Post by redsycorax on Sept 3, 2018 5:42:41 GMT
"So this is Earth-52, the first world beyond the boundaries of our own local 'core' multiverse." Orbiting the planet, Kyle and Kara had been joined by Earth-49's Crazy Jane, Kay Challis, who was busy processing the data inflow using her Mama Pentecost alternate personality.
"Where does it diverge from our own realities, Kay?"
The dissociative identity metahuman pointed to two images of large computer banks:
"As far as I can make out, it all started in 1965, On this world, there were two dominant 'superpowers', the United States and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, both of which had sizeable military forces and built up horrendously large nuclear arsenals. Both the United States and USSR decided to entrust responsibility for their stockpiles to post-Turing Test AIs. However, things took an unexpected turn when the two AIs, Colossus and Mentor, decided to unilaterally consult each other and decided to dispose of the global nuclear arsenals by firing them at the Moon. Once that had been accomplished, they disarmed the US and Soviet militaries, and forced their respective legislatures to divert funds toward preventing global hunger and ecological degradation instead. That was fifty years ago. Earth-52 has a functioning global government in that large city below us, Omnitropolis. As well as that, they have seven or so metahumans, assembled within an organisation called Status Quorum."
"Wow. I can't see any famine, war or relative poverty anywhere on that world below us." Kara said, as her telescopic vision swept the planet.
"These could be ideal allies against Earth-24. What is it, Kyle?"
The Green Lantern frowned:
"This appears to be a unique Earth. None of the metahumans here have alternates anywhere else in the multiverse."
"So you think that this could be an artificially created universe, like that of Krypton-27?" Kara asked.
"Possible. Anyway, here are profiles of the Status Quorum organisation. Their first leader was a Kryptonian class metahuman called Secret Original, empowered by a gnostic demiurge and apparently immortal, but crippled by an exploratory mission through the Bleed to Earth-33. His lover Eve Upa$#!*im retrieved him, but at the cost of her own life. Secret Original/Adam Cadmus now minimally gets involved in SQ activities.
Metahuman two, Alpha Sapiens, is a symbiote. After a reactor accident, a microscalar breach occurred, and a fleeing citystate from the Motai, an alien civilisation, bonded with his anencephalic head and empowered him with near-invulnerability, flight, metahuman speed and strength after it bonded with him.
Metahuman three, Ultra-Humanitarian, is a Buddhist from the distant past. He's a metahuman Boddhisatva, dedicated to universal enlightenment and the relief of suffering..."
"Metahuman four, Womanite. She seems to be a sentient superheavy element atom who has reconfigured its body to resemble a hominid female."
"Metahuman five, Machine Woman. An ambulatory AI. Probably the liaison between Status Quorum and Gnosis, the global supercomputer."
"Metahuman six, Zur-Vann. Refugee from Earth-2466, destroyed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. On that alternate Earth, felinoids evolved upright posture, opposable thumbs and tool use instead of early hominids. Zur-Vann is believed to be the sole survivor of his civilisation. Arrived on Earth-52 as an infant.
"Metahuman seven, Dark Stranger. Rough Batman analogue. However, psychological profile indicates that this individual is a higher-functioning psychopath and serial killer, although he only targets 'evil' individuals. So, what do the rest of you think?"
Kara frowned: "Perhaps because of the way Kal was perverted in becoming Exemplar back home on Earth-28, I don't particularly like the idea that this global supercomputer Gnosis took everything over fifty years ago."
"But that's debatable, Kara. Even if Gnosis has global dominion, its world government does not seem to be a totalitarian state. There are democratic elections, human rights, civil liberties, free speech and a directly elected global president. It seems to predominantly focus on co-ordinating medical, social security and educational services. Status Quorum's role seems to be crime prevention, as you might guess, as well as natural disaster relief and defense against alien or extra-dimensional intervention." Kay replied.
"Skynet it ain't, then?" Kyle riposted.
"It certainly seems an egalitarian and peaceful society. I can't detect any trace of military conflict, famine or uncontrolled epidemic disease. This world seems utopian." Kay replied.
"Which could also be a problem. What happens if Status Quorum gets rusty and cannot respond to alien or hostile alternate Earth intervention when it does happen?" Kara said, then raised an eyebrow:
"Looks like we have company. Secret Original, apparently."
Outside their transversal vehicle, Secret Original had landed. He still couldn't get used to the fact that he was once more in control of his body- his whole, uncrippled body -and had returned home to Earth-52 (as it now was) -yet at such a terrible, terrible cost. Adam Cadmeon had been the first member of the species homo sapiens to evolve on Earth-52 and an encounter with an alien probe lander had left him and his wife Eve Upa$#!*im immortal. Over time, Adam had become aware of a mysterious presence, even beyond that of Gnosis. The global supercomputer encouraged Secret Original to continue his explorations, until he encountered what had initially appeared to be a higher dimensional conduit that was somehow controlling and manipulating humanity's actions, philosophies and even their most intimate desires. It was the classic 'free will versus determinism' existential debate.
And so, he had launched himself through the Bleed like some latter-day Icarus. And like the mythical Icarus before him, he suffered the consquences of hubris and unprotected direct exposure to the Bleed's energies, leaving him a crippled wreck when he had arrived on what he thought was a higher dimensional realm, where Status Quorum and himself were no more than characters within comics and graphic novels. For several agonising months, he was caught there amidst almost unendurable agony and suffering, until Eve found her way to join him and at the cost of her own precious life, pushed him back through the interface.
The cost was too high. Infinitely too high. And what he had then learnt angered him. For the realm that had tormented him was no higher dimension, but another alternate Earth- Earth-33. On that particular alternate probability, there were no metahumans, except for a single entity called "Ultra.' However, specific individuals on Earth-33 had the abilities of gods when it came to directing and manipulating events elsewhere in the multiverse. He cleared his throat:
"I wish to talk. For what reason are you on this world and what are your intentions?"
Hesitantly, protected by a surrounding iridescent green globe, Kyle, Kara and Kay emerged:
"Not hostile ones. We are from several alternate universes within the Core 52 local multiverse adjacent to your own. We know about your personal tragedy, Secret Original. We've certainly had our share of those."
Secret Original nodded: "Can you tell me why you survived the events on Earth-...17 as it is now called, according to this comic book, Kyle Rayner? In this graphic representation within Animal Man, a DC comic, your Overman metahuman impaled you. Yet you clearly now have the full abilities of a member of the Green Lantern Corps and show no such life-terminating injuries. Kara Zor-El, I am also familiar with your particular iteration, yet again, your original world, Earth-28, initially had no such metahumans, although it did have the aggressive, totalitarian warmongering "USForce" hyperpower, as described in this Weird War story. And Kay Challis of Earth-49, you are originally from Earth-15."
She nodded: "I was hoping that you would be our first contact here, Secret Original. Yes, that is correct. Like my counterpart fellow survivor, James Olsen/Steelman of Earth-25, I also suffered the loss of the person I loved. In his case, it was his wife, Lucy Lane Olsen. In my own, it was Cliff Steele, a cyborg metahuman known as Robotman, and my other companions within my world's Doom Patrol. For that reason, I share your concerns about Earth-33 and its role within the multiverse."
"For your initial Earth-15 was destroyed by the psychotic Kal-El of Krypton analogue Superboy-Prime, am I correct? And yet, this murderous, genocidal individual has not been called to true account for his crimes elsewhere in the multiverse. Nor have others on Earth-33 whose parakinetic abilities caused them to spark the Crisis on Infinite Earths and slaughter the inhabitants of untold numbers of universes. And yet, they all survive, inviolate."
Kay sighed. She knew this conversation would be difficult: "Odd as it may seem, Superboy Prime's presence and his activities elsewhere in the Core 52 multiverse are both known universally yet dismissed as a work of fantasy within its own alternate probability. For the same reason, many individuals on Earth-33 seem to be unaware of the consequences of what they consider fantasy narratives might have on the rest of the Multiverse outside their own universe. Nor are we wholly innocent. An Earth-2 resident, Per Degaton, precipitated a nuclear war on Earth-Prime as it was then known in 1962. In any case, they aren't the only trans-multiversal threat. Have you, or the others within Status Quorum, heard of a malignant worldfaring civilisation known as "Sliding Albion?"
Evidently, he had. He turned on his heel: "I shall convene a meeting of my comrades. I had no idea that particular situation had become so serious. Please, follow me."
As they entered the Quorum Citadel in the heart of Omnitropolis, Kyle noted the statue of Alan Turing at its entrance. He nodded toward it as Kay and Kara joined him:
"Alan Turing: 1912-...1992?! Far out. I don't know about you two and your Earths, but back home on Earth-17, he helped develop the computer, was a master cryptorapher and was invaluable in breaking the Nazi Enigma Code during the Second World War. He could've done so much more, but due to neanderthal homophobic stupidity, he was arrested for gay sex or "gross indecency" with another man and forced to undergo chemical castration. He killed himself in 1954. What a #^@%ing ridiculous waste."
Kay was thoughtful: "Instead of which, on this alternate Earth, I guess that the British government recognised his continuing importance as a strategic asset, stopped in and aborted the criminal proceedings, in return for further information technology research, which they shared with the Americans. Which probably means..."
[That is correct, Kay Challis. If your next supposition was that as a consequence of [...] Turing's survival, there was accelerated development of information technology on Earth-52 compared to many other alternate Earths.]
"Let me guess. As a result of which, there was neural net development and when Turing did pass away at eighty, still in possession of cognitive acuity, the Gnosis supercomputer took a clone neural net transposition of his brilliant brain. So, Gnosis, in a sense, you are Alan Turing 2.0." Kara said to the ambient sphere of blue light that had suddenly appeared in front of them.
[Correct also, Kara Zor-El. I have discussed the matter of the grave threat that Sliding Albion/Earth-24 offers to the Multiverse. I am afraid that there are further aspects to this serious contingency than you may have realised as well. When the last multiversal crisis restructured Earth-24's alternate universe, it did so with a most unwelcome addition. Its universe now has, or had, a Krypton of its own. And like your own worlds, it sent alternative iterations of Kal-El to Earth-24 upon its detonation after its nuclear core went hypercritical and it exploded. The starship landed in Great Britain in Earth-24's universe.]
"Which means a British Superman, and one inculcated with belief in the superiority of the Blue-enhanced Empire of Albion and loyalty to its aims. Another perverted iteration of Kal-El. Damn it. This can't be a coincidence." Kara said, looking at the two others.
"What we know about Earth-24 is only what former Earth-50 Authority leader Jenny Sparks told three New Earth transtemporal travellers about Sliding Albion. Before the recent Flashpoint event, it was synergistically linked to Earth-50, but their exact transtemporal co-ordinates were unknown. An alien civilisation, the Blue, arrived on Earth during the Renaissance and established power bases in Italy and the United Kingdom. Over time, the Blue presence became corrupted and tyrannical, resulting in colonialist areas like Africa and China. In their nineteenth century, the Blues used bacteriological and nuclear warfare, devastating large areas of Earth-50, resulting in biological inviability and obscenities like the establishment of a 'rape camp' in Blue-occupied China in 1856. Unfortunately too, this led them to develop multiversal access technology. On an earlier iteration of Earth-50, they found metahumans like Britain's Jenny Sparks in its United Kingdom. In 1953, the relationship deteriorated over Earth-24's aggressive territorial aspirations, leading to Sliding War One. Sliding Albion dumped bacteriological weapons across the United Kingdom, but its viral load had mutated during Bleed transit and was responsible for intensive Earth-50 British metahuman development instead. In 1999, Regis Stzfli launced a coup d'etat in Sliding Albion and destroyed the weak monarchy of King Henry XIV Windsor, leading the Authority to attack Sliding Italy. At that point, the information broke off." Kyle said, reading the log from his power ring.
[We can assist you there. In the post-Crisis Earth-24 timeline, the attacks on Earth-50 did not occur, given its reiteration and timeline revision, and in addition, Kal-El landed in Weston Supermere in the United Kingdom in its 1938. He is now known as Britannicus. During the nineteenth century, there was a coup in Earth-24's Themiscrya. The consequence was that Queen Penthesilea aligned herself with Sliding Albion and sent Amazon Princess Diana there. She is now known as Britannia. Both are actively engaged in timeline reconaissance and conquest], offered Gnosis.
Earth-204:
Colin (Brittanicus) Clark took the ridiculously garish and ornate outfit of his Earth 204 counterpart and incinerated it, biting a chunk of the quailing figure's neck. He spat it out and sneered at the figure as it collapsed:
"That creature was an insult to the Sliding Albion cause. It didn't even have full Kryptonian class metahuman abilities. Unable to fly, merely to leap? Unable to manifest full invulnerability past missile strikes? Unable to exist in space? Pathetic weakling. And to think it even had my name."
Across the room, Britannia had impaled Louisa Layne-Ferret on the end of her Destiny's Trident, as she sneered arrogantly at the meagre resistance that the Daily Star's tabloid staff had offered her. Outside the window, the British Houses of Parliament burnt and screams of pain and agony could be heard from the rubble of the City of London's financial district amidst its ruined buildings. King Charles III was the only one who had seriously bothered to provide any resistance to them, firing repeated Kryptonite bullets at Britannicus as he had strode forth. He had rewarded the king's valour by prompting snapping his neck, instead of prolonging his suffering.
