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#6
AUG 14 |
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“Blast From The Past!”
“Ugh, is this really necessary?”
“You want to find Skeets, don’t you? Trust me, this is the only way. Besides, you look good.”
Booster Gold gave a groan, but he knew that his pal was being sarcastic and he had to agree with that ironic sentiment. However it was all worth it as there was a good reason he stood there dressed in a costume that he hadn’t worn in years. There were in Ted’s room of their thirteenth floor-wide complex at Kord Enterprises, after having rummaged through Beetle’s closet. Tucked away at the back were some alternate or previous versions of Blue Beetle’s costumes, as well as a couple of the elder Booster Gold garb. Beetle finished up as he snapped the last piece of Booster’s old Extreme Justice-style suit on.
“Didn’t this thing get destroyed?”
“This is the prototype,” Blue explained and circled from Gold’s side to face his pal. “It’s identical in most every way, but I made some final tweaks for the final version. Anyway, this one operates on the same system as that one did, meaning that it’s incomplete without Skeets integrated into it. Without him as the suit’s controller it’s incomplete and, thus, can’t really function. In case that situation was to happen in the field, the subsystems are programmed to search him out to become functional, so...”
“We fire this up and let it point the way,” Booster said as he got it. “Only thing is, without Skeets to complete it, then how are we going to...well, get the fire going.”
Beetle gave a wide grin and held up a finger as he darted off to his private bathroom. He returned a moment later with his electric razor, unplugged the cord and held it up. “We give it a little juice and see if we can’t jump the system briefly enough to get a quick glimpse.”
Booster eyed his friend warily. “I don’t know, that,” he said as he shifted focus to the dangling cord, “doesn’t exactly instill confidence. This isn’t going to hurt, is it?”
“Trust me,” Beetle smiled.
Seven minutes and three minor electrocutions later...
“I think I have something,” Booster said as he stood perfectly still and smoked a little from places that he couldn’t see. Beetle perked up from where he was using an old t-shirt to pat out a small fire. There was a flicker of lights on his visor and, though it did much to mask Michael’s face, it did not hide his frown.
“What is it?” Blue Beetle got to his feet. “That was quick. I mean, I know the suit should be able to scan worldwide, so the fact that Skeets is still on the planet or even in this time considering what that Metronome guy seemed able to do, well...”
“Ted,” Gold cut off Blue. “How many sub-floors are there?”
“In the world?”
“No.”
“In the buildings in Chicago? Ah, ‘a lot’ and that’s a pretty scientific guess.”
“No, here. At Kord Enterprises?”
“Oh,” Ted said but answered quickly. “Ten.”
“Actually, there are thirteen.” With that, Booster Gold pointed straight down.
He had started at the top and gradually worked his way down. It had taken more than a day, but since he was a robot, there was no need to rest. And Maxwell Lord had become a tireless task master. With his clipboard in hand, he had managed to make it through every room in Kord Enterprises as he made a detailed inventory of all he’d found – and a far more detailed ‘copy’ was saved to his digital memory. His predecessor, Dr. Chanel, had been a wizard when it came to came to recruiting talent, resources and funding, but the man’s ability to keep track of what he had amassed was laughable to say the least. Max had to admit to himself, however, that this was a welcome thing as he didn’t have to pour over potentially inaccurate records as there simply weren’t any to get lost in. He had to build his own and he preferred it that way.
There was a lot going on here at Kord Enterprises; far more than he had been aware of twenty-four hours ago. Then, Max had thought that there was a remarkable amount of science happening, and now...well, it was mind boggling to discover just what a goldmine of potential was contained within the four walls he found himself in charge of. Or responsible for, he had to remind himself, yet again.
On every floor, there was at least one high tech laboratory, and sometimes up to four on each, and every one of them was involved in something that pushed at the boundaries of known science. The upper floors housed a lot of the more theoretical or cosmic work, with the more conventional-yet-advancing sciences in the middle, which is where Kimiyo’s lab was. He had stopped there for what was meant to be a brief check, but he had lingered dangerously long. Max knew that Dr. Hoshi had started to show signs of being overly fond of her new boss but...he hadn’t really been able to stop himself so far. Max had promised to see her tomorrow, once the inventory was done.
