Post by redsycorax on Sept 10, 2018 5:25:25 GMT
In a desolate corner of the multiverse there were four quantum entangled alternate Earths. What is novel is that the entanglement was comparatively recent, taking place during the mid-twentieth century. Their atmospheres festered with telltale radiation that belied their past and perhaps, their destinies.
Earth-986: On this ruined world, a devastating nuclear war broke out in 1986 as a senile US President overreacted to the invasion and occupation of Pakistan and encirclement and capture of Berlin. Provoked past the point of prudence, it toppled the weak regime of the Ayatollahs and imposed a puppet government in neighbouring Iran. Battlefield nuclear weapons were used in the Persian Gulf and then, when the Warsaw Pact invaded West Germany, there was no turning back.
Of this world's metahumans, Superman and Supergirl were stretched trying to remove the planet's nuclear weapons, even with the assistance of the Martian Manhunter. The USSR's Rocket Red Battalion tried valiantly to protect their homeland, as did the other members of the Global Guardians. Inevitably, though, there were failures. Metropolis, Gotham, Coast City, Star City, Bludhaven, Poseidonis, Tritonis, Midway City and Themiscyra were amongst the second tier American, Atlantean and Amazon cities that were incinerated. The United Kingdom was severely hit and the Netherlands, West Germany, the USSR and the rest of the Warsaw Pact were destroyed outright.
The Survival League also mourned its lost members- The Atom, Batman, Black Canary, Green Arrow and Aquaman were killed during the war. Superman and Supergirl provided a bolthole on the moon and evacuated survivors to a hastily improvised lunar colony. Green Lantern could not deal with the traumatic loss of Carol Ferris and his family and retreated into alcoholism. Hawkman and Hawkwoman returned to Thanagar. The Flash became the core technological strategist of the Survival League, but had his own problems at home. Iris Allen could not contact her family in CE 2986's Earth-West. The Martian Manhunter became darkened and pessimistic, now having witnessed the demise of his Martian homeworld and now, he feared, his adopted world as well. Desperation leads to strange bedfellows, it is often said...
Earth-665: While Earth-986 was a tainted, sickly red, Earth-665 was a haunted, scabrous yellow. On this Earth, the Manhattan Project and its US nuclear fission experiments failed to produce a working atomic bomb, with the consequence that Japan would not surrender and had to face an invasion.
The second divergence occurred in that nation's past. Units 100, 731 and 1644 were vastly more efficient than they were in many other timelines. This may be attributable to the fact that Princess Maru, adversary to Wonder Woman on many a "Golden Age" 1940s era alternate Earth as "Doctor Poison", chose not to confront the Amazon here but concentrated her efforts as Director of the Japanese bacteriological war effort. In 1946, as US marines stormed ashore at Honshu during Operation Olympia, the Maru Plague made its deadly appearance amongst them. Of that world's two and a half billion inhabitants, only twenty million subsquently survived.
Superman had to watch Lois Lane, George Taylor and Jimmy Olsen sicken and die at the Daily Star, powerless to end their pain even despite his Kryptonian technological prowess. Batman, Doctor Midnite, Starman, Sandman, Flash, Mr.Terrific, the Atom, Hawkman and Hawkgirl and Robin all perished in the epidemic. Of the Justice Society of America, only Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Doctor Fate survived, on a world where the global infrastructure of trade and food distribution ceased to exist. Wonder Woman faced haunting questions about why the Amazons of Themiscyra had done nothing while the world collapsed around them and retreated to her island home as Queen Hippolyta was succeeded by fiercely isolationist Queen Antiope. Earth-665's metahumans made contact with the ravaged Earth-986, and traded its intact food and mineral resources for the latter world's technological bounty. Then Earth-665's Doctor Fate detected two further aetheric disturbances in the multiverse's multidimensional framework.
Earth-971: On many other alternate Earths, the last major human famines occurred in China, Bengal (India), Biafra, Cambodia and Ethiopia during the twentieth century. But by Earth-971's seventies, accelerated soil and salt erosion, runaway ecological damage, political corruption, totalitarianism and a period of increased solar intensity tipped that world into a devastating total famine. Even with Batman's corporate scientific collaboration, with Superman's Kryptonian technological expertise and Wonder Woman's Amazonian advanced science, the world's major food producing nations were hard pressed to meet escalated demand. As starvation increased, so did unemployment, economic inequality, epidemic disease and warfare for the world's remaining foodstuffs. The Atom retreated to a subatomic universe, traumatised by what he had seen. Aquaman and the Atlanteans responded brutally to what were perceived as infringements to their maritime sovereignty and he angrily left the Metahuman Society as a consequence. Black Canary was killed trying to prevent a food riot in Chicago, and Green Arrow joined her when a nuclear terrorist attack destroyed Star City in 1978. Barry Allen had never experienced the chemical combination accident in Central City and therefore the Flash did not exist in this world, therefore he could not assist in emergency food distribution. Hal Jordan resigned from the Green Lantern Corps and Guy Gardner and John Stewart took his place. In 1980, Jordan died in the Second American Civil War defending the frontlines of Coast City as the rural hinterland attacked it. Soon, it became obvious that this global famine would not relent. This was an Earth in profound crisis.
Earth-948: The final of the quartet of damaged alternate Earths was probably the most politically organised one. While Earth-986 was textbook case of the enormity of global nuclear war, Earth-665 had been ravaged by runaway bacteriological research and warfare and Earth-971 was an ecological lesson in famine escalation, Earth-948 was relatively untouched materially. But psychologically...?
On this world, the former United States fell to a charismatic demagogue in the 1930s and after a coup d'etat destroyed Washington, the new capital was created in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Per Degaton had metahuman collaborators at his disposal, given that John and Mary Kent were true believers in Degatonism as a creed and Calvin Kent became his strong right hand as a result. Thomas and Martha Wayne funded him, and enabled him to invade Canada, Central America, Mexico and Brazil. The Vigilance Society backed the tyrant and aided him in the War of European Conquest (1938-1944), the Australasian Anshluss (1946), the East Asian War (1947-1953), the War of African Acquisition (1955-1956) and finally the War of Soviet Extermination (1964-1968). Many of the VSD's more human members perished as a result of the manifold wars that were waged to consolidate Degaton's global hegemony. Finally, when Overlord planted the Degaton flag in the smoking ruins of the Kremlin in May 1968, the world was at one.
Human rights and civil liberties vanished as the global dictator continued his grip and his loyal lieutenants- Overlord, Darkwing, Penthesilea, Greenflare, Predator Hawk, Momentum and Darkmage- ruthlessly suppressed dissent.
Earths 665, 971 and 986 were profoundly grateful for the humanitarian assistance that Earth-948 provided for them and did not count the cost. Traumatised by generations of war, plague and famine, they accepted conquest and subjugation if it meant that the wartorn, starving and infected inhabitants of their brutalised Earths had a chance at survival and some amelioration of their respective desolate plights.
Surrounded by the devastated and broken debris of countless alternate universes around them produced by successive multiversal crises, the Four Earths of the Apocalypse believed themselves the only survivors of the Multiverse. Until, one day...
