“So. Anything suspicious we’re seeing on the locations of the magic sources?”

  The meeting room had been repurposed to show imagery from a variety of locations on earth; many of which had been shrouded my magic until recently; showing a grid pattern of the 64 strongest sources he’d pinpointed; none of which felt too good to go after; oddly enough, it felt wrong to order an orbital bombardment of Olympus… which was the most logical case.

  The ascension drone set its limbs on the edge of the table, and focused on Jason. “All of them are at least somewhat suspicious. The Justice League’s Watchtower is one location. A prison… ‘Belle Reve’ seems odd, except its where the US keeps several magical metahumans incarcerated. Forty-three locations are the homes of magic-users previously warded not to be approachable, like Circe’s island; many of which were also invisible from orbit, a precaution Circe likely was simply too old to consider, having been born before ‘orbit’ was a concern.”

  “Hmm. So. Our most likely candidates for the source of all this nonsense…”

  “The Kryptonians, Mxyzptlk, the Olympians, and Darkseid. Mxyzptlk is the strongest contender; the entity first entered public perception shortly after Superman himself did, while the general Zod who menaced him didn’t arrive for another decade or more. Notably… after the arrival of Mxyzptlk, recorded history seems inconsistent with reality.”

  A sudden snapshot appeared on the wall showing a grainy black-and-white image of Superman. “Radio broadcasts from the 1940s, recorded by one of my units a fair distance out, indicated that an adult Batman and Superman had both been active during World War 2. However, no evidence of this is to be found in the modern era. Analysis of broadcasts from various eras indicate Batman should, at present, be in excess of 100 years old.”

  “.. So. Mxyzptlk. Can you give me any more details, aside from magical imp?”

  “Extradimensional entity of extreme power, able to rewrite local reality to an extreme; apparently not other star systems, but completely changing earth in a variety of ways, though usually more subtle. Arrived not long before world war 2, and some months after Superman. Probably, like ourselves, from an alternate version of earth as he looks extremely similar to humans. Not one for mass murder, generally causes chaos, pranks, and while he did cause some death, his primary focus seemed to be amusing himself. At the time of his first appearance, Superman was a new phenomenon.”

  The image was absurd. A tiny, impish creature. “..Like if Q from star trek were real. An annoying prankster that rewrote things for his own amusement. He created his toys generations ago… And he’s been keeping his toys young so he can keep playing with them, and introducing more, for eighty years now?”

  “This is the best explanation that fits the facts. In fact… its probable that most of the divergence between our universes is because of him. If the Kryptonians are in fact a hostile invasive species, its probable that it is only because Mxyzptlk made them so; any other species that looks too close to human is likely for similar reasons.”

  “....Is he still here? Is he one of the sources of magic?”

  “Possibly.”

  A sudden shift. The table now zoomed in on a strange-looking mansion; it appeared to be contained inside a zoo, of all things.

  “Approximately thirty-seven miles outside Metropolis’s suburbs lies this place. It appears on no records, and wasn’t on satellite images until the ward came into effect. It appears to contain a variety of large paddocks for strange animals, and there is no form of development, no home, or anything of the sort nearby. It may or may not be our target…. But it certainly bears investigation.”

  ***

  So. Stepping in to attack an alien from another dimension. Probably has defenses…. Would be stupid to assume he relied on his magic for everything. Even more, one or more members of the League, or other heroes, might try to stop him; it was fully possible the creature might be prepared.

  Time for yet another armor upgrade.

  He started with a baseline of one of the heavy armor suits the Republic used; built to help them fight extremely strong, tough people, or allow them to fight in high-gravity environments. His false arm was stronger than the suit, and more durable, so he stripped down one arm… and then started on the modifications.

  Magic-imbued metal from the ruins of a murdered city used in the actuator system. Founder-grade Molecular disruptor. Kryptonite radiation emitters. Cold emitters. An additional warding amulet to overlap with the other and make the impact even more intense.

  Built-in osmium spikes to use with the telekinesis he could use with the false hand. A somewhat oversized K-Bar made out of what Ascension referred to as a ‘Muscovium Alloy’.

  An attachment for the Titanslayer to let him use it with the oversized armor gauntlet hands. A series of four 40mm grenade launchers fed from extradimensional spaces, able to deploy everything from Pale One grenades to Kryptonite Radiation emitters to Cold emitters.

  He was as tough as he could possibly be. As resistant to magic as he could possibly be. If he met the Justice League inside the watchtower right now… he’d give it fifty-fifty odds he could make it out alive killing at least one of them.

