Phantom 28

“So, I can create anything, so long as I will it?”

“A crude but apt summarization.”

“Sounds hax if you ask me.”

“It is,” Sinestro nodded, creating a miniature star in the palm of his hand, the condensed ball of willpower giving off heat and light just like a real one would do, “But only if you can maintain that willpower, that focus. The more elaborate a construct, the more you have to divide your focus on each part to maintain its integrity and function.”

“Does size matter?” Hal asked with a straight face, barely holding in the laughter that threatened to erupt out of him, and going by the twitch on Sinestro’s face, the alien—Korugarian, he realized out of nowhere—too caught the double meaning behind his words.

“It does,” the man nodded, his narrowed eyes turning to look at the tall building to the far right, “Fortunately, we have one of your species with us to help you learn the ropes.”

“A human?” Hal’s eyebrows shot up in his hairline as he saw a viridian comet streak towards them, “is it the same one who fought against the ali-Imperium?”

“Your ring is synchronizing with your nervous system at an impressive speed. Don’t let it overwhelm you however,” Sinestro commented, giving him a considering glance before switching his eyes towards the incoming Lantern. A bright green halo surrounded the alien as he floated off the ground simultaneously as the human lantern began to descend, “Take him through the city, and keep his ring at twenty percent capacity until you deem him trained. Patrol through your designated Sector with him, until he is sufficiently…skilled in doing it alone.”

“Yes Sir,” John Stewart, the only other human in the Green Lantern corps nodded as his feet touched down on the crystalline, translucent ground, and both of them watched as Sinestro disappeared in a beam of emerald energy. Turning towards him, the dark-skinned man raised an eyebrow and walked forward, “Hal Jordan right? Think I have heard that name before.”

“Crashed a test F-35,” he winced, rubbing his ribs where he had felt the most of the impact, “Abin Sur found me soon after, and well, here I am.”

“The stealth combat fighter?” Stewart raised an eyebrow as the mask around his eyes dissolved away, “They never stop do they?”

“You know about it?” he raised a surprised eyebrow. F-35 was still in development, and there were talks of even trying to create a more refined, higher combusting ATF just for the aircraft. Just who was this man to know about the plane already, especially since Hal knew literally everyone in Ferris that was involved in the project, “Even the receiving squadrons don’t know till now!”

“I was one of the architects behind the company’s headquarters,” Stewart revealed with a grin, “Was there when the initial engineers behind the F-35 were brought in, building the flight simulator room and the workshop they wanted. Was a hassle to design that yawing axle they wanted.”

“Better than the ones they had before,” Hal grimaced, remembering the testing sites he had been called to before, especially that one prototype they had been developing to break the SR-71’s record, “So, where are you from?”

“Detroit, Ex-SEAL,” the man tilted his head slightly, before looking towards the city behind them, “We will talk later now. Time to get you acquainted with the Lantern’s Light.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You know, we had an Atlantis on my own world too,” Harry muttered as they swam through the waters, “One of my families, the Blacks traced back their descent to it.”

“Had?” Nuidis called out as they swam through a school, and Harry snorted mentally as he saw Arthur pause for a moment to converse with the little fishes, his considerate nods and theatrical sighs making him remember Sirius and his ways. Focusing back on the minister as the Atlantean waved at the little dots of lights in the distance, “Did it not stand when you lived?”

“Not for the last two thousand years,” he shook his head, remembering the scrolls and books he had read in the remnants of the Potter and Black Libraries, mentioning the great archipelago as a major magical nation and site, with the only Dwarka and Olympus being its equals, “I visited its ruins once. Damn impressive architecture, and even after the cataclysm that struck it, the magic there still echoed with its grandness and beauty.”

“What happened to that Atlantis, if we may know?” the Queen of Atlantis and the Seven Seas, Mera—and what was with the women in this world being exceptionally beautiful, Harry idly thought as he glanced at the regal features…and the rather revealing suit she was wearing. She just might give Diana and Faora a competition if she lost some of that scowl on her face, though given that her recently chastised husband considered paying with a fish more important than attending to his irritated wife, it was slightly understandable.

“Records say that they were experimenting with dimensional and terraforming magic at the same time,” he said, ducking underneath a swooping swordfish as it suddenly passed by them, “They were attempting to carve out the whole of Atlantis from the Earth’s crust, and transport it into another dimension. However, the magic became too unstable, as the magic was drawn too quickly, and too heavily, while also disrupting the natural flow of energies inside the Earth’s surface. It was blown away in a blast of magma and magic so intense, that even after centuries, it was nothing but a smoking, chaotic underwater ruin.”

