Approaching the solar system for the first time in over a year was a bit of a concerning experience, especially with the state of the place. The system was filled with debris; thousands of scattered bits here and there, as if numerous alien fleets had visited only to be destroyed after the Jotun left; and while there were obvious stations installations on mars, nothing matched what he’d left behind.

  A single, massive station dominated earth’s orbit, with a variety of smaller ones scattered here and there. Jason stared at it for a moment, thinking.

  “...So. I’m guessing alternate universe, but still close enough to have english?”

  The fake human gave him a chipper smile as she faced him; this one appeared to be an irish girl in her mid-20s if he had to guess. “Affirmative! Currently checking things out. The number of differences is astounding, but we might want to hold off on the complete list; we’re being hailed.”

  Jason nodded. “Well, that’s all well and good. Is it one of the different FTL methods?”

  “Tachyon signalling. Very slight amount of lag from here. Less than two seconds.”

  He blinked. “...That’s… surprising. Well then. Put it on.”

  After a few moments, a figure appeared on-screen. It was very clearly an augmented individual of some sort, with obvious signs of strange technology embedded in the flesh; but otherwise appeared to be human.

  ~This is the Watchtower, contacting unknown alien vessel. You are trespassing in human space. Please respond or be removed.~

  Jason chuckled. “This is the Dragonslayer Three, returning from an unintended excursion to Andromeda. While I might have aliens on my crew, I’m human, myself. Though, the fact that you don’t recognize me, or the name of the ship, means that either this isn’t my earth, or I’ve been gone longer than expected; I left earth on the Dragonslayer Two, though we renamed her Jean D’Arc once she was ready to launch… less than two years ago.”

  The face blinked. ~Stand by.~

  The connection ended. Jason nodded thoughtfully. “Are these people associated with the government?”

  “No. They seem to be a superhero team, of sorts, though… from what I can tell, most of them are either aliens, or have alien technology stuck in them.”

  “Well then. I’m assuming no La Famiglia?”

  “Negative. The space that was La Famiglia back home is an abandoned island owned by the United States, currently abandoned. I can give you more details once we’ve more thoroughly reviewed the historical records.”

  She glanced back at him. “Hailing us again.”

  He nodded. The same face appeared. ~You do in fact appear to be human, or some variation thereof. Approach and prepare to be boarded and inspected.~

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t allow that. I would be fine with exiting the ship personally to introduce myself, but before allowing an inspection of the vessel I’ll need to speak with the authorities in the US; the owner of the ship needs to give permission for such a thing, and I doubt that permission will be forthcoming.” No mention, of course, that he was the actual owner.

  The face went blank for a moment. ~.....You, as the Captain, are willing to give an in-person meeting?~

  “Sure. I can’t promise to answer all of your questions, but I’d be willing, at the very least, to promise I’m not here to invade or wipe out humanity, or any other such nonsense, under whatever means of lie detection you have.”

  When the call disconnected, he glanced at Ascension’s drone on the bridge. “Should we be worried about them getting access to us?”

  She shrugged. “So far, I’ve located no less than seven forms of AI in the solar system. One on mars, five on earth, and the gentleman you just spoke to is an interesting hybrid of human and AI. I suspect he’s the reason the others exist; while I can easily prevent him from getting access, the amount of processing power he exhibits is between 15 and 37% higher than what Ascension can bring in… and his entire brain appears to be part of his physical body. Without an AI running defense, no network on earth could be protected from him.”

  “...That's… interesting. Are we talking about secretive Alien overlords running the earth here?”

  “...Possibly. The news portrays these people in an almost universally positive light, despite several of them being aliens. One of them even looks exactly like a human of european descent, but thats supposedly his natural appearance despite being an alien from some other world, while another looks exactly like a human woman, only with wings.”

  “...So. Hiding something. But just what are they hiding? Shapeshifters? Body-snatchers? This should be fun. Saving the world from alien overlords wasn’t among my expectations here.” He flexed his prosthetic hand for a moment, the raw, jagged mass of dull red metal glowing with the sigils carved into it. He’d actually had it mostly disabled for much of the flight over from Andromeda, not wanting to accidentally do something to strand them all in the void. Perhaps he’d get some use out of it here.

  “I’ll take a flight over. While I’m gone…. Check for anyone I’d know, and see if we can meet someone in the US. Maybe we can buy La Famiglia for a bit of alien tech, and make a new start.” He was looking forward to it. It would be amusing if they attempted to intimidate him.

