| Keystone City - October 1
In an underground base, Amunet Black—better known as Blacksmith—typed furiously on her laptop, monitoring the empire she had built.
For fifteen years, she had run the Network, an underground black market operating in Central and Keystone City. It served as a hub where super-villains could buy, sell, and move contraband, and where the criminal underworld could hire metahuman muscle.
During that time, she'd briefly married fellow villain Goldface. When they divorced, she stole the elixir that empowered him, altering it so she could merge metal with flesh and bend it to her will. Along with this came mechanokinesis—the ability to control technology with her mind.
Under her hand, the Network stayed invisible to authorities. If any villain reformed or retired, she made sure their existence was erased.
Her vision didn't stop there. Blacksmith planned to seize control of both cities herself. To that end, she gathered a new cadre of Rogues from those already under the Network's umbrella: Weather Wizard, Mirror Master, Magenta, Murmur, Girder, and Plunder. Trickster had disappeared, Shrapnel was locked away, and Shockwave was about to be—but it hardly mattered. The team she had was more than enough to bring down the Flash with a fast, coordinated strike.
Still, she hoped her recruits were playing nice. Blacksmith demanded that her Rogues not only hone their powers but also work together. Magenta kept Girder from rusting. Weather Wizard trained with Mirror Master to better control his wand.
They'd already been together for a week, but with super-villains, stability was always fragile. The clearest example was Murmur, once a respected surgeon before insanity drove him to a murder spree to silence the voices in his head.
Then there was Girder, infamous for assaulting women. After repeated unwanted advances on Magenta, she finally tore his metal body in half with her magnetism. True to her name, Blacksmith had welded him back together.
Checking the feed from their shared quarters, she froze. The Rogues were motionless, as if asleep. This wouldn't be too alarming considering it was morning but on closer inspection, Murmur's neck was leaking blood. Girder's head lay separated from his body. Mirror Master's neck was twisted grotesquely. Plunder had a red hole drilled into his forehead.
Alarm bells rang in her mind. Her senses stretched outward through the base.
Her power allowed her to detect any foreign material fused with living tissue—glass, circuits, wires, anything unnatural. And something like that was closing in fast.
Metal and circuitry around her—phones, guns, monitors, laptops—melded into her body, transforming her into a gleaming blue figure traced with white circuitry. Stronger. Faster. As durable as steel.
She braced for the intruder. But as the door swung open, darkness claimed her.
**
Joseph—Bullseye—sat calmly on a desk, studying his new prizes: the Weather Wand and the Mirror Gun.
With Nova's surveillance, it had only been a matter of time before he tracked down someone like Blacksmith. Infiltrating the base, he'd culled those beyond redemption—the unrepentant killers and rapists.
He didn't waste time combing through every mind. Even with Py'tar's memory-search techniques, diving into endless streams of thought risked unraveling his own identity, not to mention how tedious it was. Nova handled that work instead, scouring public records and probing memories in the Dream State before Joseph consumed the worst offenders' psychic energy.
He would've done the same to Gotham's gang leaders, but they were too high-profile. Their sudden absence could destabilize Gotham's fragile balance, so for now, Harvey Dent's mind control kept them in line.
And Joseph felt less creepy when Nova did the mind invasions.
From Weather Wizard—spared because his crimes were only extorting towns to not get bad weather, theft, and avenging his murdered brother—Joseph had learned the wand's full capabilities. True to its name, it could manipulate the weather itself, able to harness lightning, wind, water, ice.
The Mirror Gun, taken from the now-dead assassin Mirror Master, was even more unsettling. Its abilities ranged from generating holographic images to using reflective surfaces as a portal to a warped alternate reality known as the Mirror Dimension, effectively allowing for teleportation. It could also grant the wielder invisibility and intangibility at will. It even allowed the user to see through any reflective surface on Earth. More disturbingly, the gun could imprison others in a nearby reflective surface—condemning them to death if the mirror that held them was ever shattered. It's only limitation was that it required sunlight for its technology to work.
For a moment, Joseph wondered why such world-changing tools were wasted on small-time villains. The wand could have alleviated droughts and curbed global warming. The gun could have revolutionized transportation. But then he understood: in the wrong hands, such technology would destroy the world. Governments and corporations alike would weaponize it.
The League withheld their own tech for similar reasons. Scarcity of the exotic materials used to make these tools and the fragility of global economies only reinforced the choice.
Even so, Weather Wizard could have profited ethically—negotiating with nations desperate for rain. And Mirror Master could've been way bigger than a C-tier crook.
Those opportunities would now be forever gone for them.
Joseph's nanites absorbed both weapons, shrinking them to microscopic scale with Atom's stolen tech. Nova would analyze them and see if they could be incorporated into his nanites. The ability to peer into any reflective surface on Earth would enhance Nova's surveillance. Not even Savage would be able to hide from his reflection.
Joseph turned back to Blacksmith, reviving her with a psychic pulse. She jolted upright, ready to leap at him.
"Sit," Joseph ordered.
The mind-control nanotech embedded in her body compelled her to obey.
"Don't ever try to act against me," Joseph added. "Don't remove the nanotech either. I know you can sense it. Don't even think about it."
Her jaw clenched. "What do you want, Bullseye?"
"You know who I am. Good. I chose the right person to serve me. Your Network has reach and influence, but your vision?" He leaned forward. "It's too small."
"What do you mean?"
"Why settle for Keystone and Central City," Joseph said, his eyes cold, "when you could control all the crime in the world?"
**
| Mount Justice - October 1
"Recognized: Nova B-08," the Computer intoned as the Zeta-Tube powered down. Joseph stepped into the Cave in his Nova suit, sensing no one around.
"Where is everyone?" he asked.
//Most of the Team is at school. Starfire is patrolling D.C. The Arrows are with Green Arrow, and Match is at STAR Labs while scientists try to halt his imperfect Kryptonian DNA's cellular degeneration.// Nova replied.
'Got it,' Joseph thought. With Nova monitoring most of the world's security cameras for the Light, he could also track anyone else he wanted. 'Anyway, let's find Sphere.'
He entered the hangar and froze. What he assumed was Sphere had transformed into a heavy-armed tricycle, guns locked on him. She emitted a signal that made the Fatherbox in his helmet squirm—almost in pain.
Joseph quickly established a psychic link, having Nova reach out to Sphere.
//Sphere detected the hidden Fatherbox and is broadcasting anti-Apokoliptan signals. She thinks it's controlling you.//
'Wait—it can do that?' Joseph yanked the device free with telekinesis.
//Yes. New Genesphere says Fatherboxes are sentient "living" computers created on Apokolips by Metron to tap into the Source of All Life, malevolent counterparts of the Motherbox. They corrupt minds and bodies for Darkseid.//
A chill ran through Joseph. 'Could it have been influencing me?'
//No changes in your psyche detected, but the risk exists.//
Joseph paced as Sphere bombarded the Fatherbox with anti-Apokoliptan pulses. The device writhed in the air like it was alive. This was a camera-free section of the hangar—no risk of exposure.
He thought back. His plans to control crime predated the Fatherbox. His alliance with Carla Viti had begun months before he acquired it. Taking down the Light, Apokolips' allies, hardly served Darkseid's interests. That eased his fears—somewhat.
Before, he might have discarded it—he already had the Mirror Gun for teleportation. But the Fatherbox drew from the Source itself, an infinite well of energy powering New Genesis. That power could offset the brutal energy costs of his shrinking tech and Nova's computing. His reserves from basking near the sun were already nearly drained.
He glanced at Sphere, still pulsing with anti-Apokoliptan signals.
"Sphere, please help me."