Opal City

Snapper Carr lay on his couch, watching Mars Attacks! on TV and drinking from a bottle of whiskey. He hated this movie and couldn’t for the life of him figure out why he’d decided to put it on. Or why he was now on his third viewing.

The last thing he remembered was waking up this morning, his head pounding. He tried to get online to his website, but found that it had been taken offline. At first he thought it was the work of a cyber attack, but the hosting company confirmed he’d personally called to cancel his account.

He finished the rest of the bourbon and sat up. Snapper stood and walked over to the kitchen in his small studio apartment and opened the cabinet where an unopened bottle awaited him. Snapper took it from the cabinet and closed it, but when he turned around, he gasped at what he saw. The bottle slipped from his grip and smashed on the kitchen tile.

There was a black shape in the darkness, with long ears atop its head and white, inhuman eyes peering at the UFOlogist. Snapper backed away, but he bumped into the stove. “Wh-what the hell are you?”

“Snapper Carr.” It spoke in a deep, gravely voice. One that couldn’t be human at all. “I want to know everything you know about aliens.”

“A-aliens? I don’t—wait, are you…him?” Snapper looked around and then whispered his next words as if it were a secret. “The Batman?”

“Tell me about Happy Harbor.”

“This is insane!” Snapper nearly burst into laughter. “You’re really here, you’re really real!”

The Batman took a step towards Snapper, his long, heavy cape draped over his tall form. From behind opaque, white lenses, he stared down at the amateur UFOlogist and a low growl emanated from his throat. Bruce Wayne didn’t want to get violent with the young man, but he was prepared to frighten him into telling him what he wanted to know.

“Your last livestream said you were headed to Happy Harbor. Then, your website was taken down, your social media feeds deleted, all your videos removed. Why?”

“I don’t know.”

The Batman’s movements were almost too quick to see. Before Snapper knew it, the collar of his shirt was in the vigilante’s grip and he was raised off the ground and slammed against the wall.

“You know something you aren’t telling me.”

“Honest, no!” pleaded Snapper.

The Batman saw the sweat beading on Snapper’s forehead. He could feel the young man’s body trembling. He was too scared to lie, Batman could tell that much. So he set the man down on his feet and took a step back. The Batman turned and approached Snapper’s computer.

“Why did you attempt to erase all trace of yourself from the ’net?”

“Honest to god, I can’t remember.”

The Batman glanced over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes. “What do you mean you ‘can’t’ remember?”

“I went to Happy Harbor, like you said. I remember recording the video. The next thing I knew, I was back in my apartment like nothing had happened. Once I found out my site was down, I talked to my hosting provider and they said I was the one who cancelled it.”

“They’re sure of that?”

“Either that or it’s someone who sounds just like me, knows all my passwords, answers to security questions, and has my Social Security and credit card numbers.”

“But you have no memory of it.”

Snapper shook his head.

“Why were you going to Happy Harbor in the first place?”

“There have been scattered reports about strange phenomenon there over the past five years or so,” said Snapper. “People saved from imminent death, muggings stopped right before they happened, criminals who would have gotten away with their crimes suddenly developing crises of conscience, stuff like that.”

“And…?”

“I cross-referenced it with other reports. There’s been a pattern over the years of similar incidents dating back to the mid-fifties. And I found something.”

Snapper walked past Batman and over to a wall where he had numerous newspaper clippings, printouts, photographs, and sticky notes posted on a bulletin board. Snapper looked over the board and pulled one newspaper clipping off and handed it to the Dark Knight.

Batman took it in his hand and read the headline. ‘NOTED MIDDLETOWN SCIENTIST DIES FROM HEART ATTACK.’

“His name was Saul Erdel. Trying to develop teleportation technology, but it never went anywhere.”

“How is Erdel connected?”

“I spoke to his family and some of his colleagues from back then. They all insisted that Erdel had developed a prototype of his machine,” said Snapper. “But no one’s ever found it. There wasn’t a single trace of it in Erdel’s lab. And yet, I checked the papers back then. Middletown experienced a brief power outage the night Erdel died.”

