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Description

At a cross-country bus station somewhere in the rural United States, a bus prepared for the final leg of its journey. A new passenger appeared on the bus, sitting down next to a man and his little girl. This new passenger, a stranger with a medallion around his neck and a face completely obscured by the shadow of his hat, gave grim salutations to his current neighbors. The man introduced himself to the stranger as Abner, and his little girl is Greta. Greta, apprehensive about many a thing, could not speak. As the journey to the final destination dragged on, the stranger struck up a conversation with Abner, where he learned that Greta is very appreciative of a good tale. So, as night approached, the stranger, who gave no name, began telling her fantastical stories to put her tattered mind at ease…

For the first story, we turn the page to New York City, where journalists John Kent and Ella Lane were held up at gunpoint by masked gangsters in a dark alley. John was taken hostage and shoved into a van while Ella was handed a message from the goons’ boss, crime boss Bruno Manneheim. The message states that John, now being transported to an unknown location, will be killed unless Ella collects all of the information on Manneheim’s criminal activities that she collected for her story on him. She is to take all of the information to a specified location for Manneheim and his gang to destroy and John will be safely released. Otherwise, John will die by their hands. The problem with that being that John Kent is actually Superman, a nearly-invincible superhero, and Ella knows that. She still needs to turn in that information to prevent Manneheim and his men from accidentally discovering John’s secret identity when they fail to kill him. As Ella tries to recollect the info, John, tied and gagged in a warehouse, used his magnetic powers to remotely access a guard’s cell phone and stay in contact with Ella via text messaging. John and Ella agreed to a ruse to keep Manneheim and his men distracted. Meanwhile, John accessed the guard’s phone records and discovered the addresses of several of Manneheim’s hidden racketeering and prostitution rings in the city. With his powers, John was able to relay the information to his police liaison Maggie Sawyer, who dispatched her forces across the city and raided them. Meanwhile, Bruno Manneheim himself was at the hostage exchange when he got the news that his criminal businesses were being raided. Sure this has nothing to do with the hostage trade, Manneheim tried to shoot Ella, but John dove in the path of the bullet and took it in the shoulder, landing in a pile of debris in a way that he was concealed. Manneheim tried to escape, but the soles of his shoes were melted to the concrete by John’s subtle heat vision. The other goons pulled guns on Ella, but Superman appeared at super-speeds and knocked them out. Ella then punched out Manneheim himself as police arrived. Superman quickly changed back into an injured John Kent as Sawyer and the police arrived to arrest Manneheim and his men. Manneheim was tried in court as his misdeeds were exposed on ink and paper…

In the hidden nation of Bana-Mighdall, located somewhere in Africa, the sovereign queen Karna and her advisers prepared for the arrival of Queen Sisters Hippolyta and Philipus, rulers of Themyscira. You see, the Themyscirans and the Bana are the same race of immortal, all-female humanoids with flesh of organic stone. The Bana had splintered off from Themyscira ages ago, under the flag of Bana-Mighdall’s first queen Phthia, who is the daughter of a Themysciran and Jason the Argonaut. Karna became the rightful queen of Bana-Mighdall when she defeated Phthia at the end of the Tournament of the Crown, in which Phthia was killed in glorious battle. And now, Karna was intending to forge peace between her people and the Themyscirans after a long cease-fire. Alongside Akila, the Bana’s champion warrior known as The Shim’Tar, Karna sat down with Hippolyta and Philipus to begin talks… when it happened. An explosion erupted within the democratic chamber, throwing back the attendants, and killing two guards from both sides of the negotiation. After the explosion was seen by the populace of Bana-Mighdall, a cloaked Bana was spotted by Bana peacekeeper Anaya running from the scene. Anaya and her partner Iphthime pursued the cloaked woman and caught her as the other peacekeepers rescued the royals and quenched the fires. The suspect, Fatima, was interrogated and they learned that it was an “annihilation rune” scribed beneath the seat of Hippolyta. They examined Fatima and discovered a special ink on her hands that is fundamental in creating the explosive rune. Fatima refused to give them who she gave the ink to, but explained that it is hard to get off of Themysciran skin, sticking to it for weeks at a time. It’s color will fade first, but still be stuck in a transparent form. Anaya and Iphthime met with the three queens and the Shim’Tar and explained this to them. Hippolyta asked them to perform the procedure that discovers the ink on themselves (to exclude them) and then all the Bana that had access to that room that day. When it came time to examine Akila, she came out negative for the ink… but then Queen Karna asked her to remove her gauntlets so they can reexamine her to be sure. After a brief pause, Akila deftly lashed out at her own queen, almost slicing her throat with a hidden knife. The Shim’Tar was dogpiled by the other Bana peacekeepers and her gauntlet was forced off, confirming the examination as positive for the ink. Akila admitted she wanted to kill the three queens, seeing Karna as weak for wanting peace between the two nations. And with Hippolyta and Philipus gone, Themyscria would be destroyed in the anarchy of the political void. Karna officially stripped Akila of her Shim’Tar status and ordered her taken into custody. A few days later, the three Queens recovered and reconvened to discuss the peace treaty…

