It has very clearly seen better days.
Something smashed the front doors apart, the hinges holding on while the doors themselves lie in the foyer. Along with a great many neatly-stacked bodies in varying states of decay whose blood has been used to draw demonic sigils on the floor and walls. Mr. Holt is an omnidisciplinary genius and it appears that his genius extended itself to demon magic.
...Ew. Thankfully nothing used the opportunity to come through... Yet. With Rakkar gone, I suspect the Lords of Hell are
sorely tempted to make their own moves on a vulnerable Earth...
"Mr Holt?"
The intercom crackles.
"Lantern."
Oh, boy. He's awake... And
hopefully clean, by the sounds of it.
"I can't find you with all these wards up. Where are you?"
"Why?"
Oh dear, is he suicidal...
Again? Given his heroic career started after a visit from the Spectre last time he was this low... Who knows
what he's going to do this time.
"So I can fix your arms and legs."
The lift doors clank open and Mr. Holt chunks out, supported by a bodged but solid looking mechanical frame.
I see he's been
busy. Not
bad for under an hour's work. While dealing with
multiple puncture wounds to all limbs.
"I'll say again." His mask makes it hard to tell what his exact expression is, but his voice sounds like a man who's been through the wringer. Which, obviously, he has. "Why?"
His wounds are bound with some sort of elasticised bandage, each of the spikes I saw go into him having either vanished back to hell or been physically removed.
Hopefully they weren't like a
Gae Bolg's wounding effect... That would have been
nasty. Though he's suffered worse in the comics, including surviving a trip to the Arctic with
broken ribs...
"Because everyone's been through the same thing as you, and we need someone intelligent enough to put things back together." I raise my left hand slightly, hesitantly pointing my ring at him. "Lex Luthor is confirmed dead, and I haven't been able to find out what happened to Batman."
"Put a gun in his mouth when he started changing." He shakes his head. "I just assumed it was a telepathic attack. I shielded this place against-." He cuts himself off. "Yeah. It makes sense. It's going to have to be me." He looks at my ring. "Is it going to hurt?"
...Wow, okay. That is
not how I expected Batman to go out.
"No."
An orange beam connects us, his body showing the same signs of extreme stress as the various cultists I've patched up in addition to the Glasgow grin and puncture wounds. When the light fades he checks the movement of his hands and then triggers the 'unlock' mechanism on his frame.
Surprised you didn't offer a Danner upgrade at the same time. Even at the
peak of human capacity, and freshly rejuvenated to his physical peak of
that... He's still only
human.
"Parallel universe?"
"Two different parallel universes. Diana and Crusader are from this one, Superman and I from Universe Sixteen and the rest from Universe Ten."
Worth remembering, this is
not Michael's first ride on the Parallel Universe party bus. '
Infinite Crisis', for a start...
"I recognized some of them from Axis Amerika. Is that a parallel where villains are heroes?"
"Um."
Awkward. How to best explain it...
"Oh. So what the hell-?" He shudders at his own choice of words. "What are they doing here?"
"Wolf Krieger was trying to expand onto their Earth. They know nothing about magic or parallel universes. They're just here to fix the problem at its source."
Right,
smartest man on Earth right now. Of
course he'd twig to their origin...
"Nazis are playing nice?"
"It's…"
"You went with what you could get."
Plus, they'd
already made contact with Earth-16, technically.
"In a decent civilisation, you can remain a reasonably moral individual by just doing what everyone around you is. For someone born in a world ruled by fascists, it takes… Effort, most people won't make, in order to become better than you were raised to be."
"True, but if they go right back-. We're in no condition to rehabilitate them here, even if they wanted to stay."
And they would see nothing to be rehabilitated
from, having grown up in that world. As far as they're concerned,
other Earths are aberrant. Though thankfully, they can't do anything about it. Not if Overman has any say in the matter.
"I know." I shake my head. "I'm just here to dump information on you to get you up to speed. I'll be talking through our ongoing 'rehabilitation' efforts with their Superman."
"What happened with our Superman?"
Yes, do tell. Is he awake? Suicidal? How much did he
experience of his possession?
"Hasn't regained consciousness since we got the demon possessing him out of him and destroyed it. Any idea what happened to him?"
Mr. Holt shakes his head. "It was an actual demon?" I transmit the recording to his mask. His stance changes slightly as get gets confirmation. "A parasite. All of this…"
Huh. Let's hope he
does wake up. Who knows
how Kryptonian souls and demons interact?
"With my parallel it was time travellers." I give what I hope is a sympathetic shrug. "Not quite this bad, but we lost a few countries."
"What's the global picture?"
I suspect if the Sheeda looked at
this period, they'd probably go 'Nope! Nopenopenope!' and pick another era.
"Morgan le Fey now rules Britain, and she's got things somewhat under control. The Marked were attacking her fortifications but that's not an issue any longer and she probably doesn't need help. Zandia has some religious organisation who was able to keep everyone safe."
…
..
And? I'm sure there are other places that survived? Or are you just focusing on ones you bothered to
find?
"What about everywhere..?" He realises. "Else."
"That's it. Everywhere else… The more urban, the worse things are. I'm sure-."
So, smaller tribes might have gotten off
relatively scot-free... Traumatised, but not badly harmed? I bet the Accala made a bit of a
mess in their part of the world...
Alert.
"Ah. Mister Richard Swift has returned to Opal City. I was hoping that he'd recover. It appears that Crusader's spell worked on even individuals with unusual physiology."
If anything I suspect he's feeling a lot healthier than he ever has in a while... The problem comes down to his friends and allies, though...
"So all the supervillains who survived are back in action."
"Yes, but all of the ones who used their powers for theft just became irrelevant. There's no economy. Even superhuman warlordism-."
"Would actually stabilise things. And probably keep regular people out of the line of fire." He sighs. "I had to burn my T-Spheres to avoid memetic contamination."
Ah, yes, his atheism... No Heaven, no Hell... Just alternate worlds with unusual native lifeforms, huh? But... He's probably right about the warlord thing. Sure, some people might be hurt or killed as they take over, but those who play along... They'll be
alive, if nothing else.
"You can just say 'magic'."
"That's imprecise." He looks around. He's not just seeing the bodies for the first time, but he's showing me that he's looking. "I knew these people. When I cut them up, they were happy to be used like that. What did this, I can't think of anything more evil. And I'm not even going to be able to bury them. We don't have time. I'm going to have to drag them outside and cremate them."
Though he's probably committed each and every name and face to memory. If their families are still alive, he'll want to make things right by them...
"No. I'll handle that. You need to get started on your T-Spheres."
He stares for a few moments longer, then nods.
After all, the world needs
heroes right now... And because of Rakkar's targetting Superman's friends and colleagues, they're in short supply, I bet.
"How long can you stay for?"
"At the moment, the Nazis are still on-task, hunting down Wolf Krieger and other villains who might be able to make a portal to Earth Ten. But that won't remain the case for long, and I can't leave them unsupervised. Call it three days."
After that, any problems are the Justice League's to deal with. Though I suspect Dox is going to have
quite a headache after reading his report of his 'days off'...
He nods. "Do you have a spare power ring?"
"I can make rings, but orange rings are memetic hazards too. I've gone crazy a few times using it, but-."
I suspect Michael
could handle it, if he can keep his goals in focus.
Alert! Will detected!
A green power ring flies in through the open door.
"But it looks like that's been taken care of."
Oooh. The Guardians have
no idea what they're unleashing... Or they want a
firm hand watching over the Life Entity's holiday home...