“Sounds like something we should definitely avoid,” Arthur interjected with a sagely nod of his head as the fish swam off his hands, and he sped up a little to float in front of him, “What I am most interested in right now, is why are you not in that…hybrid form you took while swimming by your island a while ago.”

“You sent scouts ahead,” he muttered, zooming in on the buildings and structures that made up Arthur’s underwater kingdom, “Impressive that they were able to cloak themselves from me.”

“You are a powerful mage, but we do have a few tricks of our own.” Mera raised her nose slightly as she extended a hand, and it turned invisible to his eyes, as well as all of his senses. Even the passively flowing magic inside her seemed to stop at the shoulder, with nothing but water appearing after it, “There is a reason we have existed and lived past so many wars and disasters that have struck our home, as well as stayed undetected by the ever-encroaching humans.”

“And kept our waters clean,” Nuidis smiled pleasantly as he waved a hand towards the sea above, and Harry grimaced as he saw a bleeding whale being carried towards the city ahead by a team of mermaids, the soft white glow emanating from their hands seeming to stem the bleeding from the hole in its gut. However, his attention was grabbed by the subtle feeling of ants crawling on his skin, and Harry looked ahead at the walls of giant corals, his eyes shifting visions until he saw through the living stone, catching sight of the mermen and Atlanteans alike, all staring at him with apprehension naked on their faces,  “We are here. Welcome to Atlantis, Harry Potter.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Queen Hippolyta.”

“Cora!” Hippolyta turned around, her eyes landing upon the dark-haired Amazon, “What brings you here?”

“An urgent, grave situation,” the older woman shook her head, rising to her knees as she took a couple of steps forward to join her on the balcony, “The wards cast upon the vault have begun to unravel.”

Her hands stilled upon the railing of her balcony, and Hippolyta felt her heart beat faster all of a sudden. The vaults on Themiscyra were filled with all kinds of items. Some were nothing more than trinkets, heirlooms, and articles of historical and cultural importance to them. Some were the remnants of Ancient Greece, collected and stored here as the last standing bastion of the Gods. Things blessed by the Gods themselves, that were not to be left with the mortals had been brought in regularly by her daughter, and most of it was just benign, enchanted regalia.

But the rest?

Weapons of great and terrible power, capable of uprooting and destroying entire civilizations. Of bewitching minds and bending reality to its wielder’s whims. With the man’s world as it was now, ignorant and scoffing at the very notion of Gods and magic, even a single one of those could spell doom the likes of which had not been seen for decades. “Could it be the work of the sorcerer that tested our home’s protection?” she asked, looking past the treetops and the training grounds in the direction where the sky had glowed a brilliant white just days prior, “or even Circe?”

“I am not knowledgable about either of them, or their powers to speak on it,” Cora shook her head, a troubled expression coming over her face as she leaned a little closer, her eyes darting about the room as if to make sure they were fully alone, her tone nothing but a whisper, “I feel it in my bones, My Queen. It is the same eroding, darkening, burning power that laid siege upon us five millenniums ago. I have felt the walls made by Hephaestus himself tremble more and more, and magic laid down by his and Hecate’s own hands wither away to reveal more and more of the vault.”

Her breath caught in her throat, Hippolyta felt her vision fade away as she nearly stumbled, mind flashing back through time, journeying thousands of years in a moment to arrive at the time when Gaia had been invaded. She had been young then, barely having saved the women captured as slaves and bed warmers from the hands of the men of Ancient Greece. Zeus had just installed her as the Queen of the newly dubbed Amazons, and Hera had sworn them in as her handmaidens and Chief Priestesses. Athena, and the Twin Archers had taught and trained them in the arts they were the Gods of. Themiscyra had just begun to function with her at its helm, only for Apollo to arrive at the doors of their home with orders to amass the army.

The reason?

A New God.

And that had been the day, when Hippolyta had realized that in the grand Universe, they were not alone, and Gaia was naught but a rock in the deep dark curtain of Nyx’s domain.

It seemed like the whole Earth had gathered to fight the invaders. Atlanteans, guided by the trident of Neptune wielded by their first King, Atlan. Humans, led by the ever-powerful Ares and his fearsome greataxe. And the Father of Gods himself, leading the divine beings of Olympus with his Thunderbolt crackling by his side. Even Hades had appeared on the battlefield, staring up at the skies with his menacing shadows, and even more fearsome furies and monsters standing behind him. 

“Zeus,” a somber, calm voice echoed on the battlefield as an emerald green comet landed in front of the King of Gods. As the dust and light faded away, Hippolyta silently bristled by Athena’s side, fuming at the disrespect shown to their leader and God. However, the War Goddess’ hand landed on her arm, stopping her from unsheathing her sword, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hades roll his eyes at her, “The Guardians send their greetings.”

