The sky ripped, a great rending tear that revealed for a billionth of a second the vast and terrible underpinnings of reality as the human race understood it before synchronizing with another universe whose every quark vibrated at a slightly different frequency from the one Earth's heroes called home. Veena's assembled champions looked with awe at another world, another existence that awaited them on the other side of a portal that hung wider than any dimensional tear any of them had ever experienced. Many of them had seen parallel timelines, even visited them through openings natural and artificial... but never on this scale. The Grand Concordance was bigger than anything they'd ever imagined.

And on the other side, they saw people waiting for them.

Some they recognized. Professor Psycho had only recently been banished from their universe through the combined efforts of Adventure Girl and the Frontier Foundation, but now she floated in the exact center of the gaping tear in reality on a coruscating nimbus of interdimensional energy that amplified her telepathic powers until gravity itself rippled under the psionic leakage emanating from her nextstep brain. Behind her, waiting on the other side of the portal, her handpicked Dystopians waited for the terrifying forces to stabilize so they could step through.

Others had only been reported by the unlucky few who'd stumbled through a gap in the universe and found themselves in a twisted, inverted version of the reality they knew. Thrillkill smiled eagerly, flying in tight circles as she impatiently waited for the chance to introduce herself to a whole new world of victims. The Supremacy tightened her grip on her silver girdle, held taut much like her muscles in preparation for the assault. A version of the Broot almost indistinguishable from the one the assembled heroes recognized thumped his tail on the ground, ready to vent his frustration on another existence that refused to recognize his power. The Lurking Dread and his sidekicks, Metus and Discordant, checked the fuses on their fear gas bombs one final time.

And at the head of the army, they saw a man hovering in the air. His face was known to them, even if the twisted smirk of triumph he wore transformed him from the paragon of virtue they knew into a cruel, leering monster. He wore the trophies of a hundred conquests, taken from his own parallel selves in the last instants before he crushed the life out of them and made their worlds his colonies, and he flew through the tear in reality before it stabilized as if the impossible energies it unleashed meant nothing to him. The Rescuer's alternate self, the leader of the Punishment Detail. Imperil.

He burst through to the other side and spoke in a booming voice that could be heard for miles. "Citizens of Earth-21246!" he cried out, holding his arms wide in imploring welcome. "Today ends the terror you know as self-determination! Today begins the blessed, eternal embrace of our benevolent leadership! No longer will you have to suffer the burdens of deciding your own futures, your own destinies, even your own thoughts! We, the grand and glorious rulers of the Pan-Universal Empire, have arrived to free you at last from freedom itself."

The Supremacy flew through the stabilizing portal, silently smirking at Professor Psycho as she passed her secret ally. Imperil had his uses--all men did, especially in those primitive worlds that had yet to understand the virtues of feminine power--but his primary use was as a stooge and a figurehead. And it was speeches like these that reminded her just how very good he was at it.

"There have been misunderstandings," he continued, "between our peoples. Some of you have failed to grasp the wonder that is subjugation, and yes, we have had to send the Punishment Detail forth to remedy your confusion with our loving discipline. And yes, your champions have repelled us--even now, we see that you await the chance to join in battle again. But the Grand Concordance and the Way that has Opened has amplified our ally's mental gifts to an irresistible degree. Your confusion will clear, replaced by a complete and total understanding of your new place at our feet. Professor, if you would?"

Her mental energies fully gathered, Professor Psycho lashed out with a wave of pure telepathic might that bathed each and every single human being on the face of the planet in her will. No human was powerful enough to withstand it. Even the most indomitable mind would fall in the face of such an overwhelming onslaught, their very notion of freedom twisted and perverted into blank, blissful obedience until they begged to serve the new order that awaited its chance to gain foothold in this universe.

But she found no free will waiting to contest her. The entire human race, its superheroes and supervillains and the ordinary people who walked among them, all existed in a state of mental subjugation so complete and total that Professor Psycho found no weak points in their mystically controlled minds. They were united in a mutually reinforcing network of compliance to a greater power, tied together by a spell that held them in an unbreakable grip intertwined with a strength she recognized as readily as she did her own. Korina Psyche's telepathic power. A psionic force operating on the same same frequency, the same wavelength, as impossible for her to break as if it was her own.

