lie suburban community of Bakerline was usually a quiet place, comfortably removed from the fast-paced hubbub of the city. Strip malls, supermarkets, and fast-food restaurants served miles of peaceful residential neighborhoods, where the biggest news was generally a bake sale at one of the local churches, or maybe a hotly contested high school football rivalry.
But none of that mattered today as the innocent suburb was laid waste by a titanic battle between two enormous, inhuman figures. Jimmy Olsen, now a gigantic turtle-man, grappled furiously with Darkseid, who had grown to equally Brobdingnagian proportions to confront his former pawn. Banks and hardware stores were smashed to smithereens as the wrestling giants lurched against them. Broken glass and masonry rained down into the streets. Flames erupted from collapsed homes and buildings. Gushers sprayed from fractured hydrants and water lines. Sirens blared above the thunderous din of the battle as ambulances, police cars, and fire tracks raced through the endangered community, trying futilely to cope with the devastation left in the giants’ wake. Abandoned vehicles blocked traffic. Screaming men, women, and children ran frantically through the streets like extras in a Japanese monster movie.
“You will most certainly suffer for this, Olsen!” Darkseid bellowed. His stentorian voice reverberated for miles in every direction. Their epic struggle had carried them all the way from the Blue Mountains to Bakerline, leaving a trail of utter destruction behind them. Now over fifty feet tall, the evil New God towered over the hapless business district in their path. He butted his armored skull into Jimmy’s jaw.
“Not if I’ve got anything to say about it!” Jimmy swiped his reptilian claws across Darkseid’s chest, gouging the villain’s indigo armor and driving him backward into the redbrick facade of a three-story department store. The un-lUeky establishment caved in beneath Darkseid’s tremendous mass. Parked cars were squashed beneath the villain’s boots. Jimmy’s webbed feet crushed an empty SUV.
Darkseid lashed back at Jimmy, who landed hard on the mini-mall across the street, flattening the entire complex. “I don’t know how my control over you was pried from my grasp,” Darkseid ranted, “but no matter. I will still kill you, and the very essence of the New Gods will flow from your corpse into me!” His crimson eyes blazed like hellfire. ‘The Fifth World will be mine to shape as I will!”
“Over my dead body!” Jimmy blurted. “All fifty feet of it!”
“I don’t get it,” Jason griped. “How the heck did Darkseid get so freakin’ big?”
Superman dropped him, Donna, and Forager off on the roof of a deserted apartment building before flying away to join the relief efforts. Thankfully, the entire JLA had teleported back from Rann in time to assist in the evacuation. From their elevated vantage point, Donna watched as the League did what they could to cope with the emergency. The Flash hurried panicked civilians to safety at lightning speed. Green Lantern used his power ring to scoop up entire crowds in spheres of glowing emerald energy. Wonder Woman rescued stranded bystanders from rooftops with her Golden Lasso. Hawkgirl carried out her own airborne rescues. The Batwing made a rare daytime appearance, spraying burning buildings with fire-retardant foam. Superman rescued injured men and women from mountains of collapsed debris. Green Arrow and Black Canary, freshly returned from their honeymoon, defended storefronts from looters. His trick arrows and her sonic cry sent the troublemakers packing.
“He’s Darkseid,” Donna replied simply. Her face and bones still ached from the vicious pounding she had re-» ceived from Mary Marvel. A bandage was wrapped around Jason’s injured skull, while Forager’s arm was in a splint. Superman had wanted to take all three of them straight to the hospital, but they had insisted on seeing this earth-shattering drama through to the end. There would be time enough to tend to their sprains and concussions later— assuming the world was still around tomorrow.
“Indeed,” Forager confirmed. “The dark one’s powers are beyond imagining. I still fear for my Olsenbug’s safety.”
I don’t blame you, Donna thought. But at least we don’t have to deal with Mary at the moment. The traitorous ex-heroine had bailed on Darkseid right after Jimmy decided to emulate Godzilla. Donna scowled angrily as she recalled how the other woman had betrayed the Challengers and left them for dead. I’ve got a score to settle with that bitch, but not today....
She suspected Jason and Forager felt the same.
First, someone had to stop Darkseid from conquering all of reality. And, from the looks of things, that all depended on ... Jimmy Olsen?
* ifs *
“Perish, Olsen!” Darkseid roared. “And provide me with that which I alone deserve!”
Their gargantuan strife had tom a destructive swath through Bakerline all the way to the banks of Hob’s River. A powerhouse blow sent Jimmy reeling into the large suspension bridge connecting the suburbs to the city. Iron supports and tresties splashed down into the churning water. Jimmy’s webbed feet found purchase on the silty floor of the river. The cold water invigorated his huge reptilian frame. He grabbed on to the bridge, wresting it from its moorings, and swung it like a club at Darkseid. Steel girders and concrete smashed against the New God’s dark blue helmet. The clamorous impact rattled windows all across Metropolis,
, “What you deserve, huh? Well, mister, you’ve got it!”
Tinier than ever, compared to Jimmy’s colossal new proportions, the Atom scurried stealthily through the quivering canyons of the oversized brain. The silvery antibodies, which had also grown in proportion to Jimmy’s cerebellum, now looked as large as crocodiles. They scuttled about aggressively, clacking their pincers together, but, without even shrinking on his own, the Atom had become too insignificant to attract their notice.
Thank heaven for small favors, he thought. No pun intended.
His blue and red costume was sliced and shredded from the antibodies’ assault. Countless minor scratches and lacerations stung like hell, but, taking a quick physical inventory, he appeared to have escaped serious injury. Jimmy had undergone his inexplicable growth spurt just in time.
A violent tremor shook the cerebellum, knocking the Atom off his feet. A ledge of spongy gray matter cushioned his fall, yet the seismic disturbances continued to toss the
Atom from side to side. The Atom felt like he was stuck inside the San Andreas Fault during a major earthquake. Climbing back onto his feet, he stumbled awkwardly over the shuddering cerebral jelly. “Jeez, Olsen,” he griped. “What the hell is going on out there?”
He was tempted to exit the brain through the nearest convenient orifice. Unfortunately, he still had work to do inside Jimmy’s violated cranium. Although he seemed to have turned off the kryptonite effect, and somehow transformed Jimmy into a giant, by disabling that one biomechanical implant, still more alien circuitry extended deeper into the innocent reporter’s hindbrain. Like a prospector tracing a vein of glittering ore through a sweltering underground mine, he followed the flickering circuitry down the cerebellum into the brain stem, along the path of the posterior inferior cerebral artery, until he glimpsed a . brilliant golden glow up ahead.