"What's the status of the North American continent in this timeline?"
"Three predominant nation-states- the United States, Canada and Quebec. Arrogant posturers, who presume to have 'superceded' British power on this Earth. Do you have the nuclear weapons activation box from their...Prime Minister, didn't they call him?"
Princess Diana (Britannia) held up a severed arm, still dripping blood on the newspaper carpet. She wrenched it from the activation sequence computer and proceded to key in the instructions. She turned to face her Kryptonian counterpart and ally in the cause of the Empire of Albion:
"Missiles launched. Good thing we took care of that US base first. NORAD, wasn't it?"
"You know, I'd almost like to stick around and see the consequences of our little mischief but this moronic little parody world disgusts me. Come, Diana, my love. Let us take our leave from it."
Their transmatter interfaces hummed and within seconds, Britannicus and Britannia departed from the debris and ashes of this ravaged London. They weren't there when, in response to the nuclear strike against the United States on this Earth, mutually assured destruction started to incinerate much of the United Kingdom. At least it cut short London's ordeal.
Earth-54:
As the Justice Coalition of North America's teleporter flared into life, its members saw an unfamiliarly subdued and bleak-eyed figure. What was even more shattering was its identity- Selina (Catwoman) Kyle, one of their core members.
Her closest friend, Lois (Krypton Woman) Lane, immediately realised what was wrong, given Selina's laboured breathing, signs of injury and the second heartbeat that her superhearing picked up from Selina's body. She helped her oldest friend and staunch companion to a chair as her other concerned colleagues crowded around her. Selina smiled, but through the lens of exhaustion. It was good to be here, surrounded by such valued comrades after her ordeal through the last few weeks- Lois. Steve (Ganymede) Trevor. Iris (Time Master) West. Barbara (Green Lantern) Gordon. At length, she broke her silence:
"And to answer your undoubted questions, yes, I'm okay, in body at least. As for my mind, well... The fact is, I made an almost fatal mistake, blinded by love and sentiment. My late husband, Bruce Wayne, turned out to be two people. Beneath his veneer was the psychopath Bat-Man. Under his disguise, I allowed him into Kyle Manor, the Catslair and my heart. He...murdered my maid Gigi. He...was also the thug who murdered my parents in Crime Alley twenty-five years ago."
"Oh, honey. What help do you need?" Lois kissed her old friend's forehead, looking down at her with concern.
"Thanks, Lois. As some of you have realised, I'm also pregnant. I'm keeping the baby. It's a girl. It means that I'll be out of action for several months and I'll need help patrolling Gotham at the same time and for the next few years." Her friends sat around her and arranged rosters and timetables. Several minutes later, there was a JCNA action alert and Ganymede, Time Master and Green Lantern went off to deal with it, leaving Lois to discuss matters with Selina:
"We sure do pick 'em, don't we, honey?"
"Thanks for not lecturing me, Lois."
"Why would I do that, Sel? You and I are two of a kind, unlucky in love."
"I'm sorry, Lois. I should have remembered this whole thing would remind you of what happened with Clark Kent."
"It's okay. I loved him. But it was doomed. His gangster parents implanted their genetic material in his brain and he murdered the man I loved, Lex Luthor. So I carry that blame too."
Silently, the two women embraced and held one another.
Later, Lois (Krypton Woman) Lane flew over Metropolis, feeling her usual hollow emptiness, as if she were going through the motions. Things had seemed so much simpler back in Midvale during her childhood, or when she was a cadet reporter at the Daily Planet. But then reality had intruded. Brainiac had tried to attack Earth and while she fought him off, the criminal supergenius Clark Kent detonated a dirty nuclear device in Atlanta, and killed millions. It was no longer a matter of frustrated mutual attraction and schemes with obscure chemical formulae, advanced robotics and cutting edge technology. But that was only the start of Kent's darker turn. Consumed by jealousy toward her former love, humanitarian entrepreneur and fellow savant Lex Luthor, Kent had tried to murder Lois with a deadly refined version of green kryptonite. That had failed- but only because Lex had sacrificed his life with an experimental kryptonite antidote that turned out to have deadly side effects on humans. Refusing to face the possibility of the Phantom Zone for his crimes, Clark Kent detonated the neurotrigger within his brain, killing himself.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the royal broadcast, as King Charles III spoke about his joy at the birth of his latest grandchild, and photographs of the royal visit to British North America played on the holoscreen. As she alighted on the ground, the Union Jack ensign snapped overhead. She remembered the royal visit back in 2003, when Queen Diana had almost lost her life in Arnoldstown to an offensive by the American Republican Army. That was the first time she'd met Clark Kent..
Earth-55
"We would like to assist you, but this world has no metahumans akin to the "Super-Man" of which you speak. Added to which, while we indeed sympathise with your plight, our own first priority is somewhat different. We were subjected to a devastating interplanetary war in 1938, when the dying Mars of our own universe attacked Earth in desperation. Our unexpected saviour was a Kryptonian, Clark Kent, or Kal-L. He sacrificed his own life to turn the tide and as a result, the people of Earth were able to repell the invaders in that War of the Worlds. In 1945, after the Second World War against the fascist Oswald Mosley and his United Nation of Britain, we undertook an accelerated space programme, landing on the Moon in 1955 and Mars in 1960. By then, fortunately, the Martians were extinct. Oddly enought, there were several species of Martian evident, and it seemed that there had been collateral slaughter amongst one another."
"My father, Lex Luthor, analysed the remains on scene and ascertained that the several different species of Martians were from different alternate universes. On Mars-1, our own, they housed deadly cephalopod interplanetary invaders, which struck at our world in 1938. On Mars-2, the same happened, but in 1895, while on Mars-3, the cephalopods were not the dominant species- a pacifistic species of crystal dwellers were, and it was Earth that invaded. On Mars-4, primitive humanoid oviparous Barsoomians were dominant, while on Mars-5, the planet was divided between tripartite green, red and white Martians. The inhabitants of Mars-1 and Mars-5 fought each other, exhausting their meagre planetary resources. Given our experiences of past violation, we cannot risk any further entanglement in the context of a potentially hostile multiverse. By all means, keep us informed. However, reluctantly, our own world must remain neutral in the conflict in which you speak." Lena Lane-Luthor said, as Kyle, Kara, Kay and Secret Original took their leave and prepared to travel to Earth-56, and the next world in their ongoing quest for allies against Sliding Albion.
"Mars-56? Why are we on Mars...ah. Several hundred thousand years ahead of the multiverse datum. Well, that explains why it seems to have been terraformed." Kara observed.
"But not why this world looks like a 1920s German expressionist film festival." Kyle remarked.
"Oooh! Check this out, Kara and boys. Arkham Hospital or "The Cabinet of Dr Wayne-Son." Cute. Actually, that was always my favourite Weimar time flick. Let's see, that must therefore be...Metropolis...which explains that distinctive red, blue and yellow form flying high overhead, checking us out. Superman mash-up. Kara, is there any Ring Cycle anachronism handy, or..." Kay drooled, reminiscing about her days in film school.
Kara's telescopic vision fixed another detail, while she shook her head: "Diana the...Blue Amazon...which doesn't explain why this world so exactly replicates old Expressionist film scenarios."
"In an infinite multiverse, every conceivable reality may well be manifested. Hence, Superman, Nosferatu the Bat-Man and Diana the Amazon are replicated in the context of what has been depicted as German Expressionist cinema elsewhere." Secret Original noted to the others.
"Which is all very well, but it doesn't look like this world is in terribly good shape."
Kyle bit his lip: "No wonder. The ring was initially wrong. This isn't hundreds of thousands of years in the solar system's futue, it's more like three hundred million. The sun here is swollen, on the verge of evolving into a red giant sun and the original Earth-56 is already uninhabitable."
"Wait a minute. Three hundred million? That doesn't make sense. Humanity would have long since evolved enough, and developed sufficient interstellar travel technology to abandon Earth long ago."
"Which may explain the artifice of this world. I fear that we are dealing with isomorphic, deliberately created life forms with limited capabilities. Insufficient to provide the particular assistance that we require against the imminent threat of Sliding Albion" Secret Original observed.
"Right, then. Cross that one off the list. Oh. Where's Earth-55?" Kay observed.
"According to the Multiverse Reader here, it's just experienced a quantum flux episode, and is in the process of downgrading its probability rating. No wonder. The Freedom Brigade? The Inferior Five?! Talk about unsuitable...which means we can't head off there." Kyle rejoined.
"In which case, our next stop is Earth-57. Time to go..."
Earth-57 (Null)
"Damn it! Something is preventing us from accessing this particular Earth." Britannicus growled in frustration as he rammed himself against the impenetrable, invisible wall that shielded Earth-57 from his depradations. Britannia armed the particle beamers in her invisible fighter jet and strafed it, all to no avail.
"What is keeping us from it? Any ideas?" Britannicus said, as Britannia consulted the bootleg Multiverse Reader software copy from Earth-49's Tiresias the Sorceror, with its abundance of details about the Greater Multiverse.
"Ah. Here's why. Earth-57 is no longer in its universe, or the multiverse, and it wasn't the Crisis on Infinite Earths that did it either. About fifty years ago, your alternate self, "Superman", made a radical response to the prevalence of evil and frustration at impasses in his career. Using a kryptonite-powered headset which malfunctioned, two hyperintelligent derivative Supermen resulted from a fortuitous accident. And so, Brainiac's bottled Kryptonian city of Kandor was enlarged, Atlantis swapped worlds, and all evil was abolished on Earth. Krypton was rebuilt and Superman-Blue went there with Lois Lane and Supergirl. And then, unsurprisingly, about forty years ago, this Earth reached singularity phase due to its burgeoning technological advances. It transcended the boundaries of human and sapient knowledge and entered a higher dimension. Nothing for us here."
Earth-58:
"There's sure something sombre about this place. Have you noticed?" Kay spoke for them all as Green Lantern's protective airbubble alighted on the alternate Earth designated "Earth-58" in the Multiverse Reader. Kyle looked around them:
"Hell. Look at that..." There was a large sepulchural statue with the words Superman: He Will Always Live On in Our Hearts: 1935-1965. 1965??!! Hang on, tapping into this world's computer mediated communication medium. Ah. Kara, you may not want to look at this..."
"It's all right, Kyle. If that's any indication, this Kal-El was loved and venerated by his world, not feared and reviled as either a tyrant or the instrument of monsters as he was on our own Earths. Does it say how? Kryptonite poisoning?"
"No. This 'Wikipedia' says that it was through an assassination devised by this world's Lex Luthor. The funeral was attended by the great and the good from this world's metahuman population, and Luthor was sentenced to eternity in the Phantom Zone for his crime against humanity. Hey, there's an analogue of you here, Kara."
"Hell. "Superwoman," although she looks middle-aged in this snapshot."
Fascinated, Kara read on about her alternate self:
"She's still around. Oh. Oh, no-one destroyed the thirtieth century Legion of Super Heroes future timeline here, so she...married...Querl Dox/Brainiac 5. Kandor has been enlarged and relocated. She takes a hands on approach to issues like terrorism, nuclear arms control and famine. There's some debate about her level of maternalism, but she's quite beloved by this world. This world...also has...a Batwoman, because of... a failed mob hit on Thomas and Martha Wayne, which killed James and Sarah Gordon, instead. So, reading between the lines and given what we know, I'd guess Batwoman is his daughter Barbara. She's darker than on a lot of other worlds, according to this."
"Well worth investigating, then. Where does this Superwoman base herself?"
"Miami, Florida. Let's go there."
As they alighted on Earth-58 Superwoman's Flying Fortress, high above Miami, Kara caught sight of her alternate Earth counterpart, alongside her husband Querl Dox/Brainiac 5, and her heart caught in her throat. He was so achingly like her own Querl, until Earth-28's Kal-El/Exemplar had realised that he was providing her with future tech assistance, and massacred her Earth's entire Legion of Super Heroes in revenge. Kyle clasped his hand in hers:
"I know..." Earth-14's Green Lantern whispered, noting the figure of a Blue Lantern Barry Allen on the platform facing them, bringing back his own memories of his perished colleague and close friend, the Flash of Earth-14, Rabbi Barry Allen.
"Hello. We're a group of multiversal travellers. We wondered if your Earth was aware of a potential threat called Earth-24, otherwise known as Sliding Albion. It involves a couple of metahumans entitled Britannicus and Britannia. I know you'll find this difficult, Superwoman, because as your alternate universe analogue, I do too, but Britannicus is an AU Kal-El."
Superwoman nodded: "It's all right...Antithesis, is it? Querl keeps our Justice Confederation informed about the events in the rest of the Multiverse. I know what your Kal-El was like and how much he differed from the noble, good man we lost here. And I'm so sorry that you lost your own Querl Dox. This meeting must be tearing you apart inside."
Antithesis' eyes brimmed over with tears as Kyle rocked back and forward with her in his arms. Clad in the Blue Lantern uniform that was that of this world's Barry Allen, it was equally hard to take in his case. It reminded him of the friend he lost back on Earth-14 and the fact that Earth-25's Flash, Iris West, was pregnant with his child- who would never meet her or his father.