"They're ready for us," was all she managed to say before Earth's heroes charged en masse at the host invading their reality and the battle was well and truly joined.

*    *    *    *    *

For some, the fight ended quickly. Captain Tomorrow targeted the Lurking Dread and his allies with a force-cage mere instants before their gas bombs went off, trapping them in a concentration of potent terror-inducing toxins that overwhelmed the antidotes they had dosed themselves with. Moments later, they knocked themselves unconscious fleeing in panic directly into an invisible wall.

Others found themselves far more equally matched. Adventure Girl sped through the air in a lethal dogfight with Thrillkill, snatching civilians out of the line of fire mere instants before a burst of killovision seared the air where they stood. "You can't protect them all, sweetie!" the leering blonde crowed, smashing through the sides of buildings as she raced her way around the globe at supersonic speeds. "That's why I always win over you boring old goody two-shoes versions of me--it's just so much easier to wreck stuff than it is to keep it safe!" She scooped up a statue in passing from a town square and lofted it into the air, and Samantha Steele barely managed to steer it to a safe landing with her venture-breath. "More fun, too!"

Adventure Girl raced ahead, firing off venture-vision blasts at the woman pursuing her as she used her other senses to detect bystanders and move them out of harm's way. Her mind raced even faster, desperately trying to find some weakness in a villain she couldn't be more evenly matched with... and one who wasn't afraid to use her morality against her. Another day, she might have lost time and energy in self-doubt and worry, but Veena's control kept her perfectly focused on the battle and every strategy she could possibly use to win it. "I don't suppose we could talk this through, could we? Just sit down for five minutes and have a conversation about what you think you're going to get out of this whole 'invading Earth' nonsense?"

Thrillkill snarled, drop-kicking a sedan into a power station and clenching her fists in excitement at the resulting shower of sparks. "Talk is boring!" she cried out. "I'm all about action, baby. You stop to think, and pretty soon you're wondering whether that guy you just killed had a family and if they miss him and stuff, and then you just get bummed out. I'd rather get on to the next big thing, you know?" She made a hard left, aiming directly for a hospital, and Adventure Girl had to brace herself and accept the impact as her double slammed into the only obstacle that she couldn't crash straight through. She felt her ribs bruise, a pain that she scarcely imagined possible before today.

She reared her head back and bashed it straight into the bridge of Thrillkill's nose, sending the other woman reeling backwards in surprise and pain. "It's always smash first, ask questions later with losers like you," she growled, following it up with a burst of venture-vision that collided directly with the energies of her counterpart. "That's why you always lose... you never plan ahead. You're so busy trying to cause damage as quickly as possible that you don't even consider what you could do with something really dangerous like the--"

Thrillkill smiled, her killsenses following Samantha's glance upwards at the Liberty Squad's satellite headquarters. "Got some really good stuff up there, huh? You know, I wonder if your biometric security system is smart enough to tell you apart from someone who's identical to you in literally every aspect. Guess we'll find out, huh?" And with that, she darted straight upward, cracking a dozen sonic booms in her haste.

"Wait!" Samantha cried out from behind her. "Wait, you don't understand! The Parallax Key is in the Level 10 Security Vault for a reason! You mustn't try to gain access! Even I don't have clearance to--" But already the oxygen was thinning, making absolutely no difference to either woman's invulnerable body but rendering conversation impossible. Thrillkill sped into orbit, angling her body to fly directly at the airlock that irised open to let her in.

She had only a few moments' head start on Adventure Girl, but Thrillkill once again had the advantage of utter disregard for property damage. She tore directly through several levels of the station's infrastructure, heading directly to the most secure vault without even stopping to glance at the other weapons and artifacts the Squad had confiscated over the course of their battles. "Is this the one I'm looking for?" she called back without looking, bashing her fist repeatedly into a barrier made of dwarf star metal. "Because it might not want to let me in, but I guarantee you there's not much that can stop me when I put my mind to something. And if your Parallax Key is anything like mine, babe, then--"

"Then it was destroyed ages ago," Samantha gloated, looping a thin chain around the neck of her doppelganger. "There's nothing in the Level 10 vault at the moment. But that Level 6 vault you passed back there had a little trinket called the Pendant of Persephone inside. Don't suppose you're familiar with it, are you?"

