obliterated him altogether, but there was that damned timestream turbulence."



"So "Barry" must be either Flash or Green Lantern. Ah. That seems to be an interdimensional transit device of some sort. I imagine that the two absent OJP members must be trying to find something to neutralise Overman once and for all. I wish I could directly help in that. Bat could be of combat assistance once I activate his exoskeleton and programme him with Overman's data. I take it the objective is to either neutralise or kill him?"







But in the scarred and obliterated desolate masonry of what had once been the United States far below the lunar Watchpost, the psychotic spitcurled figure opened his eyes and the familiar litany started up again as he yelled to the empty existential and geographical void:







"I am Overman the Screaming O the All-Consuming Maw the Void the Portal into Hell Destroying Obliterating Annihilating All. I am Darkness Emptiness Vacuum Incarnate!"







But this time, a shadow fell across him: "Pleased to make your accquaintance. I am known as Darkseid"  

"Well, that one was a washout," commented Barry as the two men accelerated through the formless interdimensional flux of the Bleed,"but there was something about it too. It's off the sensors..."



Kyle nodded: "The ring says it was some sort of anomalous throwback to an earlier multiverse and it no longer exists. Hell!" He dodged artillery fire from a drifting, spikeladen object in the worldstream and returned pulsefire at it:



'What was that?!"



"Someone's boobytrapped the approaches to the next AU. Should we investigate this one, if it's sufficiently technologically advanced and malignant enough to do something like that?"



"Do we have any option? Any of the worlds that we're searching might have something to counter the threat Overman poses to our world."







++



Flashback: Earth-28: 1938.







Looking out over the blood-splattered, desolate rows of dead Congressmen, President Charles Lindbergh shook his head: "Pelley, why the hell did we humour that damned circus of a legislature for so long?"



His Vice President, Raymond Pelley, sneered down at the grand guignol spectacle: "Well, at least we have a secret weapon now. Those idiots Presidents Hindenberg, Laval and Hirohito won't know what hit them. All we need now is time. Damn, that little boy from the stars was a blessing. A toast, Mr Lindbergh. To Manifest Destiny and the American Way..." Whiskey glasses clinked against one another.

EARTH 28: 1941







Amidst the smoking ruins of the House of Commons, a defiant Winston Churchill returned arms fire with an energy weapon from the attacking USForce contingent:



"We will fight you on our streets. We will fight you on our beaches. We will never surrender!!!" But in the next instant, the British Prime Minister was caught in hideous chiaroscuro and although he did not cry out, he fell atop the rubble of the Mother of Parliaments a smoking corpse, never to move again.







EARTH 28: 1942.







The Eiffel Tower was still smoking, its top several hundred metres blown from its apex as a triumphant Lindbergh and Pelley rode through the streets of the devastated French capital, with the stealth bombers and particle-beamer GIs flanking their convoy. Here and there, quislings waved flags.







EARTH-28: 1943.



In Berlin, President Hindenberg nodded to the Japanese President's envoys:



"There is no other way out of this situation. May the Lord forgive us for this, but...I agree with your president. I do not know how the United States acquired these hell weapons but at least we have the fire of the gods itself in our own grasp. Tell Einstein and Oppenheimer that their Project Nuremberg will be funded..."

EARTH-28:



1943







With the faint scent of whiskey on his breath, Raymond Pelley laid a cold, clammy hand on the six year old's shoulder. Already tall for his age, the blackhaired, curious little boy looked up at his surrogate parent:

"Go on now, Exemplar. Do us proud. You know what we need- to stop our good American boys from having to throw their lives away in this heat-soaked hellish corner of nowhere."



Exemplar's gaze focused on the distant cityscape and his eyes shone red. At first cool crimson, they gradually moved up chromatic tones, until they were twin pinpoints of blinding incandescence. To the child, the distant people were mere dolls or ants. His sensory development was uneven, and like any little boy, he could be easily distracted by the prospect of reward. Thus, he did not hear the screams of terror and pain as the two million inhabitants of Sydney were incinerated by the oblivious vanguard of the Greater American Commonwealth.

Kal-El enjoyed the chocolate and icecream that evening.







EARTH-28: 1944:







Lindbergh and Pelley met in the global events room: "Stalemate. Those damned defiant fools in the German Confederation and Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere are still holding out."



"Never mind. We have an...Exemplar...to correct them, old friend."



At that moment, Kal-El's eyes widened:



"What is it, son?"



"A...pretty fireball. Up in Alaska. It's so bright. It looks like a mushroom cloud..."

EARTH-28: 1945.



"Attention, USForces flagship Manifest Destiny. The German/Japanese Alliance have decided that your actions need to be decisively halted once and for all. Therefore, we have decided to make an example of your core naval control and command centre. May all the Buddhas and Our Lord Jesus Christ forgive us for this despicable act we are about to commit, even if for the greater good."



High above the immense burgeoning obscene murderous technological anomaly festering amidst the Pacific Ocean, a Japanese kamikaze pilot released his payload. Knowing that he would be caught in the blast range as his bomb detonated, he closed his eyes, visualised the boddhisatva Kwanyin the Merciful and Compassionate and recited a sutra of forgiveness. He gently kissed the photograph of his family, now lost in the flames of the firestorm that had consumed Edo as USForces Air Arm battered it.



And then a red and blue streak shot from out of nowhere, manhandled the bomb and accelerated away out of the site, toward the Japanese mainland, thousands of miles distant. A lantern jawed, deceptively virtuous and innocent looking child released the bomb's payload, but did so over the Japanese capital. The seven year old child did not know why his mentors, President Lindbergh and Vicepremier Pelley, had ordered his action, but did not question his orders. Nor did Exemplar, born Kal-El on distant Krypton, look back as the nuclear device detonated over Tokyo. In a monstrous, fiery instant, seven and a half million people died, centuries of art and civilisation were obliterated and the fledgeling democracy was burnt out of the pages of history.



EARTH-28: 1948:







At ten years of age, Exemplar floated, impassive above the Washington skyline as the coup below proceeded. He had been contacted by USForces Intel Director J.Edgar Hoover and his associate, Joseph MacCarthy, some months ago and had been shown photographs of what the Lindbergh/Pelley team had justified in the name of God, Family and Country- the USForces motto. At that point, the Stars and Stripes flew across Europe, Japan, China, South-East Asia, Northern Africa...but that still wasn't enough for it.


EARTH-28: 1956:



At eighteen years of age, Exemplar flew high above the Russian steppes, his eyes flaring scarlet death down on the remaining democratic icon on that Earth, the Union of Eurasian Democratic Republics. And once again, when he reached Moscow, not a living creature survived the aftermath.