After that, there was Ted and Michael’s floor, which was the only floor Max hadn’t stopped to survey. The less he knew of what those two did in there, the more he was comfortable with that. Rather, he had continued on to the clerical and accounting offices that extended down to the lobby, and that’s where the sub-floors began. The first was the main shipping and receiving area, along with the massive mailroom, and then below that were the nine basement labs where it was mostly robotics and mechanical research.
Everything had seemed to be on the up-and-up and was easily accounted for, except...the elevator he found on the bottom floor that appeared to only go one way from where he discovered it – down.
“I’m not going to get anywhere standing here staring at you,” Max said, presumably to the unpushed elevator button. He had eyed it for nearly five minutes as he attempted to make sense of it but finally decided to go through with it. Max leaned forward, pressed the button and leaned back to wait. It chimed immediately and opened, which surprised the company’s new director. “Well then,” he calmly said as he stepped aboard.
The ride down was a short one, to the floor below Max guessed. However, he knew from the blueprints to the building that he had downloaded to his memory that there were only ten basement floors. The doors opened and he stepped out onto the eleventh. “Complete darkness, lovely,” he said to no one other than himself. Despite having robotic eyes, Max had no way to compensate for the pitch black he found himself, nor had he thought to bring a flashlight. “Maybe a light switch,” he decided and felt along the wall but came up empty handed, and by the time he thought to go back upstairs to get something, he felt his way back to discover a seamless wall in all directions. “Should have seen that one coming,” he stewed aloud.
Max thought for a moment that it was a shame he hadn’t brought Kimiyo with him, as her powers would have... “No,” he shook his head. “I’ve been leading her on enough as it is.” He sighed as he held court with himself. He had been talking to himself more frequently over the years, he realized. “The further I get away from the last time I had a real body,” he muttered as that ‘clicked’ for him suddenly. Max didn’t want to think about that, not right now at least.
“Despite not having blood and flesh,” he grinned in the dark, as he remembered he did retain something else from his more naturally bodied days. “Mind control.” He almost had to chuckle. Since the days when he had first discovered his powers, he had experimented and tampered with it. Now that his body didn’t tire or bleed from the nose every time he tried it, he had a lot of opportunity and time to practice. “Time to see if I’m as good as I’ve become,” he pumped himself up and concentrated. “If I can...cast a net big enough...” He had learned to project his mind outwards as a means to search for another mind to take possession of. If he could then locate another mind, he’d have a better sense of what direction to go in.
“What?” Max was alarmed to have found nothing. All this secret space and there wasn’t a human mind for him to ‘bump’ into. Just when he was about to give up, Max’s sense went downward and... “Why, hello….” There were at least two floors below him and there was someone human below him. One mind. It was too far away to take possession of but it was there. “Which means maybe some answers.”
Max took a step forward into the darkness and then another, which is when he ran into something. It was the size of a man, but far too hard to be a person. It was metallic, hard. And it moved.
Sudden light blinded Max as he fell backwards and attempted to shield his eyes. Over him stood a machine, a robot, but one unlike himself. It unfolded as it came to life, easily standing seven feet tall. It was bulky in the chest and legs, though lean in the cylindrical arms, and had domed head set with a monitor for a face. This displayed a simple set of digital eyes with an unmistakable frown and around the haze of that contemplative glare Max was able to see edges of even more of such things.
“Unauthorized presence. Alert. Repeat; alert. Core has been informed. Awaiting instructions.”
Max held up his hands as if to surrender. From his butt-on-the-floor position, he wasn’t really able to do much of anything else. “No need to get all worked up,” he smiled and flashed his pearly whites in the face of that continuous frown. “I know this doesn’t look good, but I’m the new boss around these parts. So really, you should be taking orders from me and not this ‘core’ or whatever you’re referring to.”
The robot stepped forward and an arm drew back to reveal a pair of pincers for ‘hands’. “Orders accepted only from the Overseer. Orders are to eliminate all unauthorized presences.”
“Definitely not good,” gulped Max.
“Remind me again why we’re going in this way?”
“Oh, just keep digging,” Beetle sighed as he kept pace behind Booster. The latter was before him, his golden forcefield around him as Gold blasted away at the ground before him. In effect, Booster Gold was digging a path from the street down under Kord Enterprises, to come upon this mysterious sub-level thirteen. “If there was some way to get to this weird basement that I didn’t know that existed from the inside, don’t you think I’d know how it worked?”
“Ah, no,” Booster called back as he continued on with his ‘drilling’. “By the nature of what you just said, you wouldn’t.”
“Well, okay, point. But this way, they don’t know we’re coming.”
