"It was all my fault. Hello, Megan. Who else could take a simple exercise and turn it into a nightmare that terrorizes everyone she cares about?" Megan said bitterly.
Dinah noticed that as she spoke, her skin tone gradually shifted to Caucasian.
"You've turned white," Dinah observed.
Megan jumped to her feet with a sharp gasp. "No!" she shouted, before looking down at her arms. "…Oh. You meant Caucasian."
A strange reaction—something to bring up with J'onn later.
After composing herself, Miss Martian sat back down and continued.
"I'm fine being Megan. But I can't be trusted with my other powers. If Joseph hadn't drained my psychic energy, everyone on the Team could have died."
"M'gann, you're Martian," Dinah said gently. "Refusing to use your natural abilities is like me refusing to speak. Which, by the way, I actually tried for a while after my very first Canary Cry nearly deafened my entire first-grade class.
"So I understand how you feel. But not being yourself is never the answer—and it won't make the guilt disappear. Learn from what happened. Your uncle would be happy to train you. Practice until you regain control… and your confidence."
**
"You're not the first person on the Team to say you're doing just fine."
"But it's true. I did what I had to do in the simulation and was one of the last to die," he said, flexing his cybernetic arm. "Then, after we woke up, I just stood by the big pillar of fire evacuating kids while Joe handled everything else in the world. Can you believe it? What a guy."
"I get that Nova was impressive," Dinah said, "but we're here to talk about you."
"I'm not the one who needs a shrink. You should check up on Will. Last I heard, he was hanging around Cheshire on her little quest for the Light."
Dinah sighed. Will had been refusing her help lately—just as Roy was now. Perhaps it was inevitable that clones shared more than just DNA.
**
"Rachel, you know you can talk to me, right?"
"I said I'm fine. I was sad about Kent's death, but I'm over it," Rachel replied flatly, as if she were trying to embody indifference.
"No kid your age gets over the death of a loved one that easily."
"I'm not a normal kid. I can't afford to mourn," Rachel snapped, emotion slipping through before she caught herself. Her expression went cold again, and she vanished in a flash of darkness.
She still wasn't ready to share her past—before the Church of Blood, before becoming a child bride. Breaking through that shell wouldn't be easy.
**
"Yeah… it was really scary. I think I died after Artemis, and then when I woke up, I was terrified my dad was gone forever. He's super overprotective, but I still love him. Thankfully, he let me stay with the Team even after all this. Not like we actually did anything—mostly we just stood there watching a column of fire burn Gotham's curse away. I used to think Joseph was a total noob at magic, but… yeah. He's actually pretty good," Zatanna said.
Dinah listened quietly as Zatanna rambled on. Sometimes, simply talking—letting the words spill out—was enough to help someone process what they'd been through and begin to come to terms with it.
**
"Kori, is there anything you're dealing with that you want to talk about?"
"I appreciate you counseling me and the Team, but I'm fine—honestly. I've dealt with worse," Koriand'r said calmly.
"You can confide in me anytime if that changes."
"Thank you," Koriand'r replied, moving toward the door.
"Wait," Dinah said. "There's something I need to ask you."
She stood. "The League was impressed by your actions during the Hour of Chaos and would like to invite you to join—given that you're clearly an adult." She paused. "But if you accept, you won't be able to remain with the Team, since they operate covertly. Are you interested?"
Kori answered without hesitation. "No. I'd rather stay with the Team. Several of them could still use guidance—and they're my family."
Dinah smiled warmly. "All right. I'll let the League know. The offer will remain open."
**
| Washington D.C. - October 23
"Mr. President, you saw the combat power displayed by both Doomsday and Superman. The Justice League isn't an American organization—it's a U.N. one. They don't take orders from us, and they were stretched thin, unable to adequately protect the American people. If the military could obtain even one of their bodies, we could create super-soldiers by the dozen."
"No," the President of the United States said flatly from behind his desk. "Superman was the world's greatest hero, and Doomsday was the weapon that killed him. The moment it gets out that the U.S. military is experimenting with either of their cells, we ignite a global metahuman arms race. It would violate the U.N. Charter on the Non-Proliferation of Alien Technology, and the Justice League would be well within their rights to stop us—and we couldn't stop them."
He leaned back, expression hard.
"That's without even touching the risks of losing control of whatever we create, or the political fallout when the public crucifies me for authorizing it. It'd be disastrous for the polls. So no."
"Everything I do is for America. The risks are worth it so just—"
"Wade," the President cut in, voice sharp. "I am the President."
Eiling's jaw tightened. "Hmph. I'll remember this." He turned and slammed the door behind him.
Left alone, the President exhaled slowly. The encounter left him with a strange, unsettled feeling.
It wasn't as if the United States wasn't already experimenting on aliens and metahumans. Waller was finalizing a stable version of Krotan as they spoke. But some truths couldn't come out yet—revealed too soon, they would burn everything down.
**
| Chicago - October 23
After the spar, Joseph made a brief stop to patrol Chicago.
The faint crack of gunfire and distant explosions caught his attention. He turned toward the sound and immediately recognized the area.
The Netherworld.
So named because it was a literal no man's land—home only to metahumans shunned by society and ordinary people who had nothing left and nowhere else to go. A place people came to disappear. Or to die.
It was the same district where Count Viper had once established his base, abducting local metas with ease and experimenting on them in the shadows.
The air here carried the same weight of hopelessness as Gotham. Chicago PD rarely ventured in. The city had long since decided to ignore the slum and let it rot.
Years of neglect meant large sections of the surveillance infrastructure were dead. Broken cameras, blind spots—gaps even Nova's network couldn't see.
Joseph accelerated and came to a stop in midair, hovering above the scene.
The street below was choked with debris and wrecked cars. Buildings on both sides bore scorch marks and shattered windows, not all of them were fresh. Two factions were locked in a firefight, using vehicles and crumbling structures as cover. On one side stood five people and on the other, about 20.
On either side were people the rest of society would label freaks, their bodies marked by mutations, cybernetics, or unstable powers.
The gunfire and meta abilities faltered as both groups noticed him.
Silence spread quickly. Even here, they knew better.
Joseph had always carried a deterrent presence. Criminals knew the stories—no one escaped him, and those who fought him didn't walk away unscathed. Most gave up the moment they saw him, choosing surrender over injury.
That reputation had only grown in recent days, fueled by rumors that his actions had drastically reduced casualties during the Hour of Chaos. Still, a few idiots thought they could bargain with him—trick him, manipulate him—because he was technically still a kid.
As Joseph started to descend, a shirtless man wearing a spiked shoulder pauldron raised an assault rifle and opened fire.
Joseph didn't move.
The bullets flattened harmlessly against his body and clattered to the pavement. He crossed his arms.
"You ruined everything," the man snarled, eyes wild. "I had Mayor Cole in my pocket. You hear me? With him backing me, I could've had Chicago. Maybe the whole Midwest. Cornfields. Grain silos. Everything. And you took it away. Why won't any of you submit?!"
"We're never joining your gang, Bad Blood," a man in a checkered trench coat shouted from the opposite side. "Nova's here. It's over. Now release Alyce."
"You think a kid is gonna stop me, Knowbuddy?" Bad Blood sneered, swinging his rifle toward them.
Joseph moved.
In a blink, he yanked the man off his feet with his anti-gravity field and ended the fight with a single punch, dropping Bad Blood unconscious to the pavement.
Joseph floated down, boots touching the ground with a soft thud.
"Explain."