PART THE FIFTH
"Reality Unmade!"

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What has gone before: Using the Spear of Destiny in conjunction with his own reality-warping powers, the Psycho Pirate has effected worldwide changes in an effort to transform the Earth into a replica of his remembered home, Earth-2.  Heroes of the Justice League, its reserves and their allies have gathered and learned that the Psycho Pirate is behind the global crises, while still more of Earth’s champions fight against the overwhelming fury of natural forces driven to the brink by the Psycho Pirate’s manipulations …

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DETROIT, MICHIGAN

 

“Hang on, folks!  Hang on as best you can!” shouted Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man.  The words were torn away from his lips by the monstrous wind that blasted through the city of Detroit.  Defying any scientific understanding of meteorology, a single, enormous gale whipped viciously through the city, entirely in a single east-west direction and at a uniformly unearthly intensity, as if the Motor City had been placed inside some titanic wind tunnel.  Ralph Dibny was stretched from streetlamp to streetlamp across a major intersection, an elastic human lifeline for the people who had been able to grab onto him.  Slowly, carefully, Dibny tried to loop himself around each person to keep them secure against the raging wind.  Around him, cars slid sideways down the street while detached neon signs clattered like glass tumbleweeds.

The Elongated Man raised another loop in the distended line of his torso, but before it was able to wrap around its target, the middle-aged woman lost her grip on Dibny’s rubbery back and was swept down the street by the relentless wind.  “NO!” Dibny cried out, trying desperately to lasso the woman with a section of his abdomen, but his body was already stretched near its limit and he was unable to catch her as she flew.

The woman wailed fearfully, limbs flailing, and then was suddenly silenced as another figure snatched her from her windborne flight.  With the smooth grace of a panther, the heroine Vixen had leapt into the air to catch the woman, and now with the strength of a charging rhino Vixen pulled herself and the shaken woman out of the maelstrom and into the alcove around an office building door.  Jagged eddies of wind still tugged at both women as the unnatural gusts slammed past the alcove, but for the moment, they were safe.  If the winds continued to build, however, and tore down the building itself, they would be more imperiled than ever.

Two blocks away, a municipal building did separate from its foundations, although not because the raging wind rent the brick and steel asunder.  The building simply ceased to exist, disappearing completely, and was replaced a moment later by a visibly different structure.  On the other side of the city, an entire shopping center rippled and morphed; the stores bore different names and carried different merchandise afterward, sometimes goods that had never been seen before in the entire world.  Amidst the chaos of howling winds, however, these changes passed unnoticed.            

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LONDON, ENGLAND

 

A few pints further into the evening, he might not have noticed the slowly swelling rumble coming from outside the pub.  But as he was only halfway through his third Newcastle, John Constantine found the near sub-sonic growl impossible to ignore.  Constantine snagged his cigarette from the lip of the ashtray on the bar and tucked it into the corner of his mouth, then stood up from his stool and turned toward the door.

“’ey, mate, y’can’t leave wi’out payin’, now!” the husky bartender protested.

“Be right back, then,” Constantine assured the man.  Maybe, he added morbidly to himself.  But something dreadful was settling into the pit of his stomach while running its fingers across the back of his neck, and maybe hardly seemed to cover it.

The pub Constantine walked out of was as seedy and disreputable as they came in the East End, but one couldn’t be all that particular in the middle of the night.  It had the right things going for it – namely, it was open and serving.  All Constantine had wanted was a little peace and quiet in which to down a few pints, before heading home for sleep.  But now that noise, growing louder and louder.

Constantine looked off to the east, the direction from which his gut told him the noise originated.  He looked and he saw, at first unable to comprehend what he was seeing, then comprehending but frozen by disbelief.  The North Sea was a good fifty miles away.  The sight of a tsunami wave over the horizon seemed a visual impossibility, yet the noise, the rumbling growl of onrushing seawater, lent a cold reality to the watery disaster about to engulf the city.

