"A promise to Darkseid?" Donna challenged her. "A promise that could cost Jimmy his life?"

Mary shrugged off Donna's accusations. "Heru!" she called out, imploring the ancient Egyptian deity better known to the West as Horus. "Lend me your speed!"

Donna glanced anxiously at Jimmy. Jason was tugging on the towheaded reporter's arm, trying to hustle him away from the Mall, but Jimmy appeared understandably reluctant to abandon Forager, who was sprawled upon the chipped pavement surrounding the Washington Monument. "Here," Jimmy urged the groggy insect-woman as he crouched beside her, a.s.sisting her to a sitting position. "Let me help you."

"Come on!" Jason said impatiently. "Get a move on!"

But not even Donna was fast enough to stop Mary Marvel. Moving so swiftly that she was nothing more than a satiny black blur, she whooshed down from the sky and s.n.a.t.c.hed Jimmy away from his guardians before Donna or anyone else could even catch a breath. She zoomed away at lightning speed, leaving the thunderstruck Challengers behind. Within a heartbeat, both Mary and her captive were completely out of sight.

"Nooo!" Forager shrieked. She reached out desperately, but Jimmy was long gone.

Jason kicked the pavement. "Dammit!"

Donna shared their frustration. Flying over to join her remaining companions, she vented aloud. "I don't believe this! After everything we've been through, just to lose him to Darkseid like this . . . !"

"No." Forager climbed to her feet. Her armor was cracked and scuffed, but her resolve was apparently still intact. Twin antennae quivered pa.s.sionately. "I shall track the Olsenbug," she vowed, shaking her fist at the heavens. "And I will find where that black-hearted witch and Darkseid have taken him . . . even if it leads us to the very end of Creation!"

Donna was impressed by her courage and determination, which would have done an Amazon proud.

"All right," Donna said. "But first we need some serious backup."

6 AND COUNTING.

OUTSIDE METROPOLIS.

"Olsen," Darkseid greeted him. "How nice to see you again."

Jimmy was backed up against the wall of a rocky gorge somewhere in the Blue Mountains northwest of Metropolis. Darkseid gazed down at Jimmy from a ledge overlooking the narrow ravine, while Mary Marvel stood by on a lower ridge. She didn't look at all guilty about delivering the frightened reporter into Darkseid's clutches.

I don't understand, Jimmy thought. She wasn't like this on Apokolips!

"Darkseid," Jimmy replied, trying hard not to tremble. "I-I'm not afraid of you."

His show of defiance provoked a laugh from the arch-villain. "Ha! I admit you've been a source of great amus.e.m.e.nt to me these past months, James Olsen, but now the time has come to take back that which I have given you: the souls of the New G.o.ds." He extended his hand, which glowed ominously. "Don't worry. It will be very painful."

Jimmy could just imagine. Vivid memories of Lightray's and Sleez's butchered corpses, with smoking holes in their chests, flashed before his mind's eye. But he wasn't about to beg for mercy. If this was truly the end, he was going down fighting-just like Superman would.

"Yeah? Good luck with that," he challenged Darkseid. "Or did you forget that I've got powers now too?"

He threw out his arms, and pictured a volley of razor-sharp quills piercing Darkseid's stony gray flesh. He visualized his legs stretching like taffy, carrying him up and away from the lonely ravine. He tried to call upon the astounding speed he had tapped into once upon a time in Metropolis. Heck, he was even willing to dissolve into jelly again.

But nothing happened.

"Indeed, you have great power," Darkseid conceded, "so long as I permit it."

Twin beams shot from his eyes, blasting apart the rugged terrain beneath Jimmy's feet. Reeling backward, Jimmy threw up his hands to protect his eyes as granite splinters pelted his face. His b.u.t.t landed hard on the uneven floor of the gorge.

"Give it up, red," Mary advised him. She sounded like she thought she had his best interests at heart. "Why drag this out when you don't stand a h.e.l.l of a chance?"

"I'm disappointed to hear such language coming from you, Mary," a familiar voice scolded her. Hope flared brightly in Jimmy's heart as he spotted Superman flying down from the sky, faster than a speeding bullet. The Man of Steel's powerful right fist collided with Darkseid's chin, sending the startled villain flying from his rocky perch, while Mary Marvel nearly jumped out of her high black boots in surprise. Superman cast a disapproving glance in her direction. "You could really use a better role model!"