“Their greetings…seem a little lacking,” he muttered back in response, and thunder cracked over their heads as the dark-skinned…humanoid creature before them rose to its full height, standing a full head taller than Zeus, “Why come here now Lantern? Do the Guardians intend to mock us or the New God, by sending you?”

“The Battle here is going to decide the future of the whole Universe, you know this as well as the Guardians do,” came the swift, calm reply as the crimson eyes of the newcomer swept over all of them, lingering for a moment upon Ares before returning to Zeus, “and so does our enemy. Apokolips’ forces have assaulted various key systems across the Universe, and the Reach Empire has also decided to resume its conquest over the last cycle. Almost every Green Lantern is currently deployed across various sectors, with a meager force standing by on our planet. Should the need arise, then it would take them mere moments to arrive as reinforcements. But I don’t believe that would be needed here…you have gathered quite a host.”

“Apokolips?!” Hades seemed amused as the smoldering pits in his cloak seemed to pulse with orange sparks, “He certainly isn’t shy or humble is he?”

“Neither are you,” Artemis shot back at her Uncle as at once, all of them felt a presence, a being that could be nothing but a God encroach on their senses.

“Enough,” Zeus intoned, silence falling throughout the land, and every single noise upon the battlefield stopped at the command as sparks ran up and down his hands, “They approach.”

Gulping down the dryness in her throat as the skies above suddenly burned, Hippolyta unsheathed her sword along with thousands of others, staring up at the hellish heave-”My Queen!” a hand shook her shoulder, adn Hippolyta drew in a gasping breath as her eyes returned to the present, the hellfire raining down from the skies disappearing to reveal Cora’s worried face as she kneeled in front of her, Themiscyra’s pristine lands visible through the gaos in the railing behind her, “Are you well? Shall I send for Agatha?”

“N-No, I am fine,” she grunted out, feeling sweat slide down her neck as she slowly felt her heart slow down, the crippling, adrenaline-inducing fear and terror of that day slowly ebbing away from her mind. Standing up on her feet, Hippolyta stared towards the Vault. The Amazons had been entrusted with one of the…things it had been using that day, before Zeus had saved them all. And if that thing was responsible for the fluctuations and erosion of the protections placed by the very Gods themselves…then it stood to reason that it wasn’t acting alone.

‘Three who are one, shall be united…and I shall have your heads.’, that ancient, terrible voice growled through her memories, fires and magma spewing forth into the air for a moment as her mind flashed back to its presence.

“Summon Diana, and resume training for everyone,” she ordered, striding out of the room, grabbing her Xiphos on the way.

“And where shall you go, My Queen?”

“To the Gods.”

--------------------------—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Kara Zor-El,” a voice she had not heard for years echoed in the freezing silence around her, and Kara looked to her right as the Jor-El appeared by the command deck’s entrance, “you survived Krypton’s destruction. I wasn’t aware that Argo and its residents had made it out.”

“Hard to be aware when you are nothing but a glorified butler program,” she shot back, glaring at the man she held just as responsible for Krypton’s downfall as she did the council, “and you can’t even do that properly. Kal-El doesn’t know shit about his own world, or our culture. Hell, you wanted him to save these humans, and you haven’t even taught him a single skillset for it.”

“He…pushed it off after my first suggestion,” Jor-El responded, pausing for a moment to look at the said son, “Though, I hope that his recent experiences have made him reconsider that thought. However, what I am curious about, is why the ship is detecting genetic anomalies inside you?”

“I had a few incidents of my own,” she shrugged back, touching the crimson tips on her hair, her thoughts flashing back to the pictures of Lily Potter—who was now her adoptive dead mother…magic was confusing. Looking back at Jor-El’s projection, Kara sighed and raised her palm, a ball of fire forming over her hand, “But longstory short, I can now do magic, and there is another Kryptonian on this planet, although, he is a genetically altered one.”

“Fascinating, I suppose…but I don’t remember any Kryptonian expeditions to this system, and neither does the archive contain any records of such.”

“Parallel Universe,” she answered the unspoken question, and behind her, she heard Kal’s sharp intake of breath, “He was caught by Zod and his group in the Phantom Zone, and tortured adn experimented upon by Jax-Ur under Zod’s orders to merge his magical powers within our genes, so that they could rebuild a stronger Krypton.”

“Mer-Ul’s theory of the Multiverse was true then,” Jor hummed, “and no matter the Universe, Zod is as pragmatic and efficient as ever. How did they manage to subdue a magic user without the radiation or weapons to help them?”