“Bollicks,” Constantine cursed to himself.  He found the mental wherewithal to dredge from memory an old, supposedly Atlantean spell that allowed a man to breathe underwater.  He cast it on himself, then reached out with his spirit and tried to cast it on as many people in the surrounding area as possible.  There was no time to save more than a fraction of them, but Constantine wagered he would give it a shot.  He wasn’t going to be doing any more drinking tonight.

One bloody awful headache tomorrow all the same, though, he told himself as the exertion of the spellcasting took its toll on him.  He took a deep drag on his cigarette as the growl of the oncoming tidal wave grew to a roar, and then London was immersed in frigid waters from the North Sea.

Along the North Sea itself, hidden by the base of the impossibly gargantuan wave, the coastline of southern England shifted, reflecting in the geological record a massive metahuman battle that had never actually occurred on this Earth.

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NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

 

Horse-mounted police had always been a common form of crowd-control in the Big Easy, as the cops would use the sheer size and weight of the animals, marching in careful step, to force the tides of human bodies into desired locations.  This night should have been no exception, but the mounted police found themselves victims of an unnatural, panicky rage that gripped every animal in the area surrounding Gulf of Mexico, including the normally stalwart horses.  Hooves pounded mercilessly at the air and at Bourbon Street revelers.  Horses reared wildly and with such force that they threw police officers into wrought-iron balconies two stories off the ground.  One mare charged at a neck-breaking gallop down the avenue, dragging a battered policeman behind her while the officer tried to disentangle his leg from the reins.

Les Ample braced his seven-foot tall, heavily muscled body directly in the charging mare’s path, arms outstretched.  Flecks of foam whisked off the horse’s lips as it thundered undaunted toward Ample.  A second before collision, Ample crouched and lowered his shoulder between the horse’s front legs, thrusting his arm between the forelocks.  Ample wrapped his arms around the mare’s ribs and lifted, halting the beast’s forward progress.  The police officer groaned in pain as his harrowing ride was at an end.

“Not sure what’s gotten into the horses,” Ample said to the cop as the horse struggled wildly to escape his grip, “but you better get yourself loose before I can’t hold this one any longer.”  The cop winced as he complied.

Outside the Cat’s Meow, Jack Fenris stood on the sidewalk with one hand held out, palm down.  In the street before him two police horses kicked stridently at the pavement, while their heads rested against the street’s surface.  Their bridles were magnetically held in place by Jack while he tried to figure out a more permanent solution.  For now, at least, if the crowd kept their distance from the two pinned horses, the beasts would be unable to hurt anyone. 

Throughout the city, a change came over the human population.  Old men, young women, sometimes entire extended families blinked out of existence.  A pair of men walking hand in hand through the Garden District seemed to fuzz and fray around the edges and then resolidified as variations upon themselves.  Outside the House of Blues a man killed in Vietnam at age nineteen suddenly reappeared as a fifty-year old as if he had never been gone.

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THE SPHINX, EGYPT

 

The Psycho Pirate hugged the Spear of Destiny to his chest with elation.  He wanted to dance atop the mythological monolith’s head, sing with joy to announce the wondrous rebirth of Earth-2.  “Earth-2, I love yooouuuu …” the Psycho Pirate cried triumphantly to the heavens, oblivious to the monsoon rainfall that deluged the Nile delta.  In addition to heavy sheets of pounding rain and snarling hurricane winds, the temperature in the section of the Sahara around the Psycho Pirate had risen above 200^o F.  The Spear of Destiny, however, created a comfortable barrier between its wielder and the travesties of nature mounting all around.

“Now, where did I leave the heroes …” the Psycho Pirate mused aloud, looking into his giant pearlescent viewsphere.  The meeting room of the Justice League satellite was displayed on the curved, shimmering surface, where the Justice League and their allies stood stunned and confused by the two Supermen now in their midst.