Kay took over communication duties:
"We think you might be in imminent danger. Britannicus and the Earth-24 Princess Diana of Themiscyra...Britannia, on her world... are fanatical partisans of the Sliding Albion cause. I'm not sure quite why- after a devastating bacteriological and nuclear war that obliterated China and Africa and contaminated much of the surrounding territories with fall out, there's not much left of it."
Superwoman nodded: "Which may indicate that they intend lebensraum before their Earth gives up the ghost and that Britannicus and Britannia are an advance guard."
'They seem to be mass murderers. We've received overwhelming telepathic impressions of a catastrophic nuclear war on Earth-204. Purely on the basis that that world's British-based Superman was seen as a 'comic parody' of Sliding Albion's Kal-El, he was brutally murdered, along with his alter ego's professional colleagues. And to top that, they launched a nuclear war." Kay paused.
"I am sworn to protect this Earth. I have been, ever since that bastard Luthor murdered Kal-El."
Kay was aware of the extent of that protection. Superwoman had protected Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, Salvador Allende, Harvey Milk, Malcolm X and Ali and Benazir Bhutto from assassination and murder on this world. She had saved Elvis Presley from the consequences of his prescription drug overdose, and prevented the US invasion of Grenada as well as the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the Taliban takeover there, and had imposed peace on the combatants in Israel and Palestine's travails, as well as the Iran-Iraq conflict, Somalia's interneccine civil war, and Mexico and Columbia's drug cartels. She didn't doubt that Superwoman would do anything to save her adopted world from harm. Then another familiar figure walked onto the platform:
"Barbara Gordon- Batwoman." That figured. On this world, Joe Chill had ended up murdering James and Sarah Gordon when they intervened to protect Thomas, Martha and Bruce Wayne, whose family adopted Barbara.
Blue Lantern suddenly looked up: "They're here."
For the first time, the two opposing forces faced one another high above Earth-58's atmosphere. The two Sliding Albion advance guard members glared malevolently at their unwelcome new adversaries. Britannicus scowled:
"Submit to the authority of Sliding Albion now and you will not face the costs of forcible submission."
"Don't do this, Kal-El. You're better than this." Superwoman pleaded.
"Ignore her, Kal. What sort of world replaces your analogue with his weak and pathetic cousin?"
"Yeah? Well, we're still tough enough to take you on, Amazon." Antithesis scowled. In the distance, Kay (Crazyjane) hung back, marshalling her forces, ready to strike.
"Enough of this. We do not give second warnings." And with that, battle was joined.
Almost immediately, the costs of the two combatants naivetie and inexperience in facing equivalent adversaries began to tell. Overconfident, Britannia bypassed the two Kara Zor-El analogues, Superwoman and Antithesis, and closed in on Crazyjane, an unknown quantity. The Earth-49 multiple personality metahuman only smiled briefly as her own features contorted and she became Black Annis, a blue faced hag with glaring red eyes and clawed hands. She snarled as Britannia and she closed in combat.
"I do not like doing this, not against other women." Annis telepathed, as she and Britannia wrestled. Kyle aimed his power ring at Britannia's trident and it shattered into pieces, but Britannicus scowled and accelerated toward him. Abruptly, Antithesis cannoned into him:
"A word of warning, Britannicus. Don't make assumptions about the Kara Zor-Els of the Multiverse. We're not all carbon copies and emotional dependents of their older cousins. Superwoman isn't and neither am I."
"You talk too much-" Britannicus snapped as he tried to backhand her, but his arm was halted by Superwoman, who stomach punched him, as Antithesis managed an uppercut.
"If anyone's a parody of a greater original, it's you. My cousin Superman was a true hero, not a pliable foil for a murderous alternate universe empire. Show some independence of thought or strategic reasoning. Get away from this planet. It is protected. We know what Sliding Albion is like. You're enslaved by a dying world." Superwoman replied.
"It is still technologically superior to- DIANA!!! NO!!!"
Across the meters of space, Black Annis had taken advantage of a moment of overconfidence and bewilderment at her counterpart's prowess to rip and tear at Britannia's chest until she found her quarry and forced her hand into the increasingly bloody cavity above her breasts, then pulled out the Amazon's heart and incinerated it with fire from Sun Mother, another of Crazyjane's alters. In another instant, Britannia's remains were engulfed in a fiery pall. For the first time, Britannicus realised that he might well be outnumbered and outclassed. He turned tail and dived into the singularity as Crazyjane reverted to her normal appearance. Secret Original had not participated, but signalled for Batwoman to fire a microscopic trace sensor at the fleeing Kal-El. As he disappeared into the singularity that took him back to Earth-24, Secret Original activated a portable console.
"We did it!" Superwoman exclaimed.
"This isn't over, Linda," Batwoman replied,"he knows this world is too well-guarded for him to prevail. Next time, though, he might be back with armed forces from his adopted homeworld."
"Trouble, folks. We're getting hostile activity reports from several probability sequences along. from us. Earth-63."
"Which is interesting, considering Earth-61 seems to be inhabited too."
"Yes, but that particular alternate Earth is particularly radically variant to the datum. Look at it. It's inhabited by Stone Giants, a silicon-based life form and its particular Earth has a variable red dwarf primary which it orbits far more closely than is usually the case. For obvious reasons, Britannicus can't go near it- and nor, for the same reason, can our own Antithesis. Which means that luckily for that Earth, it has no strategic value for Sliding Albion. Kay? What data do we have on Earth-62?"
Barbara Gordon consulted their Multiverse Reader:
"Earth-62's Second World War was seriously prolonged, much the same as was the case with pre-Crisis Earth-X and current Core Multiverse Earth-10. As with Earth-2, a 1940s Wonder Woman showed up, but she was dressed differently from her counterpart. Ah. And its Nazi Germany never attacked Poland in 1939 in this world, bypassing it to launch Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union. As a result, Britain, France and the United States stood by and let Trotsky's communist regime fall by 1942. There was no Pearl Harbour here. Japan's liberal democrats succeeded in countering its militarists in the thirties and forties and managed to keep them out of Manchuria. On its own, Nazi Germany then proceeded on a series of brushfire wars. In 1945-48, it fought an Anglo-German War, resulting in the defeat of France in 1946 and the invasion and subjugation of England in 1948. Birmingham was targeted by an atomic bomb because no-one had thought to investigate Peenemunde and Nazi Germany's nuclear programme. Fortunately, Roosevelt never died in 1945 on this world and stayed president for most of the forties and the first half of the fifties. By 1955, Nazi Germany felt confident enough to take on the United States and its allies in South America, Japan and Australasia."
"Hey, those metas look like the ones that the pre-Crisis Earth-2's JSA and All-Stars took on in the early forties, as well as the Marvel Family on the pre-Crisis Earth-S- Ubermensch, Baron Blitzkrieg, Captain Nazi...what happened there?"
"At a guess, I'd say that Nazi Germany's biotechnology industry had a head start and that they have more metahumans. But why call us in? Given that the United Kingdom was subjected to nuclear attack and surrendered in the late forties here, this world probably isn't one of the positive prospects on the Sliding Albion checklist of possible allies. In fact, I'm surprised Britannicus and Britannia didn't demolish it." Kyle said as they materialised there.
Kara raised an eyebrow: "Is that Wonder Woman?! But she's blonde. Oh, wait a minute. That's Hippolyta, not Diana. And those look like the Teen Titan proteges and sidekicks of older heroes on some Multiverse worlds, but they're more militarised. What you'd expect from a world at war, I suppose."
Batwoman nodded: "I don't know what they hope to achieve. Notice, Kara, that there are no Kryptonian class metahumans on this world, on either side. So things won't get as messy as they did on Earth-17 or Earth-28 with its irresponsible United States and amok or ruthless metahuman experimentation."
"I'd like to know how Sliding Albion escaped that, with Britannicus and Britannia. Why aren't they in charge, or at least part of a larger complement of metahumans? Just the two of them- no wait, they did mention "Zealandia," a third met. She seems to be an alternate version of you, Kara." Kyle commented.
"Forty five years later, and it looks like a stalemate here. The Nazis seem to have demolished the Southern United States, while the United States has managed to recapture the British Isles. And Kyle is right. There's no presence from Sliding Albion on this world. Liberating subjugated Britons elsewhere doesn't look like their...style...?"
Snarling in rage, and high above them, a woman clad in white had just cleared the clouds and was diving toward them, with obvious thermal vision attack capabilities. Kyle summoned a shield to protect Batwoman, Crazyjane and himself as Kara and Secret Original rose to meet the challenge.
"Wait, Kara," said Adam as they closed in on the unexpected assailant, "I want to try something." He concentrated on the incoming figure, who abruptly halted, her eyes widened. An alien creature fell from her cerebral cortex, suddenly visible:
"A Daemonite?! But they're native to the old Earth-50 universe, they no longer exist in its current timeline after it was reiterated. Unless they also exist in...who is that, anyway?"
"Z-Zealandia...K-Kara Zor-El. Oh no. No. What did I do while that thing was implanted in my head?!"
Adam and Kara exchanged glances:
"So what the hell is she doing here? She's attacking us, not the Nazi metahumans."
"It seems as if the Sliding Albion assailants have installed these Daemonite alien implants in both Britannicus and Zealandia here, insuring their compliance."
Abruptly, there was a call from Crazyjane on the ground below:
"Guys? Kyle has a message for us. From Tiresias, back home on Earth-49?"
As the two landed, bringing a bewildered and sobbing Zealandia with them, Tiresias spoke:
"Good. I see you've encountered and deprogrammed Zealandia. Take her with you."
Kara indicated Wonder Woman and the Teen Titan analogues fighting the Nazi metahumans in the ruins of Atlanta adjacent to their encounter zone. Tiresias sighed:
"I'm afraid that this is all going to become academic. This world is going to be incinerated in a nuclear war in two days time, a veritable Nazi gotterdammerung. I have redirected Earth-46's Justice Federation here to evacuate as many innocent souls as possible to cognate alternate Earths before the arrival of armageddon, but her extraction was paramount."
Adam shared Kara's sense of horror and outrage:
"We cannot allow this senseless slaughter, Avemaria. I will summon Secret Quorum to assist the Justice Federation here as well. But the combatants..."
"Unfortunately, Adam, Earth-62 has an indelible timeline. I am about to send you to a far more important site for our particular interests. Earth-500."
"Why so far upworld, Tiresias?" Crazyjane asked.
"It appears to be an unexpectedly revived world. In the pre-Crisis multiverse, it was known as Earth-D."
EARTH-500:
The white pall withdrew from their world abruptly. Kara Jor-El swallowed, then gasped as she saw Hector Ramirez, Earth-500's newly minted Green Lantern of Sector 5813, and on the bridge below, a bewildered Batman and Robin, Martian Manhunter, pisco-humanoid Aquaman, Atom and Tanaka (Flash) Rei. And...Shay and Kator Hol, the Thanagarian siblings Hawkboy and Hawkgirl. Wonder Woman. But did that mean...
?
"K-Kara?"
"Kal! Oh, Kal!" Superman and Supergirl of the former Earth-D, now Earth-500, were reunited.
Kal-El woke up alongside Kara after an exuberant night. She blinked awake and he was startled to see tears in her eyes:
"We died, Kal. We both died. So did this whole universe. But somehow, we've been given a second chance."
"Like Krypton all over again. Kara, baby? What did happen in that timeline? The last thing I remember is encountering one of those shadow beings..."
"We got some assistance from elsewhere in the multiverse, from alternate worlds that called themselves Earth-One and Earth-Two. But Kal... it was so damned difficult, ultimately impossible without you. As well as Shayera and Kator, Diana and Dick also died fighting that damned Crisis. So did an Earth-based Green Lantern, just appointed after Nagin Sur's death investigating the crisis. With Tanaka's help as well as that of Barry Allen, we managed to save several million people. The last I remember, I was fighting shadow demons trying to buy the visitors from Earths One and Two some time to escape to their own worlds.I think I died too. And then presumably, the whole Justice Alliance."
"The question is, why have we been restored to existence? Why do we remember our pre-Crisis past?"
"I talked to Hector, the new GL, about that while we were restoring the JAA Seabase to full operational status last night. He made contact with another, incoming GL from an alternate universe. Apparently, there's been a resurrection of the multiverse, but with some subtle differences."
"Like our memories of Krypton from this universe, I think, Kara. They now seem to include a reference to Franklin D. Roosevelt's long-term survival and working with Philip Randolph to get civil rights legislation passed in the forties, two decades before it did in many other timelines. As a result, the United States got its first African-American president in the sixties, a preacher named Martin Luther King, while its first woman, Bella Abzug, was elected in 1980, and its first samesexer, a guy named Harvey Milk, in 1990. We're some sort of beacon to the rest of the multiverse."
"Apparently, Earth-23 and Earth-33 recently had African-American presidents now. Which is a shame, because I was holding out for a woman to be elected on one of them. I wonder who this Hillary Clinton woman on Earth-33 is?"
Abruptly, the JAA communicator bleeped:
"We have an incoming set of visitors from the new multiverse coming through the Bleed. I think you'll both want to meet them."
They reached for their 'business clothes: "We'll be right there, Bruce."