Forager came bounding into the gorge after Superman. "Olsenbug!" Her eyes and antennae anxiously searched his face for injuries as she hugged him so hard his ribs hurt. Her armored helmet failed to conceal her relief at finding him again. Fluttery wings retracted into her back.

"Superman!" Jimmy exclaimed. "Boy, am I glad to see you! But how . . . ?"

"Donna contacted me via the Hall of Justice," he explained. "Darkseid blocked my telescopic vision somehow, but, thanks to Forager, we were able to track you down." Landing in the gorge between Jimmy and Darkseid, who was even now rising ponderously back onto his feet, Superman stood ready to do battle with the sinister New G.o.d. "The rest of you should back away and find someplace safe." The bright red S on his chest contrasted sharply with the sinister darkness of Darkseid's and Mary's attire. His scarlet cape rustled in the cold mountain breeze. "This is about to get ugly."

Less than fifty yards away, amidst a pile of fresh rubble, Darkseid faced his foe. "Kryptonian," he snarled. "Do you mean to confront me alone?" He sneered mockingly. "I'm a touch insulted. I'd have expected the entire Justice League to rain down upon me at once."

"They're tied up right now with a living tsunami on the planet Rann," Superman said. "But there's no need to wait for them. This is between you and me. You had the New G.o.ds murdered, didn't you? And now you're going after Jimmy." Superman didn't often lose his temper, but Jimmy could tell from his tone that the hero was genuinely angry. "The way I see it, it's past time for me to put you down for good."

"You're mistaken, Kryptonian," Darkseid answered. "The end of the New G.o.ds is the Source's doing, not my own, but I alone shall survive to rule over the Fifth World to come, and nothing you can do shall stop me!"

His Omega Beams struck the ground, triggering a ma.s.sive earthquake that caused the wall of the gorge to crumble. An avalanche of shattered stone came roaring down the side of the mountain. "Jimmy!" Superman shouted, momentarily looking away from Darkseid. He looked torn between rescuing Jimmy and guarding him from Darkseid and Mary. "Your defensive powers?"

Jimmy tried to stretch to safety, but to no avail; his fragile limbs remained stubbornly inelastic. "Darkseid turned them off! I can't. . . !"

"Fear not!" Forager threw herself atop Jimmy, shielding him with her armored form. Heavy boulders bounced off her back and shoulders. "I will get the Olsenbug to safety!"

"Aww, that's sweet," Mary Marvel jeered sarcastically. Heedless of the falling debris, she launched herself at Jimmy and Forager, even as Superman struck back against her malevolent master. "But who's gonna save you?"

The ground shook as Superman waded forward against the full force of Darkseid's fearsome Omega Beams until he was right up in the villain's face. The searing radiation hurt almost as much as kryptonite, but Superman kept on coming. "If that's your best shot, Darkseid, you might as well give up right now."

"Oh, you needn't concern yourself with that." Darkseid blocked Superman's strong right fist with his beefy arm. Seizing the hero's shoulders, he shoved Superman down onto his back. "I only wished to bring you close enough to-"

Superman's eyes flashed crimson. A brilliant burst of heat vision struck the villain's face, blinding him. "Close enough to what?" Springing to his feet, Superman grabbed on to Darkseid's craggy face with his bare hand and flung him halfway across the ravine. The capsized New G.o.d crashed upside down into a granite cliff face. A landslide buried Darkseid beneath a heap of rubble. Seismic meters all over the state jumped in alarm.

I have to admit that felt good, Superman thought. He had foiled Darkseid's nefarious schemes, and battled his vicious minions, numerous times over the years, but Darkseid himself had usually refrained from getting his own hands dirty, preferring to manipulate events rather than engage in hand-to-hand combat with "lesser" beings. Too many of their past encounters had ended in frustrating stalemates, with Darkseid grudgingly returning to Apokolips to plot anew. Not this time, Superman resolved. It's about time we finally went to head-to-head. If Darkseid wants Jimmy, he's going to have to take me on personally.

An explosion of cosmic energy blew apart the mountain of debris on top of Darkseid. The cataclysmic shock wave hurled Superman into the air, rocketing him into the side of the mountain. Stunned by the force of the blast, he rolled downhill into the battle-scarred ravine, where Darkseid waited at the center of a newly carved crater. Fury had replaced hauteur upon the villain's features as he glowered wrathfully at the Man of Steel. Incarnadine energy crackled around his clenched fists. "You dare lay hands on mighty Darkseid?" he roared. "YOU DARE?!"