  He blinked. That…. Was a bit depressing. He was ninety percent certain he could kill Zeus, or Odin, or a passel of the Olympians with this thing. The only ones from his homeworld he would bet could take him out wearing this would be Hephaestus and Valkyrie.

  But against this Justice League? He was fairly certain that the ‘Aquaman’ character and the ‘Green Lantern’s shields would both survive most of this…Ahhh, yes. Two more things.

  He picked up four of the Collapser grenades. Each would create a pair of spirals with a ten-meter radius, shredding everything as it dumped it all into random other universes; with a dial on the side to adjust its effect. Couldn’t be loaded into the 40mm launchers.

  And finally, something neither Aquaman nor the Martian would like; incendiary grenades. White phosphorus and napalm.

  He still wouldn’t give good odds of being able to take on the league alone. His powers seemed to imply that facing them head on would end badly.

  Fortunately…. He wasn’t alone.

  Ascension was coming along in quite possibly the weirdest variation of a drone he’d seen; instead of two arms, the tall, spindly thing had six tentacles; apparently repurposed from a Shoork armor suit; with the ability to cover every angle at once with bursts of the Cold guns it came equipped with. All that and there was a railgun mounted to the side of the boxy head with its single glowing yellow eye.

  On top of another, more normal, drone equipped with a ‘Collapser’ gun; each of its shells was a pair of extradimensional space generators that required hours of assembly time and incredibly precision… made to either detonate in the barrel of the gun to launch a beam…. Or fire the shell so that it would go off on impact.

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  Sweeps and one of his Jernal troops were also coming along; wearing the light armor Jernal could actually move in, barely tougher than kevlar, and equipped with their own weapons; including their own Cold guns, ensuring that, if everything worked out, they’d be the only effective speedsters in the room.

  Two aliens. Two robots. One metahuman.. Cyborg? Did it count as a cyborg if the prosthetic was primarily magical in nature?

  He wasn’t certain. What he was certain of, though, was that this particular team would have a solid chance of killing the Justice League if it had to, and hopefully that would be enough; his powers seemed to think it was.

  ***

  Batman crossed his arms. “We need to not move in, just yet. He might be right. We need to take some time. Investigate.”

  “That ward needs to be deactivated. In the past hour, two more assassinations; they’ve branched out from the ultra-rich to world leaders. Whoever it is, they need to be stopped.” J’onn shook his head. “We’re hunting, actively, but many of our best abilities to seek out this sort of thing are magical in nature. Cyborg has been sweeping the internet, checking surveillance cameras; but all of the assassins in populated areas blend in perfectly, and the ones in rural ones are all the same model of combat robot; like one of the Lexcorp models, but with Captain Cold’s weapon as well.”

  Batman sighed. “J’onn. This works both for and against us. Our enemies who use magic… possibly including other assassins… are out as well.”

  “...We can’t wait too long. There have been over a hundred assassination attempts so far. Only one perpetrator has been captured… and so far he seems to just be a copy-cat. An investigation of the sort he’s talking about….”

  He blinked. “....He just launched a shuttle. File a flight plan with the US…. he’s going to be passing through Metropolis airspace briefly, then landing somewhere in the middle of nowhere.”

  J’onn nodded. “....Call Kal-el. It might be important.”

  ***

  The structure was surrounded by a perfectly circular fence; tall posts, curving up at the top, forming the beginning of what was likely a dome shape; and probably integrated with whatever magic kept the place hidden normally.

  As the assault shuttle drew low, Eyeball studied the imagery of the location.

  Scorpions the size of a horse… and with faces? A paddock full of unicorns. Each of the cages contained something equal parts otherworldly and odd…. And if the shuttle landed on the ground beside it….

  “Hold up. Don’t set down quite yet. Open the door.”

  “...Affirmative.”

  Eyeball stepped over to the hatch, as it hissed open; the two doors forming the miniature airlock acting in a way the shuttle wasn’t built for as he looked over what looked like an ordinary patch of ground…. And raised Titanslayer.

  If they’d landed, the ground would’ve eaten them. The seams in the ground were the mouths of what could best be described as mimics; house-sized monsters whose jaws looked like nothing more than grass and dirt.

  And quite durable, as well. Not durable enough, though. He raised Titanslayer, and leveled it at the ground. “Lift off a bit. We’re going to make a circle around the perimeter. Get me…. Half a klick off the ground.”

  As the shuttle started to rise, he could see the ground shift just slightly; if his vision weren’t so good, he wouldn’t have even noticed it… and started to fire.