Batman was about to speak to the assemblage.  “Ah, my dear Caped Crusader, you aren’t quite the distinguished pater I remember,” the Psycho Pirate chuckled.  “And what I remember, you see, is the rule of the day …”  With that the Psycho Pirate touched the Spear of Destiny to the viewsphere, and released a burst of power.

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JUSTICE LEAGUE SATELLITE, IN ORBIT

 

Batman stood up and his black cape enshrouded his body with somber gravity.  Wonder Woman quietly made hasty explanations to the young and old versions of Superman, but the rest of the heroes quieted down as if a blanket of silence had been thrown over them.

“Before any other setbacks befall us, we need to move on the Psycho Pirate.  We have his location, and we know what needs to be done.  We -- ”  Batman was cut short by a spasm of coughing which caused him to double over. 

Huntress ran to his side, grief-stricken concern plain on her face.  “Dad!  Dad!  Are you all right?” she demanded as she laid an arm gently across the Dark Knight’s shoulders.  The cape falling from those shoulders grew lighter in color, from black to navy to a bright blue, and became shorter as well, reaching only halfway down Batman’s legs.

The coughing subsided, and Batman straightened himself.  “I’m fine,” he said absently to the Huntress.  A white mustache topped his upper lip now, and the exposed skin of his lower face had the aged look of a man of advanced years.  Most of the heroes murmured their confusion, but a long, silent glare from Batman eventually returned the room to silence.

“The Spear of Destiny needs to be taken away from the Psycho Pirate.  Now.  Who wants to go in first?”

Nearly every hand in the room went up.  Only Zauriel, who crouched near the Supergirl-turned-saurian creature in an effort to calm her, the implacable Spectre, and Huntress, who knew her father understood her readiness implicitly, did not raise theirs.

“All right, since everyone’s volunteering I’ll name the primary strike team.  Anyone who doesn’t hear their name, consider yourself on back-up detail.”  Despite the phlegmatic overtones of his sudden aging, Batman’s stentorian voice still carried unquestionable authority.  He made steely eye contact with each hero as he assigned him or her to the primary strike team.  “Firestorm.  Power Girl.  Green Lantern and Sentinel.  Flashes – Jay, Wally, both of you.  Captain Atom.  J’onn J’onzz.  Captain Marvel.  Rob…Nightwing.  You ten plus Wonder Woman, Superman and … Superboy … lead the way to the Psycho Pirate.  Everyone else stands by and stands back.”

Superboy rose to his feet, as did the elder Superman.  “Gosh,” Superboy said, “this is pretty serious.”

“It’ll be okay, son,” his senior counterpart assured him.

The heroes began to move toward the teleporters.  Batman reached out to Nightwing, still clad in the adult version of the Robin costume, and caught him by the arm.

“Dick,” Batman said gravely.  “I’m counting on the Psycho Pirate underestimating you in the midst of all these powerhouses.  And I’m counting on you to make the most of that.”

“I know, Bruce,” Nightwing half-smiled.  “I’ll … I’ll make you proud.”

“All right, all right, let’s go!” Risk’s voice boomed through the din as he ran into the teleporter.  “I’ll be scratching my back with the Psycho Spear or whatever by the time you all get it in gear!”

“Kid’s got the right attitude,” Guy Gardner said appreciatively.

“You would say that, Guy,” Booster Gold shook his head.

“Risk – WAIT!” Zauriel yelled suddenly, as he looked at the monitors along the wall.  “The teleporters are unstable – a massive gravity well has appeared in the center of the matter-transfer corridor …”

The angel’s warning came too late, as the energizing teleporter tube exploded, flinging Risk’s broken body across the meeting room.  Black Canary and Blue Jay were nearest to the teleporter door and were similarly mauled by the concussion flare of the explosion, while every other hero was rocked off balance by the blast.  Argent and Joto stared in horror as Arsenal rushed with false hope to Risk’s side, while J’onn J’onzz checked Canary and Blue Jay for any signs of life.

“Damn him,” Batman seethed.  Collecting himself, he announced.  “All right, we take the shuttlecraft down to Egypt.  And we end this madness immediately.”  He turned on Zauriel.  “I want you to stay here,” he ordered.