“Who doesn’t know?”
“Exactly,” said Blue. “Whoever took Skeets.” He then dashed forward to lay a hand on Gold’s shoulder. “Careful. If my calculations are correct...” Booster stopped and just in time, as sure enough there was a solid wall suddenly revealed before the pair. Beetle drew his BB gun. “He should be on the other side.”
Booster Gold turned to look up the way that they had come, past his friend. At the far end of the slanted tunnel he had made there was a rough oval that framed the night sky. “This also gives a handy escape route.”
“In, grab our pal, get out,” Beetle nodded as that was the plan.
“Then allow me,” Booster grinned and drew back his fist, “to knock!” With a solid *WHAM!* the revealed wall before him exploded inward and, as the debris lead the way, the heroic pair rushed into the room.
It was brightly lit and clinically clean, with sterile precision and stale air. The entire secret floor was open, being one open space, though various pieces of high tech equipment were scattered throughout. One of them was a wide table, upon which was a banged up Skeets, on display beneath a bright light. Several appendages extended from the table, each equipped with various devices that poked and prodded the prone robot. “Sirs,” groaned the robot, “you...come...got my signal...was broadcasting...”
“Hrm, right,” muttered Beetle from behind Booster. “Should have thought of that.”
Booster didn’t care as he charged forward, fists at the ready. “Skeets! We’re getting you out of here, buddy!”
That is precisely when a portion of the far wall opened to reveal an elevator, from which emerged a pair of boxy black robots. They were stocky in their bodies and legs but had lanky thin arms and domed heads, and between them they dangled a familiar face. “Max!” Beetle’s shout was enough rouse the battered director, who remained limp as he was dragged in yet managed to lift his head. Behind those robots were four more, all of the same build, and all six turned to the heroes as Blue yelled out. “Booster, get Ske-...!”
“Already halfway there,” Booster barked back and poured on the speed as he streaked to the table Skeets was on. In a second, he had torn his robot friend free and cradled him safely. “Don’t worry, buddy, I gotcha.”
Left with the robots and Max, Blue Beetle also spared no time and raced towards them. “I don’t know how you guys got him in here,” he dodged to the side as the nearest robot took a swing at him. He nearly doubled over backwards as he avoided the next swing as well. “However, I think that we have our own way out.” He then leaped, but not away from the robots as he went towards and then up one of the ones in the back. He vaulted onto the thing’s domed head and pointed his BB gun between them all as he thumbed the dial on the side. “Let’s see if you guys enjoy a little burst of in the local electromagnetic pulse!”
With that he fired, but the only one to be affected was Max, who screamed in sudden pain. “Shielded,” Beetle cursed as he jumped up as the robot he stood atop of attempted to grab him, and he quickly stopped his pulse disruption since it was only hurting his friend. “Let’s try something else,” he offered as he tossed down a pair of pellets. Instantly, the scene was engulfed in an intense strobe of blinding light, and from it sprinted Beetle with Max over his shoulder as the flare had caused the robots to release their prisoner.
Booster joined the pair without a second to spare as he tossed up his forcefield in time to repel a flurry of blows from the robots as they came forward once more. “”Up the tunnel! Let’s get out of here.” Gold’s shield held as the robots began to beat on it, and the group retreated back to the mouth of the tunnel. It would be a climb out, but Beetle bore the two downed friends easily enough. “We can sort all of this out later,” Booster strained as the force of the blows he deflected seemed to increase.
“No,” groaned Max from over Beetle’s shoulder. “Have to...stop them here. There’s more...a whole army of them...”
“Correct, Director Lord. An army with a singular purpose.” The voice came from the room that the group backed out of. Before they could ask, their answer came as the room spoke once more. “The annihilation of all inferior organic life.”
The ceiling of the room then suddenly vanished and from above a mass of robots similar to the six that Booster held off dropped from above. As they hit the floor below they came to life, and as they activated they all turned in the same direction. The room spoke a final time. “My appreciation for your assistance in the completion of their directive.”
The surge of robots proved to be too great for Booster Gold to fend off, and they were pushed up the tunnel they had ‘dug’ to reach the sub-levels. Tossed free of it as the sea of machines drove them out in the golden bubble that Booster Gold managed to get them in, the quartet of heroes were hurled aside. The mass of black machines poured from the hole in the ground in a seemingly never-ending flow that spread in all directions. With Kord Enterprises being in the center of downtown Chicago, there was a wealth of ‘inferior organic life’ in all directions, and the machines were on an eager march to find that out – and deal with it.