"Yeah, I do dare." Shaking off the effects of the explosion, Superman flew at Darkseid. His tattered red cape flapped behind him. His knuckles pounded into Darkseid's face. Black blood sprayed from the villain's lips as his head was knocked to one side. "Guess I'm just not a big fan of murderous tyrants!"

With no thought for his own safety, Superman hammered away at his foe.

Less than ten yards away, Forager sprang as nimbly as a gra.s.shopper, deftly evading Mary Marvel's angry fists, while Jimmy Olsen looked on desperately, wishing there was something he could do to help. "Keep still, dammit!" Mary cursed in frustration. Her swinging fist took a chunk out of a large gray boulder, but missed Forager completely. Mary looked like a frustrated exterminator chasing after an annoying c.o.c.kroach. All she needed was a giant flyswatter.

"Never!" Forager replied. She used Mary's own shoulder as a brace to flip over the frustrated ex-heroine while delivering a savage kick to Mary's rear as she landed nimbly behind the other female. "Only when the last breath of life leaves me will I-"

"Fair enough!" Mary interrupted. Running out of patience, she unleashed a blast of bright blue electricity that jolted Forager like the world's biggest bug-zapper. The insect-woman convulsed in shock before dropping limply to the ground. Her body twitched spasmodically amidst the dust and rocks.

"Wow." Mary grinned at her victim. Her electrified hair settled back down over her shoulders. The azure sparks surrounding her svelte form slowly flickered away. "What an annoying pest!"

Jimmy stared in horror at Forager's collapsed body. She was moving, at least, which meant she was still alive, but just how badly had Mary hurt her? Worse than Bernadeth back on Apokolips?

He couldn't believe that it was really Mary Marvel who had done this. She's Captain Marvel's sister for Pete's sake! he thought. It's like Supergirl going bad! "You've become a monster!" he accused her.

"Oh, whatever, Jimbo." Turning her back on Forager, she strode calmly toward Jimmy. "It's not like I'm going to kill you." There was no trace of mercy in her eyes or voice. "Just hang tight until Darkseid finishes up with your pal, so he can kill you. Cool?"

Jimmy backed away fearfully.

"Not cool!" Donna Troy declared as she leapt down into the gorge. Her boots slammed into Mary's back, smacking her facedown into the ground. Looking up in relief, Jimmy saw Jason Todd standing on the ridge above him. Jimmy guessed that Donna had flown him here. "Sorry not to get here sooner," she apologized. "But you try keeping up with Superman!"

Mary threw Donna off her and clambered to her feet. She shook the grit from her hair as she faced off against Jimmy and his latest defenders. Her irate face was caked with powdered stone, but wasn't even bruised. "You should've stayed out of this, Donna!"

"No way, Mary." Donna raised her fists as she got between Mary and Jimmy. Jason scrambled down the side of the ridge to join them. "This is it. We tried to talk sense into you, but you wouldn't listen."

"Yeah, you've got this coming, b.i.t.c.h!" Jason added.

Mary snickered. "You think you and the Boy Wonder there can take me down?" She wiped off her face and clapped the dust from her hands. "Okay, prove it!"

She charged at them with murder in her eyes.

Another punch got past Darkseid's defenses. Superman smiled grimly as the vainglorious New G.o.d went flying into a mountaintop several miles away. Solid granite shattered like gla.s.s, sending thunderous echoes through the wooded valley below. Superman's super-hearing detected a stampede of panicked wildlife racing madly away from the hillside. Good, he thought. There's no need for any innocent animals to get hurt by this conflict.

Darkseid slid down the side of the peak before rising to face Superman again. Despite the hero's best efforts, his foe seemed as arrogantly confident as ever. "That's it," Superman taunted him as he flew at Darkseid. "Get up. Keep fighting." The wind whooshed past his ears as he aimed his bare fists at the villain's skull. "I'm not ready to call it quits yet either!"

"I won't deny I've found your moralistic petulance amusing," Darkseid replied, his arms crossed boldly across his barrel chest. "But, frankly, this sort of rank barbarism is beneath me. I grow weary of it." He yawned theatrically. "Time to put your interference to an end."

Twin Omega Beams shot from his eyes. Soaring toward Darkseid, Superman braced himself for the agonizing touch of the death rays, but, at the last minute, the parallel beams suddenly executed a sharp turn, veering around Superman and heading back toward . . . Jimmy!