Zauriel still cradled the triceratops Supergirl in his arms.  “I will look after her,” he promised.

“Fine,” Batman assented, “but I was more concerned about him.”  The Dark Knight pointed an accusatory finger at the Spectre, and Zauriel nodded in understanding.

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THE FOREST SURROUNDING CADMUS RESEARCH FACILITIES

 

Hungry flames licked at the tree trunks, and the Guardian was helpless to do anything but watch as the wildfire raced closer to the research facility.  For all the times his strength and agility, as well as the trusty golden shield buckled to his left arm, had served him well, they were hardly much use against an inferno.  The Cadmus labs had been evacuated, yet Guardian felt obligated to stay near the facilities.  If the fire overtook Cadmus, if every laboratory came to a fiery end, the potentially destructive effects could have consequences as far away as Metropolis and beyond.  Guardian was unsure how he could prevent those effects on his own; he simply knew he couldn’t just leave.

In the distance, through the smoke, the Guardian could just make out a figure approaching in flight, carrying what looked like a massive bowl.  Guardian gave a sigh of relief as Superboy flew closer, holding over his head a gigantic foundry crucible.  Superboy tipped the crucible and gallon after gallon of water spilled out, dousing some of the forest fire in a loud hiss of steam.

When the crucible was emptied a small section of the forest was drenched and no longer burning, but the wildfire as a whole continued its inexorable flaming march toward the Cadmus facilities.  Superboy set the crucible on the ground, then flew to the suspension walkway on which Guardian stood.

“It wasn’t enough,” Superboy said with a mixture of anger and shame in his voice.

“I don’t know what would have been, Kon-El,” Guardian answered without reproach. 

“I could knock down all of the trees, get rid of all the wildfire’s fuel,” Superboy suggested.

“Not in time, you couldn’t,” the Guardian replied, his eyes scanning the flames as if an answer were hidden in their depths.  “The fire would still reach the lab and probably set off massive explosions in some of the more volatile envirochambers.”

“Then let’s get the envirochambers out of here!” Superboy insisted.  “There’s got to be something we can do!  We have to try!”

Guardian looked into the face of his young ally, and after a moment nodded.  “All right.  Come on, we’ll get down to the main level and see what we can jury-rig for you to airlift the chambers.  It’s a long shot, but…”

“I know,” Superboy finished for him.  “It’s all we’ve got.”

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MIAMI, FLORIDA

 

Cliff Steele waded through the hip-deep mud that clogged the streets of the city.  His hydraulic-powered leg joints made the task of movement somewhat less herculean, but movement alone was not enough for the erstwhile hero called Robotman.  All around, people had been swept under the mudslide as it spilled relentlessly across Miami, catching its populace completely by surprise.  The mud was viscous and heavy and pulled people under like a wave of primordial soup bent on reclaiming its experiments in life.  Here and there Steele could see a person struggling the escape the sucking clutches of the mudslide – a hand sticking out of the brown sludge, grasping at air, or the top half of a head.  Those small landmarks of victims gave reason and direction to his movement.

Steele forced his metallic body through the slowing flow of wet earth, and reached a hiking boot jutting out of the mud.  Steele plunged his hands down and grabbed the leg attached to the boot, then pulled as hard as he could.  Reluctantly the mudslide yielded up a young man, sputtering and coughing up clumps of dirt.  Steele righted the hapless man, who could maintain his balance now that the initial rampant rush of mud had subsided to a slow oozing.  Steele began to make his way through the mudslide to a tuft of bleached blond hair.

“All I wanted was a little vacation,” Steele muttered to no one in particular.  “Spend some time in Little Havana, maybe pick up some cigars, was that too much to ask?”

The terrified woman Steele pulled out of the muck was in no condition to answer him.  Neither of them were disposed to notice the newsstand on a nearby corner, where the morning editions clipped to the awning shimmered and shifted, until the masthead of the Daily Planet read DAILY STAR.  Beneath the paper’s new name the swirling ink formed the words “Clark Kent, Editor-in-Chief.”