In the city of Pittsburgh, a geneticist named Dr. Achilles Milo was toiling away in his employer’s research facility on the edges of the metropolis. As midnight approached, Milo decided to shut down his office’s security cameras to have a candid conversation with an unusual visitor. A mass of calcified, amber ooze poured through the air vents, carrying with it a canister of a chemical substance that Milo requested. The ooze is a collective sentient organism that was once human, and her name is Sondra Fuller. A criminal known by some as Clayface, Fuller had been pilfering chemicals from other laboratories in the area for Milo. The purpose? Dr. Milo had agreed to reverse the mutagenic process that, inadvertently, made Fuller into the sentient mass. In exchange, Fuller would reveal to him the identity of The Robin, one half of the vigilante duo that constantly undermines Milo’s black market dealings in genetic engineering. With work on the cure progressing swimmingly, Milo then ordered Fuller to procure for him one last substance he needed to proceed with a cure for Fuller; as per the agreement, only after she was cured would Fuller tell Milo the Robin’s true identity. However, Fuller became suspicious of Milo being willing or able to keep his end of the bargain, despite the conditions of it, so she left behind a piece of herself to reassemble into an eye and an ear and hide in them his lab to spy on him. As Clayface committed her final heist, her reconstituted eye and ear was able to catch that Milo was actually planning on recreating her amorphous form for himself, using the chemicals that she’s been stealing for him! Clayface abandoned the heist midway and returned to Milo’s laboratory. Fuller demanded that Milo destroy all of his research on becoming another Clayface, but he insists that he will still cure her (in exchange for Robin’s true identity, of course). Fuller said the deal’s off and she destroyed Milo’s lab, refusing to let another person with condition be free to commit crimes and atrocities. Milo escaped in the destruction, and Fuller left…

Inside STAR Labs, in Los Angeles, CA, Barry “The Flash” Allen woke up upon a gurney. The lab was destroyed, along with the teleporter to the Watchtower satellite, and many of his co-workers and allies were dead on the floor. Horrified, Flash went to the window to see the city in ruins, the skies black and red with ash and fire. Flash, with his superhuman speed, scouted out the city and saw old posters, graffiti, and vigils praising the supervillain Prometheus, whom the Flash and his team, the Justice League, seemingly defeated months ago! Masked rioters attacked Flash from the shadows, striking at him with unique superhuman abilities each. He tried to escape, but was pursued by three more speedsters. He eluded them and ran across the country to find the Batcave in Pittsburgh, and maybe find a working teleporter to the Watchtower. But, in the middle of his trek, he came across the Watchtower collapsed in a crater in the middle of the countryside! He found logs in the remains recording the successful detonation of Prometheus’ chemical weapon into the Earth’s atmosphere, imbuing Earth’s population with his Everyman mutagen. All of the Justice League are dead, Green Lantern sacrificed her life to create a permanent quarantine bubble around Earth, and every other superhero team is either dead or in hiding. Flash remembered that the DNA of his former teammate Dr. John Jones can cure Everyman mutations, but he found info that revealed that Prometheus’ assassin Blight succeeded in killing him and incinerating every bit of his genetics. Flash could feel in his heart that Batman was still alive, so he raced again towards the Batcave. With Pittsburgh also in ruin, Flash reached the Batman’s headquarters. Batman was also dead, and a very old Prometheus was standing over his remains. He said that this was not his intention when he flooded the atmosphere with Everyman, but now it’s too late to do anything! The earth shook beneath their feet and the ground covering the Batcave ripped open, lifting into the sky! Prometheus took out a gun and committed suicide to avoid what would come next. More masked Everyman mutants appeared and surrounded Flash, and he tried to fight through them and escape befoere they eventually caught him. They took off their masks and revealed scars on their foreheads, each shaped like the Omega symbol! As the mutants began chanting “All Are One In The Dark Side”, Flash looked to the sky and saw Uxas, Lord of the Dark Side, descending from the skies! Flash tried to run, but Uxas’ telekinetically-manipulated acid blood was too fast. He fired it from his eyes and incinerated Fl-
Inside STAR Labs, in Los Angeles, CA, Barry “The Flash” Allen woke up upon a gurney. Barry woke up panicking and short of breath and his fellow hero, Rick “Hourman” Tyler, ran to his side. Barry asked what happened and Rick told him they were trying to recreate Hourman’s precognition abilities in Flash, to augment his super-speed abilities for the better. Flash decided that what he saw was a hallucination from the chemical transplantation and to leave that, and his abilities, well enough alone…