EARTH-28
: 1968







As Exemplar touched down in the midwestern heartland, his heart slowed and he swallowed. Back home in Washington, President Nixon had told him that there was another Kryptonian in the alien one-person starship before him now. It had been broadcasting a message of peace and goodwill in dual Kryptonese and multiple Earth languages as it entered the Earth's solar system at faster than light speed.



They had no way of knowing that the message was a facade. On distant Argo City, adrift for fifteen years after the fiery destruction of Krypton from the ignition of its radioactive core, but protected by a lead layer from its anti-kryptonite foundation stone, Zor-El had discovered the fate of his nephew, parsecs away on Earth. Within him, anger grew at the betrayal and mockery of his relative's Kryptonian heritage and ethos, and the unfolding nightmare of brutality and exploitation that met his eyes. And then, a catastrophic and fatal meteor shower had pierced Argo City's protective layer and its inhabitants started to die from the unleashed and escalating radioactivity. Zor-El and Alura loaded their beloved daughter Kara into a second starship and aimed it at the Earth. Along the way, a cerebrotape played, informing Kal-El's cousin of the ordeal and massacres that her cousin was party to.



As the vehicle came to rest, Kara Zor-El's eyes flickered open and its egress portal opened. In the doorway, Exemplar/Kal-El stood. Her eyes narrowed in hatred and her muscles and body were energised in the Earth's sunlight. Snarling her hatred of her cousin, Earth's formerly secret emergency weapon, Antithesis, accelerated out of her cocoon and started the long and arduous task to reclaim her newly adopted  planet's sovereignty and dignity.  

EARTH 28:
1978







As Exemplar prepared to launch the vanguard of USForces invasion of Brazil, an unwelcome intruder appeared on the horizon. He scowled as his renegade, faithless cousin Kara alighted on the ground several yards from him: "Give it up, Kal. Call your tinpot empire's army off and leave, now."



"Don't call me Kal. My name is Clark. No-one asked you to obstruct the Greater American Commonwealth's holy mission. Stand aside."



"Make me, cousin. I'm not going anywhere. Unlike you, I am not prepared to kill those weaker than myself, but that doesn't apply to self-appointed holy warrior imperialists. This is their country, this is their world. And as long as I draw breath, I refuse to let you conquer it in their name."



And with that, the two cousins joined battle. Antithesis- Kara Zor-El- lived up to her name, evenly matching her cousin as he sought to violently advance across the Brazilian border. Exemplar landed several blows on her, but she fought back, and the skies around them roiled with thunder. Ultimately, the two Kryptonians retired exhausted from the field. Numbly, Kal-El watched as the USForces contingent was defeated, while weary but exultant Kara grinned at him.



EARTH-28:
1985



It was once called the "Crisis on Infinite Earths," but although it obliterated some timelines and radically restructured others, Earth-28 ignored it. Antimatter storms burnt through its cosmos and for a while, it seemed as if it would consume much of the Milky Way galaxy. Then, as the contradictory effects of the Infinite Crisis and restoration of a new Multiverse occurred, there was a blink in reality itself. But oblivious to the greater drama outside the parameters of their own world and universe, Exemplar and Antithesis continued their never-ending battle. And then, as Kal-El aged, and Kara gained combat experience, USForces started to lose additional ground.



EARTH-28:
1997



Krypton-28 had experienced a particularly potent explosion which vaporised much of the planet instantly, leaving only particular areas of diminished effect such as the Argo City fragment which Antithesis and her parents had once called home. Gravitational vagaries had kept kryptonite meteorites away from the feuding cousins, until one day, several such fragments finally entered Earth's solar system. Battling to preserve faltering Greater American Commonwealth hegemony in Afghanistan, Exemplar was unprepared as Antithesis, in an unwieldy leaden suit, fired a kryptonite projectile at him. Traumatic, searing pain exploded in his skull as the weapon grazed his eye, blinding him. Stunned at the unfamiliar sensation, Kal-El fell from the skies, to lay prone and gasping on the soil, snow and dirt below.



THE BLEED:
2018






As Kyle and Barry destroyed the last of the perimeter barriers sealing off Earth-28's universe, Kyle's power ring delivered its analysis of the world that they were fast approaching. Barry shook his head:



"It sounds too much like our own damned world, except things went the other way here. Faustian bargaining obliterated the United States on our Earth, caught in an arms race with Communist Germany, until it crossed the frontier that wasn't meant to be forded."



"Sounds like it's only a matter of time here, judging from what the ring's told me. Their so-called "Greater American Commonwealth" empire is hardly that anymore. It looks like it's largely restricted to the United States and Mexico now, with fighting going on in Canada."



"I'm not sure being here is a good idea, Kyle. What if, despite everything, the GAC rallies and Exemplar is triumphant? What if it decides to go back to our Earth and uplift Overman, further weaponising him?"



"At least these Kryptonians are vulnerable to that radioactive isotope from their homeworld. Hmm. Looks like one green kryptonite  swarm didn't encounter the red quantum storm that re-engineered it into the red version and there are only two isotopes of it here. One is the green, lethal variety and the other is the gold isotope that nullifies their abilities. Still got that canister, Barry?"

The Flash nodded.   

On Earth-17, the Watchpost's alarm sensors activated. Aurora swallowed: "Hell! Overman wasn't supposed to recover that quickly."

Robin the Boy Wonder frowned: "Not unless he had help."

"Holy abrupt resurrection, Robin!" The Bat Man said, and chortled some more.

"I'm sorry about him," Robin said to Aurora," I had to use bargain basement cytoplasm to activate the accelerated cloning procedure, based on the notes from the ruins of the Metahuman Research Institute in Megalopolis."

But Aurora had realised something: "That's not all though, is it? You've been enhanced in...other ways."

Robin hesitated: "Yeah. While I have an enhanced strength cerebral cortex, it's also further improved by the neural net I had transplanted in there."

She was shocked: "But you're a ten year old!"

"Due to my mutation, I have the cognitive skills, strategic reasoning and therefore the ability to consent to life-enhancing surgery. Hence my baldness. As for Bats, well, he does have his uses...as we're both about to see."



Overman was accelerating toward the Canadian-US border, angry at the fact that he was somehow weaker now and was unable to sufficiently recover. However, for some reason, the red blur (bloody red disgorged intestines roped around his neck the speedster screaming in agony as he tore off his head YES) was absent from its position there. Watching malevolently from a dimensional annex anchored on Apokolips, Darkseid smiled cruelly. It had taken time to clear out the neural tissue damage from the disease festering in his skull, but now he could complete his destiny and ravage this world, leaving its riches and strategic multiverse position for Apokolips to exploit.



And then, abruptly, there was a flicker and a cankered something...was now draped over Overman's back. The metahuman growled and tried to bat it off, but then found himself weakening. The Bat-Man grinned foolishly, jabbering: "Holy energy absorption, Overman!"