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GOTHAM CITY

 

Lightning strobed the Gotham sky incessantly, like gigantic, blinding camera flashes at a scandal-capping press conference.  Along with illuminating the clouds overhead, the lightning slashed down into the city itself as if the sky were waging electrical war on Gotham.  On a short sidestreet, a young couple who had been on a late night drive to nowhere in particular stopped their car, and climbed onto its roof to watch the pyrotechnics overhead.

A few seconds later a lightning bolt sizzled through the air and struck the transformer on a nearby power pole.  The transformer exploded in a furious cloud of sparks, and several live power lines separated from their moorings in the blast.  Spitting current, the lines began to fall from the top of the pole, headed directly for the roof of the young couple’s car.

A blur of motion swept pendulum-like over the hood of the car, as Robin swung across the street on a grapple-line and grabbed the young man and woman each by their shirts near the shoulder.  The three rose up into the air just as the power lines touched the car hood and sent a powerful current through the chassis.  Robin guided the swinging motion of the trio up to a ledge on a nearby building, where he set the couple down.

“You folks shouldn’t have gotten out of your car like that,” Robin admonished them, hoping he sounded as convincing as Batman would have.  “But from the smell of liquor on you both, you probably shouldn’t have been driving in the first place, either.”

Before Robin could say another word, lightning struck the wall of the building just above the ledge they huddled on.  Brickwork was torn apart by the force of the bolt, the ledge cracked and gave way, and the threesome found themselves falling to the street below.

“!swollip ot nrut sirbeD” a woman’s voice called out from below.  Magically, the hunks of concrete which were falling around Robin and the young couple transformed into large, fluffy pillows, which cushioned the impact with the street.  Laying on his back on the protective layer of pillows, Robin said to the couple, “Get out of here.  Get inside somewhere safe and stay low getting there.”  The couple rose shakily to their feet and staggered off, bent over at their waists.  Robin stared up at the sky and could hear the clack-clack of high heels approaching.  “Hi, Zatanna.  Thanks,” he said without turning his head.  A block or so away, lightning struck another car and sent its car alarm into a frenzied warble.

“You’re welcome, Boy Wonder,” the magician answered.

“Don’t call me that …” Robin leapt to his feet to face Zatanna, searching for a belittling epithet which he could use on her, but was distracted by her shapely, fishnet-clad legs.  “Please,” he finished lamely.

“Sorry,” Zatanna smiled brilliantly, touching a salutary finger to the brim of her top hat.  “Nasty weather tonight, huh?”

“Yeah,” Robin agreed.  “It’s not natural.  I’ve tried reaching Batman but he’s not answering.  Probably getting to the bottom of what’s going on.”

“Well then you and I will have to take care of Gotham in the meantime,” the beautiful magician declared.

Robin nodded, trying to remember if there was anyone else in the city that might help.  A word tried to form in back of his mind – Azrael – but he couldn’t associate any meaning with it.  Never in the history of the Earth, certainly in Tim Drake’s lifetime, had there been any crimefighter in Gotham called “Azrael.”  No such person had ever existed.

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THE SPHINX, EGYPT

 

The Justice League shuttle cruised through the upper atmosphere at top speed, its carrying capacity nearly overloaded.  Yet despite being crammed into the cabin shoulder-to-shoulder, the heroes were somberly silent.  Each one reflected on the battle to come, and on facing a madman armed with one of the most powerful artifacts in any reality.  As the shuttle settled to the Sahara sands in the middle of the worst monsoon the planet had known in a thousand thousand years, Earth’s heroes steeled themselves.  The hatch door hissed open, and the Justice League and their allies filed out of the shuttle.

“Holy cow!” Blue Beetle exclaimed as he stepped onto the desert floor.  “The air feels like a blast furnace!”

“Yeah, it’s hotter’n Hades around here,” Guy Gardner agreed.