The stranger finished his fourth and final story as Greta fell asleep on his arm, not Abner’s. When dawn approached, the bus reached it’s final destination in Boston, MS. Abner woke his little girl and the passengers began departing. The stranger said to him as they began walking towards the exit of the terminal,
"I'll see you around… Abnegazar.”
Abner turned back towards the stranger as he fired a magic energy beam from his medallion. As the people scattered in panic, Greta was thrown from the blast but landed unharmed. Abner transformed in his true form, the demon Abnegazar, but the stranger simply pulled out from his coat the demon’s weakness, a magic artefact called the Silver Wheel of Nyorlath. The demon was absorbed into the wheel, and the stranger said to himself that there are 'two of them to go'. He turned his attention to Greta, full name: Greta Hayes, and said he knows of her being a magic-user and that Abnegazar kidnapped her to sacrifice her life in a dark ritual. Now able to speak, Greta told the stranger that she was cursed by him to be mute. Now with both of her parents murdered by the demon, she has nowhere to go. The stranger took pity on the orphaned girl and they got into a taxi. The taxi began taking them to the Kent Nelson Institution for Higher Learning in the city of Salem…

Notes:
* The stranger is indeed the Phantom Stranger.
* Greta Hayes will join the Shadowpact.
* The other two demons Phantom Stranger are hunting is Rath and Ghast, the brothers of Abnegazar.

Description

At a cross-country bus station somewhere in the rural United States, a bus prepared for the final leg of its journey. A new passenger appeared on the bus, sitting down next to a man and his little girl. This new passenger, a stranger with a medallion around his neck and a face completely obscured by the shadow of his hat, gave grim salutations to his current neighbors. The man introduced himself to the stranger as Abner, and his little girl is Greta. Greta, apprehensive about many a thing, could not speak. As the journey to the final destination dragged on, the stranger struck up a conversation with Abner, where he learned that Greta is very appreciative of a good tale. So, as night approached, the stranger, who gave no name, began telling her fantastical stories to put her tattered mind at ease…

For the first story, we turn the page to New York City, where journalists John Kent and Ella Lane were held up at gunpoint by masked gangsters in a dark alley. John was taken hostage and shoved into a van while Ella was handed a message from the goons’ boss, crime boss Bruno Manneheim. The message states that John, now being transported to an unknown location, will be killed unless Ella collects all of the information on Manneheim’s criminal activities that she collected for her story on him. She is to take all of the information to a specified location for Manneheim and his gang to destroy and John will be safely released. Otherwise, John will die by their hands. The problem with that being that John Kent is actually Superman, a nearly-invincible superhero, and Ella knows that. She still needs to turn in that information to prevent Manneheim and his men from accidentally discovering John’s secret identity when they fail to kill him. As Ella tries to recollect the info, John, tied and gagged in a warehouse, used his magnetic powers to remotely access a guard’s cell phone and stay in contact with Ella via text messaging. John and Ella agreed to a ruse to keep Manneheim and his men distracted. Meanwhile, John accessed the guard’s phone records and discovered the addresses of several of Manneheim’s hidden racketeering and prostitution rings in the city. With his powers, John was able to relay the information to his police liaison Maggie Sawyer, who dispatched her forces across the city and raided them. Meanwhile, Bruno Manneheim himself was at the hostage exchange when he got the news that his criminal businesses were being raided. Sure this has nothing to do with the hostage trade, Manneheim tried to shoot Ella, but John dove in the path of the bullet and took it in the shoulder, landing in a pile of debris in a way that he was concealed. Manneheim tried to escape, but the soles of his shoes were melted to the concrete by John’s subtle heat vision. The other goons pulled guns on Ella, but Superman appeared at super-speeds and knocked them out. Ella then punched out Manneheim himself as police arrived. Superman quickly changed back into an injured John Kent as Sawyer and the police arrived to arrest Manneheim and his men. Manneheim was tried in court as his misdeeds were exposed on ink and paper…

