RookieBatman
01/22/2005, 21:55
Prologue, from JLA #4…
“Flash, get us out of here!” It only took Barry milliseconds to grab Arthur and carry him a block away, but the blue energy wave that blew out of the device was hot on his heels, moving at light speed. There wasn’t time to save anyone else. The energy bubble dissipated just as quickly, and the two returned to the spot, expecting to find the charred bodies of their teammates. But instead there was nothing, not even scorch marks. It was as if nothing had happened. The device lay in front of the Javelin, completely inert. It looked like an oversized paper weight now. But where was everyone?
DC SPECIAL #1: Exchanges
Featuring the Justice League of America!
Dr. Emil Hamilton of STAR Labs took one last look at the device, and then put it down, heaving a sigh. “It’s hard to say exactly,” Hamilton told Aquaman and the Flash, “given that it’s already fired. It’s a one-time use device, which makes the situation that much more bleak; there’s no way you can follow your friends now.”
“Follow them where?” Aquaman asked, frustrated. He was getting more and more testy, the more he realized that he had let his team down, that all of his misgivings about leading the team had been right. And he was even more frustrated at the prospect of not being able to do anything about it.
“As I said,” Hamilton responded carefully, “I can’t be absolutely certain, but my professional opinion is that this device creates a rift in the space-time continuum that sends those caught in the wave to a different point in time.”
“The Chronal Displacement Device we were trying to stop Ultrahumanite from getting,” Flash said, thinking out loud. “He must have had it the whole time!”
“Then why was he fighting us for it?” Aquaman asked.
“Maybe it was all a big setup.”
“And we fell for it…” Aquaman grimaced. “I fell for it.”
The Flash looked at his friend, starting to realize what was going through his friend’s mind. “No one’s blaming you, Arthur.”
Aquaman seemed like he was about to make some kind of retort, but stopped, and turned back to Hamilton. “And you’re sure there’s no way we can find out where in time they went?”
“None,” Hamilton replied.
“Then there’s nothing we can do,” Arthur concluded, his shoulders slumping. “Let’s get back to the Watchtower.”
Detective Callie Akers grimaced as her foot sunk into the muck of the swamp. Her partner, Detective John Jones, looked at her with a smile.
“Come on, Cal, you never struck me as the type to get all bothered by a little dirt under your fingernails.”
“I’m not,” she said, putting her hand on a tree for support, and then jumping slightly as she felt something move under it. “…Ordinarily. But there’s something about this particular swamp.”
“You’ve heard the stories, haven’t you?” John asked, knowing first-hand that the strange being known as the Swamp Thing did indeed live in this swamp. But Callie didn’t know that, at least not for sure.
“Yeah, I’ve heard them,” Detective Akers responded, thinking she was gonna get a lecture about believing in crazy stuff like that. But John Jones just kept moving. They walked for some time, and then John suddenly stopped. Callie didn’t notice, but he had used the super-senses of the Martian Manhunter to find what they were looking for. He knelt down and thrust both fists into the deep muck, and started to pull up. As he made progress, Callie could see that the shape of a body was forming dimly from inside the mud hole.
“Help me,” John said, not wanting to use his full Martian strength. Callie knelt down beside him and reached into the mud to grab the stiff legs of the dead body. A moment later, they had brought the body to the surface. “Well, this is it,” Detective Jones said, scraping some of the mud away from the face. “This is the guy we’re looking for.”
“Are you sure?” Callie asked.
“We’ll take it to the lab for a positive ID, but I’d bet on it.” John looked around, and Callie followed his eyes as they made a thorough search of the surrounding area. His eyes stopped, and focused on something she couldn’t see, and then he reached out and pulled something off of a nearby tree. It looked to her like some kind of moss or fungus, but as he brought it closer, she saw that it was actually…
“Animal fur?” she asked, confused. This wasn’t really the right environment for most mammals.
“Yup,” John said, studying it. “I’d even go so far as to say gorilla fur.”
“But gorillas don’t…live in swamps,” Callie said, stating the obvious.
“No. No they don’t.”
Later…
“Sam, you care to look some stuff up for me?” John Jones asked. He was back at the police station. After his discovery of the dead body and the gorilla fur, he had settled a hunch; searching the entirety of the swamp, he discovered that the Swamp Thing was not there. He had an idea of what that might mean.
“Sure, Detective. What do you want to know?”
“Have there been any sightings of gorillas loose anywhere in this city?”
Sam tapped on the keyboard. “Nope.”
“Any records from zoos near here of gorillas getting loose?”
“Nope.”
“How about the tri-state area?” Jones asked, desperately hoping he was wrong.
Sam’s fingers flew across the keyboard, and then he waited as the computer processed his query. “Um…one gorilla broke out of a zoo a few counties down last week, but they caught him the next day,” Sam finally responded.