“Not quite,” Wonder Woman replied evenly.  “But it is unnatural for the surface world, at the very least.”

“One more thing we don’t have time to worry about,” Batman put in.  “Primary strike team, you know what needs to be done.”  The Dark Knight pointed at the Sphinx in the distance, and the bright light atop it that could only be the Spear of Destiny.  “Go!” he commanded.

Thirteen heroes raced toward the Sphinx, and the Psycho Pirate watched them approach.  The madman hefted the Spear high and swept it in a wide circle above his head.  Gigantic heads began to glimmer into existence around the monolith.  The heads coalesced fifty feet above the desert sands, each one the colossal avatar of an old foe.  The jagged, frost white hood of the Icicle peered down at heroes, along with the wild, gray-haired Fiddler and the black-silk top hat over the ebony eyes of the Wizard, all to the left of the Psycho Pirate.  To his right, the billowing green hood of Dr. Alchemy was joined by the black and white facemask of Chronos and the purple headdress of Felix Faust.  Soon the villains’ costumed bodies began to form as well, and the Icicle pointed his icicle-gun at the approaching heroes, while Dr. Alchemy leveled his Philosopher’s Stone.  Massive twin blasts lanced through the acrid air.

Sentinel and Green Lantern quickly willed their power rings to protect themselves and the rest of the primary strike team.  Green Lantern created a square hover platform that lifted Nightwing and the Flashes off the ground just as Dr. Alchemy converted the sand on which they were running to boiling acid.  Sentinel projected an emerald dome above everyone to deflect the freeze ray fired by the Icicle.  The ray bounced to the side and iced over a huge dune, which immediately began to melt in the oppressive heat.

The next moment found the thirteen heroes within striking range of the Psycho Pirate, with all of the villainous avatars moving to block their advance.  The heroes quickly maneuvered into an attack formation and plowed into the avatars.  Firestorm converted a giant clock thrown by Chronos into confetti, then hurled a nuclear-powered blast of his own which, combined with a quantum blast courtesy of Captain Atom, forced the gaudily-clad villain backwards.  Wonder Woman flew unerringly for the Wizard’s magic wand, tore it from his grasp and swung it like a warhammer into the side of the Wizard’s head.  The strength of the Amazon’s blow knocked the villain to his hands and knees.  Jay Garrick ran in a blur of red and blue, up the arm of the Fiddler to his shoulder, and delivered a volley of superspeed punches to the massive, gaunt cheekbone looming before him.  Green Lantern aimed his power ring at Felix Faust and summoned forth a gargantuan jade straitjacket to bind the villain.  The Martian Manhunter aimed his searing heat vision at the Icicle as he flew over the villain’s head, stunning the giant long enough to reach the back of its hood and pull with all his might, flipping the avatar onto its back.  Superboy grabbed hold of Dr. Alchemy by his flowing green cape and pulled it over the villain’s face, blinding his oversized opponent long enough for Superboy to wind up a haymaker and lay it solidly across Alchemy’s head.  The punch lifted Dr. Alchemy off the ground; the villain fell to a heap when he touched Earth again.

The obstacles to their progress removed, Nightwing, Wally West, Power Girl, Captain Marvel, Sentinel and the elder Superman circled around the Psycho Pirate.  “It’s over, Pirate,” Superman informed the villain somberly, extending his hand for the Spear.  “Hand it over.”

The Psycho Pirate rocked on the balls of his feet in a tight circle like a caged animal, casting feverish glares at the heroes around him.  “Fools!” he cackled.  “You have no idea what this weapon makes me capable of!  Everything I was able to do before…” - the Medusa Mask over the Pirate’s eye flexed and bowed with agonized contortions – “…and more!”

A blinding white arc of light exploded out of the Psycho Pirate himself and struck each of the heroes standing atop the Sphinx.  As the glow receded, physical changes began to manifest in the heroes.