Thrillkill spun around, launching a brutal punch directly at Adventure Girl's face... but instead found herself caressing the petite blonde's cheek instead. "No, it's... I... what's it doing to me? Why can't I, why are you, what's....?" Her expression contorted in shock and dismay as she found herself slipping off the dark green leather bikini she wore and helplessly, even eagerly spreading her legs to give her other hand better access to her suddenly-soaking pussy. "What's... happening?"

Samantha smirked triumphantly. "I've got a battle to get back to, honey. Guess you'll have to find another way to get your thrills for a while." The subdued villain nodded vacantly, already losing herself in masturbatory bliss.

*    *    *    *    *

Not everyone had such an easy time with their counterparts. Venus Ascendant barely had time to spot the approach of the Supremacy before a punch that would have torn battleship steel slammed into her head and sent her reeling. "You're pathetic," the Amazon warrior snarled, following up her advantage with a flurry of blows that left Venus no time to recover. "A contemptible lapdog for every Man who comes along. Let me guess, you preach a gospel of peace and love and co-existence? Tell it to me and see where it gets you, cur." The beleaguered superhero managed to block a sidearm swing from Supremacy's bracers that would have fractured even her durable skull, but it only left her open to a rabbit punch that left her doubled over in agony.

"This is why we always win," Supremacy growled, bringing her knee up into Venus Ascendant's face and toppling her backwards onto the ground. The mystic sigils inscribed by Veena during her preparations for the Grand Concordance channeled healing magic into the dazed hero's body, but there were so many wounded on the battlefield that no spell could possibly keep up. "Because we're the perfected version of ourselves. Untroubled by weakness, unfettered by conscience, willing to be ruthless in a way that you could never be. And once you're dead, the odds will be that much more in our favor. Who do you have to save you now?" Her fist came down in a lethal blow.

Azure caught it. "Hi," she said, seemingly untroubled by the momentum she'd just absorbed. "That's kind of my sponsor there, and I'm guessing you'd make a pretty shitty replacement, so let's just not, okay?" She flung Supremacy away with her tactile telekinesis, wincing in sympathy as the other woman crashed headlong into a tangle of energy blasts being flung back and forth by Maiden Britain and the Imperial Majesty.

It didn't put her down for long, though. The Supremacy leapt back to her feet and unslung her magical girdle, wrapping one end repeatedly around her wrist and jumping high in the air to whip the other end around Azure's waist. She flew rapidly around the other woman, wrapping her again and again in the unbreakable silver cord until Azure's arms were pinned to her sides. "Now I'll get the truth out of you. You've no counterpart in our universe--are you a construct of magic, an illusion disguising that chaos bitch Madame Macabre? Tell me what you are."

Azure frowned, her brow furrowing... but not in an effort at resistance. "No, um, I'm a podiatrist. Speaking of, are those weird spiked boots really giving you any kind of arch support? I have to imagine that your feet are killing you by the end of the day, invulnerability or no. This probably isn't the time and place for the full lecture, but--"

A surge of mystical energy whiplashed up and down the silver rope, cutting her off mid-sentence. "You're stronger than I imagined, woman," Supremacy snarled, slowly reeling Azure in arm over arm. "Not many can resist the magic of Athena. But I will know who you are and why we've seen nothing of you in any of the universes we've conquered. Tell me your name, your origins, your abilities, your weaknesses--everything!" The girdle glowed electric blue, its power feeding directly into Azure's mind and clashing with the spells and counterspells and dueling telepathic forces already forcing themselves onto her.

"Well, my name is Azure Haven, and I come from a timeline that was erased by the Paradox King which isn't so much an origin as a serious trauma I'm trying to work through--without the benefit of a therapist, mind you, because the last time I tried to find a professional to help me through my shit it turned out he was trying to hypnotize me into assassinating the Russian President, and that's a whole huge thing that has given me a metric fuckton of trust issues on top of everything else I'm going through. My abilities... shit, I don't know, I'm a pretty decent cook so long as you don't ask me to make a hollandaise sauce, and I was top of the pub every weekend at trivia, um... oh! Everything I touch becomes an extension of my telekinetic field...."