Kal-El, Kara, Hawkboy, Hawkgirl, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Batman and Robin stood within the restored Justice Alliance of America undersea base as the group of multidimensional challengers to Earth-24/Sliding Albion's tyranny landed:
"Then it's true. This entire Earth...formerly Earth-D in the original multiverse...has been recreated." Kara of Earth-28/Antithesis said, looking around them.
"Sometimes the good guys do win through. All of them are alive. I wonder how the Anti-Monitor feels about all this..."
Kyle replied
"That's not all, there's a forcescreen around this Earth specifically preventing any repetition of that event. But ...all of the Monitors are gone. So who's responsible for this?"
As the two groups conversed, there seemed to be tension in the JAA meeting room "Yes, we know what happened originally. Moreover, it looks like our world's timeline has been retrospectively restructured, making the creation and existence of a multicultural Justice Alliance of America like our own more likely on this world." Kal-El explained to the newcomers.
"We need help, Kal-El. There's a murderous tyranny called Sliding Albion on Earth-24. Originally, it was kept in check by a metahuman organisation called the Authority on Earth-50. Unfortunately, the last multiverse realignment abolished the independent existence of the Authority and the current regime on the reiterated Earth-50, the Justice Lords, have no interest in Sliding Albion's containment and neutralisation."
"'Containment? Neutralisation?' Listen to you, Kara. No. We do not engage in senseless excessive violence or crimes against humanity on this Earth. At least the Earths One and Two contingents who were there when the original Earth-D fell had those limits in mind. This 'Authority' killed millions of Sliding Albion universe inhabitants who had no immediate stake in the battle when it teleported Italy into interstellar space. On its original Earth-50, it ruthlessly killed opponents. We will not be party to this." Kal-El said, turning his back on the AU metahumans.
"Is that it? Isolationism now?" Kyle snapped.
"You have no idea of what we've been through, what we've opposed, what we've had to endure. Kal-El, are you really that naive? Is this world really that innocent?" Kara/Antithesis asked.
"And do you really think that this Earth will remain inviolate if Sliding Albion is allowed to triumph?"
"So what are you saying, Barbara, if that's you behind that mask? Kill first? My god, what happened to you on your Earth?" Earth-500's Batman replied, clutching his son Dick to him protectively.
"My parents died, Bruce. No crime is allowed to exist in my Gotham and I resent your tone."
"'Allowed? I have a wife and children. What about you?"
"Let's go. It's pointless. They're living in a fool's world, an isolated utopia."
"Wait." Earth-500's Wonder Woman said, stepping forward:
"If this is going to be another lecture on rigid morality without experience of hardship and necessity, then-"
"I'm sorry, Kal. These strangers are right. If the original Justice Alliance had known more about the multiverse, then our former Earth-D might have survived the Anti-Monitor's onslaught. The JAA has more than enough personnel to defend this world. I'm going with them. Especially given there's a world that might be perfect for their purposes- Earth-65. 'Aztec Earth."
Earth-62:
As they extended the latest local platform for the local Cosmic Treadmill, Womanite looked up at the Nazi satellites and sighed to herself as she watched Superman and Ganymede ferry the latest groups of horse and carriage borne travelers onto the Kathmandu entry point. It was relatively easy for her to use her status as a sapient superheavy element to distort reception within the orbiting surveillance systems and had also enabled Dark Stranger to hack into their telecommunication system and substitute a more quotidian set of images. Machine Woman alighted near her:
"Right. That's the latest online treadmill online. So far, Zur-Vann and Dark Stranger estimate that we have been successfully able to evacuate three hundred million of this world's inhabitants, with nuclear war an estimated three days away. Lucky that this world has only five hundred million inhabitants due to those same Nazi depredations. Between them, Ultra-Humanitarian, Alpha Sapiens and Earth-47's Green Lantern are keeping the singularity portal open.
"Yet, we can do nothing to assist this world's valiant Wonder Woman and her Allied Titans. So like their metahuman allies before them, they will fall in combat against the Nazis. That is unjust and almost seems like betrayal." Machine Woman responded.
"Owlwoman and Jack Ketch did try to get a message to them, warning them of their peril. Queen Hippolyta/Wonder Woman thanked them, but said that their duty was still clear- that they had to prevent the Nazi metahumans from consolidating their position on this beachhead. Thus, she and her friends will end up dying to buy this world's humans time to depart it before the nuclear war begins."
"Have Alpha Sapiens or Ultra-Humanitarian calculated how events will play out?"
Three days later, on a hacked Nazi surveillance satellite focused on the battle going on in Atlanta, a saddened Martha (Owlwoman) Wayne and Richard (Jack Ketch) Grayson narrated the last moments of Earth-62's metahuman population. As the last Earth-62 human that could be evacuated from that world was seen safely through the last cosmic treadmill portal, Machinewoman dismantled them as the others used their transmatter cube links to return to their own homeworlds. Summoning her last vestiges of strength, Wonder Woman pitched a sharpened pole through Gundra, her equally exhausted Valkyrie counterpart. With a bellow of outrage, Ubermensch accelerated forward and picked Hippolyta up by her throat, steadily increasing the pressure and crushing her throat. Princess Drusilla/Wonder Girl screamed in horror and rage and plunged her fist through Tsunami's rib cage, before Kamikaze directed himself toward the young Amazon princess, incinerating her. Grimly realising that they had reached end game, Deathwing launched a grenade at Grosshorn Eule's throat, before he too was felled by a volley of arrows from Usil the Archer. Instants later, his throat was broken by Jack.B.Quick, the speedster- who was then slain by Seawolf, but only had an instant to savour the Nazi victory before they heard a fusillade of nuclear missiles thunder overhead, en route to Nazi Germany. Exhausted but still angry, Ubermensch launched himself into the skies above Atlanta and tried to divert the missiles as they maintained their deadly course toward Nazi Germany, which had launched its own nuclear deterrent. But Ubermensch, while he had metahuman strength, speed, agility and durability, was not invulnerable, nor was his velocity a match for the nuclear onslaught. He only managed to divert one, before the missile's warhead exploded. In all, one hundred thousand military and political leaders perished on that world during the events of the next few hours, incinerated in an orgy of mutually assured annihilation.
Earth-65:
"On this world, the Mesoamerican Aztec Empire survived the advent of Europeans in the seventeenth century for one very simple reason. Ferdinand and Isabella failed to take Granada and complete the conquest of Spain in 1490...and Ferdinand was killed in battle, leaving Isabella bereft, fleeing to a convent. The Castile/Aragon union foundered and two years later, Columbus was unable to travel west to find a new route to China, instead discovering the Americas. On Earth-65, that was left to Elizabethan explorers a generation later. By that time, isolated Portugese explorers had made it across the Atlantic, but after the time of the weak Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II, who died in a plague epidemic. Accordingly, they were seized and after a period of western epidemiological entry and consequent immunity, Moctezuma III and Axayacatl II reverse-engineered their naval and military technology. The Aztecs went on to conquer and dominate the whole of the Americas by the middle of the eighteenth century. They developed foresight in the adaptation of new technologies, primarily Babbage's difference engine in the early nineteenth century. By the dawn of the twentieth century, they were able to attack and conquer Europe, Asia and Africa. They still practice human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism."
"Diana, why have you brought us here?" Kara asked Earth-500's Wonder Woman.
"Not because I approve of the morality of their society, obviously. However, one thing that is significant is their technological prowess. They captured and tortured a representative of a cross-time Galactic Roman Empire from Earth-476 twelve years ago and embarked on the creation of their own cross-time empire, assisted by their own compliment of metahumans- Queatzcoatl, a Superman analogue; Michtantecutli, their version of Batman..."
Batwoman (Barbara Gordon) raised her eyebrow: "Oh. Their Batman is named after an Aztec death deity. Several versions of Bruce would love that irony. Sorry, Diana, please go on."
"My analogue is Xantico, the fire goddess. Unfortunately, Michtantecutli, Queaztlcoatl and Xantico don't exactly get on. Each of them wants to get their hands on cross-time wealth and imperial power. That's where we come in."
"I'm not sure I follow you. Why have you brought that Sliding Albion worldskimmer with you?"
"On some worlds with nuclear weapons, Kyle, there's an overarching military strategy entitled 'mutually assured destruction, with the impetus for deterrence due to the nuclear holocaust that would result from their use during a military conflict."
"Yeah, and we're aware of several Earths where things went badly wrong in 1956, 1962, 1979, 1983 and 1989 and that strategy resulted in the destruction of human civilisation or the human species itself. Billions died on each of those worlds. Are you insane, Diana? You can't seriously mean you want to trigger a war between this cross-timer Aztec Empire and Sliding Albion."
"Actually, I'm afraid that I do. Look at both worlds. One of them is an ecologically ravaged, almost uninhabitable dying planet, while the other is a murderous imperial power that practices human sacrifice, cannibalism and slavery. And I'm afraid that if you wanted to stop it, Kara, you're both much too late. You see, I sent an empty worldskimmer into Earth-65's circumplanetary space several months ago. And Sliding Albion knows about their lost vehicle and its current whereabouts."
However, that was a fraction of the potential tragedy that could have befallen that world. On other alternate Earths, its former inhabitants had phased into convergent life courses and remembered nothing of their lives beyond inexplicable dreams or nightmares.
Several universes away, several men and women arrived on a world where the Aztec Empire had not only survived the Imperial Spanish incursion of the early sixteenth century, but become a technologically advanced world.
"Wonder Woman" deplated what appeared to be an identity concealment device- more specifically, Legion of Super Hero 31st Century 'dystorter' surplus that enabled the wearer to replicate the metamorphic abilities of Reep Daggle/Chameleon Boy.
"You're insane! Precipitating that sort of war will mean the deaths of billions on both worlds!" Kara retorted angrily.
"Yes. Earth-65 practices ritual cannibalism, slavery and human sacrifice. They're fundamentalist religious fanatics. Earth-25's Sliding Albion are ruthless ethnic cleansers who have ecologically trashed two worlds and instituted rape camps in their world's China. Yes, Earth-65's Amazons will perish. However, to die free from Aztec tyranny is infinitely preferable to living as their warrior cannon fodder."
"This must not be allowed to prevail!" Secret Original cried as he accelerated toward the site of impending tragedy.
As Xantico turned for her world and home, Kara muttered: "Nihilistic bitch."
"What happens if either side gains ascendancy in this sort of situation?" Crazyjane asked as Kyle gave pursuit to Secret Original as the First Man Alive tried to interpose himself between the attacking armies. All to no avail, for Earth-52's Greatest and First Hero perished amidst a hail of antimatter fusion fire from the antagonistic sides. Batwoman signalled to Kara and pulled something from beneath her cape:
"Your older analogue gave me this. It's a Generation III Phantom Zone projector. It can scan and project whole areas into the fourth dimension. Ordinarily, that could be construed as imprisonment, but..."
"Thanks, Barbara. So we've got three of them. Kay? Kyle? We need to insure that most of the enslaved and poor on those two Earths get a second chance at some point in the future while their lords and masters knock the $#!* out of each other in the Bleed."
"And our own analogues?"
"Can go to Hades as far as I'm concerned, the corrupted bastards. But the lower classes on those byzantine nightmare worlds had no choice in this matter. Are the rest of you agreed?"
It would be some two millennia before the startled masses of Earths 25 and 65 were retrieved from their sudden sanctuary, but they had no complaint when their eventual rescuers did arrive, given what happened next. Between them, Kara, Kyle, Kay and Barbara sent over four thousand million people on both Earths into the Phantom Zone. When the last ones faded from the landscape, they turned their backs as the antimatter fusion intradimensional quantum missiles began to materialise in the skies above and blinding white fires and agonised surges of Cherenkov blue blossomed into hideous argosies. But this day, there would be no dying screams, no hopeless parents clutching their beloved children to them as oblivion arrived, no disfigured and hopelessly crippled figures trapped beneath collapsed and burning buildings, no charnel houses of leatherlike human flesh stretched over human bones. The four of them had committed an unparalleled act of valour and it would be celebrated as such.
As for the rival armies, they tore each other apart, but the metahumans ignored the spectacle, just as they ignored the silent corresponding mutual obliteration that led to the deaths of analogues of infinitely better and more selfless and heroic men and women. Kryptonite and red sun radiation broiled around one group, while another perished from sudden vacuum breaches and intensive irradiation. Several millennia after this battle, stray travelers encountered fragments of bone and flesh and puzzled at their origin.
As for the others, Batwoman returned to Earth 57, while Kyle and Kara stayed on Earth 47. Kara's alternate, Zealandia, settled on Earth-17, disagreeing with Kyle about his decision to abandon that Earth in the name of sovereignty for non-metahuman sapients. Finally, Kay returned to her home Earth 49 and told Tiresias about what she had experienced and the new lay of the Greater Multiverse. Secret Original was buried with full honours and great mourning on Earth-52. Five years later, that Earth experienced a singularity and its entire population evolved into hypersapience and left three-dimensional space for higher dimensional realms. As they joined their human friends and family in the Transcendence, Womanite, Machine Woman, Dark Stranger, Zurr-Vann, Alpha Sapiens and Ultra-Humanitarian all had a momentary pang of regret. When that moment arrived, they had always thought their friend, comrade, lover and mentor would always have been there alongside them all. Machine Woman shed a single oily tear. Before it landed, she and her whole world experienced the coming of the singularity and were gone, far beyond anything humans can adequately describe.