"I'll rip you off me, shred you, tear you apart, you f-f-fre..." But then, he lost consciousness.



Darkseid was perplexed. He hadn't seen the intruder materialise, but he realised something was wrong. It incensed him that yet again, this primitive backwater planet was defying his indomitable will. Then the image broke up and the annex was facing interstellar space. The despot cursed and tried to relocate the blue-green planet, but something had hacked into his sensors. It then occurred to him that he might be facing an intellect comparable to his own and the ichor within his veins ran cold.



Below, several more Bat-Men had joined the original and were keeping Overman down as he moaned in unconsciousness. However, on the distant Moon, Robin the Boy Wonder clutched his head and sank to the floor. His nose was bleeding and as Aurora ran alongside him to pick him up, she realised why:

"Oh Hera. That neural net...it's k-killing you, isn't it?"

Robin gritted his teeth: "T-that... isn't important. I...have a duty to perform here. To rid our world of that misbegotten creature."

"At the cost of your own life, Robin?!"

"The needs ...of the many...outweigh...those of the few."

"You're a child, Robin. Even if you have an adult's valour and courage."

"I made a conscious decision to do this, Aurora. Just help me over to the surgery bay. I have...medication...for this purpose."

"So you sacrifice your life?! That isn't fair."

"It's worth it to rid our world of that Overman obscenity. Okay, I'm feeling better now.' But Aurora Prince cursed Overman for driving Richard Graustark to do this. She ached to avert this, but at least he had brought them all some time. At a terrible, terrible cost. Was her world cursed?

Meanwhile, on Earth 28, Kyle closed his eyes at the devastation around him:

"Look at all that damage. Was there some sort of nuclear war here? No, the ring isn't detecting any surges in radioactivity, except in...Tokyo, Hanoi, Pyongyang, Baghdad, Tehran, Kabul, Mogadishu, Beirut. In short, everywhere that our Earth has undertaken US intervention within against Islamist insurgents or alleged Communist German 'subversion. '"

"Hang on, we're being targeted. Shields up." It was almost too late to prevent an assault from a grimly familiar version of their oldest enemy as Exemplar stopped tumbling from the deflection and scowled at them:

"If you're one of those Green Lantern bastards, you are not welcome on this planet. Or weren't you convinced by what I did to Abin Sur and Ganthet?"

"Don't tell me. You're merely serving Lies, Injustice and American Manifest Destiny." Kyle retorted.

"I said, get out of this planetary gravity well now. Your presence is unwanted here. Or do I have to use force?"



Exemplar got no further, as another red and blue bolt intercepted him, landing a hefty punch to his face:

"Uh uh, Kal. You're in Brazilian airspace and that's Allied territory. Now leave. Or else."

"This isn't over, Kara."

"It is as long as I have the K antidote and you don't, you musclebound moron." Resentfully, glaring, the figure turned and left. Antithesis-Kara Zor-El of Krypton-28, now Earth-28's guardian of iron will against her American Commonwealth tool cousin, watched him go and then turned to the newcomers:



"Antithesis. To him, in case you were wondering. Nice moves."

"We've met his kind before. Alternate Earth. We have our own version called Overman, only he's destroyed the United States on our world- you'd call it, uh, Earth-17?"

"Yeah, well, you've probably gathered that big blue bastard and I don't see eye to eye. He's a metahuman tool from the Greater American Commonwealth, a murderous imperial power on this world. Nearly conquered the whole planet before I got sent here to stop him. He's my cousin. My real name's Kara."

"Hi. By the sounds of it, there's a Green Lantern Corps in this universe too, so why...?"

"He killed them. Not only that, he's slaughtered millions. He would have killed millions more, except I've been hauling his ass to hell and back for the last twenty-seven years."

Kyle nodded: "K. Kryptonite?"

"I got sent an antidote to it from offworld. It's the debris of our homeworld, the only thing that can kill Kryptonians."

"Nice to meet you, Kara. Kyle. Rabbi Barry Allen, the Flash. Is there somewhere more secluded we can discuss this further so we can help out here?"

"So, what's it like where  you boys are from?" Kara asked.

"Earth-17 is a parallel world. If you don't mind me asking, what the hell happened here?" Kyle asked.

"From what I can tell, it involved a quite grim situation where the United Kingdom of this world succumbed to fascism in about 1940, due to an invasion from the fascist-governed United States in 1938. Germany and Japan were liberal democracies on our world and fought the technologically superior United States dictatorship until it tried to destroy its flagship USForces naval vessel, Manifest Destiny. At which point, they unleashed my brainwashed cousin, Kal-El, whom they called Exemplar. USForce went on to almost conquer the planet. On Argo City, a surviving fragment of Krypton, I was born and grew to adolescence. My father, Zor-El, became aware of how Kal-El had been perverted by USForce and when Argo was destroyed, sent me here in 1968. I've been fighting him and his dictatorship for over forty years."


"Sounds a lot like us. On our Earth, our politics took a darker turn in the 1940s after the United States, Communist Germany and others fought Marshal Petain and his murderous Fascist France during our Second World War. The Republican Party decided that Communist Germany was the greater threat, especially given its pragmatic 'eurocommunist' democratic encouragement of socialist movements across war-devastated Europe. In the eighties, it almost seemed as if communism would end up winning the Cold War when UK Prime Minister Michael Foot took Britain out of NATO and declared it a nuclear-free zone, causing that treaty's collapse, until the US unleashed a covert genetic engineering programme." Barry replied.


"Anyhow, one of them was Lieutenant Clark Kent, a gung-ho US marine. He became Overman. What we didn't know was that he was nursing a sexually transmitted infection. He turned psychotic and he ended up murdering everyone in the United States. Our Order and Justice Project is the only thing that's stopping him from obliterating the rest of our Earth. We've only just taken a cobalt -salted doomsday bomb off him." Kyle concluded.

"Green Lantern. Can your ring create Kryptonite?" Kara asked.

"Are you asking me to kill your Exemplar?"

"If someone doesn't, it will destroy this world. Look around you. Runaway ecological collapse, resource consumption and economic inequality. This planet has been in a state of total war for over seventy years and my cousin is responsible."

"What about you, Kara?" Kyle replied.

"He's terminally brainwashed. I know. He's my cousin and the last male survivor of Krypton here. It tears me apart. But I have a duty to this world. Even if I die in the process. Even if I don't, his assistance to the USForce tyranny here has poisoned this planet for alien refugees for decades, possibly centuries to come. I wish I could help you."

Barry pondered this question: "Perhaps you can, Kara. We assist you. Would you like to come with us afterward?"



Antithesis nodded. A single tear escaped her eye as she steeled herself for what had to be done next, even if it was what part of her had hoped for. She prepared to undertake the next step... and kill Kal-El.