Revelation 6: 1-8:
I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come and see!” I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest. ( Revelation 6:1-2)
When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come and see!” Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword. ( Revelation 6:3-4)
When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!” (Revelation 6:5-6)
When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come and see!” I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth. (Revelation 6:7-8)
Per Degaton sat at the head of the Roundtable of the Four Worlds as representatives of Earth-986's Survival League, Earth-665's Relief League, Earth-971's Recovery League and his own loyalists within Earth-948's Vigilance Society. For the most part, his rule over the four worlds within this confederation was unchallenged. While Earths 665 and 971 had not experienced severe infrastructural damage as a result of their respective global pandemic and famine events, their food and mass transportation networks had broken and required expediting through the intact infrastructure and transport and communication networks his world could provide. Earth-665 had considerable surplus food due to its reduced global population and could assist Earths 971 and 986 with their urgent food requirements. Earth-948 provided medical assistance to Earths 665 and 971, given their shortages of medical professionals.
Of the four worlds, Earth-986 was in the most desperate situation. Their global nuclear war had destroyed industry, agriculture, law enforcement, the armed forces, local and central government, transportation and communication networks and many of its indigenous metahumans. While Superman and others constructed lunar and orbital colonies for the surviving inhabitants, there was rampant mass starvation, death and lawlessness there. Earth-665 offered sanctuary, given its labour shortages and available public space, but had to operate a triage policy to avoid its medical services, weakened from the plague, being overwhelmed.
Overlord shone a holographier as Degaton began: "So here's the plan. Doctor Fate has been able to detect a sequence of intact alternate Earths within range of transmatter travel. We have avoided worlds that have significant concentrations of metahumans with abilities of sufficient analogous magnitude to your own. There are several worlds that meet our urgent needs elsewhere in the multiverse. This one is Earth-Q2, where a genetically engineered virus spared only its lesbian and gay inhabitants. This is Earth-500, a utopian and idealistic world with few standing armies. Earth-558 here had its metahumans emerge in sixteenth century Europe and Earth 11101 + ERROR here has anomalies which could prove useful to the Four Earths. Suggestions, please?"
Earth 11101 + ERROR.
On this particular alternate Earth, causality doesn't always work out the way it should, with implications for continuity of memories and history. Unkindly called the "Haneyverse" because of this, there are some confusing aspects to its metahuman population.
Superman has a younger brother called Zal-El, or not. It is difficult to see how this could have arisen, given that Kal-El was an infant himself at the time of Krypton's destruction. Lana Lang and Lois Lane still compete for Superman's affections, even given Superman and Lois are now married. Batman uses firearms and has contempt for due process, yet no-one comments on this. Batman is married and has a daughter called Maisie, with Robin still appearing with him, but with Dick Grayson nowhere in sight. Wonder Woman co-exists with Wonder Girl and Wonder Tot. Catwoman kills people and appears to be three different women.
As Batman strode onto the Justice League satellite, he was making a mental note to pick up Maisie from school. No-one thought it odd that Batman drove the Batmobile to Gotham Elementary to pick up his daughter and that she called him Daddy. Robin promptly appeared in the seat alongside him:
"Holy Hannah, Batman!!! Time to nab the Joker!!!"
"But I have to pick up little Maisie from Gotham Elementary, Robin."
"You do realise he's robbed Gotham First National Bank, don't you, Batman?"
"Ah, but look, he hasn't looked both ways before crossing and now he's been bowled over by that oncoming car! We don't have to do a thing!" As Robin faded out of continuity again without Batman noticing, Wonder Tot soared overhead, grabbing the dazed felon and carrying him off to Gotham State Penitentiary.
Superman almost collided with Wonder Woman until he braked suddenly, just in time to avoid an antimatter canon blast from Lex Luthor: "Curse you, Superman!!!"
"Great Krypton, Lex!!! You could hurt someone that way!!!"
"I was trying to avert a Martian invasion, you musclebound oaf!!!"
And then a shadow fell across Earth 11101 + ERROR...
As the transmatter sequence faded, Doctor Fate-665 grimaced. Green Lantern-665 noticed his long-time ally's discomfort:
"Kent?"
"I feel strangely disoriented on this world. It is as if there is something wrong with its very fabric. Fundamentally mistaken."
Superman-665 pointed to the red glow on the distant horizon: "Wait. Those are Martian invaders. How is that possible? This universe's Mars is uninhabited."
Green Lantern-665 instructed his power ring to scan the onslaught as they became airbourne:
"You're right, Clark, that it is. Except...that this world is being attacked by a horde of invading War of the Worlds analogue Martians. And appears to have a 'Martian Manhunter.' Yet the planet itself has never been able to potentially support anything other than microbial or bacterial life."
At that point, a distant heat ray hit Superman-665 head on and he faltered and fell:
"Uhhh! Thanks, Alan. That shouldn't have happened."
"Kent? Is there any reason that Clark's invulnerability would be compromised so severely?"
Doctor Fate-665 shook his head: "This world appears to have an unstable timestream. Cause and effect are not always coherent, nor is personal biography or even history."
"Which I suspect is why we're about to face a horde of central casting Nazis. Not sure why they're currently above the skies of Metropolis, given the Second World War has been over for decades and this isn't a world where the Axis won. Any magical artefacts, Kent?"
Doctor Fate-665 closed his eyes: "None that I can detect, Clark. Alan?"
"Hey!" A wooden arrow bounced off Green Lantern-665's defensive green screen.
"Alan?! Your ring is supposed to be vulnerable to wood..."
"Here comes trouble, Namely our alternates. Why does their Superman look like he's running in the air?"
"Great Krypton!!! You're me!!!" Superman 11101 + ERROR exclaimed.
"Holy Hannah, Batman!!! Why have Green Lantern and Doctor Fate turned evil?" Robin 11101 + ERROR gasped in adolescent bewilderment.
"Wait a minute. This Earth isn't supposed to have a cognate binary relationship with an alternate that has a Justice Society, or a JSA of its own. How do they know who we are?"
"There's only one answer to this!!! Shoot first, ask questions later!!!" Batman 11101 + ERROR shrieked, brandishing a large machine gun he'd borrowed from Sargeant Rock and his Howling Commandos.
It spat fire and although Green Lantern's power ring deflected its bullets, one turned out to be made of antimatter. It struck Superman-665, who fell through the sky until Green Lantern-665 caught him:
"Alan?"
"He's dead. You'll pay for that, you murdering bastards."
"Language!!!" Batman-11101+ERROR said, shocked...
At that point, Dr Fate could contain himself no longer and blasted Superman-11101+ERROR with eldritch fire. Superman-11101+ERROR turned into a rabbit and was infected with Kryptonian Myxamytosis X, keeling over and expiring in a plethora of quite unaesthetic spots.
Batman-11101+ERROR sobbed:
"But I have a daughter!!!"
"Suffering Sappho!!! You do?" exclaimed Robin-11101+ERROR.
Suddenly, there was a troublesome rumble deep under Gotham. Doctor Fate and Green Lantern-665 exchanged worried glances and activated their transmatter shift arrays, seconds before Earth-11101+ERROR succumbed to its internal contradictions and chronometric instability and shattered into discontinuous fragments.