“Alright, thanks, Sam,” John said, and grabbed his briefcase. His workday as an ordinary human cop was over. It was time for the Martian Manhunter’s day to begin.
The Watchtower, JLA Headquarters…
Aquaman, the Flash, and the Martian Manhunter looked at each other from across the emptiness of the JLA round table. Since the formation of the new team, they had ordered construction of a bigger table to allow for two more chairs. Now, four of the chairs were empty; three of those empty chairs belonged to the new rookie members of the team. And so soon after they had formed; it seemed like such a waste.
Spread out in front of the Martian Manhunter was a manila folder, as well as some reports and photographs of the case John Jones was investigating.
“It was a typical murder case,” the Manhunter explained, his fingers steepled in front of him. “The man was a scientist, and we discovered that he was conducting a series of tests in the swamp. We searched the swamp, and found his dead body. The autopsy indicates that he was beaten to death, and gorilla fur was found on and near his body.”
“Oh boy,” the Flash said, understanding where J’onn was going with this. “And, I assume, we’re not talking your average unintelligent gorilla, are we?”
“No,” the Martian Manhunter answered grimly. “I verified that no gorillas have recently escaped from any zoos near here. Which would seem to give strong indication that the gorilla that killed this man was Grodd.”
“I have a feeling there’s more to the story than that,” Aquaman said.
“You’re correct. Flash, do you remember the incident a few months back where you crossed paths with Grodd just before fighting the Parasite?”
“Yeah.”
“I followed up on that with the young heroes that were involved in the fight before we came, and I’ve confirmed that, at that time, Grodd was working with Anton Arcane,” J’onn explained, sliding forward the manila folder.
“Mad scientist,” Aquaman said, glancing through it, “Enemy of the Swamp Thing.”
“And still at large,” the Martian Manhunter noted.
“Which means, whatever plot they’ve got going on is still going to happen,” Flash concluded.
“Yes.”
“Then maybe we should get help from this Swamp Thing,” Aquaman said.
“My thoughts precisely,” J’onn responded. “However, a thorough search has indicated that the Swamp Thing is missing. His usual whereabouts is the same swamp where the scientist was found killed by Gorilla Grodd.”
“Wait, wait,” Flash said, starting to understand, “You think that Grodd was in that swamp to get the Swamp Thing?”
“Indeed,” the Martain Manhunter replied. “It is my hypothesis that Grodd came to that swamp to kill, kidnap, or otherwise eliminate the Swamp Thing. While he was in the process of that act, the scientist that John Jones was investigating stumbled across their path, and Grodd killed him. Now, with the Swamp Thing neutralized, Grodd and Arcane are free to pursue their plan with greater confidence of their success.”
“So, if you know that much already,” Aquaman began, “Am I correct in assuming that you have a plan?”
The guy’s name was Chris, and he wasn’t having a lot of fun right now. He had been a petty criminal, running with small-time gangs and the like. But when he had signed on for this, he’d had no idea of what he was getting into. The show was run by some kind of crazy monster freaks, and Chris sometimes felt like they might go crazy and eat him or something at any moment. He didn’t want to be here, but he had learned in his time in gangs that the boss doesn’t like it when you try to get out. He figured his chances of survival would be better if he just hung loose, and didn’t ruffle any feathers. Chris took another swig from his bottle as he saw another thug walk up.
“Ya new?” Chris asked, he words only slightly slurring as the alcohol he was consuming began to take effect.
“Yeah,” the other one said, puffing on a cigarette. “Call me ‘Rags,’” The thug that had been standing guard with Chris got up and left. Chris watched him go, wishing he could be in his place. He took another swig, and wondered if this guy Rags knew what he was getting into.
Rags looked over at Chris and made sure he was asleep. He was supposed to be standing guard, but the alcohol had done its job. Rags dropped his cigarette, and then in the blink of an eye, disappeared. Invisible, the Manhunter walked through the compound, looking for the place where Grodd and Arcane would be meeting. After some searching, he found a building with more heightened security, and decided that that was quite likely the place to look.
J’onn J’onzz phased through the door, and saw around him a décor quite different than the outside. While the outside had been the typical worn-down old prefab building, the inside was covered in plate steel, with machinery and metal tubing running throughout. J’onn’s eyes narrowed as he studied the construction. It was not the sort of thing that either Arcane or Grodd would want. The Martian Manhunter hurried through the small building until he came to the room where Arcane and Grodd were discussing their plans. But he didn’t even need to hear them to know that the remaining members of the Justice League would not be enough to stop it. He only had to take one look at the figure standing next to them: Brainiac.
The remaining members of the League seek help, and battle it out to decide the fate of the entire world, in the second part of DC Special #1.