With a roar of rage, Exemplar rose toward the trio as they entered US airspace. Below him, Barry began to whirl around at higher and higher speed, creating a vortex. Exemplar scowled in amusement. Merely through increasing his speed, he would be able to break that feeble attempt at containment. His eyes glowed scarlet as he prepared to dispatch the nuisance far below, temporarily distracted from Kara and Kyle. That would prove a fatal mistake.



Antithesis nodded to the punkhaired Green Lantern: "Do it."



"Kara? I'm so sorry it has to be that way."



"But it does. Don't worry about me. Poor, brave Querl gave me a kryptonite antidote shortly before Kal went on a rampage in his 30th Century and killed billions on that future Earth. So I'm invulnerable to that."



"Your body, yes. But the psychological toll?"



Masked by Kryptonian cloaker technology until it was too late, Exemplar suddenly encountered a hail of kryptonite. It increased in intensity, as the lethal rain tore through his otherwise invulnerable skin, producing a new and frightening sensory impression unknown for so many years- pain. He tried to elude the debris of his shattered homeworld but he could not. Weakened by his ordeal already, he began to scream, panicking as none of his weakening metahuman abilities were able to dispell his danger. Through the sound of slashing, razorsharp green kryptonite shards, Kara listened as her cousin's lifesigns became fainter and fainter. After what seemed an eternity, he fell from the sky and spiralled down several kilometres to impact on the world below. Stonefaced, Kyle kept funnelling the kryptonite meteorstorm at the Kryptonian. Finally, Kara could detect no life from the softly glowing green and bleeding form. It was only then that the Last Daughter of Krypton-28 sank to her knees, sobbing in utter desolation. Gently, Kyle took her in his arms and rocked backward and forward with her as she mourned the cruelty of necessity and sacrifice.



Kal-El, Exemplar, USForce's 'ultimate weapon' was dead. But so was Kara Zor-El's cousin, her closest surviving relative. Even despite all he'd done, that didn't erase the imperatives of kinship.



A week later, they prepared to leave. Kara looked out at the burning USForces vehicles and buildings as the victims of the fallen empire took their bloody vengeance on the suddenly disempowered soldiers and collaborators of the regime. Behind them, Washington DC was burning. It took every effort not to break away and try to rescue the lower level hirelings of the tyranny, but what would that achieve? She'd known this would happen. Moreover, Kal-El had been their first alien-human contact and had poisoned prospects of co-existence with interstellar neighbours for some time to come. The tears came less frequently now. She fingered her hololocket and gazed down at the image of the infant Kal-El, oblivious of what he would be twisted and perverted into on this world.



"Ready?" Kyle nodded as she took his hand and the three left Earth-28, world to a vanquished American Empire and its corrupted core metahuman, to its ghosts and newly exorcised demons.

"Earth...26.7845699000, according to its tachyonic resonance level. Make that 27. And this looks like...Gotham City?"

Kara raised an eyebrow: "Are you sure? Gotham tends to be perpetually rainswept and wintry, and there are usually blackclad superheroes of some sort engaged in battle against rogue galleries. I can't see any of that...oh."

Barry had sped off into the city and paid for a compact world history DVD. Kyle plugged it into their portable player:

"Welcome to Gotham City. Sixty years ago, in the late sixties, this eastern coastal US city hosted a trio of intrepid crime fighters- Batman, Robin and Batgirl. Here, you can see a pop art rendition of a fight with one of their large rogues gallery of opponents, King Tut. The creator was the core artworld figure Andy Warhol."

Barry sn****red: "WHAM! POW! SOCK! KICK! Is this for real? And er, that Batman fellow does look a little too pudgy to be doing this."

"Very tight shorts on both of them, too." Kara observed.

"Get how pompous and prissy this Batman sounds on the accompanying interview. I'm sorry, he's supposed to inspire fear and loathing in the Gotham underworld? Let's fast forward. What happened to this guy and the adolescent in the red and green tights?"

Kara looked over his shoulder: "Okay- it seems as if Robin stopped crimefighting at some point, probably because his secret identity took up university studies or a career, so Batman was then seen working alongside a reformed supervillain, Catwoman. Judging from their body language, there was some intimacy involved. Gradually, the rogues gallery petered out and it apparently retired by the end of the seventies. From then on, it was predominantly fighting burglary, art thefts, corrupt financial practices, and strictly mundane pursuits."

Kyle frowned:

"Okay, weird. Look at these. They're the crime stats for this year."

Kara noticed it first: "Surely that's only this month? What, no homicide or firearms crimes at all? Two muggings? No family violence assaults? No rape whatsoever?"

Barry whistled: "This seems to be a largely non-violent world. Check the foreign affairs stats for this Earth."

Kyle's eyes widened: "They scrapped the last of this world's nuclear weapons in the eighties. Apart from fighting in Mogadishu and Kabul, there's virtually no external warfare. The United States doesn't have the death penalty. Weed is completely legal."

"Come on, there has to be something. What about alien threats? Any Kryptonians or similarly empowered metahumans, like Daxamites?' Barry observed

"There was a Superman...who seems a dead ringer for Exemplar and Overman on our worlds, but he was last seen in 1971, presumed dead after he saved humanity from a malfunctioning experimental fusion reactor. Also, a younger metahuman named Steelman, who seems to be in the same empowerment magnitude league. Wait a minute, supplementary literature. "Three Supermen?" There seemed to be definite behavioural differences when it came to Superman's public appearances in the late sixties and early seventies. Added to which, in the sixties and seventies, his abilities seemed to have been reduced in magnitude. Cloning, do you think?" Kyle replied.

"After what we've just done...I don't think I can bear to encounter an alternate Kal. Not yet, anyway." Kara said.

"I don't think this is an analogue of your cousin, not unless red hair and freckles run in the family. And he looks younger than Exemplar or Overman or this Superman, who all seem to be in their late twenties."



In Metropolis, a blackcaped and cowled flying figure lifted a squirming tentacled figure and roughly threw it back into a saucer shaped starship, before he welded the airlocks shut. His muscles flexed as the aliens inside bitterly complained, and grinned as Interlac expletives were directed at him from the angry occupants inside. His telescopic vision located the planetary system of origin and specific homeworld, and he threw the multiton vessel in its direction, having locked its navigational and propulsion systems in beforehand. An auburn haired accelerating blur diminished its velocity and sighed:

"Not the Prokarytins again?"

"Yeah. Apparently their latest peace talks with the Metlupitryns broke down, and they sent a reconnaissance force here. Only four or five in the vessel. Sorry, too few to save you any."