On Earth-946, Per Degaton cursed aloud at his misfortune. He should have realised that the alternate universe in question was adjacent to the "Dark Multiverse" and was potentially unstable itself. No matter. However, the loss of Superman-665 was a significant blow. He redeployed them elsewhere. Hopefully, the more coherent worlds were still susceptible to his desires for conquest and subjugation...
Earth-Q2.
Gan Malloy (Green Lantern) accelerated upward toward the Justice League's Eyrie satellite. Watching him, John Constantine sighed:
"'Kinell. Dunno why that bloke doesn't just use the teleporter like the rest of us."
"Newly acquired abilities. It takes a while before some people grow into them. What?" Starman noted his lover's sudden unease,
"Krypton Man, Power Girl, Obsidian, up here now! Mikaal, suit up. Multiversal incursion."
"What? But we've never had one of those. Are you sure?"
"I'm trying to hold 'em back, but they seem to have already totalled one alternate Earth. There's a speedster involved too. Get ready, Blitz. Batwoman, sending you tactical now. Catwoman and Question, there appear to be no baseline costumed adventurers. We'll need you on the ground.
And then, abruptly, the Metahuman League of Earth-986 materialised above the planet. Superman and Supergirl-986 swallowed silently amidst the vacuum. No-one had told them how they would emotionally react to the spectacle of a pristine, almost intact alternate Earth. And then, abruptly, battle was joined. The two Kryptonians from the nuclear holocaust cinderworld were hit abruptly by the impact of Earth-Q2's two Kryptonian protectors:
-Zar?! Zar-Al?
-Kal. It's not too late to turn back.
-B-but you're...
-Don't do this. This isn't you.
-Goes double for you, lady. Stand down! Power Girl telepathed through the plugs in their ears.
-You don't know what things are like back where we're from. Our Earth experienced a nuclear war. Kal and I managed to get survivors settled on the Moon, but things are precarious.
-So why choose our world? We're recovering from a plague ourselves. It doesn't affect us, but your Earthside members will be affected if they try to attack us.
[Gan. They're not from our universe, and the effects of kryptonite tend to be isomorphic within each arena of the multiverse. "Our" kryptonite will not affect them...]
[Confirmed, Kate. Their GL was easy to contain. He seems... I dunno...demoralised somehow. Like he doesn't want to be here somehow? Or does. Weird vibes.]
[Guys? I'm getting an incursion alert from Central City. On my way...] Blitz interjected
"Mikaal, you'd better join her. I'll try and see if this bugger is thaumaturgic in origin..."
On Earth-Q2 itself, Blitz could already witness the Survival League's Flash/Barry Allen faltering as the Decima virus infected him. She caught him in time to avoid him accelerating unsteadily into a tall building, but he was already comatose and breathing irregularly: "Blitz to Gateway Satellite. One of the intruders is succumbing to Decima rapidly. His body looks...weakened by something."
Above, in Earth orbit, the Martian Manhunter materialised in front of Gan Malloy: "Whoa. Countermeasures, Ring?"
[This being may have originated from an environment akin to Mars. Although humanoid, it may be a shapeshifter. I also register metahumanoid strength, telepathy, inspace survival and other capabilities. Strong phobic reaction to fire]
-You will not find me so easy to subdue as Hal Jordan.
-Is that my brother Lantern's name?
-I fear that substance abuse has impaired his efficiency in this context.
-Look man, why are you folks fighting us? I heard your world suffered a nuclear war, but hell, we're down to about seven hundred million Decima survivors here. Your lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender inhabitants are welcome to settle here, but the resident plague kills heterosexual humans. I'm sorry about that. The virus may also have affected organic commodities and I'm not sure decontamination would work, otherwise you're welcome to the surplus.
In the satellite, Blitz appeared in the teleporter with the prone Flash of Earth-986, Before they could get him to a medibed, his faint and laboured breathing became inaudible. In a second, it ended altogether and his heartbeat went with it. Outside, Hal Jordan whispered: "Barry...:
"I'm sorry, I tried, but the infection took hold too quickly. It wasn't deliberate."
"I don't care. Your damned world pays for that." With that, Hal Jordan broke his imprisonment and soared downward toward the landscape.
"Hal, don't..." Superman-886 yelled through the telepathic plug. Supergirl-886 broke off her combat against Power Girl-Q and accelerated downward. But it was too late, as the warworld's Green Lantern made contact with Earth-Q2's atmosphere and immediately became infected with Decima. Kara enshrouded him with her cape, but it was already too late.
"Rao. How do we tell Iris he isn't coming back?"
"I'm sorry that happened. We didn't want to fight you." Gan Malloy said, biting his lip at the alternate Green Lantern's contorted body.
"And we didn't want to fight you. We're being forced into this by a third alternate Earth, one with a global empire in place. It's linked through transmatter transversal to other worlds, congested with a different plague to your own, massive starvation and in our case, nuclear war. If we don't comply, it'll cut off food and fuel supplies and emergency infrastructure to our worlds. Notably, its metahumans aren't part of the expeditionary forces established to try to subdue four particular alternate Earths in the Greater Multiverse."
"We know something about the Greater Multiverse. One of our survivors is a frontline chaos mage, John Constantine. I gather one of your detachments encountered the "Mad Earth", Earth 11001 + ERROR?"
J'onn J'onnz nodded in affirmation: "As your Green Lantern said, there is no reason to fight you and the risk of infection is too great to carry organic supplies back to our own world. However, things are desperate there. Humanity survives in a lunar colony, but its survival is precarious. Algae protein is used to feed them and we are assisting with Kryptonian and Martian medical technology. Even so, there are severe psychological burdens and survivor guilt apparent, as one might guess from a world that has undergone nuclear holocaust. As well as that, the irradiated cinder of our Earth remains there, a blasted vestige and memory of what happened. We need to colonise another Earth, but our multiverse transit network is unreliable and fragmentary."
Power Girl asked: "So, what are the other Earths under attack?"
"They are designated Earths 500 and 558 in the Harbinger Index."
"One of them's almost medieval, the other's an isolationist utopia. How will they fight something like yours?"
"Rao only knows" Superman-886 replied to her question.
Earth-558.
As he accelerated high above England, Sentinel saw the signs of industry and advance across its sixteenth century landscape, with ornithopters and helixpads evident from his vantage point. He scanned the distant skies for interlopers, but there were few. He waved to Lady Chancellor Lois De Laine as she sat alongside Queen Elizabeth I, Virgin Queen and Sovereigh of All England. He had landed in Henry VIII's England from distant Krypton back in 1538, and his appearance in sixteenth century Europe revolutionised the world around him. A French agent assassinated Lord Thomas and Lady Martha Wayne, leading to an embittered vow for vengeance from their young son, Lord Bruce. In future years, he became the mighty adept of the newborn scientific revolution, and the Darkshield against those who would frustrate the will of Her Majesty. Using the work of the Great Engineer Leonardo da Vinci, he reverse-engineered aspects of Sentinel's starship and shared his knowledge. Powered flight, rudimentary bombs, internal combustion engines and the beginnings of independent chemistry and physics spiralled forward from it. Although resurgent England had been able to neutralise and counter Spain's avarice and fanaticism by effective piracy and interference with its slaving operations, resulting in the disintegration of that overstretched and fissaparous country and the assassination of Phillip II in 1568, there was still the threat of France.