In the hidden nation of Bana-Mighdall, located somewhere in Africa, the sovereign queen Karna and her advisers prepared for the arrival of Queen Sisters Hippolyta and Philipus, rulers of Themyscira. You see, the Themyscirans and the Bana are the same race of immortal, all-female humanoids with flesh of organic stone. The Bana had splintered off from Themyscira ages ago, under the flag of Bana-Mighdall’s first queen Phthia, who is the daughter of a Themysciran and Jason the Argonaut. Karna became the rightful queen of Bana-Mighdall when she defeated Phthia at the end of the Tournament of the Crown, in which Phthia was killed in glorious battle. And now, Karna was intending to forge peace between her people and the Themyscirans after a long cease-fire. Alongside Akila, the Bana’s champion warrior known as The Shim’Tar, Karna sat down with Hippolyta and Philipus to begin talks… when it happened. An explosion erupted within the democratic chamber, throwing back the attendants, and killing two guards from both sides of the negotiation. After the explosion was seen by the populace of Bana-Mighdall, a cloaked Bana was spotted by Bana peacekeeper Anaya running from the scene. Anaya and her partner Iphthime pursued the cloaked woman and caught her as the other peacekeepers rescued the royals and quenched the fires. The suspect, Fatima, was interrogated and they learned that it was an “annihilation rune” scribed beneath the seat of Hippolyta. They examined Fatima and discovered a special ink on her hands that is fundamental in creating the explosive rune. Fatima refused to give them who she gave the ink to, but explained that it is hard to get off of Themysciran skin, sticking to it for weeks at a time. It’s color will fade first, but still be stuck in a transparent form. Anaya and Iphthime met with the three queens and the Shim’Tar and explained this to them. Hippolyta asked them to perform the procedure that discovers the ink on themselves (to exclude them) and then all the Bana that had access to that room that day. When it came time to examine Akila, she came out negative for the ink… but then Queen Karna asked her to remove her gauntlets so they can reexamine her to be sure. After a brief pause, Akila deftly lashed out at her own queen, almost slicing her throat with a hidden knife. The Shim’Tar was dogpiled by the other Bana peacekeepers and her gauntlet was forced off, confirming the examination as positive for the ink. Akila admitted she wanted to kill the three queens, seeing Karna as weak for wanting peace between the two nations. And with Hippolyta and Philipus gone, Themyscria would be destroyed in the anarchy of the political void. Karna officially stripped Akila of her Shim’Tar status and ordered her taken into custody. A few days later, the three Queens recovered and reconvened to discuss the peace treaty…

In the city of Pittsburgh, a geneticist named Dr. Achilles Milo was toiling away in his employer’s research facility on the edges of the metropolis. As midnight approached, Milo decided to shut down his office’s security cameras to have a candid conversation with an unusual visitor. A mass of calcified, amber ooze poured through the air vents, carrying with it a canister of a chemical substance that Milo requested. The ooze is a collective sentient organism that was once human, and her name is Sondra Fuller. A criminal known by some as Clayface, Fuller had been pilfering chemicals from other laboratories in the area for Milo. The purpose? Dr. Milo had agreed to reverse the mutagenic process that, inadvertently, made Fuller into the sentient mass. In exchange, Fuller would reveal to him the identity of The Robin, one half of the vigilante duo that constantly undermines Milo’s black market dealings in genetic engineering. With work on the cure progressing swimmingly, Milo then ordered Fuller to procure for him one last substance he needed to proceed with a cure for Fuller; as per the agreement, only after she was cured would Fuller tell Milo the Robin’s true identity. However, Fuller became suspicious of Milo being willing or able to keep his end of the bargain, despite the conditions of it, so she left behind a piece of herself to reassemble into an eye and an ear and hide in them his lab to spy on him. As Clayface committed her final heist, her reconstituted eye and ear was able to catch that Milo was actually planning on recreating her amorphous form for himself, using the chemicals that she’s been stealing for him! Clayface abandoned the heist midway and returned to Milo’s laboratory. Fuller demanded that Milo destroy all of his research on becoming another Clayface, but he insists that he will still cure her (in exchange for Robin’s true identity, of course). Fuller said the deal’s off and she destroyed Milo’s lab, refusing to let another person with condition be free to commit crimes and atrocities. Milo escaped in the destruction, and Fuller left…