That better not be just an overactive synapse, he thought as he squeezed through a slimy cortical fold to get a closer look. The light was so bright that he had to shield his eyes with his hand. Blinking into the glare, he stared in wonder at the source of the dazzling illumination. Paydirt, he realized at once. That is definitely not a synapse.
Embedded in the throbbing fissures of the medulla oblongata was a crystalline disk boasting intricate patterns of glowing circuitry. Alien symbols, of unknown meaning and origin, were etched into the surface of the crystal. The arcane characters vibrated before the Atom’s eyes as though imbued with literally supernatural power. Raw energy emanated from the disk, enough to make his hair stand on end.
‘‘Oh my God,” he intoned. Ray Palmer was not a religious man, especially given everything he had endured over the past few years, but a sense of genuine awe flooded over him as he beheld the futuristic artifact before him. He knew in his bones that he had discovered the hidden repository in which Darkseid had trapped the souls of the New Gods.
And was it just his imagination, or could he actually hear their voices whispering at the back of his mind, calling out to him in unison?
Free us, Ray Palmer. Return our souls to the Source.
The tide of battle was turning against Jimmy.
In the heart of Suicide Slum, not far from where Jimmy had witnessed Sleez’s death, Darkseid seized the giant turtle-man’s throat. Scarlet energy flared from Darkseid’s gauntlet, delivering a volcanic shock to his foe. Smoke rose from Jimmy’s singed red hair. His scales cracked and blistered. He let out a high-pitched yowl that sounded like a tyrannosaurus in its death throes. His clawed hands slashed wildly at Darkseid’s wrist, but could not break the New God’s death grip upon his throat. Darkness encroached on Jimmy’s vision as he started to black out.
“All this destruction, all this struggle,” Darkseid mocked him, “and all you’ve managed to overcome is my patience.” He levitated from the trampled cityscape surrounding them until they were floating in the air high above Metropolis. An unnatural vortex, composed of turbulent black clouds, formed overhead as though the atmosphere itself was reacting to the cataclysmic forces unleashed today. Violent winds filled the air with debris. Heat lightning flashed over the city. The rivers girding Metropolis were whipped into froth.
It’s over, Jimmy realized. His arms dropped to his sides as the last of his strength deserted him. He hung helplessly in Darkseid’s grasp, his webbed feet dangling above the demolished slum, while praying that somehow Superman and the Justice League would succeed where he had failed. Darkseid was just too powerful. I can’t beat a god... .
“Now,” Darkseid proclaimed for the all the universe to hear, “for the Fifth World to be mine, Jimmy Olsen must die!”
“Or not,” a much smaller voice disagreed.
The Atom leapt from Jimmy’s ear, rapidly gaining size and mass as he did so. At the same moment, Jimmy suddenly shrank back to his own normal proportions. His scaly hide melted away so that he was no longer a turtle-man, but simply plain old Jimmy Olsen once more. “What?” Darkseid gasped as the tiny mortal slipped between his fingers.
Jimmy plummeted toward the ground. A cold wind rushed past his face, reviving him just in time to see the broken pavement rushing up to meet him. Closing his eyes, he braced himself for the final, fatal impact. Just my luck, he thought. I escape Darkseid just to get splattered all over what’s left of Suicide Slum!
“Don’t worry, Jimmy. I’ve got you.” With only seconds to spare, Superman swooped to the rescue. He grabbed on to Jimmy and swiftly flew him away from Darkseid. Opening his eyes, Jimmy saw the rest of the Justice League hovering at the fringe of the battle, waiting for the right moment to intervene. Donna and Forager waved at him from a glowing emerald platform generated by Green Lantern’s power ring. Standing between the two women, Jason Todd nodded sullenly in his direction. He was relieved to see that they all were still alive.
Especially Forager.
“You’re safe now,” Superman promised. “Thanks to the Atom.”
Shimmering atomic orbitals surrounded the Atom as he let the swirling winds carry him onto the top of one of the few dilapidated buildings left standing in this urban war zone. He touched down on the tar-papered roof of the tenement. The luminous rings around him faded as he assumed his normal human height. His right hand held on tightly to a palm-sized glowing disk.
This is it, Ray Palmer realized. This is why the Monitor sent Donna and Jason chasing all through the Multiverse to find me. This is my moment.
An ordinary man or hero might have been intimidated by the fact that Darkseid was now the size of a skyscraper, but the Atom was used to facing foes many times larger than himself. “Hey, stoneface!” He held the glowing crystal disk up so that the giant villain couldn’t miss it. Waves of neo-divine energy emanated from the captured artifact. “I’ve got your little soul battery! Straight from Olsen’s medulla!”
Darkseid’s crimson eyes widened in alarm. For the first time in recorded memory, fear showed upon the tyrant’s face. “What? It cannot be!”
“You want it?” the Atom taunted him. “Well, tough!” Without hesitation, he crushed the soul-catcher in his fist.
A pillar of cosmic fire escaped the Atom’s palm, blasting into the sky like a sparkling golden geyser. Darkseid grasped desperately at his prize, but the released energy shot past his clutches as it rocketed beyond Earth’s atmosphere into the uncharted depths of outer space. Free at last, the souls of the murdered New Gods sought communion with the Source.
Darkseid’s fury knew no bounds. “Ray Palmer!” The turbulent storm clouds dispersed as the lord of Apokolips shrank back to a mere eight feet tall. Confronting the impertinent mortal atop the roof of a squalid human domicile, he sensed the manipulative hand of the Monitor behind this unfathomable reversal. “You’ve dabbled in these affairs for the last time. 1 may not have brought you back to this world, but I shall most gladly remove you from the game!”
He stalked toward the Atom, who backed up to the very edge of a precipitous drop. Darkseid’s armored fingers flexed murderously. Death by Omega Beams was too merciful a punishment; Darkseid intended to crush the Monitor’s despicable pawn with his own hands. Glowing orbitals enveloped the Atom as he attempted to shrink to safety, but Darkseid would not be deterred by so pathetic a stratagem. You will pay for your effrontery, the villain vowed, even if I have to destroy the entire nanoverse!
But before he could wreak his vengeance, the unmistakable detonation of a Boom Tube thundered directly overhead. A luminous passageway opened up in the sky above Metropolis.
“Who?” Darkseid blurted. By his count, the rest of the New Gods were dead. Before traveling to Earth for the penultimate stage of his grand endeavor, he had seen both Apokolips and New Genesis reduced to celestial ghost towns, devoid of all life. Even Desaad’s endless scheming had availed him naught in the end; the torturer had been executed in his own dungeon. Darkseid alone had survived the final culling. There could be no one left to traverse the cosmos in this manner except—the realization struck the villain like the crack of doom—he who slew the New Gods in the first place.