Nightwing dropped to his knees, the skin beneath his adult-Robin costume turning the gray of concrete.  “My parents … dead … gone … nothing can bring them back … nothing!” he moaned, abysmally grief-stricken.  His body reshaped and hardened until he was only a wailing stone head atop a grave marker inscribed with GRAYSON.

Wally West’s entire body became as black as night; only the waves of his hair visible atop his head showed that he once again wore the costume of Kid Flash.  West began to shrink as well, all the while crying, “Can’t get out … of Barry’s shadow … don’t deserve to … can’t get out …”

Power Girl grimaced as the Psycho Pirate’s energies coursed through her, and the expression remained on her face long after.  Her teeth became pointed within a feral snarl, her eyes wild and furious, her hair a leonine mane.  Her entire body sprouted blond fur and she howled with a senseless rage at everything and nothing around her.

Captain Marvel clutched his head, disoriented, as the magics of the wizard Shazam were twisted by the Psycho Pirate’s warpings.  At the edge of his perception he could feel the wisdom of Solomon and the courage of Achilles ebbing from him, and madness creeping in to fill the void.  His skin turned to something resembling quartz, chalk-white and faceted, and the lightning-bolt shape on his chest became reversed and sloppy.  “Me am so brave!” Captain Marvel chattered to no one in particular, as he huddled like a frightened puppy on the Sphinx’s head.  “Me make sure everyone see me!” he said as he pulled his cape up over his own head and hid.

All of the color began to drain from the Sentinel, his clothing as well as his face and hair.  He became translucent, insubstantial, and groaned fearfully, “All my friends … gone … the longer I live … the more alone I’ll be … alone … alone …alone…”

Superman had fallen flat on his stomach, but still struggled toward the Psycho Pirate in a painful crawl.  He reached out with one shaking hand, then drew it back to grab at his chest.  Superman’s entire body pulsed rhythmically, in time with his heart, which hammered violently in his breast.  His heart swelled with love – love for his wife Lois, for his friends, for all mankind and for truth, justice and the American Way.  His heart was so full it was only a few beats away from bursting.  Superman looked up at the Psycho Pirate pleadingly.

The Psycho Pirate laughed madly and screamed, “You see?  You cannot oppose me!  No one can!”  Streamers of power unfurled from the Spear of Destiny, re-energizing the fallen avatars.  Chronos swiftly trapped Firestorm and Captain Atom in either side of a spinning hourglass.  Lightning from the Wizard’s fingertips engulfed Wonder Woman in agony.  The Fiddler drew his bowstring across his instrument and sent paralyzing sound waves through Jay Garrick’s body.  Felix Faust transformed his arms into demonic serpents that slithered out of the straitjacket and sank their fangs into Green Lantern.  The Icicle backhanded the Martian Manhunter, then drew a bead on him with his icicle-gun and encased him in a block of ice.  Dr. Alchemy trapped Superboy in a cloud of kryptonite dust that sent the young hero falling and coughing to the ground.

“We’re getting totally slaughtered!” Argent cried, distraught, as she and the rest of the heroes watched from a distance.

“He seems almost too powerful to be stopped,” Dr. Light observed.

“There’s got to be a way!” Batman insisted.  “If we all hit him at once with everything we’ve got, perhaps we can overload his control over his powers, find a weakness to exploit!”  With that, Batman set off for the Sphinx at a run.

“C’mon, kiddos, who wants to live forever?” Guy Gardner called out, hurrying after Batman.  The other heroes followed quickly.

The Psycho Pirate caught sight of the Justice League reinforcements and leapt wildly off the Sphinx’s head, posing himself dramatically for their arrival.  The first wave of flying heroes arrived and attacked the Psycho Pirate with a vast arsenal of powers: photon beams and verdant flames; silver solid light constructs and inertia-multiplying hammerfall; cosmic rod energy and radio-electric waves and cascades of blazing fire.  More heroes arrived on foot and assaulted the Psycho Pirate on all sides with battle-suit boots and dwarf-star dense fists and Vuldarian projectiles.  And still more made their own presence known by firing hails of arrows or thermal columns or shards of ice or pellets of Bat-nerve gas at the red and black clad Pirate.