  ***

  The shuttle-ride over was smooth; when they’d reached a few hundred kilometers out, a request came over to provided guidance control; and the shuttle AI took over; not giving any feedback or direct access, but purely obeying the commands it was sent…. Until it actually landed inside an enormous bay, with some sort of field preventing the air from escaping.

  He’d taken a pair of ‘Bodyguards’; one Forstager, one Jernal; but they both knew that Jason himself was all the guard he needed. It was mostly just to gauge the reactions of these heroes.

  The Jernal stepped out first; carefully controlling his reactions as he surveyed the room… followed by the amusingly named and mostly vibrant emerald-colored Sweeper of Floors… and then Jason himself, wearing a fairly classic outfit in his terms; solid black body-armor, his one red artificial limb, the standard smooth silver helmet… and studied the people who had gathered to meet him.

  He assessed each of them as he looked by; imagining what would happen should he draw that Titanslayer handgun at his hip; which, unlike flying over here, felt like an absolutely terrible idea.

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  First was the cyborg. Looking like a mix of a linebacker and a robot, he was tall, dark, and while extremely smart, if he opened fire the projectile would annihilate the man, along with the bulkhead behind him.

  He’d completely shrug off a round from the railgun hidden in the extradimensional space, though. Which… was troubling.

  Beside him was a tall, vividly green figure wearing a cape of all things… in fact capes appeared to be common, here. The man would respond to a raised fire-arm by… creating a hole in his body in the predicted path? Both excellent reflexes and shape-shifting. Would save him from the railgun, not Titanslayer.

  He focused next on what looked like a tall, fit man who looked like nothing more than a tanned white midwestern farmboy in blue and red tights. For the first troubling development, Titanslayer… would leave him intact. The wall behind him would be gone, and he wouldn’t look happy; maybe bruised? But no real harm to the man himself.

  That… was troubling. Even if he used a round that was empowered, the sort that could take out a gas giant, the man would only be hurt. The level of durability there…. He would be hurt, so he wasn’t a Titan. But…

  He was expecting more bad news when he looked to the next one. A woman, wearing a distinctly american-looking red-white-and-blue outfit with gold accents, complete with stars, and… almost as tough as the man. Hurt, not killed. Railgun might as well be a pebble.

  The news got worse as he spotted the second-to-last figure… and before he even thought about it, he could tell from the lightning bolt on his chest; this was this universe’s version of Lightning. Red and Yellow were different, sure. But if he raised the handgun and pointed it at him, it would be disassembled before he pulled the trigger.

  The last one… wearing an odd pointed black hat and a cape? With a silly yellow logo, center-of-mass? Complete unknown. The handgun would also be disassembled if he pointed it at him; but apparently that just meant this universe’s Lightning didn’t think Titanslayer was a threat to anyone but himself or this guy.

  Which… well. Was almost accurate, so reasonably competent. The only thing he could do that would allow him to escape would be to use the false arm to just obliterate everything nearby… and that would kill his bodyguards. He regretted bringing them. Could he get out without killing them? And that red-blue guy would probably survive even that; he’d need to pull the same sort of thing as the Emperor, warping space-time with a pair of collapsing extradimensional spaces to kill him.

  “Hello, gentlemen. Lady. I must confess to a bit of surprise here. Not sure exactly what I’m going to end up doing, but I should probably be speaking with someone at the Pentagon right now, so we’ll need to keep this brief. What can I do for you?”

  The group looked to each other. The red and blue figure spoke first. “We are the Justice League, protectors of the earth. Diana, if you could please?”

  The woman in the patriotic-looking ensemble stepped forward, holding out a softly glowing rope, and extended it. “Hold this. It will ensure your honesty while I ask questions.”

  Jason glanced down at it…. And shrugged, taking hold of it. “Well, ask away. I can’t promise to answer all of them, but if its reasonable I will.”

  She looked a touch upset… but nodded. “Fine. Who are you, what species are you, and where are you from?”

  “Jason Bennet, also known as Eyeball, Titanslayer, the Seer, and the Outsider, by various groups of allies and enemies. I’m from earth, the United States, and grew up in various parts of the south.”

  The whole group visibly relaxed a bit. “Do you pose any threat to the earth, or intend to harm or conquer it?”

  He frowned. “Myself and my ship are both capable of destroying the planet in a variety of ways. I have no intention of attacking or conquering anyone on earth, except possibly those who attack me and my crew or our existing enemies… but if this is really an alternate earth, I have no existing enemies here. I’m not a hundred percent certain on that but can’t be sure until I’ve checked a bit more thoroughly.”