A radiant figure emerged from the Boom Tube, which swiftly dissipated behind him. Looking up, Darkseid beheld a humanoid male clad in formfitting armor of burnished cobalt and bronze. His athletic build was less stocky than Darkseid’s. A tinted visor concealed the newcomer’s eyes. His square jaw had a determined set.
“Greetings, brother,” the Infinity Man said. “We meet again—for the final time.”
Once, the being before him had been known as Drax, Darkseid’s older brother and heir to the bloody throne of Apokolips. An idealist, Drax had dared to dream of a lasting peace with the gods of New Genesis, until his brother shrewdly betrayed him and seized his power for his own. For years, Darkseid had believed Drax dead, consumed by a cosmic conflagration that Darkseid himself had engineered, but in time he had learned that his brother had instead been thrown beyond the Fourth World into the realm of the Infinite, a transcendent dimension where the ordinary laws of time and space did not apply. Reborn as the Infinity Man, he had provided a check to Darkseid’s most grandiose ambitions, all in the name of the Source.
The time has come, Darkseid realized. He had long suspected that his accursed brother was the true agent of the New Gods’ destruction. All thought of the Atom fled his mind as he prepared himself, physically and mentally, for his inevitable confrontation with the God-Slayer. A conflict bom countless millennia ago, when he first usurped his brother’s destiny, would finally be resolved this day. One way or another.
“Well met, brother.” Hatred burned in his blazing red eyes. “I hope you do not expect me to submit willingly to extinction?”
The Infinity Man landed on the rooftop opposite Dark' seid. “Stay your Omega Beams, Uxas!” he said, addressing his brother by his birth name. Darkseid had taken on his more fearsome sobriquet, one fraught with meaning in the prophecies of the New Gods, upon stealing his brother’s birthright. “Reconsider, Uxas. The moment is cast. Our time is done. But how you meet it will determine the fate of your spirit. Think beyond your overweening ambition and anger. Surrender to the will of the Source.” “Pretty words,” Darkseid retorted, “from one whose hands drip with the blood of the New Gods!”
The Infinity Man did not deny the accusation. “I am but the agent of the Source. The Fourth World has been judged and found wanting. Eons of endless strife between New Genesis and Apokolips have left the Multiverse no better for the constant warfare.” His voice rang with near-religious fervor. “A new and different tomorrow comes this way!” “I’m not so easily put to pasture,” Darkseid declared. His brother’s sanctimonious platitudes did not impress him. If anything, they only strengthened his resolve to outwit destiny and turn this epochal upheaval to his advantage. “The Fifth World shall indeed come to pass, but it shall be mine!”
Wasting no further time on meaningless debate, he gave his brother a taste of his Omega Beams. The scarlet rays ricocheted off the Infinity Man’s impervious armor, lighting up the skies like a deadly fireworks display. Discharged energy crackled loudly. Ozone filled the air.
“This changes nothing, Uxas!” He returned Darkseid’s attack with his own show of force. Golden Infinity Beams shot from his visor, striking Darkseid at close range. Coruscating waves of lethal energy shot forth in every direction as the rival gods contended with all their might. The blinding glare and ear-shattering clamor of their clash could be seen and heard as far away as Gotham City. “At long last, your treachery is at an end!”
The Infinity Man?
' 'Superman was shocked by the identity of the New Gods’ murderer. He had fought beside the Infinity Man before, usually against Darkseid and his minions, and had always considered the extradimensional warrior one of the good guys. It was hard to believe that he was truly responsible for the deaths of Lightray and the others.
Although Rao knows he’s powerful enough to take out his fellow gods....
Racing through the sky, Superman led the Justice League toward the destructive conflict tearing his city apart. Batman’s jet-powered Batwing sliced through the air, while Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and Hawkgirl soared under their own power. The Flash zipped through the devastated streets below. The Atom crouched upon Superman’s shoulder, holding on tightly to the collar of the Man of Steel’s cape. Donna Troy had volunteered to join the fight, despite her injuries, but Superman had convinced her and Jason to stay behind and guard Jimmy and Forager, both of whom were pretty roughed up by their recent tussles.
“Hey, Clark,” Green Lantern said as they approached ground zero. An emerald aura, generated by his own willpower, surrounded his airborne form. His power ring shone brightly upon his fist. “Whose side exactly are we on here?”
Good question, Superman thought. Ordinarily, his first instinct would be to target Darkseid, but right now he just wanted to break the gods’ fight up before it destroyed all of Metropolis. “We can sort out the good from the bad later,” he informed the rest of the team. “Let’s just shut this family squabble down ASAP!”
“Sounds good to me,” Batman said grimly from the cockpit of the Batwing.
“Agreed,” Wonder Woman assented. They’d had their differences in the past, but today they were all on the same page. “Earth is no place for sibling rivalry of this magnitude.”
I couldn ’t have put it better myself, Superman thought.
» “Stop this!” he hollered at Darkseid and the Infinity Man as the heroes converged on the bloodthirsty immortals. He fired a blast of heat vision to get their attention. Batman unleashed a batwinged missile that exploded between the two gods, temporarily driving them apart. Wonder Woman spun her Golden Lasso. Green Lantern willed glowing emerald chains around Darkseid, binding the villain’s arms to his sides. Hawkgirl swung at Darkseid’s head with a spiked mace.
The Infinity Man glanced at the JLA in annoyance. “Heroes of Earth, leave us be!” Wonder Woman snagged him with her lasso, but he effortlessly passed through its shimmering links. “This fight is mine and mine alone. Depart immediately and you will be spared!”
“Not a chance!” Superman flew between the Infinity Man and Darkseid. “This is my city—and my planet—and I’m not going to see it wrecked by your private vendetta!”
“Spare us your territorial indignation!” Darkseid growled. Exerting his godly strength, he broke free of Green Lantern’s restraints, which evaporated into a spray of chartreuse sparks. The psychic feedback provoked an anguished groan from the emerald hero, who tumbled backward clutching his skull. Hawkgirl’s mace shattered against the arch-villain’s helmet. He swatted her aside. “Soon all worlds shall belong to Darkseid!”
The Infinity Man’s visor glowed purple and an irresistible surge of antigravity catapulted Superman away from the New Gods, back toward Wonder Woman and the others. Drax threw out his hands, and the heroes suddenly found themselves trapped inside a floating geodesic sphere, composed of transparent orange energy. “Forgive me, Krypto-nian,” the Infinity Man said, “but you and your allies cannot be allowed to interfere with my sacred duty. Thus I must cut short your misguided heroics by encasing you within a prison of solidified light.”