Soon they could be swept up by the flood of seven foot tall killer robots here on the decorative visitor’s part to Kord Tower, but for the moment the four had a brief breather here in the open night air as they could only watch robot after robot come forth.
“I feel...something is missing,” Skeets said as he removed himself from his position cradled tight to Booster’s chest.
“We don’t have time for that, pal,” Gold frowned as he looked around. They were being surrounded. “I’m sorry, but we have to stop this. Did you learn anything? What happened to that Metronome character that grabbed you? What’s up with all of these robots?”
“... I don’t know,” Skeets managed, barely a whisper, as he sounded scared. “It’s...oh frack, it’s gone. It’s all gone!”
“What is?” Booster just had to know.
“All of it...every memory before we first met.” Skeets actually trembled.
Booster Gold looked confused, however, and then it dawned on him, “You know, we never did talk about that.” One day Skeets had just been there, and ever since... “What do you mean though, that all of that is gone, and why does it matter?”
“I...can’t remember.”
As Skeets launched into a panic, Blue Beetle also took stock of their situation and thought to direct it to something more constructive. “They’re immune to EMP and they’re tough. There is something familiar about their design, but without tearing one apart to know for sure, I can’t tell. Unless we find the central control for all these things...”
“Not going to happen,” grunted Max from Blue’s back. “I...well, I know there’s a central mind behind all these things. It’s human-ish? It’s not anywhere accessible and it’s far more shielded than it should be.” When both heroes looked at him, Max shrugged. “I tried to take control of it, but couldn’t.”
“Then it’s the old fashion way,” Booster decided aloud and held up a fist.
With the robot army close at hand, Blue Beetle fired his grapple gun at Kord Tower and zipped away to safety and towards the thirteenth floor. As Booster took to the air to follow him, Blue gave a quick glance to the mass of machines below and said, “I think I have something to help with that.”
“Are you seriously going to go out in that?”
“Unless you have a better idea? No, then good. Besides, now we match.”
Booster Gold couldn’t believe that he was back in his old Extreme Justice armor once again, though this time he had Skeets onboard. With the robot being battered, broken and panicked, it made sense that Skeets would have to go somewhere until his body could be rebuilt, and the armor had been constructed to house him. With Skeets united with and powering the Extreme suit once more, Booster would have the boost of power that would be helpful to tackle the swarm of zombified robot drones that threatened to overrun Chicago.
With him was Blue Beetle, though his armor now was black and silver, and just as unnecessarily bulky as Booster’s was. It was fitted with all kinds of plating, being a hefty suit of high-powered armor. “I call this my Black Beetle Battle Armor, or B.B.B.A. It doesn’t have the longevity that your suit will have, just a couple hours of action, but that should be more than enough. Flight, super strength, an array of weapons...I’m ready to knock some robot heads. Ah, no offense, Max.”
Max Lord was also battered but he remained on his feet, as he had helped the boys suit up. He wasn’t really surprised to see these two in the get-ups they had managed to fit themselves into. “Just get out there and get to work. I’ll see what I can get this house of nerds to come up with to see what can help. It’s time they got to know who’s their boss, right?”
“Right,” shouted back Booster as he jumped from the open hangar door. Black Beetle was right behind him, as he had been delayed as he gave Max a thankful salute. The pair took to the sky, but not for long, as they rocketed down to the ground and tackled the flood of mysterious robots that had encircled Kord Tower. Lord watched for a moment, but then was off, as he had a payroll to put to use.
On the ground, Blue-now-Black Beetle swung a fist and punched through the chest of one robot, tore it open and then hurled the sparking shell at another. The suit’s enhancements kicked in as he dove under an intended blow from another robot and then vaulted over another. He needn’t worry about getting too far away, as there were killer attack bots spread wide in all directions. “It’s a good thing that these things came out at night, where there’s so little of the ‘inferior life’ out and about for them to encounter and to annihilate.”
“But it’s a bad thing that they’re even trying,” warned Booster Gold in his much clunkier, bulky armor as he streaked overhead. With his arms out, he fired a continuous beam of energy from each hand to blast a swarm of drones on either side of Beetle. “We shouldn’t have let them out of the tunnel. I could have collapsed it or...”
“What ifs? aren’t going to lead to answers. What if we hadn’t let Skeets get captured in the first place? Let’s focus here, Boo.”