"Commissioner Barbara Gordon called Central City. Apparently their Oracle CCTV network caught some stray activity that resembles teleportation activity. Which is odd, because neither the Prokarytins or Metlupitryns are capable of using hyperspatial matter transmission due to their molecular density. It might have been stray emission ghosts from the Prokarytin stardrive, though. Oh. And GL called in from Rann. There's been another terrorist attack on Thanagar, resistance to the Hyathis regime there. I think Alanna's chafing at the Guardians non-intervention rule. The more things change..."



Earth-27's Flash broke off. The offworld trio had just arrived. Her eyes widened, then filled with tears. In a voice filled with bewilderment and longing, and obvious grief, her voice quavered: "B-Barry?"

"I-Iris?" The two speedsters crossed the meagre distance between them in a heartbeat and were sobbing in each others arms in moments. Kara stepped forward:

"Hi. We're Kara Zor-El, Kyle Rayner and as you can see, Barry Allen- Antithesis, Green Lantern and Flash, respectively."

"Uh, hi. James Olsen, Steelman. And that's Iris West, our Flash. We don't get many multiverse visitors."

"Why? This is such a peaceful place."

"Oh, it has its moments. If you'll follow me, we can talk about this more in my Mountain Fortress..."

Leaving Barry and Iris to talk, Kyle, Kara and James reconvened in Steelman's Mountain Fortress, overlooking the city of Metropolis. James uncowled and motioned toward a cracked metallic sphere:



"That's my transmatter device. Originally, I was from Earth-15. Professor Phineas Potter, a friend and physicist at Star Labs, enabled me to escape what that murdering bastard Superboy-Prime did to it. So, I ended up here and the mutagenic effects of prolonged interspace travel turned me metahuman. And hence my outfit- in memory of my friends Lor-Zod...Superman...and Bruce Wayne, Batman. Both gone. Along with my entire world. And that scumball hasn't paid for it."



"Is that...a Benedict Arnold penny?"



"Well, when Washington freed the slaves on this world in 1776 as Governor General of the American Colonies, the South rose up in rebellion, but Arnold stayed true to Washington's vision and is a hero to many African-Americans. British Wanted poster for Abraham Lincoln for his role in the War of American Independence in the 1860s. And a toreador's outfit for my friend and mentor, Perry White."



"Say what? Sorry, I'm far too punk to tolerate that sort of attack on animal rights. Bullfighting is legal in this alternate US?!" Kyle grimaced, while Kara laughed:



"Sort of like that Earth-46 you boys told me about? The one where polygamy is legal in the United States on that world?"



Steelman raised an eyebrow: "Oh, that one. The one with the Legion of Super-Criminals in its 30th Century? Been there myself. Its Superman called me in to deal with them when they made a nuisance of themselves back in the nineties. Oh, and a word of warning. Earth-24? Don't. Under any circumstances. Very nasty technologically sophisticated hybrid civilisation, Sliding Albion."



Kyle sighed: "Jim, if we'd known about what was happening next door, we might have done something to stop Prime from that act of genocide."



James looked at the battered, desolate discoloured sphere that replicated his homeworld:



"Yeah, but you had your own problems with this Overman dude. Speaking of which, you may have noticed how quiet this world is. I'll be coming with you three. If you want me, that is."


They called in on Barry and Iris the next morning. Both of them hadn't had much sleep for ...certain very welcome reasons.



"So? What's our next stop?"



"Earth-49."



"Oh...that one." A smile played over James lips, as Barry and Iris undertook a long and intense kiss goodbye. And then the four of them were gone...

Wha?" The first sign of their newfound situation was when the quartet materialised above Earth-49, to find a lurid configuration of milky white oceans and technicolour pastel continents. When they descended, it was to find an even more surreal cityscape.

"We, uh, haven't inadvertantly ended up on Earths 29 or 47 by mistake have we, Kyle?"

He shook his ringletted head:

"Nope. Ring says Earth-29 is inhabited by white crystalline abiotics called 'bizarros' and exists in a damaged continuum and Earth-47 appears to have hallucinogenic residue native to its particular biosphere. This is apparently Earth-49. Huh? Hey, isn't that guy Lex Luthor, the physicist?"

"Damn you, you've made me bald!!! Bald!!! Bald!!! Now my head will be a contributory cause to global warming, endanger aircraft and motor vehicles through the glare and people will laugh and me and call me 'slaphead' if I go to Great Britain!!!"

A green clad policeman scowled: "Your wilfully naked, nude head is a threat to public decency and morality. For shame! What if there are children watching this? Baldity is illegal in this bailiwick, buster."

Kara pointed out a poster over an abandoned Starbucks:

"'Under the aegis of the US Congress, and the Caffeine Prohibition Act, this product is declared an illegal narcotic..."

"Just as well. Do Earths 14 or Earth-28 have those ghastly frothy, wispy confections that are an excuse, because Earth-27 does. No great loss." Steelman replied.

"Okay, so are there any analogues to datum metahumans on this world?" As it turned out, they were to be sorry they asked...

"I'm bald! Bald!! Bald!!! Now how will I be attractive to the opposite sex, or the same sex for that matter? Damn you! Damn you all!!!" ranted Earth-49's Lex Luthor analogue as the green-clad police led him into a fluorescent green paddy wagon and accelerated off. Meanwhile, Robin had run away screaming from Pinkbatman as the latter's buttocks achieved peculiar elasticity of their own and pummelled a criminal.



Fortunately, at that point, a svelte, black-clad figure waved to them: "Hi! Crazy Jane, from the Freak Show!"

"Hey, I know you. James Olsen, Daily Planet. Earth-15."

She embraced him: "So what's with the fusion outfit, red?"

"Anyhow. Kay Challis -"Crazy Jane" here- used to be a member of the Doom Patrol, which was a cutting-edge metahuman outfit, until that bastard Superboy-Prime obliterated our Earth during that so-called "Final Crisis."

"I have Dissociative Identity Condition. Okay, technically it's a disorder, except that in this universe and several others, it can be managed by Integralase, a drug that enables dissociatives to control our cycling process."

"For this world, she seems remarkably lucid." Kara commented.

"Oh, don't let looks deceive you, Ms Zor-El. I mean, look at Earth-One back in the Old Multiverse. It was supposed to be the elite world, the lynchpin to which all aspired. So what was with Mr Mxyzptlk? Bat-Mite? Matter-Eater Lad and Bouncing Boy? And is that Pinkbatman over there as much of a deviant alternate analogue as some versions would like to think? At least it's not some histrionic testosterone charged version who bellows about his Batmanitude and then beats up little boy sidekicks."

Barry whistled: "So, what's with the tower?"

"Back on E15, it used to belong to that sidekicks group, the Teen Titans. Here?"

