The Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo

“... and then I picked up your trail outside the Viviverse you rebooted, followed it outside that multiverse, and then down into this one, ending up diverted by Faust Summoning whatever he was there with the JLA. Wasn’t too hard to locate you after that.” Which really condensed a mind-bending trip through multiverses and the places between them, but de riguer for a Wednesday.

Dyna sighed opposite me on a comfy overstuffed soft and dark couch. We were inside one of her penthouses, said places scattered across the planet, mostly just bases of operation for her Clone and various Duplicates, and some of the Simulacra she had working for her and her sprawling Dynamic Industries.

She might only get one spell a day out of Vier, but when that spell could be Clone or Duplicate, well, rebuilding her own support network wasn’t all that hard.

Furthermore, all her Clones and Duplicates looked like her original self, not the Bloodline of Rain and Thunder Balobedu-descendant version she was now. Ergo, minor alterations to appearances and she had some fantastically skilled women working for her, who were obviously not multiples of herself. If they could all give Themysciran Amazons knickerdoodles, what of it?

If those women ALSO happened to have Gold Power Rings charged off doubles of her own Lantern, but kept it all on the down-low, who was going to argue with Divine about starting her own subtle Corps?

Just by herself, Dyna controlled more power than any team of superheroes on the planet, and folks had no idea...

“Furthermore, I would like to point something out. If we make up a Pyramid, you can’t go back there, but they can certainly come here, so you can be kept up-to-date on your sisters and how they are doing,” I informed her.

A true smile broke out on her features, and she exhaled softly. “Thank you. That was extremely thoughtful of you.” She weighed her words. “The Captain’s Comet, eh? I think... we should go find that,” she nodded once.

Not having magic after wielding it for so long had to be a killer. Getting true Psionic ability might just make up for it...

“It won’t affect you,” I shook my head. “Your radiation immunity and already-elevated course of evolution basically forbid it. But it could get you some powerful subordinates... or boost some of the normal heroes.”

We both paused, but she spoke first, “I am truly not sure of the implications of Bruce Wayne gaining the powers of Captain Comet. His history of overcompensating for mortal weaknesses once he gets powers is not encouraging. I have to keep my help to him subtle and passive.”

“Some useful fast-healing, Sustained, better armor?” I conjectured thoughtfully.

“It is utterly amazing what he can do with a Ring of Air Elemental Command helping him out,” she added with a nod. Flying, invisibility, shocking touch, gusts of wind, a Wall of Force once a day... oh, yeah, I believed that. “Then teaching him actual Ki-based techniques and Alchemy. He’s Powered, just refuses to delve into the magic side of things. Weird Science he just barely tolerated, until he saw how useful it was, and now he uses it all the time.”

“I’ve given you the seed, I know you’ll run with it responsibly.” I looked into her Silver eyes, she met my fake ones, and she inclined her head. “How is this Supersverse different from the Marvel version of it?” I had to ask.

“The cosmic entities are even more distant, with the Lords of Order and Chaos being the most involved. Also, Heaven, Hell, and the Endless are much more influential on a magical basis, as opposed to most of the mythological gods back home. The scale of possibilities is higher. It’s more about the forces you can tap being far vaster and stronger than back there. Similar, but different, and they still have people mistaking servants of Law for Heaven. Very annoying.”

“Deliberate on the part of Law,” I agreed with her. “Are you in the Justice League here?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. I was much too competent and skilled at the time they put the League together, and would have overshadowed the others too much, so I’ve never joined. I have no problems working with them, and I have an honorary membership, but I don’t directly participate. It gives Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, and John Stewart room to grow, such as it is.”

I blinked. “Oh, they already increased the size of the Corps?” I asked, a bit startled.

“It was a reaction to the Blue being discovered, and the others being found and in use already. They are not happy with me wielding the Gold, but there is nothing the Guardians on Oa can do about it.” Except attack a heroine, which fortunately their lingering morals seemed to have held them back from.

“That’s a pretty early launch to the War of Many Colors,” I noted softly. The various Corps probably still wouldn’t be aware of the true Emotional Spectrum yet. The only Color that was truly well-known was the Green...

“Very, but I think your timing here is not coincidental, either.”

I put my hand to my forehead. “Oh, crap.” She smiled knowingly. “Why are you saying that?”

“Because the Monitor has been making a name for himself supplying supervillains with gear and stuff, and I’m pretty sure things are about to come to a head.”

My fake Mask eyes did blink, complete with blink-blink onomatopoeia. “Are you kidding me? The Crisis on Infinite Earths is coming? Now?!” I protested.

“Within a week, by my calculations.” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “The Anti-Monitor has been destroying universes from his base in Qward; I’ve front-run dozens of worlds on him and created Uni-mind escapes for them to a new Pocket subspace. I don’t have the power to defy him directly, but the Monitor is going to have to move very quickly now...”