Unfortunately, France was more centralised and it had its own contingent of the Empowered. Catherine de Medici, the Chief Chancellor of France, had insured that when French warships assisted the Amazon island of Themiscyra to repell a thwarted Spanish invasion. Amazon Queen Antiope thenceforth joined her fortune to that of France and her medicine restored the weak and ailing Francois II to full health. Queen Catherine made her peace with the Guise dynasty who had sponsored the marriage of Mary of Scotland to Francois while Dauphin, and enabled Antiope's champion, Virago, to settle in France and marry the Dauphin Presumptive, Prince Charles. The Dowager Queen's Italian poisons disposed of him after he had given the House of Valois a useful heir. Virago remained in France as a counterweight to Sentinel and her Amazon science enabled France to keep parity with England as it rapidly advanced across what had taken other worlds several centuries to achieve. With Spain experiencing rebellions in the New World, and unable to respond, Earth-558 became locked in a deadly Anglo-French arms race...
"It all looks so green, so peaceful. So unlike our world." Superman-971 stated. anguished memories of their famine-devastated alternate Earth foremost in his mind.
"Hera. Their Kryptonian and Amazon analogues of ourselves have become implicated in a spiralling religious war. That's not all, Kal and Bruce. There are drones below us- although they lack the altitude and range to perceive us. I'm blocking out telepathic scrutiny from the Amazon, but-"
"I know, Diana, I can see myself. This world is at the chronological datum of sixteenth century Europe and the reigns of Elizabeth I, Charles X of France and Phillip II of Spain. Except Protestant England has recovered far more quckly from Bloody Mary's disastrous reign and the Spanish Empire is far weaker. But the technological level is late nineteenth century or early twentieth century. There are equivalents of you and I in Elizabethan England, Bruce."
"What are the divergences?"
"It looks like their Superman analogue helped to crucially weaken the Spanish Empire and it's fragmented into its constituent pre-conquista kingdoms. Phillip II is already dead. Oh, blazes. They've discovered nuclear physics already here. Or at least your analgoue has, Bruce..."
"Continue that to its logical conclusion and they'll have nuclear weapons next century. The Thirty Years War or English Civil War will escalate into nuclear confrontations, or the technology will leak to the Ottoman, Chinese and Japanese Empires and there'll be a global nuclear holocaust in the eighteenth."
Superman-971 nodded:
"We have no option. Fortunately, co-existence may not be a problem here. We can transport the survivors of our world over to this alternate universe and start again elsewhere. We know from our Earth-986 analogues that lunar colonisation wouldn't have been an option for us either- their people are dying."
"Trouble, boys. They've spotted us."
[It appears that the Princess has seen these intruders as well, Sentinel.]
[What is their ambition, Darkshield? Know you this?]
[They appear to be replicas of ourselves. As if they are from one of the bifurcated worlds that John Dee told us about before he assumed the Helmet of Nabu]
[Is there reason to suspect that they may come from a Catholic or Puritan dominated shadow world to our own?]
[They do not seem to have artefacts or emblems that succeed that. They also speak English, not French or Spanish, so England may be ascendant in their worlds much as it is in our own]
[Damn that woman. She's armed her invisible ornithopter. and is targeting projectiles at them.I will need to intercept them. Lord Wayne, can you disable that infernal vehicle of hers?]
The two men pursued divergent trajectories...
As Per Degaton scowled at the array of worlds before him, and at the qusling metahumans who were apparently intent on betraying him, he angrily turned to the desk in the Oval Office that was his, as global dictator. He ran his head through his red hair. It wasn't the first that he'd run a scenario like this- on Earth 718, he'd tried to manipulate President Lex Luthor into a limited nuclear war. However, the psychosis of his prospective pawn proved too great for him. Luthor's finger pressed the fatal button, and in a cacophony of despair and onset of blinding nuclear airbursts, the miraculously immune figure turned to watch as the world died around him. Ulimately, he was visible from Degaton;s Earth in an immaculate white sit and look upward. Despite himself, Degaton shivered, aware of a malevolent intellect some degrees above his own....
Alone amidst a charnel yard of the whole of Earth 718's humanity, Lex Luthor remembered...
-He met Dr Erdel in a darkened alleyway with his diary, filled with the confidential information about the exoplanet Krypton and its imminent demise a decade from now. And then, he shot him.
-Then there were those 'investigative reporters' from the Metropolis Daily Planet, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. Olsen was inexplicably mown down by a car in a darkened solitary sidestreet, while Lane was last seen running into a darkened alleyway. Staccato shots rang out.
-The third adversary was Lana Lang Luthor, his own estranged first wife. When she found out the enormity of what he intended to do, she couldn't live with herself. Drawing the curtains one night, she shot herself.
-Pete Ross perished in a derelict house, above a cobbled street, smoking a final cigarette before Slade Wilson completed his assasin's contract.
In Luthor's operations room, the number of portraits of obstacles to his indomitable will accumulated as other potential adversaries fell. Bruce Wayne. Wilson himself, after an attempted betrayal. Perry White, from lung cancer. One day, he walked into the Oval Office with the briefcase with its nuclear array operational codes within and set about exterminating the human race on his world.
On Earth 718, an accident of history seperated the life of Lex Luthor from that of Krypton's Kal-El. For that world, apart from its psychotic mass murderer, it would prove fatal.
Earth 500:
Widely regarded as a more innocent, almost utopian Earth, its multicultural Justice Alliance of America protected against it against all potential adversaries from elsewhere in the Multiverse. Its complement consisted of Vathlo Island Kryptonians Superman and Supergirl (Kal-El and Kara), Hawkboy and Hawkgirl (Kat and Shay Hol), the gay Atom (Raimundo Perez), Native American Green Arrow (Oliver Two Shafts), Aquaman, Batman and Robin (Bruce and Dick Wayne), the Japanese-American Flash (Rei Tanaka), Green Lantern (Hector Ramirez), and Princess Diana of Themiscyra (Wonder Woman), as well as Willie Fawcett (Captain Thunder).
When Per Degaton's invading armada appeared in the skies high above the pristine, unpolluted skies of Earth-500, they were not unexpected, it turned out. Captain Thunder's tutelary shaman had given considerable advance warning and also mentioned the unreliability of the dictator's unreliable allies. In any case, they had their own preparations underway. From the bottled city of Kryptonopolis surged an attack contingent from the Superman and Supergirl Emergency Squads, targeted specifically at Earth-948's Superman analogue. They carried microscopic fragments of Kryptonite from his universe of origin, while Themiscyra's Amazons intercepted its Wonder Woman, and its Batman was incapacitated by a stunner bombardment from its Batcave. Its Flash was felled by a vibratory interruptor weapon, Jonn Jonnz and Captain Thunder made short work of their assailant analogues and then the entire JAA surged toward Per Degaton. As he watched the metahuman assembly, Degaton bleakly realised that he had been betrayed.