“Flash, get us out of here!” It only took Barry milliseconds to grab Arthur and carry him a block away, but the blue energy wave that blew out of the device was hot on his heels, moving at light speed. There wasn’t time to save anyone else. The energy bubble dissipated just as quickly, and the two returned to the spot, expecting to find the charred bodies of their teammates. But instead there was nothing, not even scorch marks. It was as if nothing had happened. The device lay in front of the Javelin, completely inert. It looked like an oversized paper weight now. But where was everyone?
DC SPECIAL #1: Exchanges
Featuring the Justice League of America!
Dr. Emil Hamilton of STAR Labs took one last look at the device, and then put it down, heaving a sigh. “It’s hard to say exactly,” Hamilton told Aquaman and the Flash, “given that it’s already fired. It’s a one-time use device, which makes the situation that much more bleak; there’s no way you can follow your friends now.”
“Follow them where?” Aquaman asked, frustrated. He was getting more and more testy, the more he realized that he had let his team down, that all of his misgivings about leading the team had been right. And he was even more frustrated at the prospect of not being able to do anything about it.
“As I said,” Hamilton responded carefully, “I can’t be absolutely certain, but my professional opinion is that this device creates a rift in the space-time continuum that sends those caught in the wave to a different point in time.”
“The Chronal Displacement Device we were trying to stop Ultrahumanite from getting,” Flash said, thinking out loud. “He must have had it the whole time!”
“Then why was he fighting us for it?” Aquaman asked.
“Maybe it was all a big setup.”
“And we fell for it…” Aquaman grimaced. “I fell for it.”
The Flash looked at his friend, starting to realize what was going through his friend’s mind. “No one’s blaming you, Arthur.”
Aquaman seemed like he was about to make some kind of retort, but stopped, and turned back to Hamilton. “And you’re sure there’s no way we can find out where in time they went?”
“None,” Hamilton replied.
“Then there’s nothing we can do,” Arthur concluded, his shoulders slumping. “Let’s get back to the Watchtower.”
Detective Callie Akers grimaced as her foot sunk into the muck of the swamp. Her partner, Detective John Jones, looked at her with a smile.
“Come on, Cal, you never struck me as the type to get all bothered by a little dirt under your fingernails.”
“I’m not,” she said, putting her hand on a tree for support, and then jumping slightly as she felt something move under it. “…Ordinarily. But there’s something about this particular swamp.”
“You’ve heard the stories, haven’t you?” John asked, knowing first-hand that the strange being known as the Swamp Thing did indeed live in this swamp. But Callie didn’t know that, at least not for sure.
“Yeah, I’ve heard them,” Detective Akers responded, thinking she was gonna get a lecture about believing in crazy stuff like that. But John Jones just kept moving. They walked for some time, and then John suddenly stopped. Callie didn’t notice, but he had used the super-senses of the Martian Manhunter to find what they were looking for. He knelt down and thrust both fists into the deep muck, and started to pull up. As he made progress, Callie could see that the shape of a body was forming dimly from inside the mud hole.
“Help me,” John said, not wanting to use his full Martian strength. Callie knelt down beside him and reached into the mud to grab the stiff legs of the dead body. A moment later, they had brought the body to the surface. “Well, this is it,” Detective Jones said, scraping some of the mud away from the face. “This is the guy we’re looking for.”
“Are you sure?” Callie asked.
“We’ll take it to the lab for a positive ID, but I’d bet on it.” John looked around, and Callie followed his eyes as they made a thorough search of the surrounding area. His eyes stopped, and focused on something she couldn’t see, and then he reached out and pulled something off of a nearby tree. It looked to her like some kind of moss or fungus, but as he brought it closer, she saw that it was actually…
“Animal fur?” she asked, confused. This wasn’t really the right environment for most mammals.
“Yup,” John said, studying it. “I’d even go so far as to say gorilla fur.”
“But gorillas don’t…live in swamps,” Callie said, stating the obvious.
“No. No they don’t.”
Later…
“Sam, you care to look some stuff up for me?” John Jones asked. He was back at the police station. After his discovery of the dead body and the gorilla fur, he had settled a hunch; searching the entirety of the swamp, he discovered that the Swamp Thing was not there. He had an idea of what that might mean.
“Sure, Detective. What do you want to know?”
“Have there been any sightings of gorillas loose anywhere in this city?”
Sam tapped on the keyboard. “Nope.”
“Any records from zoos near here of gorillas getting loose?”
“Nope.”
“How about the tri-state area?” Jones asked, desperately hoping he was wrong.
Sam’s fingers flew across the keyboard, and then he waited as the computer processed his query. “Um…one gorilla broke out of a zoo a few counties down last week, but they caught him the next day,” Sam finally responded.