The rope suddenly came alive in the Supremacy's hands, knotting itself unbreakably around her arm before whipping back and forth over Azure's head to slam the Amazon warrior into the ground again and again until her battered form finally slumped into unconsciousness. "And my biggest weakness is aged single-malt," Azure finished, stepping effortlessly out of the cocoon of mystic bindings as they loosened around her. "But that's why I've got a sponsor now."

*    *    *    *    *

And still other heroes never even saw their doppelgangers. Shadowstryke stalked through the battlefield like a ghost, using her psionic cloaking abilities and a series of precision nerve strikes to take down one street-level villain after another. She presumed that somewhere, her counterpart was doing the same thing--after all, it was literally what she would do if she was her, and she was pretty certain she was. Which made her head hurt to think about, but Shadowstryke tried not to let it get to her.

She took extra care when she happened upon one villain in particular--Song Jeong-Hui knew all too well from sparring sessions that left her bruised and sore just how well Penelope Powell fought, and she had no reason to imagine that the parallel version of her was any different. And with WildRose occupied elsewhere, it was up to Shadowstryke to ensure that whatever this woman called herself--NightBloom? DarkThorn? BloodOrchid?--she didn't take down Jeong-Hui's girlfriend. The plan depended on it.

Even so, Shadowstryke was astonished to see the other Penny managing to roll with a blow that would have incapacitated any other martial artist, and come back up in a fighting stance with twin knives in her hands and a cruel, hateful smile on her face. "Let me guess," she growled, slashing out rapidly and drawing blood through a gap in Shadowstryke's tactical armor. "You're this universe's Darkblayde? I have to tell you, I'm not impressed. She'd have put a fucking sword through my lungs and called it a day."

Shadowstryke looked for an opening, but every time she feinted in for a punch, the other woman used the added reach of her viciously sharp daggers to slice at exposed fingers, wrists, anywhere she could find even a hint of flesh. None of the cuts were deep, but all of them trickled blood and Jeong-Hui knew that she couldn't sustain those kinds of injuries indefinitely. "Look, Penny," she tried, hoping to appeal to her opponent's humanity. "I know that whatever that universe did to you, whatever you saw there, you're still the woman I love deep down. You just need to--"

The other woman cut her again, this time a deep gash that gouged into Shadowstryke's palm and left her wincing in pain. "You know who else called me Penny, bitch? My uncle, before he wound up dying like a dog at the end of some loser's gun." She pressed her advantage, slashing with both blades in a mesmerizing dance of death that left Shadowstryke uncertain where the next blow was coming from. "I swore an oath on his grave that I wasn't going to go out like that. I was going to be on the winning side, each and every time."

Another cut, this one deep into the meat of Shadowstryke's thigh. She could feel the blood flowing harder every time she put her weight on it, and she could begin to feel herself growing faint and woozy as the cumulative blood loss took its toll. "Penelope Lillian Powell died that day. I'm Funeral Lilly now. And I never, ever lose." She slashed out with a hidden blade in her boots, and Shadowstryke fell backwards. Incongrously, it popped into her head that she was finally going to learn her lover's middle name on the day that she died.

But just as the blade came down at her face, it snapped in half. "Just like a villain to bring a knife to a gunfight," the God of Bullets said, stepping out of the chaos of battle with his duster billowing in the wind and both guns blazing like a John Woo poster come to life. He ducked under a thrown dagger, then shot another one out of the air before drilling Funeral Lilly in the knees with a pair of mercy bullets. "Be grateful I swore an oath too," he said, knocking her cold with the butt of his pistol as she fell to the ground. "Or you wouldn't live to lick your wounds another day."

He turned to Shadowstryke. "You'll be okay in a few minutes. The healing magic is doing some triage, but I'm sure it'll catch up to you soon enough. Until then, just rest, okay?" Shadowstryke nodded, drawing her mental cloak around herself and waiting until she was ready to rejoin the battle once more.