On Earth 718, Lex Luthor shook his head at the debacle, smiled and then turned away. His time was now.
THE END
Earth-986: On this ruined world, a devastating nuclear war broke out in 1986 as a senile US President overreacted to the invasion and occupation of Pakistan and encirclement and capture of Berlin. Provoked past the point of prudence, it toppled the weak regime of the Ayatollahs and imposed a puppet government in neighbouring Iran. Battlefield nuclear weapons were used in the Persian Gulf and then, when the Warsaw Pact invaded West Germany, there was no turning back.
Of this world's metahumans, Superman and Supergirl were stretched trying to remove the planet's nuclear weapons, even with the assistance of the Martian Manhunter. The USSR's Rocket Red Battalion tried valiantly to protect their homeland, as did the other members of the Global Guardians. Inevitably, though, there were failures. Metropolis, Gotham, Coast City, Star City, Bludhaven, Poseidonis, Tritonis, Midway City and Themiscyra were amongst the second tier American, Atlantean and Amazon cities that were incinerated. The United Kingdom was severely hit and the Netherlands, West Germany, the USSR and the rest of the Warsaw Pact were destroyed outright.
The Survival League also mourned its lost members- The Atom, Batman, Black Canary, Green Arrow and Aquaman were killed during the war. Superman and Supergirl provided a bolthole on the moon and evacuated survivors to a hastily improvised lunar colony. Green Lantern could not deal with the traumatic loss of Carol Ferris and his family and retreated into alcoholism. Hawkman and Hawkwoman returned to Thanagar. The Flash became the core technological strategist of the Survival League, but had his own problems at home. Iris Allen could not contact her family in CE 2986's Earth-West. The Martian Manhunter became darkened and pessimistic, now having witnessed the demise of his Martian homeworld and now, he feared, his adopted world as well. Desperation leads to strange bedfellows, it is often said...
Earth-665: While Earth-986 was a tainted, sickly red, Earth-665 was a haunted, scabrous yellow. On this Earth, the Manhattan Project and its US nuclear fission experiments failed to produce a working atomic bomb, with the consequence that Japan would not surrender and had to face an invasion.
The second divergence occurred in that nation's past. Units 100, 731 and 1644 were vastly more efficient than they were in many other timelines. This may be attributable to the fact that Princess Maru, adversary to Wonder Woman on many a "Golden Age" 1940s era alternate Earth as "Doctor Poison", chose not to confront the Amazon here but concentrated her efforts as Director of the Japanese bacteriological war effort. In 1946, as US marines stormed ashore at Honshu during Operation Olympia, the Maru Plague made its deadly appearance amongst them. Of that world's two and a half billion inhabitants, only twenty million subsquently survived.
Superman had to watch Lois Lane, George Taylor and Jimmy Olsen sicken and die at the Daily Star, powerless to end their pain even despite his Kryptonian technological prowess. Batman, Doctor Midnite, Starman, Sandman, Flash, Mr.Terrific, the Atom, Hawkman and Hawkgirl and Robin all perished in the epidemic. Of the Justice Society of America, only Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Doctor Fate survived, on a world where the global infrastructure of trade and food distribution ceased to exist. Wonder Woman faced haunting questions about why the Amazons of Themiscyra had done nothing while the world collapsed around them and retreated to her island home as Queen Hippolyta was succeeded by fiercely isolationist Queen Antiope. Earth-665's metahumans made contact with the ravaged Earth-986, and traded its intact food and mineral resources for the latter world's technological bounty. Then Earth-665's Doctor Fate detected two further aetheric disturbances in the multiverse's multidimensional framework.
Earth-971: On many other alternate Earths, the last major human famines occurred in China, Bengal (India), Biafra, Cambodia and Ethiopia during the twentieth century. But by Earth-971's seventies, accelerated soil and salt erosion, runaway ecological damage, political corruption, totalitarianism and a period of increased solar intensity tipped that world into a devastating total famine. Even with Batman's corporate scientific collaboration, with Superman's Kryptonian technological expertise and Wonder Woman's Amazonian advanced science, the world's major food producing nations were hard pressed to meet escalated demand. As starvation increased, so did unemployment, economic inequality, epidemic disease and warfare for the world's remaining foodstuffs. The Atom retreated to a subatomic universe, traumatised by what he had seen. Aquaman and the Atlanteans responded brutally to what were perceived as infringements to their maritime sovereignty and he angrily left the Metahuman Society as a consequence. Black Canary was killed trying to prevent a food riot in Chicago, and Green Arrow joined her when a nuclear terrorist attack destroyed Star City in 1978. Barry Allen had never experienced the chemical combination accident in Central City and therefore the Flash did not exist in this world, therefore he could not assist in emergency food distribution. Hal Jordan resigned from the Green Lantern Corps and Guy Gardner and John Stewart took his place. In 1980, Jordan died in the Second American Civil War defending the frontlines of Coast City as the rural hinterland attacked it. Soon, it became obvious that this global famine would not relent. This was an Earth in profound crisis.
Earth-948: The final of the quartet of damaged alternate Earths was probably the most politically organised one. While Earth-986 was textbook case of the enormity of global nuclear war, Earth-665 had been ravaged by runaway bacteriological research and warfare and Earth-971 was an ecological lesson in famine escalation, Earth-948 was relatively untouched materially. But psychologically...?
On this world, the former United States fell to a charismatic demagogue in the 1930s and after a coup d'etat destroyed Washington, the new capital was created in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Per Degaton had metahuman collaborators at his disposal, given that John and Mary Kent were true believers in Degatonism as a creed and Calvin Kent became his strong right hand as a result. Thomas and Martha Wayne funded him, and enabled him to invade Canada, Central America, Mexico and Brazil. The Vigilance Society backed the tyrant and aided him in the War of European Conquest (1938-1944), the Australasian Anshluss (1946), the East Asian War (1947-1953), the War of African Acquisition (1955-1956) and finally the War of Soviet Extermination (1964-1968). Many of the VSD's more human members perished as a result of the manifold wars that were waged to consolidate Degaton's global hegemony. Finally, when Overlord planted the Degaton flag in the smoking ruins of the Kremlin in May 1968, the world was at one.
Human rights and civil liberties vanished as the global dictator continued his grip and his loyal lieutenants- Overlord, Darkwing, Penthesilea, Greenflare, Predator Hawk, Momentum and Darkmage- ruthlessly suppressed dissent.
Earths 665, 971 and 986 were profoundly grateful for the humanitarian assistance that Earth-948 provided for them and did not count the cost. Traumatised by generations of war, plague and famine, they accepted conquest and subjugation if it meant that the wartorn, starving and infected inhabitants of their brutalised Earths had a chance at survival and some amelioration of their respective desolate plights.
Surrounded by the devastated and broken debris of countless alternate universes around them produced by successive multiversal crises, the Four Earths of the Apocalypse believed themselves the only survivors of the Multiverse. Until, one day...