  Each bullet slammed into a giant, monstrous creature… which let out an unearthly shriek, so loud it would’ve shattered eardrums. The animals inside the paddocks were disturbed, and added to the noise… as the shuttle made a slow circle… the wailing growing ever louder as the creatures died, one by one…. To the point that by the time he was halfway around, several of the creatures… including the Unicorns… had collapsed to the dirt, no longer moving.

  When he came back around to the front, he fired a single round at the front gate…. Which buckled, collapsing inward. “Land…. A hundred meters in front of the gate. Nothing’s gonna eat us there. Yet.”

  As the craft settled down, he glanced at Sweeps. “Internal air only. Your seals show a sign of compromise, get out, immediately.”

  The Forstager tilted its head; its own armor remarkably dull compared to the emerald carapace beneath. “But…. what would it possibly be that could hurt me?”

  “I don’t know. Whoever built this thing keeps cages full of mythical creatures, has a house on the back of a giant turtle, and surrounded by hundreds of monsters. Clearly he was prepared for magic-repelling threats.”

  “Got it, Seer.”

  He nodded… and stepped out, standing on the corpse of one of the creatures, silver helmet glinting in the sunlight as he started to advance….

  And called out. “Cold guns up, speedster present!”

  The moment he’d said the first word, the air started to turn to mist…. And as the group advanced, he lifted the handgun again…. Seconds later, the startled face of a tall, slim man wearing an odd yellow costume appeared… running into a pattern of supercooled air even as the gun went off.

  The body dropped to the ground; missing its head and a good chunk of its torso, with the house losing a solid chunk of its roof at the same time.

  He studied the body; it looked… strange. Like the Flash’s costume, only with the red and yellow swapped. He shook his head, and continued to advance. Was he going to find bizzaro versions of the whole Justice League in there?

  Almost immediately he regretted even thinking that… as he could see, in a few seconds, a hideous blue-skinned… thing… appearing wearing a parody of Superman’s costume. Its whole body wasn’t going to be trapped; if he threw a grenade it would annihilate it before it could get off. He raised his left hand. “Collapser!”

  He pointed… and just as the creature appeared, the impact of the cold gun dragging him to a crawl just as it had the first individual… a loud ‘pop’ was heard… and a perfect circle in the center of his torso vanished.

  The creature looked down at itself in shock. Blood started spraying out of the hole as it collapsed to its knees… and then to the ground.

  He stared at it. The Kryptonite radiation generator did nothing to it; and Titanslayer wouldn’t even slow it down. This thing might well be a Titan, whatever the hell it was. “Another shot to the head, same gun. Take no chances.” Each shell was ridiculously expensive to make in terms of time and materials; but it would be cheap to deal with that thing.

  As they advanced through the gate, he could see that the doors to the various paddocks had all opened… but most of the creatures were either cowering inside in fear…. Or already killed by the horrible sonic effects of the dying guardians.

  Leaving them alive felt… bad. He glanced at his allies. “Clean sweep. None of these things are real. They might be dangerous to leave behind.”

  As his allies started to gun down the creatures; some of them starting to advance, while others just cowered in their cages; he started to advance on the door… but slowed to a stop.

  If he opened that door… something would pounce on him. Something incredibly dangerous; enormous, dark grey of skin, covered with bony white protrusions. He lifted the Collapser grenade…. And blinked.

  The thing….. Wouldn’t be killed by that. How? It would have some holes in it… but the moment he used the grenade, the partially dismembered monster would be charging at him so fast… even through the effects of the Cold gun.

  It wasn’t as fast as Superman. But it was stronger. Tougher. And so fast…. The Jernal was faster, but not enough to survive fighting it.

  This…. He considered for a moment… and suddenly realized exactly what he was looking at. Doomsday. The monster that had already killed Superman once, and needed the whole Justice League to handle.

  His power should’ve been warning him away from this place. This….. Could he get out alive? This thing certainly didn’t seem to be magical. “.....Fuck. Alright, people, form up. We might be making a strategic withdrawal… if we can.”

  Multiple Collapser grenades? Could he use the warding amulet he carried to improvise a magical weapon? There had to be a way to survive this. His power hadn’t failed him yet unless he failed it first.

  A soft, gentle coughing sound.

  He looked up… floating not far overhead, wearing a transparent helmet, and a dull grey-black suit rather than his usual blue-red, Superman was staring down at him, arms crossed, looking.... angry. “Mind explaining what you’re doing in my neck of the woods making a mess?”