“What?” Superman exclaimed. He pounded against the shining barrier with his fist, but its adamantine walls refused to budge. His fellow heroes joined their efforts to his. 'Wonder Woman removed her tiara and attempted to slice through the unyielding light with its razor-sharp edges. Regaining his concentration, Green Lantem drilled at the wall with a jackhammer composed of emerald light. Hawkgirl beat her feathery wings against the cramped confines of their cage. The Batwing fired lasers at its edges.
Yet not even their combined resources could make a dent in the sphere.
“Cease your futile resistance, Uxas!” the Infinity Man exhorted Darkseid as they resumed their contest. Unable to withstand the tremendous forces at play, the flimsy tenement building disintegrated beneath their feet. Crushed stone and mortar rained down on the blasted ghetto below, leaving the dueling gods suspended hundreds of feet above a smoking wasteland. “Would you destroy this hapless world merely to preserve your own existence?”
“My name is Darkseid!” Locking his fists together above his head, he brought them crashing down against the crest of his brother’s helmet. The blow staggered but did not drop his formidable adversary, and Darkseid followed up the attack by firing a burst of red-hot plasma at his opponent’s face. “And I will lay waste to all creation before I surrender to the likes of you!”
“So be it,” the Infinity Man proclaimed. His tinted visor cracked by Darkseid’s latest assault, he retaliated by delivering a solid jab to his brother’s gut. “But surely you have not forgotten the prophecy?” He recited an infamous augury dictated by the Source itself at the very dawn of the Fourth World. “ ‘Brother shall meet Brother in the bloodred light of the Fire Pits, and there they shall decide the War.’” Golden light seared Darkseid’s flesh. “That day is upon us, brother!”
A sudden tornado hurled them apart. The whirlwind whipped against Darkseid’s face, spinning him through the air. Glancing down in surprise, he saw the Flash, overlooked before, running in circles directly beneath them. The Fastest Man Alive seemed determined to blow them out to sea, far from the teeming mortal metropolis.
“Enough!” the Infinity Man shouted impatiently over the howling winds. He waved his hand at the Flash and the irritating speedster was instantly teleported inside the same unbreakable orb that contained his trapped compatriots. “These valiant mortals shall not keep me from my task!”
Darkseid took advantage of his brother’s distraction to blast him in the back with the full force of his Omega Beams. “Insufferable fool! I write my own destiny.” The sneak attack stunned the other immortal, and Darkseid savagely kicked his brother toward the ground dozens of stories below. “Today shall belong to Darkseid!”
Engulfed in bright, luciferous flames, the Infinity Man crashed into the heart of the city.
Superman and his fellow heroes watched the appalling spectacle from within the floating sphere. He prayed that they had managed to evacuate the city in time. He strained his super-hearing in search of innocent bystanders, but all he heard were the frightened cries and whimpers of terrified civilians many miles away from ground zero. His X-ray vision scoured the ruins of the collapsed buildings. Thankfully, there appeared to be no casualties trapped beneath the rubble.
“I don’t care what the Infinity Man said,” the Flash said beside him. Wally West carried on the legacy of his uncle, Barry Allen. He tried to vibrate his atoms through the shimmering barrier, only to bounce back into Superman. He zipped about the sphere in frustration. “We’ve got to do something here!”
Superman knew how he felt, but he also understood that matters had escalated beyond even the League’s control. The best they could do at the moment was make sure that ordinary men and women survived this literal apocalypse as best they could. “This is brother versus brother now, Wally. This is between gods.”
A steaming crater, over a mile in diameter, now occupied the center of the slum. The blackened ruins resembled the wreckage of Granny Goodness’s orphanage back on Apokolips. Darkseid felt quite at home as he descended into the depths of the crater. His imperial armor was charred and dented. Painful scars and bums defaced his stone gray flesh, but he paid his physical discomfort no heed. He would endure any ordeal, any torment, in his quest for ultimate power.
He found his brother’s smoldering form sprawled at the bottom of the pit. The Infinity Man’s once-gleaming armor lay in pieces amidst the blazing embers. The heat and impact of the warrior’s descent had glazed the cracked floor of the crater. Drax’s helmet had come loose, exposing his battered visage for the first time in ages. Darkseid barely recognized his brother’s face. Blood dripped from an ugly gash across his brow. Teeth were cracked and missing. Cuts, scrapes, and blisters formed a mosaic of suffering across his muscular body. More blood pooled beneath him.
“So much for the will of the Source,” Darkseid gloated. Placing his boot atop Drax’s skull, he ground his brother’s face into the broken glass. “I should have made sure you were dead the first time we clashed, but I shall not make that mistake again. Your genocidal campaign is over. Now it is your turn to die.”
The Infinity Man stirred beneath his tread. “Never,” he grunted through cracked and swollen lips. An unexpected burst of antigravity hurled Darkseid away from his brother, who leapt ferociously from the ashes. Without giving the startled villain a chance to recover, Drax pounced upon the other god. Fists imbued with preternatural might pounded away at Darkseid’s face and torso. “You cannot defeat me, brother! Ours is a battle of wills, and mine is 'untainted and true. I am evolution’s champion, the harbinger of the Fifth World, while you have ever walked the dark path of Anti-Life!”
Darkseid was caught off guard by his brother’s renewed ferocity, but he quickly recovered from his surprise. I should have known he wouldn ’t fall so easily, he chastised himself. Accelerated healing and superhuman endurance were among the Infinity Man’s gifts. But even without the souls of the departed New Gods at my disposal, Darkseid too is a force to be reckoned with!
Marshaling his strength, he threw Drax off him and lunged at his brother. The shock wave from their collision toppled nearby buildings. Mangled cars and trucks bounced into the air before crashing back down onto sundered blacktop. Snapped steel girders jutted from the ground like twisted pieces of abstract art. Smoke and dust blanketed the sky. Flames erupted from the ruins. The entire neighborhood looked as though it had been blasted back into the Stone Age.
“Heh!” Darkseid chuckled. Locked in combat, their contorted faces only inches apart, they fought hand-to-hand, neither combatant giving an inch. Spittle sprayed from Darkseid’s hps. He spit a mouthful of black blood onto the battlefield. “I don’t see your vaunted Fire Pits, brother, so what good is your talk of prophecy now?”
Blood streamed down Drax’s face from his wounded forehead. Sweat dripped from his straining limbs. “I shall fulfill my mission, Uxas, even if I must die to do it! Our deaths will mark the birth of a new age!”