Her eyes slid sideways, and I looked that way, seeing a streak of light flashing over Opal City below us. We both rose to our feet upon seeing the woman inside the heart of it.

“He powered up Harbinger and sent her out to gather people...” I groaned, knowing I was about to get sucked into a rock’em, sock’em, lethal universe reboot!

“I don’t think there’s anyone alive more qualified than the two of us to beat up on shadow demons,” Dynamo smiled in anticipation.

I flicked up eighteen Shards seething with various anti-undead and Fiend-hostile energies around my hand. Mortus Dius, currently obsidian bound in silver to disguise it, gleamed in readiness, as did Magnus and Primus.

“I won’t say no to one of those Golden Power Rings,” I murmured as the light headed our way.

One tumbled from the Lantern-Eye hovering over her shoulder, and spiraled through the air into my palm.

“Not charged!” she warned me, just before Harbinger phased through the window to appear before us.

“Lady Divine!” the glowing blonde called out theatrically, aiming for the overbearing angelic demeanor... which naturally didn’t sell very well to us. “You are needed!” She extended her hand, then paused as she saw me standing there, looking very much like Divine’s masked sister.

“Ah, yes, Harbinger. I’ve been expecting you, Lyla.” The servant of the Monitor blinked in surprise. “This is Fell; she’s a sibling of mine, and possibly one of the most dangerous spellcasters in the universe. She will be coming with us.”

Harbinger looked at me, but wasn’t about to call Divine, the most well-known hero in the world, a liar. “Very well. Come with me!”

Light flared, and I was off into a grand comic book Event... after arriving there just in time to do so. I just shook my head and wondered how Mithar knew all this stuff... and just how I was supposed to change things for the better.

---

Heroes and villains all in one place. There was a lot of gunpowder in the air. They were from different time periods and worlds, but they still knew that they were not the same type of people, and lines were being drawn between people and groups instinctively.

The Monitor’s words about how all worlds were being threatened was going over like a lead ball. Too much bad blood and violent tempers were in the air.

Nobody doubted whose side I was on, standing next to Divine like I was, but when the wall exploded and the supernatural creatures made up of all black and shadow flooded in and began to swarm and kill the living indiscriminately, well, it was times for Shards to pop up and some abrupt and shining golden death to hit them right in the face, making sure everyone on our side knew the newcomer could indeed take care of herself...

---

“Are you truly certain about this?” I asked the Monitor, sitting down there in his techno-chrysalis.

“I had expected my Lyla to administer the final blow, but you exorcised the shadow demon meant to control her, and so it will be you who must do this,” the ancient being instructed me. “By discorporating my material form, my energy can empower the tuning forks that will preserve at least a few core dimensions from our enemy...”

I could hear the ring of conviction in his voice, and I grit my teeth. “I really hate willing sacrifices, Monitor. Is there another way?”

“I could not discern one. This is the path that leads to victory,” he told me, his voice firm and set.

Victory. Not a word to use lightly...

I brought up Ring-boosted Shards in flights of Gold, swirling with all manner of energies, and readied myself to kill the Monitor and save the remaining alternities with his sacrifice...

-------

The energy blast was point-blank, and supposed to kill her. Even Kryptonian invulnerability could only handle so much...

Both the thing with the head like a petrified, Animated turdpile with glowing craters for eyes and she looked absolutely amazed that she wasn’t dead.

Spectrum-switching from the golden globe on my left hand bent the light from Gold to Cerulean. A solid armored shell of jeweled armor wrapped her up with +50 or something temporary hit points to her, a bunch of additional damage ablation... and the REALLY intense light of a blue sun was pumping into her, filling a Kryptonian with power at an even higher level than a yellow sun did.

“HOPE,” I stated, a solid stream of coherent blue light filling her with power of a Sundive as the firmament lit up with all the inspiration evah. “Go get him, girl!”

Kara Zor-El clutched her fist, and space crinkled around her fingers. Her eyes were already glowing as I pumped her full of the power of bathing in a blue star, and her speed when she went after the Anti-Monitor was an order of magnitude above what it was before.

She wasn’t going to die this time through, and he was going to have to run like a little bitch...

---

“Get up, lazyass.”

Guy Gardner felt an electric jolt go through him, and gasped, staring, looking around compulsively and patting himself down. He’d been certain he was dead, and half his uniform was burned away... but there was not a mark on him.

Several dozen others around him, people and heroes alike, including that crystal-spinning girl Kole, were looking around in disbelief as the last vestiges of the wave of shadow demons burned away like leaves in a fire.

“None of you are going to die while I am here. Now get up and fight!” Her voice was like a horn calling everyone to war, and they lurched to their feet despite themselves. Glowing golden axes and spears materialized in the hands of everyone around, burning with dangerous white and black flames.