"You're a police forensic scientist as well as a rabbi, aren't you, Mr Allen? You should find my colleague interesting." Out walked a figure in a glittering nineteenth century ballgown, a belle epoque vision in lace and tulle: "Tiresias. Pleased to make your accquaintance."

"You're... Daniel-Paul Schreber, Freud's inaugural schizophrenia diagnosis. But that was back in the 1890s. So, everything he wrote in his Memoirs of My Nervous Illness was true here?"

"Oh yes. Rather like dear Kay/Crazy Jane here, I have alternating selves. Danny is boring, staid and rather male. I'm Avemaria, the metahuman crime fighter, blessed by a gnostic demiurge. Sort of like Doctor Fate on some Earths."

"Why is this Earth so, er, unusual?"

Avemaria motioned with her hand and a holograph of Earth's solar system appeared, with one immediate striking difference- there was a large, almost blinding white pulsating light, dispelling matter, debris and found objects aplenty.

"That's...a white hole." Barry observed.

"Yes, it appeared in our solar system's Oort Cloud back in 1884. Almost immediately, things started to get peculiar. Queen Victoria started to show her legs and behave scandalously with John Brown. Kaiser Wilhelm developed transvestite tendencies, so that prevented World War I when he got sidearmed off the German Imperial Throne. Althaulf Hinkler led the Doublecross Party to power in Germany, but then he was beaten up and disposed of by several luridly clad metahumans. And then in 1938, someone arrived on our world."

"An alternate version of my cousin Kal-El?" Kara hazarded.

"No- Jokerman, the Chalkfaced Crusader, from the obliterated planet Koulros!"

"So why haven't we heard of this world before?"

"Remember the Crises? Rather like Earth-26, our Earth has certain unique properties. I generated a thaumaturgic field and provided a pocket universe to shelter our world from the Crisis' antimatter storms. We...moved up into this multiverse."

"And if you think we're weird, what about Earth-78, Punkworld?"

"Uh, there are only 52 alternate universes in the multiverse. Aren't there?"

Earth-17:

"Darkseid" Robin the Boy Wonder said, as the bald-headed ten year old collapsed into Aurora Prince's arms. The genetically engineered Wonder Woman felt his pulse slow to a halt as the troupe of The Bat-Men capering amongst the remains of the United States far below collapse on the field. With tears in her eyes, Aurora gently set him down in a cryopreservation tube. In a way, Overman had killed this one, too, and like all the others, it hurt. Queencat. Archerman. Atlantean. And now Robin and The Bat-Men under his control. How many more would die before that scourge was lifted? Then his last word hit her:

"Of course."


Sitting down before the transcommunicator, she spoke:

"Kyle, Barry, it's Darkseid. He's been behind this all the time. He was the one who must have drafted Clark into the genetic enhancement programme in the first place, insured his STI went untreated, and transformed him into Overman. And now he's spiking Overman's recovery time from each successive assault, so he recovers sooner each time."

-Correct , Aurora Prince, spoke a sepulchural voice behind her. And thus it was that Aurora Prince arose and one last time, played the 'game' of bullets and bracelets with an opponent. Aurora Prince was no Amazon, her abilities were the result of enhanced natural aptitude and self-discipline. But she was a soldier and warrior consummate and she fought valiantly and long against her immortal and quasidivine adversary. Indeed, in the end, she battled for two hours duration, until she tired and one fatal mistake led to her irradiation, and her smoking corpse collapsed on the Order and Justice Project bridge.



Darkseid stepped forward and began to depress a sequence of integers. When it was completed, he stepped back and regarded his handiwork. Long before the self-destruct sequence guttered down to zero, he had teleported away and thus, no-one was left alive to witness the soundless detonation as the Watchpost erupted into a prodigal burst of heat and light, silently in the near-vacuum lunar environment.



But when he tried to travel to Earth-49 to end the existence of the last two OJP members left, he found he could not. He growled and gritted his implacable granite face and yet, it defied and eluded him. This could not be.



And back on Earth-49, the changeling transgender shaman known as Daniel Paul (Tiresias) Schreber smiled to himself...

Krypton-27: 
"It's just a shame that Crazy Jane and Tiresias couldn't accompany us. Wonder what's up with the rest of the 'verse? All those red skies that my ring is detecting? $#!*!!!" Kyle mused, then his eyes widened, instants before the foursome entered Earth-27's vicinity. Or rather, what should have been the vicinity of Earth-27. In microseconds, his ring formed a protective air and temperature sheath around himself and Barry, and motioned for Kara and James to travel above the elliptic of the solar system. Ten million kilometres above, the situation was starkly evident: "Earth-25. Its sun has gone nova."

"Hang on, the Sun is a main sequence yellow dwarf star. That doesn't happen to stars at that comparatively youthful stage of stellar development. It doesn't have the mass and the accumulated trace elements that build up when it reaches the red giant phase. That shouldn't have happened for billions of years." Barry objected.

"Different laws of astrophysics?" James asked.

"Nope. Added to which, the event happened comparatively fast. In a matter of months. Thirty years ago."

Kara shuddered: "Any survivors? No, there can't have been."

Kyle raised an eyebrow: "Uh, no, Kara. There were. Ring is tracing them...now."



In the silence, Kyle's power ring formed a single image. Kara gasped:

"Krypton?! I-it didn't explode in this universe? My home still exists here?!"

"Kara? It's an alternate universe Krypton, not your own homeworld. It may have a divergent history to your own."

"One objection. How could any Terran survive on a higher gravity super-Earth world like Krypton?"

"Some sort of interstellar travel pod was launched to take a single occupant there. It was operated by a tachyon pulse beam which permanently altered its occupant's physiology. Female."

Kyle's ring reconstructed the identity of the occupant: "Lois. Lois Lane?"



++



As she patrolled the skies above Krypton's northern polar continent, Kandi (Supermaid) Khan caught sight of a familiar green fleck. It accelerated toward her and she smiled, slowing her motion to float kilometres above the domed outline of Arctic City. Sure enough, it was her old friend:

"Kal-El! What brings the Green Lantern of Sector 2813 back home?"

"Don't you start, Kandi. I get enough of that from Mother."

"How is Lara these days?...That bad, huh?" Supermaid said, as Kal-El kept pace with her. Her old friend groaned aloud:

"Since Jor-El died from Virus X ten years ago, Mother's become more and more involved with political extremism. That ghastly Old Krypton cult."

"Yes, I never quite managed to work out the intricacies of its politics."

He managed a tired grin: "Well, you get an honorary indigenous Kryptonian virtue pass because although you're technically an alien, you were raised on Krypton and have saved its inhabitants countless times. On the other hand, I don't, because as Green Lantern of Sector 2813, my responsibility is to protect this entire stellar sector. As for Futuro, Xan is their platinum boy because he's from this world and stays here."