Darkseid laughed at his brother’s fanatical ravings. “That’s the spirit! A pity you did not fight for your throne half so fiercely.” Sensing victory at hand, he was willing to be magnanimous. “These are the words of one worthy to be called my brother!”
“And yet we are nothing alike!”
The Infinity Man broke free of Darkseid’s hold and rammed his fist straight into his brother’s chest. The weathered breastplate yielded to his might and his arm plunged elbow-deep into the arch-villain’s rib cage. Darkseid roared in agony as the God-Slayer yanked back his arm. “What was it you said?” Drax asked. “No Fire Pits?” Gouts of bloodred flame erupted from the gaping cavity in Darkseid’s chest. A foul black organ was clutched in the Infinity Man’s grip. “Your hellish heart is Fire Pit enough to fulfill the prophecy!”
“N-no... !” Darkseid dropped to his knees. He clutched at his wounded chest. The awesome power of the Omega Force, which had rendered him invincible throughout his reign, gushed out between his fingers despite his frantic efforts to contain it. Spidery fissures spread across his face and limbs. Lifeless gray skin began to flake away, flaying him alive. Raw, red muscles melted from his bones. An aura of crackling crimson plasma ate away at his very being. “Not me... it was never meant to be me... !”
“Ever so arrogant, Darkseid, right to the bitter end.” The Infinity Man gazed implacably down at the once-dreaded master of Apokolips. The unleashed energies gushing from the villain’s chest built toward an inexorable chain reaction that would ultimately consume them both. Resigned to his fate, Drax made no attempt to escape the infemo to come. “Farewell, my brother.”
A fireball the size of Krakatoa exploded around them.
Green Lantern did his best to contain the shock wave within an enormous emerald force field. But even still, several city blocks were leveled by the volcanic demise of the New Gods. The Infinity Man's energy-sphere vanished with him, freeing the JLA to cope with the collateral damage. Supenman scanned the ruins for any trace of either Darkseid or his adversary, but reported not even microscopic fragments of their remains. Batman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, and the rest of the team fanned out to assess the extent of the disaster and render whatever aid they could. A pounding rain poured down from the sky, as though the heavens themselves wept over the extinction of a pantheon. The torrential downpour helped to extinguish the multiple fires ignited by the gods’ final battle. Miles of yellow police tape were strung up around the perimeter of the blast site.
The observation deck of the Daily Planet Building, which had miraculously survived the city’s latest brush with destruction, offered Donna and the other Challengers an elevated view of the battle’s aftermath. She and Jason and the Atom watched as Superman put out a burning homeless shelter with his super-breath, while the Flash constructed temporaiy housing at the speed of light. Wonder Woman transported emergency supplies in her invisible jet. In the street below, Jimmy helped Forager into an ambulance. A heavy fire blanket was draped over Jimmy’s naked shoulders.
“Wow.” Donna contemplated the cataclysmic events they had just borne witness to. “Darkseid defeated at last... I never thought I’d live to see the day.” She glanced up at the stormy sky. Were cool alien eyes viewing this very scene from afar? “I wonder if this is what the Monitor intended all along?”
“Maybe,” the Atom said. “We may never know.” “Screw that!” Jason snapped. “Screw you all in fact!” He stomped away from the guardrail, turning his back on Donna and Ray. A noticeable limp hinted at the extent of his injuries. Ripping away his mask, he revealed a pair of swollen black eyes. Bruises and a busted lip attested to the brutal beating he had received from Mary Marvel back in the mountains. His tattered leather jacket was stained with his own blood. “I’m through with all this cosmic anomaly garbage. All I want now is to get far away from the rest of you!”
Although she sympathized with his frustration, Donna was still hurt and offended by his attitude. “Oh, real nice, Jason!” she accused him. “You know, you’re not the only one who’s been used and betrayed here.” Her head still throbbed where Mary had hammered her into the ground. “After everything we’ve gone through together, I would have hoped for more from you. Haven’t you learned anything through all this?”
“Yeah,” he spat in disgust. “I’ve learned the saving-the-universe racket is for suckers.” Favoring his sprained ankle, he hobbled toward the elevator. “Have a nice life, losers!”
Speechless, Donna and the Atom watched Jason exit in a huff. Ray shook his head in disapproval. He gave Donna a bewildered look, as though he couldn’t believe Jason’s appalling behavior. “That bitter young man used to be Robin?”
“And a Teen Titan,” Donna added sadly.
She wondered what she had ever seen in him.
Jimmy had played the scenario out in his head a thousand times. He was at the Pulitzer Prize ceremony, accepting the award for his acclaimed journalistic account of everything that had transpired over the past several weeks. But when he looked into the audience, he saw fifty-two Supermen, fifty-two Batmen, even fifty-two Beast Boys for God’s sake. Fifty-two variations of a nearly infinite number of heroes and villains looking back at him. And that was when he realized that there was no way he could write the story. Who would believe it?
“It figures,” he said as he stared gloomily at the floor of his apartment. He sat backward upon a rickety kitchen chair, his arms and chin resting on its back. A half-empty glass of orange juice dangled precariously in his grip. “The biggest story of my career and it can never be told.”
“Yes. Well, life’s full of disappointments,” Forager buzzed unsympathetically, while she rummaged in the refrigerator behind him. A two-piece Lycra jogging outfit revealed that her alien metabolism had already healed the wounds she’d received from Mary Marvel. Her antennae twitched irritably. “Did I tell you that I’m still furious over missing out on the final battle with Darkseid?”
Only eight times today, Jimmy thought. He had apologized repeatedly for having to leave her behind when he went Godzilla on Darkseid’s butt, but it didn’t seem to have done any good. Forager’s ego had been smarting ever since.
“Hey, O.B.” She sorted through the leftovers in the fridge. “Is this Chinese food still good?”
Jimmy repressed a sigh. You know a relationship is headed for the Dumpster, he mused, when your cute extraterrestrial girlfriend shortens her pet name for you from “Olsenbug” to just “O.B.” He rotated his chair to face her. “Try some. If nothing moves in your mouth, then yes.”
« The quip failed to elicit a smile, let alone a chuckle, from the stir-crazy insect-woman. Being cooped up in Jimmy’s apartment during her convalescence had left her notably short-tempered. Jimmy was starting to wonder if they had anything in common at all now that they were no longer united in a common quest—and he was just an ordinary cub reporter again.