Jimmy gently eased Forager's helmet off as he knelt beside her. To his relief, he found her breathing steadily. Her multifaceted eyes fixed on his as she gradually regained consciousness. A trickle of turquoise blood escaped her lips. He placed his hand against her neck and tried to take her pulse. It seemed a bit rapid, but how was he supposed to know what was normal for her? She wasn't exactly human after all....

I don't care, he thought. She's the only good thing that's happened to me since this whole mess began.

The blare of gunfire, as well as angry grunts and curses, rang out behind him. Despite his concern for Forager, he couldn't resist glancing back over his shoulder at the heated battle going on only a few yards away, as Donna and Jason fought furiously to keep Mary away from him. Unfortunately, even though they outnumbered her two to one, they seemed to be losing ground at the moment; whatever Darkseid had done to Mary had obviously amped up her powers to a frightening degree. Jason fired round after round of ammo into the indestructible super-vixen, while Mary grabbed on to Donna's throat and yanked her off her feet, just like Captain Vyle had done to Jimmy in the slave pits of the Armagetto. He winced in sympathy. "Jeez. They don't have a prayer, do they?"

"Jimmy?"

"Forager!" He temporarily forgot the fight as he turned back to his alien sweetheart. "You're awake!" Placing one arm beneath her, he tenderly lifted her head from the ground. He felt a nasty b.u.mp beneath her silky purple hair. "Great, 'cause we gotta-"

"Jimmy!" she exclaimed. Her golden eyes looked past him at something above them. "Coming for you . . . !"

His head pivoted in time to see Darkseid's Omega Beams zipping toward him. Hoping to lure them away from Forager, he jumped to his feet and ran away from the sizzling scarlet rays as fast as he could. He zigzagged madly across the uneven terrain, trying to shake the beams, but they copied his every turn. "Yikes!" he shouted. "They're following me!"

Forager tried to get up, but, lacking the strength, collapsed weakly back onto the ground. "Forgive me, my Olsenbug! There is no escape for you!"

A jagged stone cliff blocked his path. He frantically tried to scramble up the side of the ridge, but the loose gravel kept sliding out from beneath his feet. He fell, sc.r.a.ping his knee on a sharp-edged boulder. Blood soaked through the knee of his grimy coverall. "Ouch," he yelped, but the pain was nothing compared to the excruciating agony that transfixed his body as the Omega Beams struck him from behind.

"No!" Forager cried out in despair. "JIMMY!"

He expected the souls of the New G.o.ds to explode from his chest, leaving a smoking corpse behind, and yet, to his surprise, the intense pain was over in an instant. Jimmy stared down at himself in confusion, wondering why on Earth he was still alive. His skin tingled all over.

"Huh?"

A Boom Tube heralded the return of Darkseid, who teleported back into the gorge, only a few paces away from Jimmy. A moment later, Superman came flying back onto the scene. He looked equally baffled by Jimmy's survival. His X-ray vision checked his friend out from head to toe.

"What have you done to him?" Superman demanded.

"Nothing, really," Darkseid said smugly. "I've merely unlocked the fail-safe I installed in him when I made him into my cosmic vessel." He waved his hand at Jimmy, and a queasy feeling came over the perplexed reporter. "Say good-bye to your super friend, Olsen!"

Jimmy's joints locked up. His pink skin took on a bright emerald hue, and a luminous green aura suddenly enveloped his body.

No! he thought. What are you doing to me now?

Superman gasped out loud and crashed to the earth, as though he had suddenly lost the ability to defy gravity. A sickly green pallor came over his face. Bulging veins protruded from beneath his skin as he writhed in torment on the rocky floor of the gorge.

OhmiG.o.d! Jimmy realized. I've turned into kryptonite!

Superman tried to crawl away, but Darkseid casually zapped him in the back with his searing eye-beams. "Oh no, Kryptonian. You aren't going anywhere." He turned to smirk at Jimmy. "And neither are you, Olsen."

His emerald brow furrowed in concentration, Jimmy strained to reverse the transformation, but without any success. Waves of killing radiation spilled from his body, making Superman weaker and weaker. He tried to get away from his friend, only to find himself frozen in place. An anguished grunt escaped his lips, but otherwise he couldn't move a muscle.

"It's useless to struggle," Darkseid informed him. "I control you now." His arms clasped behind his back, he strolled over to where Superman lay dying. "Besides, don't you want to be at your dear friend's side as he breathes his final breath?"