The Psycho Pirate never lost his grip on the Spear of Destiny, and its protective aura caused all of the attacks to dissipate harmlessly or miss completely.  The Psycho Pirate only laughed at the unfaltering but unsuccessful attempts of the heroes, until the annoyance of the attack became too much, and the Psycho Pirate bellowed like a dark and malignant god.  A spectral blue cloud formed around the Psycho Pirate, and began expanding outward, slicing into the heroes as it forced them away like a bomb blast in slow motion.  A moment later the heroes lay scattered around the desert, trying to pick themselves up.  For many, the damage dealt by the Psycho Pirate combined with the sweltering heat made the effort impossible.

“I have no more time for playing these foolish games!” the Psycho Pirate clamored belligerently.  “By now you all must realize that you cannot hope to stop me!  I will bring forth Earth-2 again!  I will reclaim my HOME!!!”

The Psycho Pirate swung the Spear around once more, and a field of energy floated out and gathered up Fury, the Huntress, Batman and Batwoman.  Batman was transformed into an aged, blue tree, with a black noose dangling from each arm-like branch.  Batwoman, Fury and Huntress found themselves hanging in the nooses.   The field gathered Nightwing’s headstone form, the paralyzed Jay Garrick, the apparition of Alan Scott, and the frail and miserable elder Superman.  “Earth-2 is where all of you belong, as well!” the Psycho Pirate admonished the heroes trapped within the field.  “Will you join me, or will you sacrifice yourselves as I destroy any who oppose me?!?”

“Go … to … Hell,” the wooden voice of the Batman-tree answered.

“Yes, you WILL!!!” The Psycho Pirate shrieked with unadulterated hatred.

“Nooooo!!!” a voice cried from behind the Sphinx.  A form shot toward the Psycho Pirate, and a moment later Superboy stood before the madman, his own hands on the shaft of the Spear of Destiny, as he tried to liberate it from the Psycho Pirate’s control.

Superboy’s eyes were sunken in dark circles, and his skin was pale.  The kryptonite dust had done a great deal of damage to him, and he was now no stronger than the Psycho Pirate was.  The two of them grappled over the Spear for a few tense moments, then the Psycho Pirate gave voice to a guttural scream and a sizzling bolt of primal energy sailed down from the sky overhead, which had turned entirely crimson.  The bolt struck Superboy and the young hero did not even have time to scream before he faded from existence.

The Psycho Pirate smiled cruelly with satisfaction, then instinctively cast a glance over his shoulder, in the direction the blast had come.  A shape of mind-boggling size hovered like an evil satellite overhead.  The Psycho Pirate appeared to grow weak with recognition, and sat down hard on the sand.  “He has … returned … my old master…” the Psycho Pirate gibbered.

The floating edifice took up most of the sky, like a pile of tombstones the size of a hundred aircraft carriers.  Shapes vaguely resembling turrets, towers and spires rose menacingly from its surface.  While its imponderable weight defied gravity, all of the heroes stared dumbstruck, waiting to see what, if anything, the rocky fortress would do.

“My … my master … can’t save myself … can’t be saved,” the Psycho Pirate said in a shuddering whisper, his uncovered eye wide with terror.

No one moved, no one spoke, and no one’s attention wavered from the suspended island of stone.  Then, as if in answer to every unvoiced question in the heroes’ mind, a black, writhing column shot out of the topmost tower of the fortress.  It reached for the heavens and then fell over upon itself and plummeted to the earth.  Before impact with the ground, however, the ebon wave exploded into hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of flying figures, pitch-black shadow creatures that raced through the air in every direction.

“And so it goes,” the Psycho Pirate shuddered, tears streaming uncontrollably down his face.  “To recreate my world so perfectly … I’ve recreated its demise … and we are doomed … all doomed…”

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TO BE CONCLUDED….!!!!