Inside STAR Labs, in Los Angeles, CA, Barry “The Flash” Allen woke up upon a gurney. The lab was destroyed, along with the teleporter to the Watchtower satellite, and many of his co-workers and allies were dead on the floor. Horrified, Flash went to the window to see the city in ruins, the skies black and red with ash and fire. Flash, with his superhuman speed, scouted out the city and saw old posters, graffiti, and vigils praising the supervillain Prometheus, whom the Flash and his team, the Justice League, seemingly defeated months ago! Masked rioters attacked Flash from the shadows, striking at him with unique superhuman abilities each. He tried to escape, but was pursued by three more speedsters. He eluded them and ran across the country to find the Batcave in Pittsburgh, and maybe find a working teleporter to the Watchtower. But, in the middle of his trek, he came across the Watchtower collapsed in a crater in the middle of the countryside! He found logs in the remains recording the successful detonation of Prometheus’ chemical weapon into the Earth’s atmosphere, imbuing Earth’s population with his Everyman mutagen. All of the Justice League are dead, Green Lantern sacrificed her life to create a permanent quarantine bubble around Earth, and every other superhero team is either dead or in hiding. Flash remembered that the DNA of his former teammate Dr. John Jones can cure Everyman mutations, but he found info that revealed that Prometheus’ assassin Blight succeeded in killing him and incinerating every bit of his genetics. Flash could feel in his heart that Batman was still alive, so he raced again towards the Batcave. With Pittsburgh also in ruin, Flash reached the Batman’s headquarters. Batman was also dead, and a very old Prometheus was standing over his remains. He said that this was not his intention when he flooded the atmosphere with Everyman, but now it’s too late to do anything! The earth shook beneath their feet and the ground covering the Batcave ripped open, lifting into the sky! Prometheus took out a gun and committed suicide to avoid what would come next. More masked Everyman mutants appeared and surrounded Flash, and he tried to fight through them and escape befoere they eventually caught him. They took off their masks and revealed scars on their foreheads, each shaped like the Omega symbol! As the mutants began chanting “All Are One In The Dark Side”, Flash looked to the sky and saw Uxas, Lord of the Dark Side, descending from the skies! Flash tried to run, but Uxas’ telekinetically-manipulated acid blood was too fast. He fired it from his eyes and incinerated Fl-
Inside STAR Labs, in Los Angeles, CA, Barry “The Flash” Allen woke up upon a gurney. Barry woke up panicking and short of breath and his fellow hero, Rick “Hourman” Tyler, ran to his side. Barry asked what happened and Rick told him they were trying to recreate Hourman’s precognition abilities in Flash, to augment his super-speed abilities for the better. Flash decided that what he saw was a hallucination from the chemical transplantation and to leave that, and his abilities, well enough alone…

The stranger finished his fourth and final story as Greta fell asleep on his arm, not Abner’s. When dawn approached, the bus reached it’s final destination in Boston, MS. Abner woke his little girl and the passengers began departing. The stranger said to him as they began walking towards the exit of the terminal,
"I'll see you around… Abnegazar.”
Abner turned back towards the stranger as he fired a magic energy beam from his medallion. As the people scattered in panic, Greta was thrown from the blast but landed unharmed. Abner transformed in his true form, the demon Abnegazar, but the stranger simply pulled out from his coat the demon’s weakness, a magic artefact called the Silver Wheel of Nyorlath. The demon was absorbed into the wheel, and the stranger said to himself that there are 'two of them to go'. He turned his attention to Greta, full name: Greta Hayes, and said he knows of her being a magic-user and that Abnegazar kidnapped her to sacrifice her life in a dark ritual. Now able to speak, Greta told the stranger that she was cursed by him to be mute. Now with both of her parents murdered by the demon, she has nowhere to go. The stranger took pity on the orphaned girl and they got into a taxi. The taxi began taking them to the Kent Nelson Institution for Higher Learning in the city of Salem…

Notes:
* The stranger is indeed the Phantom Stranger.
* Greta Hayes will join the Shadowpact.
* The other two demons Phantom Stranger are hunting is Rath and Ghast, the brothers of Abnegazar.