Revelation 6: 1-8:
I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come and see!” I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest. ( Revelation 6:1-2)
When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come and see!” Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword. ( Revelation 6:3-4)
When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!” (Revelation 6:5-6)
When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come and see!” I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth. (Revelation 6:7-8)
Per Degaton sat at the head of the Roundtable of the Four Worlds as representatives of Earth-986's Survival League, Earth-665's Relief League, Earth-971's Recovery League and his own loyalists within Earth-948's Vigilance Society. For the most part, his rule over the four worlds within this confederation was unchallenged. While Earths 665 and 971 had not experienced severe infrastructural damage as a result of their respective global pandemic and famine events, their food and mass transportation networks had broken and required expediting through the intact infrastructure and transport and communication networks his world could provide. Earth-665 had considerable surplus food due to its reduced global population and could assist Earths 971 and 986 with their urgent food requirements. Earth-948 provided medical assistance to Earths 665 and 971, given their shortages of medical professionals.
Of the four worlds, Earth-986 was in the most desperate situation. Their global nuclear war had destroyed industry, agriculture, law enforcement, the armed forces, local and central government, transportation and communication networks and many of its indigenous metahumans. While Superman and others constructed lunar and orbital colonies for the surviving inhabitants, there was rampant mass starvation, death and lawlessness there. Earth-665 offered sanctuary, given its labour shortages and available public space, but had to operate a triage policy to avoid its medical services, weakened from the plague, being overwhelmed.
Overlord shone a holographier as Degaton began: "So here's the plan. Doctor Fate has been able to detect a sequence of intact alternate Earths within range of transmatter travel. We have avoided worlds that have significant concentrations of metahumans with abilities of sufficient analogous magnitude to your own. There are several worlds that meet our urgent needs elsewhere in the multiverse. This one is Earth-Q2, where a genetically engineered virus spared only its lesbian and gay inhabitants. This is Earth-500, a utopian and idealistic world with few standing armies. Earth-558 here had its metahumans emerge in sixteenth century Europe and Earth 11101 + ERROR here has anomalies which could prove useful to the Four Earths. Suggestions, please?"
Earth 11101 + ERROR.
On this particular alternate Earth, causality doesn't always work out the way it should, with implications for continuity of memories and history. Unkindly called the "Haneyverse" because of this, there are some confusing aspects to its metahuman population.
Superman has a younger brother called Zal-El, or not. It is difficult to see how this could have arisen, given that Kal-El was an infant himself at the time of Krypton's destruction. Lana Lang and Lois Lane still compete for Superman's affections, even given Superman and Lois are now married. Batman uses firearms and has contempt for due process, yet no-one comments on this. Batman is married and has a daughter called Maisie, with Robin still appearing with him, but with Dick Grayson nowhere in sight. Wonder Woman co-exists with Wonder Girl and Wonder Tot. Catwoman kills people and appears to be three different women.
As Batman strode onto the Justice League satellite, he was making a mental note to pick up Maisie from school. No-one thought it odd that Batman drove the Batmobile to Gotham Elementary to pick up his daughter and that she called him Daddy. Robin promptly appeared in the seat alongside him:
"Holy Hannah, Batman!!! Time to nab the Joker!!!"
"But I have to pick up little Maisie from Gotham Elementary, Robin."
"You do realise he's robbed Gotham First National Bank, don't you, Batman?"
"Ah, but look, he hasn't looked both ways before crossing and now he's been bowled over by that oncoming car! We don't have to do a thing!" As Robin faded out of continuity again without Batman noticing, Wonder Tot soared overhead, grabbing the dazed felon and carrying him off to Gotham State Penitentiary.
Superman almost collided with Wonder Woman until he braked suddenly, just in time to avoid an antimatter canon blast from Lex Luthor: "Curse you, Superman!!!"
"Great Krypton, Lex!!! You could hurt someone that way!!!"
"I was trying to avert a Martian invasion, you musclebound oaf!!!"
And then a shadow fell across Earth 11101 + ERROR...
As the transmatter sequence faded, Doctor Fate-665 grimaced. Green Lantern-665 noticed his long-time ally's discomfort:
"Kent?"
"I feel strangely disoriented on this world. It is as if there is something wrong with its very fabric. Fundamentally mistaken."
Superman-665 pointed to the red glow on the distant horizon: "Wait. Those are Martian invaders. How is that possible? This universe's Mars is uninhabited."
Green Lantern-665 instructed his power ring to scan the onslaught as they became airbourne:
"You're right, Clark, that it is. Except...that this world is being attacked by a horde of invading War of the Worlds analogue Martians. And appears to have a 'Martian Manhunter.' Yet the planet itself has never been able to potentially support anything other than microbial or bacterial life."
At that point, a distant heat ray hit Superman-665 head on and he faltered and fell:
"Uhhh! Thanks, Alan. That shouldn't have happened."
"Kent? Is there any reason that Clark's invulnerability would be compromised so severely?"
Doctor Fate-665 shook his head: "This world appears to have an unstable timestream. Cause and effect are not always coherent, nor is personal biography or even history."
"Which I suspect is why we're about to face a horde of central casting Nazis. Not sure why they're currently above the skies of Metropolis, given the Second World War has been over for decades and this isn't a world where the Axis won. Any magical artefacts, Kent?"
Doctor Fate-665 closed his eyes: "None that I can detect, Clark. Alan?"
"Hey!" A wooden arrow bounced off Green Lantern-665's defensive green screen.
"Alan?! Your ring is supposed to be vulnerable to wood..."
"Here comes trouble, Namely our alternates. Why does their Superman look like he's running in the air?"
"Great Krypton!!! You're me!!!" Superman 11101 + ERROR exclaimed.
"Holy Hannah, Batman!!! Why have Green Lantern and Doctor Fate turned evil?" Robin 11101 + ERROR gasped in adolescent bewilderment.
"Wait a minute. This Earth isn't supposed to have a cognate binary relationship with an alternate that has a Justice Society, or a JSA of its own. How do they know who we are?"
"There's only one answer to this!!! Shoot first, ask questions later!!!" Batman 11101 + ERROR shrieked, brandishing a large machine gun he'd borrowed from Sargeant Rock and his Howling Commandos.
It spat fire and although Green Lantern's power ring deflected its bullets, one turned out to be made of antimatter. It struck Superman-665, who fell through the sky until Green Lantern-665 caught him:
"Alan?"
"He's dead. You'll pay for that, you murdering bastards."
"Language!!!" Batman-11101+ERROR said, shocked...
At that point, Dr Fate could contain himself no longer and blasted Superman-11101+ERROR with eldritch fire. Superman-11101+ERROR turned into a rabbit and was infected with Kryptonian Myxamytosis X, keeling over and expiring in a plethora of quite unaesthetic spots.
Batman-11101+ERROR sobbed:
"But I have a daughter!!!"
"Suffering Sappho!!! You do?" exclaimed Robin-11101+ERROR.
Suddenly, there was a troublesome rumble deep under Gotham. Doctor Fate and Green Lantern-665 exchanged worried glances and activated their transmatter shift arrays, seconds before Earth-11101+ERROR succumbed to its internal contradictions and chronometric instability and shattered into discontinuous fragments.