*    *    *    *    *

The tide of battle turned back and forth on encounters of that nature, heroes allying to defeat their evil counterparts and villains ganging up to crush their mirror-foes. Around Professor Psycho, a cadre of Dystopians formed up in a phalanx, holding back a spearhead of the strongest Utopians this Earth could muster. Both sides understood that the longer the battle went on, the more energy the telepath would have to expend simply holding open the dimensional tear--the Way had opened, but the Grand Concordance couldn't last forever. Only indomitable will could bring about the Punishment Detail's victory.

But Korinna Psycho had willpower to spare, and her Dystopians had practiced their maneuvers on a hundred conquered worlds. Even without the ability to simply nullify the resistance of their enemies, even when she could feel the battles going against her allies all around her, she knew that there was always one ace in the hole that would demoralize their opponents. One fight on which all the others hung. No matter how many times they fought these wars, no matter how many little victories the heroes of Earth won... they all broke when their Rescuer died.

And that wouldn't be long now.

"You always thought you were so strong, didn't you?" Imperil asked casually, driving his fist again and again into the Rescuer's face until impossible bruises bloomed beneath the hero's unbreakable skin. "You thought, 'Oh, I'm the Rescuer, the indomitable force, the one who stands when all the others fall. The one who saves the day.'" He smirked, tightening his grip on Kyle Kane's hair and using it to hold his head in place to batter him repeatedly.

"But you've never faced a true equal." Another blow, swelling the Rescuer's eye shut. Around them, the scarred and blackened landscape testified to their titanic struggle; the ground was seared from a thousand bursts of power-vision, torn up and gouged from blows that would have killed another superhero outright. This Rescuer had fought well, Imperil mused, better than any version that he'd squared off with before. Their previous battles had been inconclusive, and there were even moments when Imperil wondered if he'd finally met his match at last.

But no. He hung limp in Imperil's grasp, his will just as indomitable as ever but his flesh reaching the end of its ability to endure. "You've never met anyone who can take your strongest blows and return them in kind. And when you do? When all that power fails you and you can rely only on the killer instinct that drives you to punish your enemies and crush them until they're dead by your hands? You don't have that. You never did--it's right there in the name. You're kind. And that kindness will destroy you in the end."

Imperil slammed his counterpart to the ground, knelt on his chest, and let the full intensity of his power-vision burn into his enemy's flesh. "You don't have what it takes to be ruthless. You don't have what it takes to be cruel. You don't fight with true anger in your heart, my naive and foolish doppelganger." He leaned in, focusing his full attention on the Rescuer now, wanting to see that same moment he'd experienced a hundred glorious times when the hero finally realized that he'd failed the people he swore to protect. His every sense zeroed in on that perfect, pure moment of despair he knew was coming.

Which is why it came as a total surprise when WildRose rabbit-punched him in the kidneys. "No," she said, following the blow up with three more in rapid succession. Imperil was astonished beyond belief to discover that they actually hurt. "But I do."

He spun to face her, but already his power-vision was abating, and WildRose ducked under it easily to deliver a hard left directly into his gut. He felt the breath go out of him, and strangely it didn't create a hurricane-force gale that spun his opponent into the distance--instead, he doubled over, and she followed up her first punch with a right to the jaw that sent him careening to the ground.

Imperil looked up at her, and terror blossomed in his heart as he saw the cestus she wore on each hand--instead of metal riveted to the leather gloves, the sickly green glow of pure xenonite filled the air around WildRose's fists. "Oh, yeah," she said, giving him a knowing smirk. "The Rescuer? He's a total creampuff, saves kittens from trees and helps little old ladies across the street. But me...." She punched him in the face as he tried to rise, snapping his head back and drawing blood for the first time in a hundred invasions. "I'm a mean, sneaky bitch and don't you forget it."

He tried to fly away, but the xenonite radiation made him slow and vulnerable to gravity's pull and WildRose was easily able to hop onto his back before he made it more than a few feet. "Oh, we are not fucking done yet," she growled, delivering punches to his unprotected back until he finally crashed back down to earth a hundred yards away. "I have had to watch sadistic motherfuckers like you zip around through the sky like you owned it for goddamn years, and all I could do was look up and watch and wait for someone with the power to stop you. Well, I have literally dragged you down to my level now, asshole, and you know what?"