“He was weakened severely by a mental and physical handicap, and Zod decided to use Faora-Ul as a seduction card,” she said, turning her head towards the interior of the ship, “Eventually, they made their way over to this planet, tracking this very ship. Zod had attacked Kal-El by then, and then they all fought. Zod was killed by Harry, but before anything else could happen, Kal-El threw the Phantom Zone projector on him right as he was teleporting with Faora. It messed up his magic, and your dimensional portal made him travel through the Multiverse to land on this Earth instead.”

“But why would Zo-ah, he discovered a World Engine from one of the outposts.”

“Wait, so a homicidal Kryptonian maniac is coming to Earth in the future with several more, all to turn this planet into the next Krypton?” Cal asked, his eyes moving over the three-dimensional projection of the World Engine, and the Kryptonian figure beside it, “Dru-Zod, General of Kryptonian Armed Forces…you had an army?”

“We had an army,” Kara frowned, giving a non-plussed Jor-El a side eye before turning towards her cousin, “Don’t dissociate yourself with Krypton, or its inhabitants. You are as much Kryptonian as you are human, probably even more with how Jor-El has merged the Codex with your cells.”

“Why the he-wait, What’s the codex?”

“It's the genetical footprint of the last natural-born Kryptonian before you,” Jor-El answered, waving a hand towards the projector, and it shifted to display a skeleton, wires and tubes attached to the bones all over, “Krypton used its cells to grow embryos in artificial incubation chambers, adjusting the genes and chromosomes to grow citizens that were suited to a particular role, instead of equalizing their potential in all aspects. When Krypton’s core was blasting apart, and the whole planet was shaking apart, I stole every bit of data off the Codex and implanted it in your body, so that Krypton would live inside you.”

“Jesus,” Kal-El mumbled switching back to english fro a moment, reading the data on display,, before he continued, “do you mean if Krypton is to be built agai-”

“Yes Kal-El,” Kara nodded, closing her eyes as she remembered Krypton, and how it had been before the mistakes and blunders of their race had caught up with them, “You are the key to rebuilding Krypton…and Zod and his Sword of Rao know it. Pretty sure we are going to meet them soon.”

“It is going to be tough for you to to fight them off and imprison them again,” Jor muttered, bringing up the holograms of each member of Zod’s militant group, “Each of them was bred for being soldiers, and Zod alone has centuries of experience in combat over you both. There powers will be slow to grow in the yellow radiation compared to you, but they have the numbers, and within minutes of Earth time, they shall be close enough in physical capabilities to make you feel it. And if this mysterious half-Kryptonian’s tales are true, then they will most probably also have a World Engine with them. It would be a race against time, to disable and eleiminate the Sword of Rao, and contain the terraforming of the World Engines.”

“Can’t they just, take what they want out of me and go on their way?” Kal wondered out loud, grimacing as he saw the scowling visage of Dru-Zod. Those eyes didn’t seem like they had much scope of being negotiated with, “They want the Codex, they can extract it out of me.”

“And you think they are going to leave planet irradiated with yellow radiation alone?” Kara asked, raising an eyebrow as she waved a hand at the sunlight outside, “He would see all this, and just tarraform Earth into another Krypton. Zod can’t be negotiated with. Huge egos were a part of the Guild Leaders and the Council both.”

“Of course you’d think of killing them all,” Kal scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest, and Kara glared up at him as he gave her a hard stare, “What’s next? Burning off the arms of robbers? Breaking bones like your brother and Wayne?”

“Stop dramatising everything and grow up Kal,” she sighed, feeling her headache come back full force. She understood Kal’s thoughts and even agreed with them, and where he was coming from. His morals, or rather, those of the Kents were what made him Superman, a figure that selflessly helped whoever he could, saving lives and giving another chance to everyone…but she also understood what Harry and Bruce Wayne meant by physically teaching a lesson—and for the life of her, she didn’t have the patience to deal with the conflict these two spectrums were creating by clashing together, “We can just throw them back in the Phantom Zone, if we manage to create a dimensional projector, that is.”

“They will escape,” Jor interjected, his tone nothing if not sure as he turned around, phasing through the doors before they opened up, revealing him to be standing at one of the screens, “Phantom Zone can’t hold Zod and his ilk.”

“How are you so sure?” Kal asked, walking upto the consciousness of his father, raising an eyebrow as he pointed at the schematics of the Phantom Zone projector, “You created that device. The Phantom Zone is a prison for twenty-eight galaxies, and this time, we make sure to not give him an avenue of escape like the Black Zero.”

“Let's hope that holds tr-extraterrestrial object inbound to our position,” Jor suddenly turned his head upwards, and the roof above turned transparent to reveal the green dot in the sky above, “A Green Lantern? What do the Guardians want?”