This is a nightmare, Jimmy thought. Paralyzed, he could do nothing but stand by while Darkseid used him to execute the greatest hero on Earth. Jimmy didn't want to die, but, at the moment, he would have gladly traded his own life, not to mention all his newfound superpowers, just for a chance to save his best friend. Please, don't let this happen!

Darkseid savored Jimmy's misery. "There is nothing you can do, Olsen. Darkseid pilots you now and the controls are embedded deep within your very core...."

5 AND COUNTING.

JIMMY'S BRAIN.

The cerebellum, the "little brain," was tucked away in the hindbrain, below the much larger cerebrum. Synapses sparked between cl.u.s.ters of neurons linked by branching dendrites and axons. Fatty layers of myelin protected the neural fibers, while pulsing veins and capillaries throbbed with every heartbeat. An eerie green radiance lit up a convoluted maze of grooves and folds leading through the cerebellum's twin hemispheres. Overlapping lobes quivered like jelly. Dripping neurotransmitters smelled like brine. The temperature inside the brain was hot and feverish.

"Ow," the Atom moaned, slowly stirring to consciousness. He found himself sprawled atop a bed of damp, sticky glial cells, where he must have collapsed when zapped by a sudden burst of intense brain activity. His own microscopic nerves still felt fried from the jolt. Would it have killed whoever rewired this brain to properly insulate it, he thought crankily, so that minuscule people like me don't get electrocuted when it fires up?

He had taken refuge inside Jimmy's brain during Mary Marvel's sneak attack outside the Hall of Justice, hoping to get to the bottom of Jimmy's on-again, off-again powers. Exploring carefully, he had made his way through the cerebral cortex down to the hindbrain before being knocked out cold by . . . what?

Something happened to Jimmy; that's for sure.

Lifting himself from the gooey brain matter, the Atom took a moment to get his bearings. Jimmy was obviously still alive, although his blood was pumping at an alarming rate. He could hear the posterior inferior cerebellar artery beating loudly deep beneath his feet, like a subway car shaking the pavement above. The synapses were still firing like they were supposed to, creating a strobe effect inside the brain's muggy interior, but how come everything was so . . . green?

Contrary to popular wisdom, the "gray matter" of a living brain was usually flushed red with blood. Ordinarily, hiking through the brain on foot was like spelunking through caves of spongy red jello, but now everything around him was suffused with a strangely familiar emerald effulgence that seemed to emanate from every cell and fiber of Jimmy's brain. Looking around in confusion, it took the Atom a second to recognize the distinctive green tint.

It's kryptonite, he realized in shock. Jimmy's radiating kryptonite?

The Atom didn't know how that was possible, but he guessed that Superman was somewhere nearby-and in serious trouble. All the more reason for me to figure out what Darkseid's done to Jimmy's brain and shut it down, p.r.o.nto!

The bouncy glia beneath his boots felt like a children's moonwalk ride as he investigated a network of metallic filaments intertwined with Jimmy's own ganglia. The Atom had been tracing the path of the artificial-looking circuitry right before he had been shocked unconscious. Crystalline flecks glinted amidst the filaments, which were intricately wedded to the pulsing brain matter. Ray was a physicist, not a neurosurgeon, but he had shut down enough evil telepaths' brains to know his way around, and this bizarre biological circuitry was like nothing he had ever seen before.

It's like H. R. Giger meets RadioShack, he thought. How in the world am I supposed to get a handle on this?

The cerebellum played a crucial part in controlling the human body's senses and motor controls, so he knew he had to be careful what he did here. One mistake could render Jimmy blind or paralyzed or worse. Yet he knew he had to do something about the alien apparatus infiltrating Jimmy's brain. Beneath the toxic glow of the kryptonite, he cautiously reached for an array of blinking crystals that looked like they might be a transformer of some sort.

Maybe if he cut the current . . . ?

ZZAKT! He yanked back his hand as emerald sparks stung his fingertips. "Okay, so much for that plan," he muttered. Getting electrocuted again wasn't going to help Jimmy any, let alone save the universe from Darkseid's malignant designs. The Atom paced back and forth before the baffling technology. Even though he had no idea what was going on outside Jimmy's skull, he couldn't help sensing that time was running out. He remembered Darkseid gloating over his master plan back in his fortress on Apokolips. Who knew how much longer they had before the arch-villain turned the entire Multiverse into a living h.e.l.l?