A woman screamed as a shadow demon went after her, and she jumped at it, ramming the golden spear completely through it. It burned away around the point like it was made of paper, breaking down almost instantly.

A flick of Fell’s hand brought up a flight of a score of missiles, which were sent hissing out into the wall of shadow demons coming their way. The things of blackness exploded in seeming disbelief that they could die so easily, the flights of Golden missiles wreathed in so many energies spiraling through them and taking down dozens at a time.

Sometimes the Golden Shards swooped down and drove through people fighting and fallen, and the wounded and incapacitated shuddered and suddenly rose to their feet to fight, Burning Golden weapons in their hands.

“VALOR! Fight or die, and I will not let you die!”

With a roar of newfound determination, the people turned to face the incoming tide of shadows.

Guy Gardner saw the Silver Mask-eyes aglow with a terrible resolve to fight until everything before them was dead, and found this sister of Divine was every bit as terrifying as the determination Earth’s greatest hero showed when it was time to fight.

“Oh, Hell yeah!” he called out, leaping after her and adding volleys of Emerald arrows to the numbers of shadow demons coming in from the flanks. If it was not quite as effective as all the Colors burning around her spells, it was more than enough for the people to finish the job...

---

The sky broke apart into uncounted numbers of shadow demons, pouring down across the planet, meant to kill everything and everyone.

I sneered up at the sight as I Focused. All the fear and terror around me was just juicing up the Yellow, giving me more energy to play with in my Eye-Lantern, and I put it all into my Shards.

I didn’t even bother to count how many auto-targeting missiles laden with Evil-killing stuff on them began to condense around me, surrounding me in countless sheaves of golden crystals.

No numbers. All the Shards, limited only by my Focus and a Lantern fed by Fear and Hope...

They exploded out from me, and golden Light covered the sky, chased by numberless rainbows, a vast display of the grandeur of all Creation.

The unerring missiles with all their Kickers found their targets... and then Chained, looking for more targets.

Twenty-five goddamn more hemispheres worth!

“And the SKY FELL to TRUTH!” I announced to the turd-head’s face looming up in the sky, fuck his anti-matter arse. The Golden flaring of Light and burning shadows exploded in all directions, swallowing the world in burning streaks of Golden glory and coruscant radiance. Blazing shadow demons rained from the heavens as the world watched, and Turd-face gaped down at me in anger and disbelief.

I had to admit, the shit you could pull off in a Supersverse was bloody addictive...

---------

“I would like to say I had a lot of fun, but all I think I inherited was a few more things to chew on at night,” I told Dyna as I handed the Lantern back to her. My Cosmic Awareness was telling me that things were shaking out and time was settling down, histories being rewritten with no Nulls to lock stuff in. There was no Sama or Briggs here to kickstart nor prevent that whole thing from happening, at least not yet...

Her Silver eyes sparkled despite themselves. “I am sure you will be coming back, and just in time, too,” she told me, and I rolled my eyes and groaned. “Come now. You helped save two universes, instead of just one, and the multiverse will find it much easier to regrow as a result.”

“Yeah, yeah. You going to be able to get Barry Allen out of the Speed Force?” I asked her.

“Yes.” No doubt whatsoever. “I figure I’ll give Wally West at least a year or two to carry on the mantle. He had a lot of character growth during those years as he got his speed back, as I recall.”

“What do you think Mithar will send me back here for?” I had to wonder.

“The War of Many Colors, of course. A Ringlord is just devastating in such a conflict, no?”

I had to agree as I looked at the sky above. The Pyramid below us began to cycle and build power as it charged up, getting ready to send me Elsewhere at speed.

I’d have to jump back to Marveldom, then onwards again, giving them the thirteen-place coordinates for this Pyramid to lock on. Dyna couldn’t go home, but Dynamo’s family could still visit...

Superboy-Prime was Bound and Sealed in her Binding Tat. He’d gone crazy after his home universe hadn’t rebooted, and was safely secured until he could be rendered sane or a facsimile of the Prime universe could be restored... only he and the Uni-mind of Earth-Prime might be replaced there, as well, leaving him truly and forever without his homeworld, which he wasn’t taking at all well. He was potentially responsible for at least two or three other multiverse-threatening events, as expected of a Fallen alternate of Superman, repeatedly trying to reboot things again and get his homeworld back, but hopefully that would not be taking place here...

Well, there should be plenty of otherwise empty Earths out there in the multiverse as it was restored, just have to pick some for the Uni-Minds waiting patiently to move out to them and begin the rebuilding and rebirth process... although prior experience indicated that living inside a colossal hivemind did wonders for humanity’s mental evolution and societal growth, especially with cosmic levels of perception...