"Are you here for the memorial service?" Supermaid asked

"Yeah. Just think- if Jor-El hadn't managed to contain and channel Krypton's core with his damper rods, all ten billion of us would be so much molecular debris. Which is what Mother is bitter about."

"How so? Jor-El was voted onto the Science Council as Praesidium Head for ten years afterward. His feats are a matter of public record. He got his recognition. It's just a damned shame that there was that Virus X outbreak while he was testing those anomalous readings."

"It's not that. She rants and raves about hell blossoms and deathsalts and immigrants from the Wegthor Ring. And then there's the Phantom Zone controversy..."

"Let's drop in and see her..."



Although Lara Lor-Van-El was an inveterate xenophobe, she made an exception for Kandi Khan. She'd known the family since Jor-El had taken them to Kryptonville to recover after the arduous process of inserting the damper rods near Krypton's core. There, they had raised Kal-El and seen him enter a career as a doctor at Kryptonopolis General Hospital, forever longing for Supermaid. That was, until Tomar-Re of Xudar had been fatally wounded after a fight with Qwardian antimatter universe invaders in Krypton's vicinity and had passed on that infernal ring to Kal. He hadn't been there when his father Jor-El and brothers Zal-El and Knor-El had experienced the unexpected Virus X outbreak in the Scarlet Jungle and died within a matter of hours of each other. In fact, that was par for the course. She saw the distant green spark on the horizon and hurriedly cut off her comlink, knowing Kal-El would disapprove- as he usually did, these days.

"Lara!"

"Kandi, my dear. Oh. Memory crystals? But they're so rare these days..."

"It's surprising what a little ingenuity can do. And there's another visitor."

"Kal-El."

"Mother. Was that comlink open to the Swords of Rao sect, because you know what I think about "His Reverence" Lor-Em and his thug ally "Major" Dax-Ar."

"Not today, Kal-El. And at least Dax-Ar is a firm supporter of your father's policy on the Phantom Zone. Not that that's ever separated us, Kandi my dear. At least you see the need for humane imprisonment and at least you're not whitewashing monsters like Dru-Zod, Faora and Jax-Ur. "

"Before my time, Lara. Sorry. My Mithen probe scanner has picked up something entering our solar system. A metahuman's work, etc etc."

"Of course, my dear. Your duties to this world come first as always. Thank you for thinking of an old woman on this dark day."

"We all miss Jor-El, Lara. He was a great man and saviour of this planet." As Supermaid accelerated into the carmine evening skies, and the Jewel Mountains shone with setting Raolight, Lara sighed:

"It's a pity you two didn't get together before you decided to abandon this planet, Kal-El."

"Don't start, Mother. I'm Green Lantern of this entire interstellar sector, not just Krypton. Anyhow, Kandi's Terran."
"I'm not as much of a xenophobe as you appear to think I am, Kal-El. While she wears an emblem of her vanished homeworld on her uniform, she had nowhere else to go. Krypton gave her sanctuary and she loves her adopted world as if it were her own. Not like these aliens you seem so eager to assist."

"It's not as if Futuro and Kandi aren't here to protect the homeworld, Mother." Abruptly, his ring shone:

"Not again. Not on the anniversary of Jor-El's passing and those of your younger brothers."

"We'll have to have this conversation another time, Mother. Duty calls."

"When does it not?" Lara replied acidly, but if Kal-El heard her, he made no reply. Sector 2813's Green Lantern was already accelerating away from Kryptonopolis and into interplanetary space.



"Kal?"

"Xan. Kandi and I are checking something high above the elliptic. Probably not Thanagarians or Khu'und attack vessels, so nothing to worry about. I'm not getting starship drive residue anyway..." As he reached Supermaid's co-ordinates, he slowed to a halt. His eyes widened and a lump formed in his throat as he saw the spacesuited figure: "K-Kara?"

"Hello. I'm Karl Rayner, Green Lantern of Sector 2814 from an alternate universe. This is Barry Allen."

Supermaid raised an eyebrow:

"English? Y-you speak English? But it's a dead language. No-one else speaks it except me and the inhabitants of the bottle-city of London that I rescued from the Coluan AI Brainiac when he tried to attack and abduct Kandor."

"Lois...Kandi, is it? How familiar are you with multiverse quantum physics?"

"You...you're from an alternate universe where Earth didn't die when its sun went nova?"

"That's just it, Kandi. It should never have gone nova. Its alternates are mostly intact, with a couple of exceptions and those were due to hypersapient malignancy. This particular universe has been engineered into existence."

Kal-El snorted: "In that case, they could have done a better job. My father died because of a Virus X outbreak that killed most of my family, we have hostile interstellar neighbours like Thanagar to contend with and growing political extremism to contend with."

Kara swallowed: "Kal, what is it?"

"I'm sorry. I...realise you must be an alternate universe Kara Zor-El. My...my cousin was attacked and murdered by protestors against the Phantom Zone, our world's extradimensional penal facility."



Kyle nodded: "Yeah, I thought so. This universe has been spliced together. Originally, it was four distinct AUs. Krypton survived in all of them, and Jor-El was instrumental in saving it in two. In another two, Kal-El had brothers, Zal-El and Knor-El, respectively. In three of them, there were distinct metahumans- Supermaid, Futuro and you, Kal-El. In one of them, Earth was destroyed when its sun went nova. And your collective presence is keeping this universe from ceasing to exist. They can't leave here, Kara and Barry. Sorry. This was a wasted journey."

Supermaid persisted: "You...said Earth's sun should never have gone nova. So why did it in this particular universe, if it shouldn't?"

"We have a priority emergency waiting on our home Earth, but when that's over, we'll come back here and work this out." Kara embraced Kal-El, unwieldy though it was within her spacesuit, then Kyle's ring pulsated and the quartet were gone, finally about to return to Earth-14...and Overman.

As they accelerated through the singularity toward the grinning, leering Overman on the ground below, they saw him sear down the remaining cloned Bat-Men as he looked up and intoned his usual rhetoric about screaming Os, tears and rips in reality itself. Preparing to take vanguard position, James and Kara were startled to see a diminutive form race ahead of them, with a lightning bolt emblazoned on its side. Kalo, the Supercat of Earth-49, angrily beset the murderous Weapon of Tomorrow, clawing at his face and chest, spitting and growling as he unleashed a pulse of heat vision at the madman. Overman grabbed the furious feline and threw it upward at high speed. The Supercat tumbled upward for several kilometres, but invulnerable and undaunted, it corrected its course and dived down.