She flipped him over and broke his jaw with a rapid flurry of blows. "You don't look so tough." Imperil struggled, but his muscles were kitten-weak and his vision had gone from being able to perceive the gaps between atoms to a blurry, blood-filled haze. All he could do was lie there and take the punishment, punch after punch after punch, waiting for the end to come. The death he never imagined would be his. The death he visited on so many others.

But fate had something even worse in mind for him. "That's enough," the Rescuer said, rising to his feet, the bruises from Imperil's punishment already fading. "It's over now, WildRose." She scowled at him, but she stepped back far enough to allow the Rescuer to pick up his counterpart without suffering from xenonite poisoning. The knowledge that he owed his life to the pathetic, contemptible kindness he mocked, though, was a venom that went straight to his heart.

And then the Rescuer threw his opponent as hard as he could directly at the portal, directly into Professor Psycho's floating body. And just like that, it was over.

*    *    *    *    *

They didn't even have to push anyone in. Without the Concordance sustaining them, the vibrations that allowed the Punishment Detail to exist in this reality simply lapsed back to their natural state, and they faded from the universe as if they'd never been. The healing magics Veena had prepared took a few minutes to finish knitting together bruised and battered flesh, but even those injuries disappeared as well. And with a final strum of her instrument, Veena removed the spell that had controlled her allies.

"We don't have to do it this way," Professor Psyche said reluctantly, watching as Earth's worst villains wandered off in confusion, uncertain why they found themselves in the company of their most hated foes. "We could free only the heroes, help the others find a newer and better way of living."

Veena shook her head sadly. "It would be neither," she said, her voice lilting and musical despite its sorrow. "Subjugation is the oldest state humanity has endured, and it offers nothing good in the end. We took up this mantle out of necessity, and we must relinquish it in its entirety or not at all. And I know your days of treating people as objects are long behind you, Korina." The woman who looked older despite being thousands of years younger could only offer a slow, defeated nod.

And then, one by one, they left. They returned to their home cities, to realms beyond the sight of humanity, to alien planets, to the bottom of the ocean floor. And yet some indefinable impulse drove Adventure Girl to wait until she stood alone on the broad, ruined plain where the heroes of Earth had fought their ultimate battle... until Jenee Mon-Elle stepped out of nothing into existence. "Fair's fair," she said, waving her gauntlet over Samantha Steele's face. It glowed with a bright blue light, unwinding the blocks on the young woman's memory. "I promised you an answer when all this was over."

Adventure Girl's eyes widened as knowledge came flooding back in. "Oh my god," she gasped, taking in the sight of the fields around her in the full understanding of just what had happened to cause such damage. "It was... you... Jace got it all wrong! He, he thought this was the start of the Great Collapse, but--but--"

Adventure Girl sat down hard, her strength taken away not by any weapon but from sheer horrified shock. "If I'd listened to him. If I'd fought. They would have come through and, and they would have won, and... no more freedom. Ever. No more human race. No more... anything." It had been that close, she knew it instinctively. "Why... why didn't you just tell me to begin with? Or even Jace?"

Jenee shrugged. "Forty-seven years and a chalkboard," she said wryly. "There are so many infinitely complex variables that I couldn't risk it. I had to try to stitch it all up as best I could and hope that you would do what came naturally to a hero. And the same goes for Jace Andron, for that matter--he's a hero in his own time just like you, he just didn't have enough information. A thousand years of distortion and gaps in the historical record will do that."

Adventure Girl felt a chill run down her spine. "But it's real, isn't it? The Great Collapse he was talking about? The end of civilization?" She almost didn't want to know, but she had to ask. "When does it happen?"

Jenee smiled wearily. "The day you stop fighting," she said. "It's always there, waiting for one more tomorrow, held back by a host of people all doing the right thing and trying to save the world. It'll happen someday; it's inevitable, nothing good lasts forever. But it didn't happen today. Because of you."

Samantha Steele's face spread in a slow, proud grin. And she took off into the skies to find her next great adventure.

THE END