THE END
"Where does it diverge from our own realities, Kay?"
The dissociative identity metahuman pointed to two images of large computer banks:
"As far as I can make out, it all started in 1965, On this world, there were two dominant 'superpowers', the United States and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, both of which had sizeable military forces and built up horrendously large nuclear arsenals. Both the United States and USSR decided to entrust responsibility for their stockpiles to post-Turing Test AIs. However, things took an unexpected turn when the two AIs, Colossus and Mentor, decided to unilaterally consult each other and decided to dispose of the global nuclear arsenals by firing them at the Moon. Once that had been accomplished, they disarmed the US and Soviet militaries, and forced their respective legislatures to divert funds toward preventing global hunger and ecological degradation instead. That was fifty years ago. Earth-52 has a functioning global government in that large city below us, Omnitropolis. As well as that, they have seven or so metahumans, assembled within an organisation called Status Quorum."
"Wow. I can't see any famine, war or relative poverty anywhere on that world below us." Kara said, as her telescopic vision swept the planet.
"These could be ideal allies against Earth-24. What is it, Kyle?"
The Green Lantern frowned:
"This appears to be a unique Earth. None of the metahumans here have alternates anywhere else in the multiverse."
"So you think that this could be an artificially created universe, like that of Krypton-27?" Kara asked.
"Possible. Anyway, here are profiles of the Status Quorum organisation. Their first leader was a Kryptonian class metahuman called Secret Original, empowered by a gnostic demiurge and apparently immortal, but crippled by an exploratory mission through the Bleed to Earth-33. His lover Eve Upa$#!*im retrieved him, but at the cost of her own life. Secret Original/Adam Cadmus now minimally gets involved in SQ activities.
Metahuman two, Alpha Sapiens, is a symbiote. After a reactor accident, a microscalar breach occurred, and a fleeing citystate from the Motai, an alien civilisation, bonded with his anencephalic head and empowered him with near-invulnerability, flight, metahuman speed and strength after it bonded with him.
Metahuman three, Ultra-Humanitarian, is a Buddhist from the distant past. He's a metahuman Boddhisatva, dedicated to universal enlightenment and the relief of suffering..."
"Metahuman four, Womanite. She seems to be a sentient superheavy element atom who has reconfigured its body to resemble a hominid female."
"Metahuman five, Machine Woman. An ambulatory AI. Probably the liaison between Status Quorum and Gnosis, the global supercomputer."
"Metahuman six, Zur-Vann. Refugee from Earth-2466, destroyed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. On that alternate Earth, felinoids evolved upright posture, opposable thumbs and tool use instead of early hominids. Zur-Vann is believed to be the sole survivor of his civilisation. Arrived on Earth-52 as an infant.
"Metahuman seven, Dark Stranger. Rough Batman analogue. However, psychological profile indicates that this individual is a higher-functioning psychopath and serial killer, although he only targets 'evil' individuals. So, what do the rest of you think?"
Kara frowned: "Perhaps because of the way Kal was perverted in becoming Exemplar back home on Earth-28, I don't particularly like the idea that this global supercomputer Gnosis took everything over fifty years ago."
"But that's debatable, Kara. Even if Gnosis has global dominion, its world government does not seem to be a totalitarian state. There are democratic elections, human rights, civil liberties, free speech and a directly elected global president. It seems to predominantly focus on co-ordinating medical, social security and educational services. Status Quorum's role seems to be crime prevention, as you might guess, as well as natural disaster relief and defense against alien or extra-dimensional intervention." Kay replied.
"Skynet it ain't, then?" Kyle riposted.
"It certainly seems an egalitarian and peaceful society. I can't detect any trace of military conflict, famine or uncontrolled epidemic disease. This world seems utopian." Kay replied.
"Which could also be a problem. What happens if Status Quorum gets rusty and cannot respond to alien or hostile alternate Earth intervention when it does happen?" Kara said, then raised an eyebrow:
"Looks like we have company. Secret Original, apparently."
Outside their transversal vehicle, Secret Original had landed. He still couldn't get used to the fact that he was once more in control of his body- his whole, uncrippled body -and had returned home to Earth-52 (as it now was) -yet at such a terrible, terrible cost. Adam Cadmeon had been the first member of the species homo sapiens to evolve on Earth-52 and an encounter with an alien probe lander had left him and his wife Eve Upa$#!*im immortal. Over time, Adam had become aware of a mysterious presence, even beyond that of Gnosis. The global supercomputer encouraged Secret Original to continue his explorations, until he encountered what had initially appeared to be a higher dimensional conduit that was somehow controlling and manipulating humanity's actions, philosophies and even their most intimate desires. It was the classic 'free will versus determinism' existential debate.
And so, he had launched himself through the Bleed like some latter-day Icarus. And like the mythical Icarus before him, he suffered the consquences of hubris and unprotected direct exposure to the Bleed's energies, leaving him a crippled wreck when he had arrived on what he thought was a higher dimensional realm, where Status Quorum and himself were no more than characters within comics and graphic novels. For several agonising months, he was caught there amidst almost unendurable agony and suffering, until Eve found her way to join him and at the cost of her own precious life, pushed him back through the interface.
The cost was too high. Infinitely too high. And what he had then learnt angered him. For the realm that had tormented him was no higher dimension, but another alternate Earth- Earth-33. On that particular alternate probability, there were no metahumans, except for a single entity called "Ultra.' However, specific individuals on Earth-33 had the abilities of gods when it came to directing and manipulating events elsewhere in the multiverse. He cleared his throat:
"I wish to talk. For what reason are you on this world and what are your intentions?"
Hesitantly, protected by a surrounding iridescent green globe, Kyle, Kara and Kay emerged:
"Not hostile ones. We are from several alternate universes within the Core 52 local multiverse adjacent to your own. We know about your personal tragedy, Secret Original. We've certainly had our share of those."
Secret Original nodded: "Can you tell me why you survived the events on Earth-...17 as it is now called, according to this comic book, Kyle Rayner? In this graphic representation within Animal Man, a DC comic, your Overman metahuman impaled you. Yet you clearly now have the full abilities of a member of the Green Lantern Corps and show no such life-terminating injuries. Kara Zor-El, I am also familiar with your particular iteration, yet again, your original world, Earth-28, initially had no such metahumans, although it did have the aggressive, totalitarian warmongering "USForce" hyperpower, as described in this Weird War story. And Kay Challis of Earth-49, you are originally from Earth-15."
She nodded: "I was hoping that you would be our first contact here, Secret Original. Yes, that is correct. Like my counterpart fellow survivor, James Olsen/Steelman of Earth-25, I also suffered the loss of the person I loved. In his case, it was his wife, Lucy Lane Olsen. In my own, it was Cliff Steele, a cyborg metahuman known as Robotman, and my other companions within my world's Doom Patrol. For that reason, I share your concerns about Earth-33 and its role within the multiverse."
"For your initial Earth-15 was destroyed by the psychotic Kal-El of Krypton analogue Superboy-Prime, am I correct? And yet, this murderous, genocidal individual has not been called to true account for his crimes elsewhere in the multiverse. Nor have others on Earth-33 whose parakinetic abilities caused them to spark the Crisis on Infinite Earths and slaughter the inhabitants of untold numbers of universes. And yet, they all survive, inviolate."
Kay sighed. She knew this conversation would be difficult: "Odd as it may seem, Superboy Prime's presence and his activities elsewhere in the Core 52 multiverse are both known universally yet dismissed as a work of fantasy within its own alternate probability. For the same reason, many individuals on Earth-33 seem to be unaware of the consequences of what they consider fantasy narratives might have on the rest of the Multiverse outside their own universe. Nor are we wholly innocent. An Earth-2 resident, Per Degaton, precipitated a nuclear war on Earth-Prime as it was then known in 1962. In any case, they aren't the only trans-multiversal threat. Have you, or the others within Status Quorum, heard of a malignant worldfaring civilisation known as "Sliding Albion?"
Evidently, he had. He turned on his heel: "I shall convene a meeting of my comrades. I had no idea that particular situation had become so serious. Please, follow me."
As they entered the Quorum Citadel in the heart of Omnitropolis, Kyle noted the statue of Alan Turing at its entrance. He nodded toward it as Kay and Kara joined him:
"Alan Turing: 1912-...1992?! Far out. I don't know about you two and your Earths, but back home on Earth-17, he helped develop the computer, was a master cryptorapher and was invaluable in breaking the Nazi Enigma Code during the Second World War. He could've done so much more, but due to neanderthal homophobic stupidity, he was arrested for gay sex or "gross indecency" with another man and forced to undergo chemical castration. He killed himself in 1954. What a #^@%ing ridiculous waste."
Kay was thoughtful: "Instead of which, on this alternate Earth, I guess that the British government recognised his continuing importance as a strategic asset, stopped in and aborted the criminal proceedings, in return for further information technology research, which they shared with the Americans. Which probably means..."
[That is correct, Kay Challis. If your next supposition was that as a consequence of [...] Turing's survival, there was accelerated development of information technology on Earth-52 compared to many other alternate Earths.]
"Let me guess. As a result of which, there was neural net development and when Turing did pass away at eighty, still in possession of cognitive acuity, the Gnosis supercomputer took a clone neural net transposition of his brilliant brain. So, Gnosis, in a sense, you are Alan Turing 2.0." Kara said to the ambient sphere of blue light that had suddenly appeared in front of them.
[Correct also, Kara Zor-El. I have discussed the matter of the grave threat that Sliding Albion/Earth-24 offers to the Multiverse. I am afraid that there are further aspects to this serious contingency than you may have realised as well. When the last multiversal crisis restructured Earth-24's alternate universe, it did so with a most unwelcome addition. Its universe now has, or had, a Krypton of its own. And like your own worlds, it sent alternative iterations of Kal-El to Earth-24 upon its detonation after its nuclear core went hypercritical and it exploded. The starship landed in Great Britain in Earth-24's universe.]
"Which means a British Superman, and one inculcated with belief in the superiority of the Blue-enhanced Empire of Albion and loyalty to its aims. Another perverted iteration of Kal-El. Damn it. This can't be a coincidence." Kara said, looking at the two others.
"What we know about Earth-24 is only what former Earth-50 Authority leader Jenny Sparks told three New Earth transtemporal travellers about Sliding Albion. Before the recent Flashpoint event, it was synergistically linked to Earth-50, but their exact transtemporal co-ordinates were unknown. An alien civilisation, the Blue, arrived on Earth during the Renaissance and established power bases in Italy and the United Kingdom. Over time, the Blue presence became corrupted and tyrannical, resulting in colonialist areas like Africa and China. In their nineteenth century, the Blues used bacteriological and nuclear warfare, devastating large areas of Earth-50, resulting in biological inviability and obscenities like the establishment of a 'rape camp' in Blue-occupied China in 1856. Unfortunately too, this led them to develop multiversal access technology. On an earlier iteration of Earth-50, they found metahumans like Britain's Jenny Sparks in its United Kingdom. In 1953, the relationship deteriorated over Earth-24's aggressive territorial aspirations, leading to Sliding War One. Sliding Albion dumped bacteriological weapons across the United Kingdom, but its viral load had mutated during Bleed transit and was responsible for intensive Earth-50 British metahuman development instead. In 1999, Regis Stzfli launced a coup d'etat in Sliding Albion and destroyed the weak monarchy of King Henry XIV Windsor, leading the Authority to attack Sliding Italy. At that point, the information broke off." Kyle said, reading the log from his power ring.
[We can assist you there. In the post-Crisis Earth-24 timeline, the attacks on Earth-50 did not occur, given its reiteration and timeline revision, and in addition, Kal-El landed in Weston Supermere in the United Kingdom in its 1938. He is now known as Britannicus. During the nineteenth century, there was a coup in Earth-24's Themiscrya. The consequence was that Queen Penthesilea aligned herself with Sliding Albion and sent Amazon Princess Diana there. She is now known as Britannia. Both are actively engaged in timeline reconaissance and conquest], offered Gnosis.
Earth-204:
Colin (Brittanicus) Clark took the ridiculously garish and ornate outfit of his Earth 204 counterpart and incinerated it, biting a chunk of the quailing figure's neck. He spat it out and sneered at the figure as it collapsed:
"That creature was an insult to the Sliding Albion cause. It didn't even have full Kryptonian class metahuman abilities. Unable to fly, merely to leap? Unable to manifest full invulnerability past missile strikes? Unable to exist in space? Pathetic weakling. And to think it even had my name."
Across the room, Britannia had impaled Louisa Layne-Ferret on the end of her Destiny's Trident, as she sneered arrogantly at the meagre resistance that the Daily Star's tabloid staff had offered her. Outside the window, the British Houses of Parliament burnt and screams of pain and agony could be heard from the rubble of the City of London's financial district amidst its ruined buildings. King Charles III was the only one who had seriously bothered to provide any resistance to them, firing repeated Kryptonite bullets at Britannicus as he had strode forth. He had rewarded the king's valour by prompting snapping his neck, instead of prolonging his suffering.
"What's the status of the North American continent in this timeline?"