“Ugh, do not like,” Booster groaned as he landed and took up a stance back-to-back with Black Beetle. Together they slugged robots, bashed them to bits and took on those that turned their attention to the pair. “Don’t use that again, ‘Double B’.”
“Noted,” winced Beetle and silently agreed. “So, focusing,” Blue-no-Black tried to get them back on track. “We need some way to round them up, to get all of their attention and away from all civilians. How are we going to do that?”
“I think I have an idea,” grinned Booster. “How fast do you think you can be?”
“In this thing? Pretty fast!”
“How do I let you talk me into these things?”
“You have to admit it’s working.”
Ted Kord huffed as he managed to avoid yet another robot arm as it lashed out at him. He dove between the open legs of another robot and darted around another, as he was being swarmed now. In efforts to draw the attention of their numbers, Booster Gold had convinced Black Beetle to shed all of his fancy new armor, to give a very human target for the robot army to lock onto. Gold had been convinced that if Ted put his acrobatics to use, dove into the middle of that spreading mechanical mass and bounced around them in nothing but boxers, they’d collapse upon Ted. That way, Gold could then fly around the perimeter and blast any strays or wayward drones that failed to fall for the ploy. It’d worked great, but now poor Ted was surrounded on all sides by an ever-closing mass of killer robots, in his boxers (and Blue Beetle mask). Yet, he still had somewhere to go.
“Worked a little too well for my tastes,” Ted puffed. He vaulted up onto the back of one robot and then made a balanced dash over their heads as they grabbed for them. He had made his way back to Kord Tower, with the closing mass of robots around him. One of the robot made a grab for his heel that clipped his foot, and nearly-naked Ted went down with a tumble. “Give me a sec to get them all inside and then seal it up behind me,” he spoke into his comm with Booster as he scrambled to his feet.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Booster confirmed as he blasted the last of the uncollapsing drones and then turned in the air and rocketed towards Kord Enterprises. “How about you stick to the plan?”
“No time for that,” Beetle replied as he dove down the tunnel he had Gold dug less than an hour ago. As he raced down the open shaft, the mindless machines rushed to follow the one source of human life they had managed to encounter. Thus, the very hole they had emerged from they now scrambled over one another to get into.
Booster arrived in time to see Max standing by the open tunnel on the lawn of Kord Tower, overseeing the last of the robot army as it descended into the hole. In his hand he held a canister, a small device that blinked and had a number of exposed wires, clearly a haste job but something Max looked determined to use. Gold landed beside him as Max raised the canister up, ready to hurl it after the robot. “Why didn’t they tear into you?”
Max rolled his eyes and Booster winced a ‘right, right’ as he remembered. “Be ready to cap this thing, like Ted wanted you to.”
“Maaaaax, what is that thing you’re holding?”
“A carbonite gas bomb. Something the nerds inside whipped up. The gas will fill the room and then crystallize, sealing the entire complex in what those boys called a ‘carbonite casing’.”
“Including Double B!”
“Michael, there’s no other way. If this gas gets out, it could solid-freeze all of the city.” Before Booster could stop him, he hurled in down the open shaft. “Do it!”
“Ted,” cringed Booster audibly. It will also make it impossible to locate or trace what was taken from me, Skeets said to him via the integrated programming of the suit they currently shared. “Not now,” Gold gritted his teeth and as the soft ‘pfft!’ below of the canister igniting went off, golden energy flared from his hand to cap the tunnel with a golden force shield.
“You’re sure that they won’t find us here?”
“Yes, Steppenwolf. This is the last place they would think to look, even if they could,” answered Metronome confidently.
“You say this to me as though you expect me to believe that you had planned for this all along,” fumed the Apokaliptian.
Before either man could irritate the other, Overseer spoke. “The intention is irrelevant as the result is effective. We possess the entirety of our facilities while being displaced in such a fashion as to be undetectable. While existing in the present, Metronome’s idea and my application of your Mother Box to mirror your own trans-spatial displacement now allows us to occupy a position in the linear past. In effect, our now is the past. This facility now exists in a past before its creation, rendering it impossible to discovery, while our minds and operations continue in the current, present time.”
“You speak these things as if I, Steppenwolf, fail to comprehend such things, machine,” spat out the godling as he stirred in his seat. His hands went to his collar as he adjusted his black tie of his pin-striped suit. “I war among the gods, where ideas are like breath and blade.”