His extraordinary powers were gone. Ever since the Atom had extracted the soul-catcher from his brain, and liberated the trapped spirits of the New Gods, he hadn’t displayed a single unusual ability. Just as well, he thought. They never brought me anything but trouble.
Forager sniffed a cardboard container of three-day-old chow mein, then lobbed it into the trash. She closed the refrigerator with unnecessary force before turning to face Jimmy. Her slender arms were crossed over her chest. Her inhuman features bore a serious expression.
“Seriously, James, we have to talk.”
Ouch, Jimmy thought. The phrase that every guy loves to hear.
COMTDOWN SSI
Bay Palmer’s living room was uncomfortably similar to the one he had left behind on Earth-51. No surprise there; Jean had helped pick out the furnishings in both universes. The only difference was that this house hadn’t been trashed by a berserk Monitor.
Yet.
Home again, Ray thought morosely. He slumped on the couch in front of the silent TV. A stack of unopened mail was piled on the coffee table. The furnace churned noisily downstairs. The fireplace was cold and empty. A heartbreaking operatic aria played softly on the stereo. The soprano’s tragic lamentations fit his mood.
To their credit, the Justice League had done a good job of looking after Ray’s house during his long absence. A paid housekeeper had kept everything spick-and-span. Yet of all the bizarre places he had visited in die last two years, none felt more desolate than this lonely suburban home, which was way too big for one solitary super hero, even when, as now, he was his normal height. He couldn’t help wondering how that other Jean was coping fifty dimensions away, in a reality he would never see again.
He hoped she was happy.
“So now what?” he wondered aloud. The League had been supportive, giving him time to acclimate before reporting back to duty, but was that really what he wanted to do with the rest of his life? His career as the Atom had cost him the woman he loved—twice. Was that even a life he wanted to live again?
The doorbell rang, interrupting his moody ruminations. Who on Earth? Ray wondered. He wasn’t expecting anyone.
He was tempted to ignore the bell and pretend he wasn’t home, but curiosity prevailed. Dragging himself off the couch, he went to the door. He opened it tentatively, half expecting to find a Jehovah’s Witness or a youngster selling Girl Scout Cookies. Instead he discovered a tall brunette woman wearing casual attire.
“Donna?”
“I knew it,” she said cryptically. Without asking for an invitation, she stepped inside the house. Her piercing blue eyes probed his own. “You too, huh?”
Ray closed the door behind her and followed her into the living room, where she shucked off her leather jacket and made herself at home upon the couch. He sat down on the arm of the easy chair across from her. “Me too, what?”
“That antsy, unfulfilled look in your eyes,” she explained. “I know that look from my own mirror.”
Her confident assessment unnerved Ray, who tried to shrug it off. “It’s only natural we should feel at loose ends. We’ve been through a lot.”
> “And?” she prompted him.
No answer came. Ray squirmed awkwardly on the arm of the chair. What else is there to say?
“Yeah, I know,” Donna said. He had to remind himself that, unlike the Martian Manhunter, she couldn't actually read his mind. “It bugs the hell out of me too.”
The Bat-Signal shone above the city like a second moon. Jason Todd stood upon the rooftop of an abandoned warehouse down by the waterfront. Honking horns and police sirens filtered up from the grimy streets below. It was another busy night in Gotham.
He sneered at the bat-winged emblem in the sky. Once, when he was young and naive, the Signal had promised adventure and excitement. Now it only reminded him of his lost innocence—and a life that had been abruptly taken from him.
“Still fighting the good fight, eh, Bruce?”
Part of him had never forgiven Batman for not avenging his “death” by killing the Joker, let alone for moving on with his life and training a new Robin. To hell with it, he thought. That’s water under the bridge now. No more masks and capes for me.
He’d seen firsthand just how insane that life could get----
A muffled whimper reminded him that he still had business to take care of tonight. Turning his back on the Bat-Signal, he strode over to where a helpless figure, his arms and legs tightly bound with duct tape, struggled uselessly upon the floor of the roof. Gang tattoos marked the man’s shaved skull. Perspiration glistened upon the faded ink. Bloodshot eyes were wide with fear. More duct tape was stretched across the prisoner’s mouth. Blood dripped from a broken nose.
“They say knowledge is power,” Jason said with a smirk. “As a made man in the underworld. I’m sure you know that.”
The gang member mumbled something unintelligible. Judging from the man’s panicked expression, Jason figured he was about ready to squeal. Rumor had it the Penguin was running guns in this neighborhood, and Jason really wanted to get a lead on the operation before Batman did. If nothing else, he thought, I can use the ammo.
He drew a switchblade from his black leather jacket and flicked it open. “So lay some knowledge on me, smart guy”
Forget that Multiverse crap, Jason thought. This is where I belong. In the streets and alleys where I can make a difference—my way.
Too bad Donna couldn’t see that.
“Ray, you were there,” Donna reminded him. “You saw what almost happened.” She showed no sign of budging from his couch anytime soon. “Godlike beings playing games with the cosmos, with every living soul their pawn.” Her pensive eyes searched his face. “Doesn’t that trouble you?”
He looked away, avoiding her gaze. “I try not to think about it.”
“Really?” she asked. “And how’s that working out for you? Because I know it’s keeping me up nights ”
Ray felt a headache coming on. He squeezed the bridge of his nose. “What do you want, Donna?”
She got up from the couch. “An answer.”
“Okay,” he grumped. “And the question?”
She fixed him squarely in her sights. “Who monitors the Monitors?”
Huh? It took him a second to realize what she was getting at. “Oh no! Absolutely not!” Throwing up his hands to ward off the very idea, he spun around and started to walk out of the room. He shook his head in denial. “Are you insane?”
Surely, she couldn’t be serious!
Moonlight reflected off an arid wasteland that stretched for miles in every direction. Towering sand dunes shifted slowly beneath the relentless push of a cold desert breeze. The skeleton of a dead camel lay half buried in a gully, the remains stripped to the bone by windblown grit. A brawny figure, clad in a black silk uniform, contemplated the forbidding landscape surrounding him. A golden thunderbolt adorned his chest.
“Of all the kingdoms and empires that have come from the desert,” Black Adam mused aloud, “none have ever been able to match its stark majesty and cruel beauty.” He tipped his head to the sky. “Wouldn’t you agree, Mary?”
Guess those pointed ears of his heard me coming, she thought as she descended from the sky behind him. Her boots touched down upon the lifeless sands. “Ancient history isn’t really my thing, but as far as ‘cruel beauty’ goes, I’m with you all the way.”