"Three predominant nation-states- the United States, Canada and Quebec. Arrogant posturers, who presume to have 'superceded' British power on this Earth. Do you have the nuclear weapons activation box from their...Prime Minister, didn't they call him?"
Princess Diana (Britannia) held up a severed arm, still dripping blood on the newspaper carpet. She wrenched it from the activation sequence computer and proceded to key in the instructions. She turned to face her Kryptonian counterpart and ally in the cause of the Empire of Albion:
"Missiles launched. Good thing we took care of that US base first. NORAD, wasn't it?"
"You know, I'd almost like to stick around and see the consequences of our little mischief but this moronic little parody world disgusts me. Come, Diana, my love. Let us take our leave from it."
Their transmatter interfaces hummed and within seconds, Britannicus and Britannia departed from the debris and ashes of this ravaged London. They weren't there when, in response to the nuclear strike against the United States on this Earth, mutually assured destruction started to incinerate much of the United Kingdom. At least it cut short London's ordeal.
Earth-54:
As the Justice Coalition of North America's teleporter flared into life, its members saw an unfamiliarly subdued and bleak-eyed figure. What was even more shattering was its identity- Selina (Catwoman) Kyle, one of their core members.
Her closest friend, Lois (Krypton Woman) Lane, immediately realised what was wrong, given Selina's laboured breathing, signs of injury and the second heartbeat that her superhearing picked up from Selina's body. She helped her oldest friend and staunch companion to a chair as her other concerned colleagues crowded around her. Selina smiled, but through the lens of exhaustion. It was good to be here, surrounded by such valued comrades after her ordeal through the last few weeks- Lois. Steve (Ganymede) Trevor. Iris (Time Master) West. Barbara (Green Lantern) Gordon. At length, she broke her silence:
"And to answer your undoubted questions, yes, I'm okay, in body at least. As for my mind, well... The fact is, I made an almost fatal mistake, blinded by love and sentiment. My late husband, Bruce Wayne, turned out to be two people. Beneath his veneer was the psychopath Bat-Man. Under his disguise, I allowed him into Kyle Manor, the Catslair and my heart. He...murdered my maid Gigi. He...was also the thug who murdered my parents in Crime Alley twenty-five years ago."
"Oh, honey. What help do you need?" Lois kissed her old friend's forehead, looking down at her with concern.
"Thanks, Lois. As some of you have realised, I'm also pregnant. I'm keeping the baby. It's a girl. It means that I'll be out of action for several months and I'll need help patrolling Gotham at the same time and for the next few years." Her friends sat around her and arranged rosters and timetables. Several minutes later, there was a JCNA action alert and Ganymede, Time Master and Green Lantern went off to deal with it, leaving Lois to discuss matters with Selina:
"We sure do pick 'em, don't we, honey?"
"Thanks for not lecturing me, Lois."
"Why would I do that, Sel? You and I are two of a kind, unlucky in love."
"I'm sorry, Lois. I should have remembered this whole thing would remind you of what happened with Clark Kent."
"It's okay. I loved him. But it was doomed. His gangster parents implanted their genetic material in his brain and he murdered the man I loved, Lex Luthor. So I carry that blame too."
Silently, the two women embraced and held one another.
Later, Lois (Krypton Woman) Lane flew over Metropolis, feeling her usual hollow emptiness, as if she were going through the motions. Things had seemed so much simpler back in Midvale during her childhood, or when she was a cadet reporter at the Daily Planet. But then reality had intruded. Brainiac had tried to attack Earth and while she fought him off, the criminal supergenius Clark Kent detonated a dirty nuclear device in Atlanta, and killed millions. It was no longer a matter of frustrated mutual attraction and schemes with obscure chemical formulae, advanced robotics and cutting edge technology. But that was only the start of Kent's darker turn. Consumed by jealousy toward her former love, humanitarian entrepreneur and fellow savant Lex Luthor, Kent had tried to murder Lois with a deadly refined version of green kryptonite. That had failed- but only because Lex had sacrificed his life with an experimental kryptonite antidote that turned out to have deadly side effects on humans. Refusing to face the possibility of the Phantom Zone for his crimes, Clark Kent detonated the neurotrigger within his brain, killing himself.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the royal broadcast, as King Charles III spoke about his joy at the birth of his latest grandchild, and photographs of the royal visit to British North America played on the holoscreen. As she alighted on the ground, the Union Jack ensign snapped overhead. She remembered the royal visit back in 2003, when Queen Diana had almost lost her life in Arnoldstown to an offensive by the American Republican Army. That was the first time she'd met Clark Kent..
Earth-55
"We would like to assist you, but this world has no metahumans akin to the "Super-Man" of which you speak. Added to which, while we indeed sympathise with your plight, our own first priority is somewhat different. We were subjected to a devastating interplanetary war in 1938, when the dying Mars of our own universe attacked Earth in desperation. Our unexpected saviour was a Kryptonian, Clark Kent, or Kal-L. He sacrificed his own life to turn the tide and as a result, the people of Earth were able to repell the invaders in that War of the Worlds. In 1945, after the Second World War against the fascist Oswald Mosley and his United Nation of Britain, we undertook an accelerated space programme, landing on the Moon in 1955 and Mars in 1960. By then, fortunately, the Martians were extinct. Oddly enought, there were several species of Martian evident, and it seemed that there had been collateral slaughter amongst one another."
"My father, Lex Luthor, analysed the remains on scene and ascertained that the several different species of Martians were from different alternate universes. On Mars-1, our own, they housed deadly cephalopod interplanetary invaders, which struck at our world in 1938. On Mars-2, the same happened, but in 1895, while on Mars-3, the cephalopods were not the dominant species- a pacifistic species of crystal dwellers were, and it was Earth that invaded. On Mars-4, primitive humanoid oviparous Barsoomians were dominant, while on Mars-5, the planet was divided between tripartite green, red and white Martians. The inhabitants of Mars-1 and Mars-5 fought each other, exhausting their meagre planetary resources. Given our experiences of past violation, we cannot risk any further entanglement in the context of a potentially hostile multiverse. By all means, keep us informed. However, reluctantly, our own world must remain neutral in the conflict in which you speak." Lena Lane-Luthor said, as Kyle, Kara, Kay and Secret Original took their leave and prepared to travel to Earth-56, and the next world in their ongoing quest for allies against Sliding Albion.
"Mars-56? Why are we on Mars...ah. Several hundred thousand years ahead of the multiverse datum. Well, that explains why it seems to have been terraformed." Kara observed.
"But not why this world looks like a 1920s German expressionist film festival." Kyle remarked.
"Oooh! Check this out, Kara and boys. Arkham Hospital or "The Cabinet of Dr Wayne-Son." Cute. Actually, that was always my favourite Weimar time flick. Let's see, that must therefore be...Metropolis...which explains that distinctive red, blue and yellow form flying high overhead, checking us out. Superman mash-up. Kara, is there any Ring Cycle anachronism handy, or..." Kay drooled, reminiscing about her days in film school.
Kara's telescopic vision fixed another detail, while she shook her head: "Diana the...Blue Amazon...which doesn't explain why this world so exactly replicates old Expressionist film scenarios."
"In an infinite multiverse, every conceivable reality may well be manifested. Hence, Superman, Nosferatu the Bat-Man and Diana the Amazon are replicated in the context of what has been depicted as German Expressionist cinema elsewhere." Secret Original noted to the others.
"Which is all very well, but it doesn't look like this world is in terribly good shape."
Kyle bit his lip: "No wonder. The ring was initially wrong. This isn't hundreds of thousands of years in the solar system's futue, it's more like three hundred million. The sun here is swollen, on the verge of evolving into a red giant sun and the original Earth-56 is already uninhabitable."
"Wait a minute. Three hundred million? That doesn't make sense. Humanity would have long since evolved enough, and developed sufficient interstellar travel technology to abandon Earth long ago."
"Which may explain the artifice of this world. I fear that we are dealing with isomorphic, deliberately created life forms with limited capabilities. Insufficient to provide the particular assistance that we require against the imminent threat of Sliding Albion" Secret Original observed.
"Right, then. Cross that one off the list. Oh. Where's Earth-55?" Kay observed.
"According to the Multiverse Reader here, it's just experienced a quantum flux episode, and is in the process of downgrading its probability rating. No wonder. The Freedom Brigade? The Inferior Five?! Talk about unsuitable...which means we can't head off there." Kyle rejoined.
"In which case, our next stop is Earth-57. Time to go..."
Earth-57 (Null)
"Damn it! Something is preventing us from accessing this particular Earth." Britannicus growled in frustration as he rammed himself against the impenetrable, invisible wall that shielded Earth-57 from his depradations. Britannia armed the particle beamers in her invisible fighter jet and strafed it, all to no avail.
"What is keeping us from it? Any ideas?" Britannicus said, as Britannia consulted the bootleg Multiverse Reader software copy from Earth-49's Tiresias the Sorceror, with its abundance of details about the Greater Multiverse.
"Ah. Here's why. Earth-57 is no longer in its universe, or the multiverse, and it wasn't the Crisis on Infinite Earths that did it either. About fifty years ago, your alternate self, "Superman", made a radical response to the prevalence of evil and frustration at impasses in his career. Using a kryptonite-powered headset which malfunctioned, two hyperintelligent derivative Supermen resulted from a fortuitous accident. And so, Brainiac's bottled Kryptonian city of Kandor was enlarged, Atlantis swapped worlds, and all evil was abolished on Earth. Krypton was rebuilt and Superman-Blue went there with Lois Lane and Supergirl. And then, unsurprisingly, about forty years ago, this Earth reached singularity phase due to its burgeoning technological advances. It transcended the boundaries of human and sapient knowledge and entered a higher dimension. Nothing for us here."
Earth-58:
"There's sure something sombre about this place. Have you noticed?" Kay spoke for them all as Green Lantern's protective airbubble alighted on the alternate Earth designated "Earth-58" in the Multiverse Reader. Kyle looked around them:
"Hell. Look at that..." There was a large sepulchural statue with the words Superman: He Will Always Live On in Our Hearts: 1935-1965. 1965??!! Hang on, tapping into this world's computer mediated communication medium. Ah. Kara, you may not want to look at this..."
"It's all right, Kyle. If that's any indication, this Kal-El was loved and venerated by his world, not feared and reviled as either a tyrant or the instrument of monsters as he was on our own Earths. Does it say how? Kryptonite poisoning?"
"No. This 'Wikipedia' says that it was through an assassination devised by this world's Lex Luthor. The funeral was attended by the great and the good from this world's metahuman population, and Luthor was sentenced to eternity in the Phantom Zone for his crime against humanity. Hey, there's an analogue of you here, Kara."
"Hell. "Superwoman," although she looks middle-aged in this snapshot."
Fascinated, Kara read on about her alternate self:
"She's still around. Oh. Oh, no-one destroyed the thirtieth century Legion of Super Heroes future timeline here, so she...married...Querl Dox/Brainiac 5. Kandor has been enlarged and relocated. She takes a hands on approach to issues like terrorism, nuclear arms control and famine. There's some debate about her level of maternalism, but she's quite beloved by this world. This world...also has...a Batwoman, because of... a failed mob hit on Thomas and Martha Wayne, which killed James and Sarah Gordon, instead. So, reading between the lines and given what we know, I'd guess Batwoman is his daughter Barbara. She's darker than on a lot of other worlds, according to this."
"Well worth investigating, then. Where does this Superwoman base herself?"
"Miami, Florida. Let's go there."
As they alighted on Earth-58 Superwoman's Flying Fortress, high above Miami, Kara caught sight of her alternate Earth counterpart, alongside her husband Querl Dox/Brainiac 5, and her heart caught in her throat. He was so achingly like her own Querl, until Earth-28's Kal-El/Exemplar had realised that he was providing her with future tech assistance, and massacred her Earth's entire Legion of Super Heroes in revenge. Kyle clasped his hand in hers:
"I know..." Earth-14's Green Lantern whispered, noting the figure of a Blue Lantern Barry Allen on the platform facing them, bringing back his own memories of his perished colleague and close friend, the Flash of Earth-14, Rabbi Barry Allen.
"Hello. We're a group of multiversal travellers. We wondered if your Earth was aware of a potential threat called Earth-24, otherwise known as Sliding Albion. It involves a couple of metahumans entitled Britannicus and Britannia. I know you'll find this difficult, Superwoman, because as your alternate universe analogue, I do too, but Britannicus is an AU Kal-El."
Superwoman nodded: "It's all right...Antithesis, is it? Querl keeps our Justice Confederation informed about the events in the rest of the Multiverse. I know what your Kal-El was like and how much he differed from the noble, good man we lost here. And I'm so sorry that you lost your own Querl Dox. This meeting must be tearing you apart inside."
Antithesis' eyes brimmed over with tears as Kyle rocked back and forward with her in his arms. Clad in the Blue Lantern uniform that was that of this world's Barry Allen, it was equally hard to take in his case. It reminded him of the friend he lost back on Earth-14 and the fact that Earth-25's Flash, Iris West, was pregnant with his child- who would never meet her or his father.