On Earth-946, Per Degaton cursed aloud at his misfortune. He should have realised that the alternate universe in question was adjacent to the "Dark Multiverse" and was potentially unstable itself. No matter. However, the loss of Superman-665 was a significant blow. He redeployed them elsewhere. Hopefully, the more coherent worlds were still susceptible to his desires for conquest and subjugation...
Earth-Q2.
Gan Malloy (Green Lantern) accelerated upward toward the Justice League's Eyrie satellite. Watching him, John Constantine sighed:
"'Kinell. Dunno why that bloke doesn't just use the teleporter like the rest of us."
"Newly acquired abilities. It takes a while before some people grow into them. What?" Starman noted his lover's sudden unease,
"Krypton Man, Power Girl, Obsidian, up here now! Mikaal, suit up. Multiversal incursion."
"What? But we've never had one of those. Are you sure?"
"I'm trying to hold 'em back, but they seem to have already totalled one alternate Earth. There's a speedster involved too. Get ready, Blitz. Batwoman, sending you tactical now. Catwoman and Question, there appear to be no baseline costumed adventurers. We'll need you on the ground.
And then, abruptly, the Metahuman League of Earth-986 materialised above the planet. Superman and Supergirl-986 swallowed silently amidst the vacuum. No-one had told them how they would emotionally react to the spectacle of a pristine, almost intact alternate Earth. And then, abruptly, battle was joined. The two Kryptonians from the nuclear holocaust cinderworld were hit abruptly by the impact of Earth-Q2's two Kryptonian protectors:
-Zar?! Zar-Al?
-Kal. It's not too late to turn back.
-B-but you're...
-Don't do this. This isn't you.
-Goes double for you, lady. Stand down! Power Girl telepathed through the plugs in their ears.
-You don't know what things are like back where we're from. Our Earth experienced a nuclear war. Kal and I managed to get survivors settled on the Moon, but things are precarious.
-So why choose our world? We're recovering from a plague ourselves. It doesn't affect us, but your Earthside members will be affected if they try to attack us.
[Gan. They're not from our universe, and the effects of kryptonite tend to be isomorphic within each arena of the multiverse. "Our" kryptonite will not affect them...]
[Confirmed, Kate. Their GL was easy to contain. He seems... I dunno...demoralised somehow. Like he doesn't want to be here somehow? Or does. Weird vibes.]
[Guys? I'm getting an incursion alert from Central City. On my way...] Blitz interjected
"Mikaal, you'd better join her. I'll try and see if this bugger is thaumaturgic in origin..."
On Earth-Q2 itself, Blitz could already witness the Survival League's Flash/Barry Allen faltering as the Decima virus infected him. She caught him in time to avoid him accelerating unsteadily into a tall building, but he was already comatose and breathing irregularly: "Blitz to Gateway Satellite. One of the intruders is succumbing to Decima rapidly. His body looks...weakened by something."
Above, in Earth orbit, the Martian Manhunter materialised in front of Gan Malloy: "Whoa. Countermeasures, Ring?"
[This being may have originated from an environment akin to Mars. Although humanoid, it may be a shapeshifter. I also register metahumanoid strength, telepathy, inspace survival and other capabilities. Strong phobic reaction to fire]
-You will not find me so easy to subdue as Hal Jordan.
-Is that my brother Lantern's name?
-I fear that substance abuse has impaired his efficiency in this context.
-Look man, why are you folks fighting us? I heard your world suffered a nuclear war, but hell, we're down to about seven hundred million Decima survivors here. Your lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender inhabitants are welcome to settle here, but the resident plague kills heterosexual humans. I'm sorry about that. The virus may also have affected organic commodities and I'm not sure decontamination would work, otherwise you're welcome to the surplus.
In the satellite, Blitz appeared in the teleporter with the prone Flash of Earth-986, Before they could get him to a medibed, his faint and laboured breathing became inaudible. In a second, it ended altogether and his heartbeat went with it. Outside, Hal Jordan whispered: "Barry...:
"I'm sorry, I tried, but the infection took hold too quickly. It wasn't deliberate."
"I don't care. Your damned world pays for that." With that, Hal Jordan broke his imprisonment and soared downward toward the landscape.
"Hal, don't..." Superman-886 yelled through the telepathic plug. Supergirl-886 broke off her combat against Power Girl-Q and accelerated downward. But it was too late, as the warworld's Green Lantern made contact with Earth-Q2's atmosphere and immediately became infected with Decima. Kara enshrouded him with her cape, but it was already too late.
"Rao. How do we tell Iris he isn't coming back?"
"I'm sorry that happened. We didn't want to fight you." Gan Malloy said, biting his lip at the alternate Green Lantern's contorted body.
"And we didn't want to fight you. We're being forced into this by a third alternate Earth, one with a global empire in place. It's linked through transmatter transversal to other worlds, congested with a different plague to your own, massive starvation and in our case, nuclear war. If we don't comply, it'll cut off food and fuel supplies and emergency infrastructure to our worlds. Notably, its metahumans aren't part of the expeditionary forces established to try to subdue four particular alternate Earths in the Greater Multiverse."
"We know something about the Greater Multiverse. One of our survivors is a frontline chaos mage, John Constantine. I gather one of your detachments encountered the "Mad Earth", Earth 11001 + ERROR?"
J'onn J'onnz nodded in affirmation: "As your Green Lantern said, there is no reason to fight you and the risk of infection is too great to carry organic supplies back to our own world. However, things are desperate there. Humanity survives in a lunar colony, but its survival is precarious. Algae protein is used to feed them and we are assisting with Kryptonian and Martian medical technology. Even so, there are severe psychological burdens and survivor guilt apparent, as one might guess from a world that has undergone nuclear holocaust. As well as that, the irradiated cinder of our Earth remains there, a blasted vestige and memory of what happened. We need to colonise another Earth, but our multiverse transit network is unreliable and fragmentary."
Power Girl asked: "So, what are the other Earths under attack?"
"They are designated Earths 500 and 558 in the Harbinger Index."
"One of them's almost medieval, the other's an isolationist utopia. How will they fight something like yours?"
"Rao only knows" Superman-886 replied to her question.
Earth-558.
As he accelerated high above England, Sentinel saw the signs of industry and advance across its sixteenth century landscape, with ornithopters and helixpads evident from his vantage point. He scanned the distant skies for interlopers, but there were few. He waved to Lady Chancellor Lois De Laine as she sat alongside Queen Elizabeth I, Virgin Queen and Sovereigh of All England. He had landed in Henry VIII's England from distant Krypton back in 1538, and his appearance in sixteenth century Europe revolutionised the world around him. A French agent assassinated Lord Thomas and Lady Martha Wayne, leading to an embittered vow for vengeance from their young son, Lord Bruce. In future years, he became the mighty adept of the newborn scientific revolution, and the Darkshield against those who would frustrate the will of Her Majesty. Using the work of the Great Engineer Leonardo da Vinci, he reverse-engineered aspects of Sentinel's starship and shared his knowledge. Powered flight, rudimentary bombs, internal combustion engines and the beginnings of independent chemistry and physics spiralled forward from it. Although resurgent England had been able to neutralise and counter Spain's avarice and fanaticism by effective piracy and interference with its slaving operations, resulting in the disintegration of that overstretched and fissaparous country and the assassination of Phillip II in 1568, there was still the threat of France.