She wasn’t surprised to find him here; this was his ancestral homeland after all. Nor was she startled to find that he had apparently regained his own powers, even after surrendering a portion of them to her months ago. Kind of like Billy kept his powers after sharing them with Freddy. Frankly, she was glad that she wasn’t the only Black Marvel in the world. There was at least one other person on Earth who understood what it was like to wield this power. Now that Darkseid’s gone for good, I’m a free agent. And I can team up with whomever I like.
He grudgingly turned to face her. His saturnine features were hardly welcoming. “Indeed?”
“Sure,” Mary said. “You should have seen me stomping gods and super heroes. You were right all along. The Justice League and the others, they’re no threat to beings like us. We can make our own rules.”
She didn’t expect Black Adam to greet her like a long-lost sister, but she figured he’d be impressed by how well she’d followed in his footsteps. Who knows? she thought. Adam and I have both lost our families, so maybe we conform a new Black Marvel Family?
But instead his voice dripped with contempt. “Spoiled, willful child. I have always done what I must, while you simply do what you want.”
“Want?” Mary felt like she’d been slapped in the face. “I didn’t want this! I didn't ask for this!”
If the gods hadn’t stolen her powers in the first place, and cut her off from her original family, she wouldn’t have had anything to do with this. She would still be the same happy Mary Marvel she was supposed to be. It’s not my fault!
Black Adam ignored her protests. Turning away from her, he started to fly away. “Do not come to me seeking a partner in your misery.”
Mary’s shock at his brusque dismissal flared into anger. How dare he abandon her—just like everyone else! “Don’t!” Lightning blasted from her fingertips, striking Black Adam in the back. “Do not turn your back on me! Not ever!”
The thunderbolt knocked him out of the air, causing him to crash down onto the moonlit sands. Smoke rose from his scorched uniform as he rose angrily to his feet, but still he refused to look back at her, as though she was unworthy of his notice. “I called you a child, and you reacted like one.” He took off into the sky once more. “As I normally find beating children distasteful, I shall simply take my leave.” She found herself staring up at the soles of his boots. “Farewell, Mary.”
She was tempted to fire another blast at him, but what was the point? He had made his feelings clear. “That’s .right!” she shouted after him as he disappeared into the distance. “You’d better run!” She shook her fists at the heavens. “I’m Man' Marvel! I don’t need you! I don’t need anyone!”
Lightning erupted all around her, tearing up the desert. Billowing clouds of sand raced outward across the dunes, leaving the aggrieved heroine standing alone in the center of a smoking crater. Her tantrum over, she took a deep breath and contemplated the messy aftermath of the explosion. The extent of the damage demonstrated, once and for all, that there was still one thing she could always count on.
“I’m Mary damn Marvel,” she whispered.
The rest of the world would just have to deal with that.
“First Donna. Now you two?” Ray sulked upon his easy chair. “One more super-being sets foot in this house and I’m going to start charging rent.”
“Sorry,” Jimmy Olsen apologized. The carrot-topped reporter perched on the arm of the chair next to Ray. “But Forager insisted.”
The insect-woman, who was wearing a restored version of her chitinous exoskeleton, was conferring in the comer with Donna, who had apparently invited them to this improvised reunion of the Challengers of the Unknown. The only consolation was that, according to Donna, Jason Todd would not be joining them.
I can live with that, Ray thought.
“But to what end?” He gazed at the alien female standing over by the entertainment center. “The gods she served, the worlds of New Genesis and Apokolips, are all gone.” Superman had informed the League that the two planets had ultimately crashed together, forming a new world whose future was known only to the Source. “I .can’t help her find any of her own kind who might have survived.”
Jimmy shrugged. “Yeah, well you tell her that.”
His weary tone implied that his ardor for the exotic alien had cooled somewhat. Ray felt sorry for the younger man; it seemed that true love remained evasive no matter what planet you were on. At least she didn% go crazy and murder your friends.
Donna and Forager finished their private conversation and joined the two men. “We’ve decided,” Donna announced, her hands upon her hips in a very take-charge manner. She sounded completely confident in her choice, whatever it might be.
“To leave?” Ray said hopefully. “Please?”
Donna shook her head. “We’re going to monitor the Monitors—with your help.”
“No way,” he protested. Just because he had figured out how to traverse the Multiverse didn’t mean he was planning to make a career of it. He lurched angrily from his seat. “And why would I want to do that?”
“Because you know they are right,” a solemn voice declared from a sparkling column of light. The teleporta-tion beam signaled the arrival of a Monitor, but not the one Ray first expected. Instead of the bearded Solomon, Ray recognized the clean-shaven Monitor of Earth-51, the one who had granted Ray sanctuary on his world until Solomon barged in and sent everything to hell. The one who had banished him from Earth-51 forever.
“Nix Uotan!” Donna blurted.
“Yes,” the Monitor confirmed. The coruscating energies dissipated, leaving behind the looming extraterrestrial in his intimidating high-tech armor. His black hair was bound up in a ponytail. “I have heard your words and agree. Sentinels are not infallible. Mistakes are made. Hubris, arrogance ... these are the pitfalls of those who become complacent with the responsibility they bear.”
Ray was grateful that the living room drapes were drawn. The last thing the neighbors needed to see was the steadily growing alien population in his living room. “Count me out!” he insisted. “I’ve got a life.”
“Really?” the Monitor asked. He eyed Ray dubiously. “Professor Palmer, you above all others should know the difference between living and merely existing.” He looked about the crowded living room, as though he knew exactly just how lonely and forlorn this place had been before Donna had invited herself in. “Have you ever felt more alive than when you were exploring the new worlds? First in the nanoverse, then in the Multiverse?”
He’s got a point, Ray conceded. What’s really holding me here?
He walked away from the others, trying to get a little distance from their arguments. “I tried running away before. It didn’t work.”
“You wouldn’t be running away this time,” Forager observed. “You would be serving a purpose.”
“I don’t know,” Ray said. “I—I’ve got to think about this....”
Donna came up behind him and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. “No. You don’t.”
Tin Monitors’ enormous space station, which was located at the nexus of the fifty-two universes, reminded the Atom of the Justice League’s satellite headquarters. Air locks and heavy steel bulkheads protected the heavily shielded base from the formless void outside. Insulated cables snaked across the walls and ceilings. A multitude of glowing view-screens offered pictures of all the myriad realities, from the postatomic wasteland of Earth-17 to a world of anthropomorphized cartoon animals. Portholes looked out onto the swirling vapors beyond the station’s walls. The air was clean and sterile. The gravity was mercifully Earth-normal.
“This is preposterous!” an indignant Monitor proclaimed. “Sheer madness!”