Kay took over communication duties:
"We think you might be in imminent danger. Britannicus and the Earth-24 Princess Diana of Themiscyra...Britannia, on her world... are fanatical partisans of the Sliding Albion cause. I'm not sure quite why- after a devastating bacteriological and nuclear war that obliterated China and Africa and contaminated much of the surrounding territories with fall out, there's not much left of it."
Superwoman nodded: "Which may indicate that they intend lebensraum before their Earth gives up the ghost and that Britannicus and Britannia are an advance guard."
'They seem to be mass murderers. We've received overwhelming telepathic impressions of a catastrophic nuclear war on Earth-204. Purely on the basis that that world's British-based Superman was seen as a 'comic parody' of Sliding Albion's Kal-El, he was brutally murdered, along with his alter ego's professional colleagues. And to top that, they launched a nuclear war." Kay paused.
"I am sworn to protect this Earth. I have been, ever since that bastard Luthor murdered Kal-El."
Kay was aware of the extent of that protection. Superwoman had protected Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, Salvador Allende, Harvey Milk, Malcolm X and Ali and Benazir Bhutto from assassination and murder on this world. She had saved Elvis Presley from the consequences of his prescription drug overdose, and prevented the US invasion of Grenada as well as the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the Taliban takeover there, and had imposed peace on the combatants in Israel and Palestine's travails, as well as the Iran-Iraq conflict, Somalia's interneccine civil war, and Mexico and Columbia's drug cartels. She didn't doubt that Superwoman would do anything to save her adopted world from harm. Then another familiar figure walked onto the platform:
"Barbara Gordon- Batwoman." That figured. On this world, Joe Chill had ended up murdering James and Sarah Gordon when they intervened to protect Thomas, Martha and Bruce Wayne, whose family adopted Barbara.
Blue Lantern suddenly looked up: "They're here."
For the first time, the two opposing forces faced one another high above Earth-58's atmosphere. The two Sliding Albion advance guard members glared malevolently at their unwelcome new adversaries. Britannicus scowled:
"Submit to the authority of Sliding Albion now and you will not face the costs of forcible submission."
"Don't do this, Kal-El. You're better than this." Superwoman pleaded.
"Ignore her, Kal. What sort of world replaces your analogue with his weak and pathetic cousin?"
"Yeah? Well, we're still tough enough to take you on, Amazon." Antithesis scowled. In the distance, Kay (Crazyjane) hung back, marshalling her forces, ready to strike.
"Enough of this. We do not give second warnings." And with that, battle was joined.
Almost immediately, the costs of the two combatants naivetie and inexperience in facing equivalent adversaries began to tell. Overconfident, Britannia bypassed the two Kara Zor-El analogues, Superwoman and Antithesis, and closed in on Crazyjane, an unknown quantity. The Earth-49 multiple personality metahuman only smiled briefly as her own features contorted and she became Black Annis, a blue faced hag with glaring red eyes and clawed hands. She snarled as Britannia and she closed in combat.
"I do not like doing this, not against other women." Annis telepathed, as she and Britannia wrestled. Kyle aimed his power ring at Britannia's trident and it shattered into pieces, but Britannicus scowled and accelerated toward him. Abruptly, Antithesis cannoned into him:
"A word of warning, Britannicus. Don't make assumptions about the Kara Zor-Els of the Multiverse. We're not all carbon copies and emotional dependents of their older cousins. Superwoman isn't and neither am I."
"You talk too much-" Britannicus snapped as he tried to backhand her, but his arm was halted by Superwoman, who stomach punched him, as Antithesis managed an uppercut.
"If anyone's a parody of a greater original, it's you. My cousin Superman was a true hero, not a pliable foil for a murderous alternate universe empire. Show some independence of thought or strategic reasoning. Get away from this planet. It is protected. We know what Sliding Albion is like. You're enslaved by a dying world." Superwoman replied.
"It is still technologically superior to- DIANA!!! NO!!!"
Across the meters of space, Black Annis had taken advantage of a moment of overconfidence and bewilderment at her counterpart's prowess to rip and tear at Britannia's chest until she found her quarry and forced her hand into the increasingly bloody cavity above her breasts, then pulled out the Amazon's heart and incinerated it with fire from Sun Mother, another of Crazyjane's alters. In another instant, Britannia's remains were engulfed in a fiery pall. For the first time, Britannicus realised that he might well be outnumbered and outclassed. He turned tail and dived into the singularity as Crazyjane reverted to her normal appearance. Secret Original had not participated, but signalled for Batwoman to fire a microscopic trace sensor at the fleeing Kal-El. As he disappeared into the singularity that took him back to Earth-24, Secret Original activated a portable console.
"We did it!" Superwoman exclaimed.
"This isn't over, Linda," Batwoman replied,"he knows this world is too well-guarded for him to prevail. Next time, though, he might be back with armed forces from his adopted homeworld."
"Trouble, folks. We're getting hostile activity reports from several probability sequences along. from us. Earth-63."
"Which is interesting, considering Earth-61 seems to be inhabited too."
"Yes, but that particular alternate Earth is particularly radically variant to the datum. Look at it. It's inhabited by Stone Giants, a silicon-based life form and its particular Earth has a variable red dwarf primary which it orbits far more closely than is usually the case. For obvious reasons, Britannicus can't go near it- and nor, for the same reason, can our own Antithesis. Which means that luckily for that Earth, it has no strategic value for Sliding Albion. Kay? What data do we have on Earth-62?"
Barbara Gordon consulted their Multiverse Reader:
"Earth-62's Second World War was seriously prolonged, much the same as was the case with pre-Crisis Earth-X and current Core Multiverse Earth-10. As with Earth-2, a 1940s Wonder Woman showed up, but she was dressed differently from her counterpart. Ah. And its Nazi Germany never attacked Poland in 1939 in this world, bypassing it to launch Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union. As a result, Britain, France and the United States stood by and let Trotsky's communist regime fall by 1942. There was no Pearl Harbour here. Japan's liberal democrats succeeded in countering its militarists in the thirties and forties and managed to keep them out of Manchuria. On its own, Nazi Germany then proceeded on a series of brushfire wars. In 1945-48, it fought an Anglo-German War, resulting in the defeat of France in 1946 and the invasion and subjugation of England in 1948. Birmingham was targeted by an atomic bomb because no-one had thought to investigate Peenemunde and Nazi Germany's nuclear programme. Fortunately, Roosevelt never died in 1945 on this world and stayed president for most of the forties and the first half of the fifties. By 1955, Nazi Germany felt confident enough to take on the United States and its allies in South America, Japan and Australasia."
"Hey, those metas look like the ones that the pre-Crisis Earth-2's JSA and All-Stars took on in the early forties, as well as the Marvel Family on the pre-Crisis Earth-S- Ubermensch, Baron Blitzkrieg, Captain Nazi...what happened there?"
"At a guess, I'd say that Nazi Germany's biotechnology industry had a head start and that they have more metahumans. But why call us in? Given that the United Kingdom was subjected to nuclear attack and surrendered in the late forties here, this world probably isn't one of the positive prospects on the Sliding Albion checklist of possible allies. In fact, I'm surprised Britannicus and Britannia didn't demolish it." Kyle said as they materialised there.
Kara raised an eyebrow: "Is that Wonder Woman?! But she's blonde. Oh, wait a minute. That's Hippolyta, not Diana. And those look like the Teen Titan proteges and sidekicks of older heroes on some Multiverse worlds, but they're more militarised. What you'd expect from a world at war, I suppose."
Batwoman nodded: "I don't know what they hope to achieve. Notice, Kara, that there are no Kryptonian class metahumans on this world, on either side. So things won't get as messy as they did on Earth-17 or Earth-28 with its irresponsible United States and amok or ruthless metahuman experimentation."
"I'd like to know how Sliding Albion escaped that, with Britannicus and Britannia. Why aren't they in charge, or at least part of a larger complement of metahumans? Just the two of them- no wait, they did mention "Zealandia," a third met. She seems to be an alternate version of you, Kara." Kyle commented.
"Forty five years later, and it looks like a stalemate here. The Nazis seem to have demolished the Southern United States, while the United States has managed to recapture the British Isles. And Kyle is right. There's no presence from Sliding Albion on this world. Liberating subjugated Britons elsewhere doesn't look like their...style...?"
Snarling in rage, and high above them, a woman clad in white had just cleared the clouds and was diving toward them, with obvious thermal vision attack capabilities. Kyle summoned a shield to protect Batwoman, Crazyjane and himself as Kara and Secret Original rose to meet the challenge.
"Wait, Kara," said Adam as they closed in on the unexpected assailant, "I want to try something." He concentrated on the incoming figure, who abruptly halted, her eyes widened. An alien creature fell from her cerebral cortex, suddenly visible:
"A Daemonite?! But they're native to the old Earth-50 universe, they no longer exist in its current timeline after it was reiterated. Unless they also exist in...who is that, anyway?"
"Z-Zealandia...K-Kara Zor-El. Oh no. No. What did I do while that thing was implanted in my head?!"
Adam and Kara exchanged glances:
"So what the hell is she doing here? She's attacking us, not the Nazi metahumans."
"It seems as if the Sliding Albion assailants have installed these Daemonite alien implants in both Britannicus and Zealandia here, insuring their compliance."
Abruptly, there was a call from Crazyjane on the ground below:
"Guys? Kyle has a message for us. From Tiresias, back home on Earth-49?"
As the two landed, bringing a bewildered and sobbing Zealandia with them, Tiresias spoke:
"Good. I see you've encountered and deprogrammed Zealandia. Take her with you."
Kara indicated Wonder Woman and the Teen Titan analogues fighting the Nazi metahumans in the ruins of Atlanta adjacent to their encounter zone. Tiresias sighed:
"I'm afraid that this is all going to become academic. This world is going to be incinerated in a nuclear war in two days time, a veritable Nazi gotterdammerung. I have redirected Earth-46's Justice Federation here to evacuate as many innocent souls as possible to cognate alternate Earths before the arrival of armageddon, but her extraction was paramount."
Adam shared Kara's sense of horror and outrage:
"We cannot allow this senseless slaughter, Avemaria. I will summon Secret Quorum to assist the Justice Federation here as well. But the combatants..."
"Unfortunately, Adam, Earth-62 has an indelible timeline. I am about to send you to a far more important site for our particular interests. Earth-500."
"Why so far upworld, Tiresias?" Crazyjane asked.
"It appears to be an unexpectedly revived world. In the pre-Crisis multiverse, it was known as Earth-D."
EARTH-500:
The white pall withdrew from their world abruptly. Kara Jor-El swallowed, then gasped as she saw Hector Ramirez, Earth-500's newly minted Green Lantern of Sector 5813, and on the bridge below, a bewildered Batman and Robin, Martian Manhunter, pisco-humanoid Aquaman, Atom and Tanaka (Flash) Rei. And...Shay and Kator Hol, the Thanagarian siblings Hawkboy and Hawkgirl. Wonder Woman. But did that mean...
?"K-Kara?"
"Kal! Oh, Kal!" Superman and Supergirl of the former Earth-D, now Earth-500, were reunited.
Kal-El woke up alongside Kara after an exuberant night. She blinked awake and he was startled to see tears in her eyes:
"We died, Kal. We both died. So did this whole universe. But somehow, we've been given a second chance."
"Like Krypton all over again. Kara, baby? What did happen in that timeline? The last thing I remember is encountering one of those shadow beings..."
"We got some assistance from elsewhere in the multiverse, from alternate worlds that called themselves Earth-One and Earth-Two. But Kal... it was so damned difficult, ultimately impossible without you. As well as Shayera and Kator, Diana and Dick also died fighting that damned Crisis. So did an Earth-based Green Lantern, just appointed after Nagin Sur's death investigating the crisis. With Tanaka's help as well as that of Barry Allen, we managed to save several million people. The last I remember, I was fighting shadow demons trying to buy the visitors from Earths One and Two some time to escape to their own worlds.I think I died too. And then presumably, the whole Justice Alliance."
"The question is, why have we been restored to existence? Why do we remember our pre-Crisis past?"
"I talked to Hector, the new GL, about that while we were restoring the JAA Seabase to full operational status last night. He made contact with another, incoming GL from an alternate universe. Apparently, there's been a resurrection of the multiverse, but with some subtle differences."
"Like our memories of Krypton from this universe, I think, Kara. They now seem to include a reference to Franklin D. Roosevelt's long-term survival and working with Philip Randolph to get civil rights legislation passed in the forties, two decades before it did in many other timelines. As a result, the United States got its first African-American president in the sixties, a preacher named Martin Luther King, while its first woman, Bella Abzug, was elected in 1980, and its first samesexer, a guy named Harvey Milk, in 1990. We're some sort of beacon to the rest of the multiverse."
"Apparently, Earth-23 and Earth-33 recently had African-American presidents now. Which is a shame, because I was holding out for a woman to be elected on one of them. I wonder who this Hillary Clinton woman on Earth-33 is?"
Abruptly, the JAA communicator bleeped:
"We have an incoming set of visitors from the new multiverse coming through the Bleed. I think you'll both want to meet them."
They reached for their 'business clothes: "We'll be right there, Bruce."
Kal-El, Kara, Hawkboy, Hawkgirl, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Batman and Robin stood within the restored Justice Alliance of America undersea base as the group of multidimensional challengers to Earth-24/Sliding Albion's tyranny landed:
"Then it's true. This entire Earth...formerly Earth-D in the original multiverse...has been recreated." Kara of Earth-28/Antithesis said, looking around them.