The Flash was next. Silently uttering a Hebrew prayer, Barry Allen bombarded the cursing and raging Overman with thulium pellets. In pain and madness, the behemoth cried out its defiance, but it was visibly weakening given its vulnerability to that particular form of radioactive element. However, it was not enough and despite Barry Allen's courage and resolve, Overman bunched a lacerated fist and hit hard and fast. The fist went through Barry's rib cage, shattering it as Overman took hold of Barry's heart and squeezed. In a matter of seconds, the fragile organ burst and Barry chaotically tripped and tumbled until he ended up in a bloody pile of meat and bone, several miles away.



If Overman had sought any respite, he wouldn't have received it. With tears in his eyes for the dead speedster, Kyle dialed up the setting on his power ring and focused all of its energy on the metahuman in its path. Overman's body scarred and smouldered, then burst into flame in places. High above, Kalo had detoured, dug into the bedrock below and located several hundred kilograms of thulium. The valiant metafeline accelerated, lacerating Overman with a further hail of superspeed thulium bullets. Still leering insanely despite his intense agony, Overman grabbed a metal pole and heaved it toward Kyle, before the Green Lantern had any time to resist it. He didn't have to. James halted its forward path and the pole shattered on his invulnerable chest, while Kara yelled: "Get away from him, you evil bastard!" Her eyes blazed scarlet with her own heat vision as she flew toward him, as Kalo landed and began to volatilise his thulium with his hind feet. Kyle joined Kara and James as they increased the bombardment. Almost imperceptibly, Overman began to falter, but then he held up a familiar object: "I've got the bomb. The Doomsday Bomb!" He jabbered, rearming the re-engineered device and then prepared to press the detonation button.



Shrouded and unable to access Earth-17, Darkseid grinned. It had been a simple matter to provide Overman with a cobalt bomb from a desolate alternate world where humanity had blasted itself into oblivion in a terminal and final nuclear holocaust. He pressed forward, trying to enter the stubborn reality, but the Bleed congealed around him. He became aware of an elderly woman, standing in a circle marked with sigils and long-dead languages. He heard her words of power:



"The spell we cast forth in the name of Sophia and Her Pleroma calls forth the fiery, spiritual creature, our demiurge, Ariel. Metatron, Commander of the Celestial Hosts, I cast for Ariel, Pearl of Fire, My Only Star, Sophia's Moonbeam, send forth my flower. With smoke and ashes of ages past, which hangs like morning mist in veils around the multiverse, parts and swirls and eddies and through them the meteor My Demiurge Ariel flies with mirrored eyes, leaving a sparkling phosphorescent trail across the multiverse. Down, down he plummets toward the strand of Earths, through the Great Bleed, through the curve of infinity and like a fiery rose, he descends, to frustrate evil."



Whatever Darkseid's core incarnation had planned, it was dashed apart like a fragile eggshell as he felt a blinding, powerful gaze fall upon him. It increased in intensity and within microseconds, for all his power, Darkseid fell apart like a fragile leaf in acid. Back on Earth-49, Avemaria exhaled in relief. She hadn't been sure that casting would work. But it had. Now the rest was up to the three sentinels on Earth-14.



Kyle was almost dying with the effort required to fix Overman in the light of the emerald thulium flare. But finally, it seemed to be working. Overman stumbled and fell to his knees. The blinding scarlet pinpoints faded from his eyes. Kara and James grasped his shoulder as Kalo accelerated around them, firing hailstorms of thulium pellets. Then Kyle fell to his knees as Kara and James accelerated upward, taking Overman's struggling form with them. By now, all of his flesh had burnt off and the behemoth was little more than muscle, bone and gore, still screaming and snarling its defiance, but too weakened now to resist. By some dark miracle, he survived the exit from Earth-14's atmosphere, as Kara glanced down and saw the pitted, cratered lunar landscape of the desolation that had once been the United States on this unlucky world. She nodded and with James' assistance, they accelerated toward the Sun. Maddened beyond endurance and still snarling defiance, all was, however, impotence despite that effort. James pinioned Overman and Kara mouthed silently,

-This is for Barry Allen, you evil genetically engineered piece of $#!*.



With that, she sent her own fist through his chest, punching at his ruin of a rib cage and his heart and then grabbing hold of him, throwing the presumptuous former demigod downward. Overman cried out, unheeded in the silence of the vacuum, as his body began to catch fire. Then the cries turned to silent screams and then there was a brief eye-aching burst of power and light. On the Earth below, Kyle Rayner saw it and closed his eyes. His world's ordeal was over. Overman had paid for his genocide of the country that surrounded him and they had stopped it escalating to the remainder of Earth-14. Then his eyes fell on Barry Allen's corpse. He thought about Aurora Prince/Wonder Woman and Robin the Boy Wonder and his Bat-Men and wondered if victory had been brought at too high a price.



EPILOGUE 1: EARTH-17


"Damn it." Kyle said, as he surveyed the line of graves for his fallen comrades. Kara nodded, clasping his arm as they watched Steelman comfort Iris West, the Flash of Earth-27 and the mother of Barry's as yet unborn child.

"Do you want to stay here? Help them rebuild?"

Kyle shook his head: "It's like you and Earth-28. This world has been devastated by a murderous insane metahuman who had to be brought to justice. And he was. All of the genetic engineering data about metahuman development was destroyed when Overman destroyed Washington. I made sure Communist Germany's corresponding data was erased from its own military and scientific databases. So, they get to engage in self-determination here too. As for your next question, where do we go?"

Kara considered this: "It'd be tempting to say Earth-27, wouldn't it? That world is paradise. And no, I wouldn't go back to Krypton-25. It's like they say, you can never go home again. That world is so much like the one that I lost, it hurts. But it isn't. It seems to be entering its own dark age and fighting its own barbarians at the gates. It isn't my fight. "

"There's something else. Before we left Earth-49, Avemaria gave me this. It's the Multiverse...Beyond the Local "New 52" Multiverse."

"So Barry was right. There are more than fifty two universes in existence and some of them exist outside ours. Great Rao, Kyle. How many are there in that snowflake structure?"

"196, 833. So, not infinite Earths, but untold and unexplored ones. Kara? Come on a journey with me. There's still Sliding Albion out there, on Earth-25. We need to prepare for that."



EPILOGUE 2: EARTH-25



Yngvi smiled to himself as he watched the salvation of Earth-14 played out. He hadn't wanted Overman to triumph either. For one thing, his Earth may have had ample anti-metahuman technology from its earlier conflicts with the accursed Jenny Sparks and her Authority comrades in arms, but that woman Kara was a new threat. And so was Earth-49, although it remained opaque to Sliding Albion's multiverse probes. Something had obstructed them and that worried him. Briefly, he wondered why his alternate Earth had no such metahumans of its own. He shrugged, and assigned a tracer to Kyle Rayner and Kara Zor-El as they began their odyssey across the vast, unexplored vistas of the Greater Multiverse. But he, and the rest of the Blue, knew that eventually, there had to be a reckoning.



THE END