“I would have been fine if you’d left me back in Japan…” Logan’s voice battled with the wind, ripped from his lips as Dan hauled him through the skies. “Hell, I’d be ok if you just dropped me right now!”
“No can do, Logan,” Dan smiled as they closed with a military camp. Kara and Cal awaited his arrival, alongside Captain America. “We’ve got an appointment, and you’ve got a job offer to consider.”
Dan intended to have the more pragmatic Logan assist the young Kryptonians as they gathered mutants and other meta-humans into the Order of Krypton. An adult presence, no matter how questionable, would benefit the Order as it moved forward.
“I already told you, you’ve got the wrong guy for the job,” Logan continued his fruitless struggle against Dan’s biofield, face set in a deep scowl. “I’m a soldier, not a school teacher.”
“These teens are more soldiers than they are children, and you’re underestimating your own adaptability,” Dan chuckled at Logan’s futile efforts and brought them in for a landing on an American controlled airfield. “You’re a leader, a moral man who’s willing to dirty his hands for the cause.”
“Moral,” Logan snorted as his feet touched the tarmac. “You really have the wrong guy, my hands are stained with more blood than you can imagine.”
“Really?” Dan held Logan’s gaze, his face now an empty mask. He tapped into the sealed coldness of Omniman’s memories, an apathetic bloodlust that electrified the air. “I think you’ll find that we have some things in common, but the blood that we have - or will spill - doesn’t have to define us.”
Logan fell silent as Kara and Cal walked forward to greet them, Steve Rodgers at their side. Dan smiled at the iconic hero, hand extended to grasp the soldier’s offered handshake.
“It’s nice to meet the mysterious Superman,” the Captain returned Dan’s smile as he sized up his deep blue suit. “Supergirl is always preaching about your greatness and even Superboy has said enough to impress me… is it true that you're going to end this war in a single night?”
“The Germans have gone too far,” Dan nodded as he released Steve’s hand and turned to wave at the wasted landscape. “It is within my power to prevent more lives from falling to their insanity, the people of the world deserve justice and need a return to peace.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Steve shook his head, face drawn in tired lines. “We’ve been pushing hard the last week or so, but even these two powerhouses can only take so many miles a day.”
Dan smiled. Kara and Cal had just barely activated their biofields, while their Bronze Template DNA severely limited their growth speed. Either of them could probably destroy the planet with their ki, but their speed outside of combat was far too low to sweep countries in a single night.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
“That won’t be a problem,” Dan rolled his shoulders, eyes focused as he planned his mental route. This display of speed would be something he had never attempted before. “Do me a favour and don’t let that guy leave.”
Dan hooked a thumb in Logan’s direction and rose into the air. A signal to Venom as countless holocams descended from space, a legion that captured every inch of the battlefield within their gaze.
This was a universe where the power of faith could create actual gods, something that he intended to use to his advantage. If he gained enough ‘worshipers’ and took command of the phantom zone, he may be able to gain a new form of power.
“Magic is my one shortcoming, but soon that won’t be the case,” Dan rolled his shoulders as a deep breath surged into his lungs. Abeloth was a kind of god, so he would fight fire with fire. “It’s time to put on a show for the masses…”
Dan flickered as the world slowed to a silent halt. He blitzed from point to point, each stop part of a loop that covered the fields of war. Afterimages began to form, thousands of versions of himself created by his repetitive course.
Ally and Axis forces alike stopped, eyes fixed on the countless figures that covered the heavens. One for every German soldier, a legion of Supermen that blotted out the sun. Dan’s afterimages smiled down upon the soldiers, jovial and unconcerned as they slowly advanced upon the enemy lines.
“Now for the hard part…” Dan cleared his throat, prepared for the longest conversation of his life. He would need to spend the entire time in his accelerated state, careful and controlled as he repeated his words in slow motion. “...Soldier’s of the German armed forces, set down your weapons and you will not be harmed.”
Dan tracked his afterimages’ many eyes over the fearful troops, arms spread wide. The beginnings of his heat vision glowed a vibrant red behind his pupils, a menace that contrasted with his fixed, yet comfortable smile.
“You have thirty seconds to comply,” the fire behind his eyes grew with every word, a crimson glow that dyed the battlefield with tones of blood. “This war is at an end, no more innocent lives will be lost under the mad hand of Germany’s leader… make your choices, but know that peace begins today!”
Time ticked by, an endless wait that he used to comb through the magical knowledge within his brain. Thirty seconds equated to hours if he continued to maintain his afterimages. Slowly but surely, more than half of the terrified soldiers set their weapons on the ground and kneeled.
“Time’s up,” Dan drifted forward, each afterimage on target for its paired soldier. A hail of gunfire reached out to greet him, burnt from the skies by the heat of his eyes. “Those who have surrendered shall be taken as prisoners of war, the rest have chosen their fate.”
Dan’s voice echoed over the chaos of war, amplified by his biofield to strike the eardrums of the German forces. The sonic assault brought a pause in the rain of steel and fire as howls of pain rose to replace them.
The prisoners were cuffed with a symbiote clone and levitated into the air. Countless men carried toward the allied base camp, accompanied by their personal afterimage. A new wave of fire rose from the deafened soldiers, pointless resistance as Dan’s visual copies closed at their leisurely pace.
Many began to run, but Dan maintained his distance from each, alongside his steady advance. Each afterimage entered within arms reach of its target at the same time. Fists pulled back, the smiles slipped from their faces.
Sombre and silent, Dan punched out countless times. A cacophony of thunder that rolled over Europe and beyond. Red mist filled the skies, a haze drifted on the wind as it settled to the Earth. His afterimages gave a final gaze to the deserted and bloody fields, before they vanished.
“At least I can cut the loop a bit shorter, but this is still going to take forever,” Dan sighed as he continued to ferry the prisoners of war towards Captain America’s position. Yet more time to burn the magic he already knew into the reflexes of his mind. “
His army of ‘selves’ descended upon the airfield and deposited their human cargo in orderly lines. Their task complete, each one slipped towards a central point as Dan let time return to a more tolerable flow.
“You really weren’t kidding, huh?” Steve’s face was slack as he took in the shackled Germans. “I don’t know if we have enough cells for all of them…”