“You think he turned on his machine and brought something to Earth.”

Snapper nodded. “The reports over the decades were scattered, but like I said, over the past few years, they seemed concentrated in Happy Harbor. And there’s one person who always seemed to be involved in many of these incidents. A man who was thought to have died five years ago.”

Snapper pointed to a photograph of a man dressed in a suit and trench coat with a wide-brimmed hat. Beneath the photo was a name scrawled by Snapper—JOHN JONES.

“If you want to find answers, I’d start with him,” said Snapper. “But just remember—I tried and ended up nowhere.”

Snapper sighed as he looked over the bulletin board. “All those years of work…trying to prove aliens exist… I came so close and now it’s all just…done. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”

Snapper waited for a response but heard none.

“Batman…?”

He turned around but found he was alone in his apartment.

THE CONQUEROR

PART III

By Dino Pollard

Metropolis

Her name was Diana of Themyscira and she had no idea how she had gotten here. A moment ago, she’d been ambushed by police officers in Celestial City. Diana tried to explain that she was only there to help, just needed to visit the EDEN Foundation, and then all of a sudden, there was a bright flash.

Now she found herself here, standing atop a building in an unfamiliar city. Before Diana could even ask a question, she heard a massive noise and instantly turned, slipping into a fighting stance.

What she saw made her jaw drop. “By the gods of Olympus…”

In the distance, there was what appeared to be a giant in strange armor, except not made of any metal she had ever witnessed. It was green and semi-translucent, with an otherworldly glow to it. She could also hear screams of horror.

Diana didn’t know how she arrived here, nor did she know what was happening or how to get back to Celestial City. But there were people in danger and that crystalized her mission.

She leapt from the building, soaring towards the emerald beast.

Happy Harbor

J’onn sighed as he deactivated the teleportation machine. He’d been monitoring the exploits of the mysterious Amazon ever since she’d made herself known. Now that the Conqueror had managed to capture four of Earth’s new champions, she seemed to be the only one capable of standing a chance against them.

“And what will you do? Sit here impotently?” J’onn asked himself, and not for the first time.

He couldn’t. It had already destroyed everything he once loved. And now it was back. He remembered holding the charred corpses of his wife and daughter in his arms, kneeling in the midst of the destruction of his home world.

The perimeter alarm brought him out of his self-pitying state. J’onn activated the monitor, viewing the surveillance just outside the cave. But there was nothing. He closed his eyes and concentrated, reaching out with his telepathic powers.

And he sensed someone. Moments before the explosion that shook the cavern.

J’onn had been knocked from his chair. Smoke and rock dust filled the air. He rose to his feet and saw the wall had been destroyed. And standing in the fresh hole was a man with his body draped in a black cloak, his face masked by a cowl with ears that pointed towards the sky, and white eyes narrowed at the Martian.

“John Jones, I presume,” said the Batman. “Or rather, the thing that killed him.”

Batman didn’t give J’onn the chance to reply. J’onn had studied Gotham’s urban legend, but had never been able to prove anything. Still, he’d always suspected the Batman to be real and not a simple myth used by the police to scare criminals.

What he was unprepared for was the skill. The Batman moved with uncanny, almost inhuman speed. Small, metal, bat-shaped objects flew from his arm, blanketing the air. One or two nicked him, but then J’onn turned intangible and the rest passed harmlessly through him.

“You must believe me, Batman. I have no wish to fight.”

“Is that what you told Jones before you stole his identity?”

“I didn’t—”

Batman acted again without waiting for an answer. His batarangs seemed useless, so he’d have to rely on other means. Reaching into his utility belt, he removed a few capsules and threw them on the ground. They broke open, covering the air in a cloud of toxin. Before he could breathe any of it in himself, Batman put a gas mask on his exposed mouth, waiting for the toxin to take effect.

It didn’t.

J’onn J’onzz vanished from sight. Batman scanned the room but saw nothing. He raised his gauntlet and activated a switch, changing his lenses to infrared mode. And that was when he saw a red figure right in front of him.