"Sometimes the good guys do win through. All of them are alive. I wonder how the Anti-Monitor feels about all this..."
Kyle replied
"That's not all, there's a forcescreen around this Earth specifically preventing any repetition of that event. But ...all of the Monitors are gone. So who's responsible for this?"
As the two groups conversed, there seemed to be tension in the JAA meeting room "Yes, we know what happened originally. Moreover, it looks like our world's timeline has been retrospectively restructured, making the creation and existence of a multicultural Justice Alliance of America like our own more likely on this world." Kal-El explained to the newcomers.
"We need help, Kal-El. There's a murderous tyranny called Sliding Albion on Earth-24. Originally, it was kept in check by a metahuman organisation called the Authority on Earth-50. Unfortunately, the last multiverse realignment abolished the independent existence of the Authority and the current regime on the reiterated Earth-50, the Justice Lords, have no interest in Sliding Albion's containment and neutralisation."
"'Containment? Neutralisation?' Listen to you, Kara. No. We do not engage in senseless excessive violence or crimes against humanity on this Earth. At least the Earths One and Two contingents who were there when the original Earth-D fell had those limits in mind. This 'Authority' killed millions of Sliding Albion universe inhabitants who had no immediate stake in the battle when it teleported Italy into interstellar space. On its original Earth-50, it ruthlessly killed opponents. We will not be party to this." Kal-El said, turning his back on the AU metahumans.
"Is that it? Isolationism now?" Kyle snapped.
"You have no idea of what we've been through, what we've opposed, what we've had to endure. Kal-El, are you really that naive? Is this world really that innocent?" Kara/Antithesis asked.
"And do you really think that this Earth will remain inviolate if Sliding Albion is allowed to triumph?"
"So what are you saying, Barbara, if that's you behind that mask? Kill first? My god, what happened to you on your Earth?" Earth-500's Batman replied, clutching his son Dick to him protectively.
"My parents died, Bruce. No crime is allowed to exist in my Gotham and I resent your tone."
"'Allowed? I have a wife and children. What about you?"
"Let's go. It's pointless. They're living in a fool's world, an isolated utopia."
"Wait." Earth-500's Wonder Woman said, stepping forward:
"If this is going to be another lecture on rigid morality without experience of hardship and necessity, then-"
"I'm sorry, Kal. These strangers are right. If the original Justice Alliance had known more about the multiverse, then our former Earth-D might have survived the Anti-Monitor's onslaught. The JAA has more than enough personnel to defend this world. I'm going with them. Especially given there's a world that might be perfect for their purposes- Earth-65. 'Aztec Earth."
Earth-62:
As they extended the latest local platform for the local Cosmic Treadmill, Womanite looked up at the Nazi satellites and sighed to herself as she watched Superman and Ganymede ferry the latest groups of horse and carriage borne travelers onto the Kathmandu entry point. It was relatively easy for her to use her status as a sapient superheavy element to distort reception within the orbiting surveillance systems and had also enabled Dark Stranger to hack into their telecommunication system and substitute a more quotidian set of images. Machine Woman alighted near her:
"Right. That's the latest online treadmill online. So far, Zur-Vann and Dark Stranger estimate that we have been successfully able to evacuate three hundred million of this world's inhabitants, with nuclear war an estimated three days away. Lucky that this world has only five hundred million inhabitants due to those same Nazi depredations. Between them, Ultra-Humanitarian, Alpha Sapiens and Earth-47's Green Lantern are keeping the singularity portal open.
"Yet, we can do nothing to assist this world's valiant Wonder Woman and her Allied Titans. So like their metahuman allies before them, they will fall in combat against the Nazis. That is unjust and almost seems like betrayal." Machine Woman responded.
"Owlwoman and Jack Ketch did try to get a message to them, warning them of their peril. Queen Hippolyta/Wonder Woman thanked them, but said that their duty was still clear- that they had to prevent the Nazi metahumans from consolidating their position on this beachhead. Thus, she and her friends will end up dying to buy this world's humans time to depart it before the nuclear war begins."
"Have Alpha Sapiens or Ultra-Humanitarian calculated how events will play out?"
Three days later, on a hacked Nazi surveillance satellite focused on the battle going on in Atlanta, a saddened Martha (Owlwoman) Wayne and Richard (Jack Ketch) Grayson narrated the last moments of Earth-62's metahuman population. As the last Earth-62 human that could be evacuated from that world was seen safely through the last cosmic treadmill portal, Machinewoman dismantled them as the others used their transmatter cube links to return to their own homeworlds. Summoning her last vestiges of strength, Wonder Woman pitched a sharpened pole through Gundra, her equally exhausted Valkyrie counterpart. With a bellow of outrage, Ubermensch accelerated forward and picked Hippolyta up by her throat, steadily increasing the pressure and crushing her throat. Princess Drusilla/Wonder Girl screamed in horror and rage and plunged her fist through Tsunami's rib cage, before Kamikaze directed himself toward the young Amazon princess, incinerating her. Grimly realising that they had reached end game, Deathwing launched a grenade at Grosshorn Eule's throat, before he too was felled by a volley of arrows from Usil the Archer. Instants later, his throat was broken by Jack.B.Quick, the speedster- who was then slain by Seawolf, but only had an instant to savour the Nazi victory before they heard a fusillade of nuclear missiles thunder overhead, en route to Nazi Germany. Exhausted but still angry, Ubermensch launched himself into the skies above Atlanta and tried to divert the missiles as they maintained their deadly course toward Nazi Germany, which had launched its own nuclear deterrent. But Ubermensch, while he had metahuman strength, speed, agility and durability, was not invulnerable, nor was his velocity a match for the nuclear onslaught. He only managed to divert one, before the missile's warhead exploded. In all, one hundred thousand military and political leaders perished on that world during the events of the next few hours, incinerated in an orgy of mutually assured annihilation.
Earth-65:
"On this world, the Mesoamerican Aztec Empire survived the advent of Europeans in the seventeenth century for one very simple reason. Ferdinand and Isabella failed to take Granada and complete the conquest of Spain in 1490...and Ferdinand was killed in battle, leaving Isabella bereft, fleeing to a convent. The Castile/Aragon union foundered and two years later, Columbus was unable to travel west to find a new route to China, instead discovering the Americas. On Earth-65, that was left to Elizabethan explorers a generation later. By that time, isolated Portugese explorers had made it across the Atlantic, but after the time of the weak Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II, who died in a plague epidemic. Accordingly, they were seized and after a period of western epidemiological entry and consequent immunity, Moctezuma III and Axayacatl II reverse-engineered their naval and military technology. The Aztecs went on to conquer and dominate the whole of the Americas by the middle of the eighteenth century. They developed foresight in the adaptation of new technologies, primarily Babbage's difference engine in the early nineteenth century. By the dawn of the twentieth century, they were able to attack and conquer Europe, Asia and Africa. They still practice human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism."
"Diana, why have you brought us here?" Kara asked Earth-500's Wonder Woman.
"Not because I approve of the morality of their society, obviously. However, one thing that is significant is their technological prowess. They captured and tortured a representative of a cross-time Galactic Roman Empire from Earth-476 twelve years ago and embarked on the creation of their own cross-time empire, assisted by their own compliment of metahumans- Queatzcoatl, a Superman analogue; Michtantecutli, their version of Batman..."
Batwoman (Barbara Gordon) raised her eyebrow: "Oh. Their Batman is named after an Aztec death deity. Several versions of Bruce would love that irony. Sorry, Diana, please go on."
"My analogue is Xantico, the fire goddess. Unfortunately, Michtantecutli, Queaztlcoatl and Xantico don't exactly get on. Each of them wants to get their hands on cross-time wealth and imperial power. That's where we come in."
"I'm not sure I follow you. Why have you brought that Sliding Albion worldskimmer with you?"
"On some worlds with nuclear weapons, Kyle, there's an overarching military strategy entitled 'mutually assured destruction, with the impetus for deterrence due to the nuclear holocaust that would result from their use during a military conflict."
"Yeah, and we're aware of several Earths where things went badly wrong in 1956, 1962, 1979, 1983 and 1989 and that strategy resulted in the destruction of human civilisation or the human species itself. Billions died on each of those worlds. Are you insane, Diana? You can't seriously mean you want to trigger a war between this cross-timer Aztec Empire and Sliding Albion."
"Actually, I'm afraid that I do. Look at both worlds. One of them is an ecologically ravaged, almost uninhabitable dying planet, while the other is a murderous imperial power that practices human sacrifice, cannibalism and slavery. And I'm afraid that if you wanted to stop it, Kara, you're both much too late. You see, I sent an empty worldskimmer into Earth-65's circumplanetary space several months ago. And Sliding Albion knows about their lost vehicle and its current whereabouts."
However, that was a fraction of the potential tragedy that could have befallen that world. On other alternate Earths, its former inhabitants had phased into convergent life courses and remembered nothing of their lives beyond inexplicable dreams or nightmares.
Several universes away, several men and women arrived on a world where the Aztec Empire had not only survived the Imperial Spanish incursion of the early sixteenth century, but become a technologically advanced world.
"Wonder Woman" deplated what appeared to be an identity concealment device- more specifically, Legion of Super Hero 31st Century 'dystorter' surplus that enabled the wearer to replicate the metamorphic abilities of Reep Daggle/Chameleon Boy.
"You're insane! Precipitating that sort of war will mean the deaths of billions on both worlds!" Kara retorted angrily.
"Yes. Earth-65 practices ritual cannibalism, slavery and human sacrifice. They're fundamentalist religious fanatics. Earth-25's Sliding Albion are ruthless ethnic cleansers who have ecologically trashed two worlds and instituted rape camps in their world's China. Yes, Earth-65's Amazons will perish. However, to die free from Aztec tyranny is infinitely preferable to living as their warrior cannon fodder."
"This must not be allowed to prevail!" Secret Original cried as he accelerated toward the site of impending tragedy.
As Xantico turned for her world and home, Kara muttered: "Nihilistic bitch."
"What happens if either side gains ascendancy in this sort of situation?" Crazyjane asked as Kyle gave pursuit to Secret Original as the First Man Alive tried to interpose himself between the attacking armies. All to no avail, for Earth-52's Greatest and First Hero perished amidst a hail of antimatter fusion fire from the antagonistic sides. Batwoman signalled to Kara and pulled something from beneath her cape:
"Your older analogue gave me this. It's a Generation III Phantom Zone projector. It can scan and project whole areas into the fourth dimension. Ordinarily, that could be construed as imprisonment, but..."
"Thanks, Barbara. So we've got three of them. Kay? Kyle? We need to insure that most of the enslaved and poor on those two Earths get a second chance at some point in the future while their lords and masters knock the $#!* out of each other in the Bleed."
"And our own analogues?"
"Can go to Hades as far as I'm concerned, the corrupted bastards. But the lower classes on those byzantine nightmare worlds had no choice in this matter. Are the rest of you agreed?"
It would be some two millennia before the startled masses of Earths 25 and 65 were retrieved from their sudden sanctuary, but they had no complaint when their eventual rescuers did arrive, given what happened next. Between them, Kara, Kyle, Kay and Barbara sent over four thousand million people on both Earths into the Phantom Zone. When the last ones faded from the landscape, they turned their backs as the antimatter fusion intradimensional quantum missiles began to materialise in the skies above and blinding white fires and agonised surges of Cherenkov blue blossomed into hideous argosies. But this day, there would be no dying screams, no hopeless parents clutching their beloved children to them as oblivion arrived, no disfigured and hopelessly crippled figures trapped beneath collapsed and burning buildings, no charnel houses of leatherlike human flesh stretched over human bones. The four of them had committed an unparalleled act of valour and it would be celebrated as such.
As for the rival armies, they tore each other apart, but the metahumans ignored the spectacle, just as they ignored the silent corresponding mutual obliteration that led to the deaths of analogues of infinitely better and more selfless and heroic men and women. Kryptonite and red sun radiation broiled around one group, while another perished from sudden vacuum breaches and intensive irradiation. Several millennia after this battle, stray travelers encountered fragments of bone and flesh and puzzled at their origin.
As for the others, Batwoman returned to Earth 57, while Kyle and Kara stayed on Earth 47. Kara's alternate, Zealandia, settled on Earth-17, disagreeing with Kyle about his decision to abandon that Earth in the name of sovereignty for non-metahuman sapients. Finally, Kay returned to her home Earth 49 and told Tiresias about what she had experienced and the new lay of the Greater Multiverse. Secret Original was buried with full honours and great mourning on Earth-52. Five years later, that Earth experienced a singularity and its entire population evolved into hypersapience and left three-dimensional space for higher dimensional realms. As they joined their human friends and family in the Transcendence, Womanite, Machine Woman, Dark Stranger, Zurr-Vann, Alpha Sapiens and Ultra-Humanitarian all had a momentary pang of regret. When that moment arrived, they had always thought their friend, comrade, lover and mentor would always have been there alongside them all. Machine Woman shed a single oily tear. Before it landed, she and her whole world experienced the coming of the singularity and were gone, far beyond anything humans can adequately describe.
THE END