The Atom, Forager, and Donna occupied an elevated dais in the Monitors’ central assembly hall. Dozens of the armored aliens packed bleachers and galleries facing the dais, their individual appearances reflecting the distinctive nature of their respective universes. Fangs and pointed ears betrayed the vampiric nature of one Monitor, while another sported Victorian-style muttonchops. Facial hair, scales, feathers, tattoos, skin color, and variations in size and gender distinguished the Monitors from each other. The Atom scanned the galleries, but failed to spot Solomon among the quorum. According to Nix Uotan, the rebellious Monitor was now a pariah among his kind.
Solomon could be a problem, the Atom thought. We ’re going to need to keep a close eye on him.
“They do not belong here!” another Monitor objected. Her elaborate headdress looked vaguely Kryptonian in nature. “Their presence is an insult to our eons of selfless duty!”
“And yet here we are,” Donna said defiantly. Like the Atom, she had traded her civilian garb for her super-hero costume. Silver stars glittered upon her ebony leotard.
“You will abide by our decisions, or you will accept our punishments.”
Forager brandished a futuristic lance. “You know we do not lack the will to enforce them!”
The Monitors could barely contain themselves. They rose from their seats like an angry mob. “We are the Monitors!” someone in the first row shouted. “We answer to no one!”
“We are flawed!” Nix Uotan shouted above the uproar. He strode out onto the stage beside Donna and the others. “I sponsor these Challengers!”
“You!” another Monitor mocked him. “You could not even stop Solomon from invading your own universe!” Uotan did not back down. “All the more proof they are needed.”
“But they are anomalies!” An avian Monitor, whose scalp sported glossy black feathers instead of hair, pointed accusingly at the Challengers. “Only the being known as Atom’ has a world!”
The Atom stepped forward. “Not anymore!” His voice was strong and without hesitation. He had made his decision and he was going to stick to it, no matter what. ‘There’s nothing left for me in my world. I renounce my place in it.” He held his palm up as though taking an oath. “From now on, I join these others to serve the Multiverse as ‘border guards’ for man and Monitor alike!”
The audience was not yet convinced. “This is without precedent,” observed an elfin-looking Monitor whose armor bore a medieval coat of arms. “We must weigh your proposal carefully.”
“You misunderstand,” the Atom corrected him. “We didn’t come to ask permission. We came to serve notice.” He activated the controls upon his belt and brilliant atomic orbitals circled him and the two women. Harnessed white-star energies prepared to transport them away from the nexus. “We’re out there ... so watch yourselves!”
They disappeared into the Multiverse.
BfflUiraB'CJ! 319
“Well, well.” Solomon chuckled. “And so a new game begins.”
The renegade Monitor watched the Challengers’ departure via a miniature view-screen on his gauntlet. Although unwelcome among his fellows, he continued to track their affairs with interest. He savored their consternation at the Challengers’ professed new mission.
Who knew Donna Troy and her fellow anomalies would prove so amusing?
Solomon stood astride an asteroid at the literal border of the universe. Before him rose the Source Wall, a dense barrier of incalculable size. Although it appeared to be constructed of weathered ocher stone, it was actually composed of a unique preternatural substance more durable than any mundane element. Humanoid figures, some hundreds of feet tall, were embedded in the very substance of the Wall. No mere effigies, the figures were actually the entombed remains of the ancient Promethean Giants, as well as everyone else who had ever attempted to penetrate the Wall to discover what lay beyond. The victims of their own overreaching ambitions, they stood as eternal warnings to any other reckless soul who might dare to brave the Wall’s impregnable defenses. Few knew that, among other things, the Source Wall divided the fifty-two universes from each other.
“The Wall still stands,” Solomon stated, recording his observations for posterity. His personal force field protected him from the vacuum of space. “Despite his every machination, Darkseid won only scattered skirmishes, not the war. The Fifth Age will dawn. The Multiverse endures.”
And. I too endure, he thought, even while shunned by my fellow Monitors. He scowled at the galling injustice of it all. His bold vision and decisive action should have raised him high among their immortal fellowship, but instead he found himself an outcast. “So be it,” he spat venomously. “While they dither and debate, my plans unfold. Infinitely patient, I play for the highest stakes imaginable.”
Diverting the course of the asteroid, he cruised nearer to the Wall until it was close enough to touch. Its vast immensity filled his vision as he spied a solitary ledge jutting slightly outward from its ornate surface. “Let me be the first to add to the Wall in this new age.”
He reached out to lay a small object upon the ledge. Only seven inches tall, the exquisitely sculpted chessman was nearly lost amidst the colossal dimensions of the Wall.
“Darkseid would have been Creation’s new architect, yet his monument is the smallest of all,” Solomon gloated as he contemplated a miniature figurine fashioned in the likeness of Apokolips’s once-invincible ruler. “A token reminder for anyone foolish enough to underestimate me in the future.”
He vanished in a shower of sparks.
“Man, oh man,” Harley whispered. She perched on the fire escape of her and Holly’s new apartment as she stared up at the starry night sky overhead. An oversized Gotham University T-shirt served as a nightdress. Her bare feet dangled over the nocturnal alley below. A warm breeze, holding the promise of spring, rustled her pigtails.
“You say something, Harley?” Holly climbed out onto the fire escape beside her roommate. The fresh air felt good after painting the kitchen all day. Her ratty tank top and shorts were splattered with aquamarine splotches.
Harley kept on gazing at the stars. “I was just thinking.” “Really?” ' '
“Yeah,” Harley replied. “There’s so much going on here, and out there, and places we don’t even know about.” From where they were sitting, you could see the enormous crater where the middle of Suicide Slum used to be. The two women had managed to get a good deal on the apartment by pretending that they had lost everything when the New Gods exploded; they figured it wasn’t really all that far from the truth. “Everything’s so scary and uncertain. We never know when fate—or some wacky alien god—will shake it all up.”
Tell me about it, Holly thought. She cast a wistful glance at Harley’s T-shirt. Someday she hoped to return to Gotham, but that wasn’t an option right now; she was still wanted for murder there. Things could be worse, though. Metropolis didn’t quite feel like home yet, but at least she had a roof over her head and a friend to share it with. “That’s deep,” she told Harley.
Lowering her gaze, the blonde watched the construction crews working overtime to rebuild Metropolis. Darkseid and giant-turtle Jimmy had left a hell of a mess behind. “You gotta wonder how we’ll ever make it through what comes next.”
Holly shrugged. “I guess we can fall back on what’s gotten us this far.”
“A positive attitude and lots of denial?”
Holly laughed. “Don’t ever change, Harley.”
THE BEGINNING.