The blow was strong and Batman struck the cavern wall. If not for his armor, it might have been much worse. He tried to shake it off, but the Martian was on him again, picking him up from the ground and throwing him through the hole he’d blown open.

Once Batman got to his feet, he felt an arm wrap around his throat. He struggled, but the alien’s strength was far greater than he could have imagined. Already, Bruce was starting to feel light-heated. If he didn’t act, he would pass out—or worse.

He couldn’t reach his belt, but he had contingencies for just such a situation. He pressed his thumb into his palm, providing just the right amount of pressure in a synchronized manner. The alien screamed as Batman’s armor unleashed a massive current of electricity. The attack gave Bruce just enough time to pull away from the alien’s grip.

He reached for his belt and pulled something else out, then threw it down at the alien’s feet. It was a small explosive charge and it exploded, throwing J’onn to the ground. A small flame remained and upon seeing it, J’onn’s eyes widened in horror and he scrambled back, curling into the fetal position.

“So, you don’t like fire,” said Batman, noticing the Martian’s reactions. “Noted.”

The Batman reached into his utility belt for something else. J’onn pulled his horrified expression from the flames and looked into the vigilante’s eyes. He hated to do this, but he had no options left.

Bruce Wayne gasped as suddenly, he wasn’t standing outside a cavern in Happy Harbor. No, now he was standing in the rain, an umbrella held over his head to keep him dry and a gentle hand resting on his tiny shoulder. Before him was a massive headstone with the word WAYNE carved into the granite.

“I know the loss you’ve suffered, Mr. Wayne. I know your failed attempts to restore what was lost.”

There was another flash before Bruce’s vision. Red, yellow, and green, and a youthful exuberance that gave him hope for a better future. And then those same colors thrown in his face in an act of rejection.

“Now, feel what I have experienced.”

Bruce was transported somewhere else. A desolate world, red and barren. Something was in his hands. He looked down and saw two bodies, burned beyond recognition. Bruce let go of them and stood in horror.

And then he was back in Happy Harbor, standing over the green figure of J’onn J’onzz. He also had understood.

“Your family,” he said and offered a hand.

J’onn nodded and accepted the gesture. “I apologize for linking our minds like that, Mr. Wayne. And for uncovering your identity. But come inside, I have something to show you.”

Batman followed J’onn back into the cave and over to the computer monitors. On the screen, Batman watched as a mysterious, beautiful woman with long, dark hair flew through the air, battling against the combined forces of three metahumans, each with a strange creature affixed to his face.

“This is live from Metropolis,” said J’onn. He paused the feed and pointed to one of the starfish-like creatures. “That thing is what my people called the Conqueror. It destroyed my world and now, it has come to destroy yours. It’s already claimed Superman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, and the Flash. I transported the Amazon to Metropolis in the hopes that she might be able to hold them off.”

“She can’t do it alone,” said Batman.

“If I can get close enough, I can remove the Conqueror spores from them, release them from its control. But to do that, I’ll need your help—and the woman’s—to distract them. Can I count on you, Bruce?”

Metropolis

Diana held her golden lasso, twirling it as she watched the red and yellow blur streak towards her, lighting flashing all around him. She jumped and threw the lasso forward, snagging the Flash’s foot. Diana yanked and pulled him away, throwing him down on the ground before her. She grabbed him by his collar and stared at the creature on his face.

“What are you?” she asked. “The lasso compels you to speak only the truth!”

“We are legion,” he said in a voice with a strange, distorted echo.

A green lasso suddenly wrapped around her body and pulled her from the Flash, pinning her against a building. Green Lantern hovered just above, his arm outstretched with the energy lasso connected to his glowing ring. Aquaman dropped to the ground in front of her and slammed his trident against the building, her neck between its spokes.

And finally, Superman lowered from the skies to land at Aquaman’s side. All of them stared at her, those strange creatures with their giant eye focused on her. And they all spoke in a single unified, distorted voice.

“You shall join us.”

NEXT: Battle Royale!