“Alright, thanks, Sam,” John said, and grabbed his briefcase. His workday as an ordinary human cop was over. It was time for the Martian Manhunter’s day to begin.
The Watchtower, JLA Headquarters…
Aquaman, the Flash, and the Martian Manhunter looked at each other from across the emptiness of the JLA round table. Since the formation of the new team, they had ordered construction of a bigger table to allow for two more chairs. Now, four of the chairs were empty; three of those empty chairs belonged to the new rookie members of the team. And so soon after they had formed; it seemed like such a waste.
Spread out in front of the Martian Manhunter was a manila folder, as well as some reports and photographs of the case John Jones was investigating.
“It was a typical murder case,” the Manhunter explained, his fingers steepled in front of him. “The man was a scientist, and we discovered that he was conducting a series of tests in the swamp. We searched the swamp, and found his dead body. The autopsy indicates that he was beaten to death, and gorilla fur was found on and near his body.”
“Oh boy,” the Flash said, understanding where J’onn was going with this. “And, I assume, we’re not talking your average unintelligent gorilla, are we?”
“No,” the Martian Manhunter answered grimly. “I verified that no gorillas have recently escaped from any zoos near here. Which would seem to give strong indication that the gorilla that killed this man was Grodd.”
“I have a feeling there’s more to the story than that,” Aquaman said.
“You’re correct. Flash, do you remember the incident a few months back where you crossed paths with Grodd just before fighting the Parasite?”
“Yeah.”
“I followed up on that with the young heroes that were involved in the fight before we came, and I’ve confirmed that, at that time, Grodd was working with Anton Arcane,” J’onn explained, sliding forward the manila folder.
“Mad scientist,” Aquaman said, glancing through it, “Enemy of the Swamp Thing.”
“And still at large,” the Martian Manhunter noted.
“Which means, whatever plot they’ve got going on is still going to happen,” Flash concluded.
“Yes.”
“Then maybe we should get help from this Swamp Thing,” Aquaman said.
“My thoughts precisely,” J’onn responded. “However, a thorough search has indicated that the Swamp Thing is missing. His usual whereabouts is the same swamp where the scientist was found killed by Gorilla Grodd.”
“Wait, wait,” Flash said, starting to understand, “You think that Grodd was in that swamp to get the Swamp Thing?”
“Indeed,” the Martain Manhunter replied. “It is my hypothesis that Grodd came to that swamp to kill, kidnap, or otherwise eliminate the Swamp Thing. While he was in the process of that act, the scientist that John Jones was investigating stumbled across their path, and Grodd killed him. Now, with the Swamp Thing neutralized, Grodd and Arcane are free to pursue their plan with greater confidence of their success.”
“So, if you know that much already,” Aquaman began, “Am I correct in assuming that you have a plan?”
The guy’s name was Chris, and he wasn’t having a lot of fun right now. He had been a petty criminal, running with small-time gangs and the like. But when he had signed on for this, he’d had no idea of what he was getting into. The show was run by some kind of crazy monster freaks, and Chris sometimes felt like they might go crazy and eat him or something at any moment. He didn’t want to be here, but he had learned in his time in gangs that the boss doesn’t like it when you try to get out. He figured his chances of survival would be better if he just hung loose, and didn’t ruffle any feathers. Chris took another swig from his bottle as he saw another thug walk up.
“Ya new?” Chris asked, he words only slightly slurring as the alcohol he was consuming began to take effect.
“Yeah,” the other one said, puffing on a cigarette. “Call me ‘Rags,’” The thug that had been standing guard with Chris got up and left. Chris watched him go, wishing he could be in his place. He took another swig, and wondered if this guy Rags knew what he was getting into.
Rags looked over at Chris and made sure he was asleep. He was supposed to be standing guard, but the alcohol had done its job. Rags dropped his cigarette, and then in the blink of an eye, disappeared. Invisible, the Manhunter walked through the compound, looking for the place where Grodd and Arcane would be meeting. After some searching, he found a building with more heightened security, and decided that that was quite likely the place to look.
J’onn J’onzz phased through the door, and saw around him a décor quite different than the outside. While the outside had been the typical worn-down old prefab building, the inside was covered in plate steel, with machinery and metal tubing running throughout. J’onn’s eyes narrowed as he studied the construction. It was not the sort of thing that either Arcane or Grodd would want. The Martian Manhunter hurried through the small building until he came to the room where Arcane and Grodd were discussing their plans. But he didn’t even need to hear them to know that the remaining members of the Justice League would not be enough to stop it. He only had to take one look at the figure standing next to them: Brainiac.
The remaining members of the League seek help, and battle it out to decide the fate of the entire world, in the second part of DC Special #1.