Unfortunately, France was more centralised and it had its own contingent of the Empowered. Catherine de Medici, the Chief Chancellor of France, had insured that when French warships assisted the Amazon island of Themiscyra to repell a thwarted Spanish invasion. Amazon Queen Antiope thenceforth joined her fortune to that of France and her medicine restored the weak and ailing Francois II to full health. Queen Catherine made her peace with the Guise dynasty who had sponsored the marriage of Mary of Scotland to Francois while Dauphin, and enabled Antiope's champion, Virago, to settle in France and marry the Dauphin Presumptive, Prince Charles. The Dowager Queen's Italian poisons disposed of him after he had given the House of Valois a useful heir. Virago remained in France as a counterweight to Sentinel and her Amazon science enabled France to keep parity with England as it rapidly advanced across what had taken other worlds several centuries to achieve. With Spain experiencing rebellions in the New World, and unable to respond, Earth-558 became locked in a deadly Anglo-French arms race...
"It all looks so green, so peaceful. So unlike our world." Superman-971 stated. anguished memories of their famine-devastated alternate Earth foremost in his mind.
"Hera. Their Kryptonian and Amazon analogues of ourselves have become implicated in a spiralling religious war. That's not all, Kal and Bruce. There are drones below us- although they lack the altitude and range to perceive us. I'm blocking out telepathic scrutiny from the Amazon, but-"
"I know, Diana, I can see myself. This world is at the chronological datum of sixteenth century Europe and the reigns of Elizabeth I, Charles X of France and Phillip II of Spain. Except Protestant England has recovered far more quckly from Bloody Mary's disastrous reign and the Spanish Empire is far weaker. But the technological level is late nineteenth century or early twentieth century. There are equivalents of you and I in Elizabethan England, Bruce."
"What are the divergences?"
"It looks like their Superman analogue helped to crucially weaken the Spanish Empire and it's fragmented into its constituent pre-conquista kingdoms. Phillip II is already dead. Oh, blazes. They've discovered nuclear physics already here. Or at least your analgoue has, Bruce..."
"Continue that to its logical conclusion and they'll have nuclear weapons next century. The Thirty Years War or English Civil War will escalate into nuclear confrontations, or the technology will leak to the Ottoman, Chinese and Japanese Empires and there'll be a global nuclear holocaust in the eighteenth."
Superman-971 nodded:
"We have no option. Fortunately, co-existence may not be a problem here. We can transport the survivors of our world over to this alternate universe and start again elsewhere. We know from our Earth-986 analogues that lunar colonisation wouldn't have been an option for us either- their people are dying."
"Trouble, boys. They've spotted us."
[It appears that the Princess has seen these intruders as well, Sentinel.]
[What is their ambition, Darkshield? Know you this?]
[They appear to be replicas of ourselves. As if they are from one of the bifurcated worlds that John Dee told us about before he assumed the Helmet of Nabu]
[Is there reason to suspect that they may come from a Catholic or Puritan dominated shadow world to our own?]
[They do not seem to have artefacts or emblems that succeed that. They also speak English, not French or Spanish, so England may be ascendant in their worlds much as it is in our own]
[Damn that woman. She's armed her invisible ornithopter. and is targeting projectiles at them.I will need to intercept them. Lord Wayne, can you disable that infernal vehicle of hers?]
The two men pursued divergent trajectories...
As Per Degaton scowled at the array of worlds before him, and at the qusling metahumans who were apparently intent on betraying him, he angrily turned to the desk in the Oval Office that was his, as global dictator. He ran his head through his red hair. It wasn't the first that he'd run a scenario like this- on Earth 718, he'd tried to manipulate President Lex Luthor into a limited nuclear war. However, the psychosis of his prospective pawn proved too great for him. Luthor's finger pressed the fatal button, and in a cacophony of despair and onset of blinding nuclear airbursts, the miraculously immune figure turned to watch as the world died around him. Ulimately, he was visible from Degaton;s Earth in an immaculate white sit and look upward. Despite himself, Degaton shivered, aware of a malevolent intellect some degrees above his own....
Alone amidst a charnel yard of the whole of Earth 718's humanity, Lex Luthor remembered...
-He met Dr Erdel in a darkened alleyway with his diary, filled with the confidential information about the exoplanet Krypton and its imminent demise a decade from now. And then, he shot him.
-Then there were those 'investigative reporters' from the Metropolis Daily Planet, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. Olsen was inexplicably mown down by a car in a darkened solitary sidestreet, while Lane was last seen running into a darkened alleyway. Staccato shots rang out.
-The third adversary was Lana Lang Luthor, his own estranged first wife. When she found out the enormity of what he intended to do, she couldn't live with herself. Drawing the curtains one night, she shot herself.
-Pete Ross perished in a derelict house, above a cobbled street, smoking a final cigarette before Slade Wilson completed his assasin's contract.
In Luthor's operations room, the number of portraits of obstacles to his indomitable will accumulated as other potential adversaries fell. Bruce Wayne. Wilson himself, after an attempted betrayal. Perry White, from lung cancer. One day, he walked into the Oval Office with the briefcase with its nuclear array operational codes within and set about exterminating the human race on his world.
On Earth 718, an accident of history seperated the life of Lex Luthor from that of Krypton's Kal-El. For that world, apart from its psychotic mass murderer, it would prove fatal.
Earth 500:
Widely regarded as a more innocent, almost utopian Earth, its multicultural Justice Alliance of America protected against it against all potential adversaries from elsewhere in the Multiverse. Its complement consisted of Vathlo Island Kryptonians Superman and Supergirl (Kal-El and Kara), Hawkboy and Hawkgirl (Kat and Shay Hol), the gay Atom (Raimundo Perez), Native American Green Arrow (Oliver Two Shafts), Aquaman, Batman and Robin (Bruce and Dick Wayne), the Japanese-American Flash (Rei Tanaka), Green Lantern (Hector Ramirez), and Princess Diana of Themiscyra (Wonder Woman), as well as Willie Fawcett (Captain Thunder).
When Per Degaton's invading armada appeared in the skies high above the pristine, unpolluted skies of Earth-500, they were not unexpected, it turned out. Captain Thunder's tutelary shaman had given considerable advance warning and also mentioned the unreliability of the dictator's unreliable allies. In any case, they had their own preparations underway. From the bottled city of Kryptonopolis surged an attack contingent from the Superman and Supergirl Emergency Squads, targeted specifically at Earth-948's Superman analogue. They carried microscopic fragments of Kryptonite from his universe of origin, while Themiscyra's Amazons intercepted its Wonder Woman, and its Batman was incapacitated by a stunner bombardment from its Batcave. Its Flash was felled by a vibratory interruptor weapon, Jonn Jonnz and Captain Thunder made short work of their assailant analogues and then the entire JAA surged toward Per Degaton. As he watched the metahuman assembly, Degaton bleakly realised that he had been betrayed.
On Earth 718, Lex Luthor shook his head at the debacle, smiled and then turned away. His time was now.
THE END