  The woman seemed a bit more concerned at first… then less, as he kept speaking. “How did you get to our universe?”

  “Assuming this is a new universe… I was fighting an alien monster called the ‘Emperor’. An unstoppable giant squid-creature of a species called the ‘Rikk’, that consumed entire worlds, and which I believed was going to attack the earth. Its skin was tougher than even the red and blue guy over there… though not much… so I had to use an improvised technique that I thought would kill me to destroy his brain. What actually happened was sending his brain, with myself along for the ride, to another universe.”

  She nodded. “Ahh. Saving the earth. Made a habit of that?”

  Jason considered for a moment. “Maybe? I almost doomed humanity once, and helped save it a few times. Started my whole metahuman career off saving humanity by killing…” He stopped. Struggled for a second not to speak… and dropped the rope. It didn’t just make him tell the truth. It made him fully answer the question while he held it.

  “Now, that’s a bit more detail than I’d prefer. Are you satisfied?”

  The woman frowned, looking down at the glowing rope, and looped it back around her waist. “That you’re not a threat to humanity, yes. Who was it you killed?”

  Jason frowned… these people could force him to tell the truth. He glanced at the red and yellow figure with the lightning bolt on his chest. “Not sure what you go by here. But on my world, your name was Lightning; the man with infinite speed, based out of some isolated spot in wyoming, though you worked on crimes all through the midwest, or anywhere you were needed. The aliens who invaded… the Jotun. They had some mind-control device that would let them seize a single person on earth, no matter how resistant, no matter the protections. And… you were the absolute most dangerous man they could control. Would’ve wiped out every military base on earth, and the entire east coast of the US, in fractions of a second, then died, if I hadn’t come along.”

  The others stared at him, then at each other. The chamber was dead silent. The one in the black cape spoke up. “There was no nonlethal solution? Don’t get me wrong… I’ve got a contingency in place should he be mind-controlled. But I would never kill him. Just stop him until I could free him.”

  Jason shrugged. “Not going to get into it. Here’s the long and short of it. I’m from Earth; at least, probably a different version of it. I was born in the USA. I was willing to sacrifice myself to save my earth. I got lucky and survived. So. I’m going to talk to whoever this universe’s version of my superiors in the Pentagon were… and figure out where to go from there. If they want me to leave, I probably will. Maybe even check if anyone else wants to go explore the universe. I honestly want to settle down on some desert island, build a house. Maybe find places for my friends to colonize.” He nodded at the bejeweled form of Sweeps on his right.

  He looked at the group, focusing on the man in red and blue. “You have no right, and no authority to stop me. I’m here as a courtesy. And thanks to your little truth-rope thing, you know I’m not here to conquer or kill. Do you have any other questions?”

  The man gave a slow nod. “Fine. You can go. But we’ll be watching you. If you don’t hurt anyone, you probably won’t see us again. If something threatens the earth, what is your intention?”

  Jason studied him for a moment… “This might not be my earth. But even so, if I make my home here, I’ll defend it, from all threats.” Including ones already there.

  “Then we should get along just fine. Here…”

  The man moved. At a superhuman speed that he wasn’t able to track. He barely prevented himself from reacting before the man moved, locking his joints in place for a few seconds. Even replaying that moment of video on his helmet only showed two frames that weren’t him standing there…. And he was holding what looked like a smartphone.“This is a phone. It’ll work anywhere on earth. If, for some reason, you need to talk to us…”

  Jason studied the black rectangle. “No, thanks. I’ve got the frequency we spoke on before I showed up.” He tapped his helmet. “You have a good one.”

  He stepped back into the shuttle; and they let him leave.

  He glanced back at the open door as the ‘bodyguards’ entered, frowning. That alien. The one that was making itself look human. It wasn’t just incredibly, insanely tough, to the point the only way he had handy to kill it involved sending it to another universe. It was a speedster. A ridiculously fast speedster. Without some sort of prep, or more details about its weaknesses, anyone that fast and tough could simply run through any army at super-speed, obliterating it.

  A hostile alien with that sort of power could literally show up in every newsroom on the planet and make people write whatever they wanted about it. And if it kept up the facade long enough, people would start to believe it.

  As the shuttle lifted off, returning to the watchtower, Jason stared at its icon on his display. He needed to talk to the Pentagon. Track down anyone who didn't kowtow to these aliens.

  He had no idea at the time; but he was going to be making a man named Lex Luthor extremely happy.