“I mean no offense,” apologized Overseer. Like the previous meetings, he was represented by a holographic projection of a floating blue cube.
“You were successful?” Metronome seemed indifferent to Steppenwolf’s anger as he directed the question to Overseer.
“Affirmative,” the cube answered. “The requested portions of the Skeets gestalt have been removed for your examination.”
“You are certain that which you have promised can be found within the information you stole?”
“Yes,” Metronome returned, his confidence unwavered. “My son might one day become the undisputed Lord of Time, yet his tricks are known to me. I have stolen them all,” the man allowed himself to grin. “As soon as we decipher what’s been locked away in meddlesome robot’s mind, we shall have the greatest of them all,” he promised.
“Then it is a matter of waiting,” growled Steppenwolf.
“Are the preparations on Apokalips attended to?”
Steppenwolf curled a lip to the cube’s suggestive question, though he remained still for a moment as though lost in thought. “They are underway,” he then confirmed, “as promised. Steppenwolf shall do as we agreed.”
“There are no complications with your existence in both realities at once?”
“None,” snarled the hunter godling, disliking the tone that the machine-man persisted to use. “My might continues to increase in this one, and soon, Steppenwolf will have the strength to do what is needed – to lay waste to this world and claim Apokalips! As is my right!”
“Then it is a matter of waiting,” noted Metronome. When Steppenwolf turned angrily in his direction, the golden armored man held up a hand. “Just a fact, not a slight.”
Steppenwolf raised a lip, a snarl at the ready but he kept it to himself. Instead, he got to his feet and Overseer announced, “Adjourned.”
The godling lingered a moment to stare at his allies in turn, uncertain which of them he found more infuriating, yet let that pass. He had far more pressing matters to concern himself with. The holographic cube vanished, as the man-mind no doubt had an army to reconstruct, Steppenwolf knew. Metronome had already vanished, as all the bravado the future-thief was to be put to the test, as much now relied on the chronically misplaced thief and his ability to crack the hidden code they had stolen. Yet, Steppenwolf was confident in these two mortals, or why else align himself with them? What concerned the Apokaliptian far more was what he could not find faith in.
Back ‘home’ on his Apokalips there was the constant fear of being discovered, though Darkseid had not cast his gaze on Steppenwolf in some time. At the moment Steppenwolf was deep in the bowels of that hell-world as he watched over Desaad survey a brig of prisoners, and even ‘question’ a number of them. Here on this ‘Earth’ he had something far more troubling to contend with and something he could not bring himself to have faith in: his gang of recruited human followers.
Sure, they worshipped him for the deity he was as these Intergang loyalists had all but sought him out when recruited by the man-mind machine, the Overseer. They had managed to amass a credible arsenal of Apokaliptian technology that had been bestowed upon Earth, but...they were still human. Weak, unpredictable and cumbersome. Steppenwolf reached into the breast pocket of his jacket to press a button on his Mother Box, and instantly he appeared in the middle of his gang’s base.
“The boss!” one of the underlings shouted and they all scrambled to their feet. It was in the penthouse of an upscale new casino to the Chicago shoreline, named Kismet. Each man was in a matching pin-stripe suit to their boss, and each masked – simply so Steppenwolf wouldn’t have to suffer as he looked at them. “Everything is on schedule as you have wanted, sir!”
He hated the way they stank of fear, and yet Steppenwolf smiled to be so worshipped so immediately upon his arrival. He had time now, time to train them, to prepare them for the hunt ahead. “Then you are all spared death,” he said casually and strode forward to the balcony. “I, Steppenwolf, shall late waste to this world, a feat not even Darkseid could accomplish. It shall be a glorious, burning death that sears this planet bare, calling forth the greatest among the survivors, which will all fall before my blade.” Before his followers could chant their approval, he continued on. “With the Hell-Spores in place about this city, when the time comes...when it is time, the beacon fires shall herald the end of Earth!” It felt good to say it, to know that it would come. Not today, not soon enough, but it was inevitable.
One Interganger came forward to offer Steppenwolf a box of cigars and he selected one, bit off the appropriate end and spat the butt at the man’s feet. Another came forward and held out a glass of brandy, which he took and swallowed in one gulp.
When all was ready, Steppenwolf knew, not even Metronome and his accursed knowledge of time would be prepared for the hellstorm he, the great Steppenwolf, would unleash.
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To Be Continued...
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