Conglomerate Earth

Metaphysical / Paranormal event

The second documented contact with an alternate dimension involves both "dimensional barrier" travel and time travel, as Blackjack, a metahuman police officer, and Feral come across a battle between Wyldfire and the Red Skull that goes very VERY wrong.

Following on the heels of the DatTek adventure, Blackjack blazed a trail straight to Metropolis. He had been hired to steal something from the home of Phoenix Industries owner Jean-Claude Gironde and had succeeded with his usual panache. He had delivered the item to his client at the Metropolis multi-floor research building as agreed. There he had been ambushed by the Penguin's minions, instead of getting paid; he was transported to DatTek in New York City, where the real client -- the Red Skull -- paid off Penguin's "fixer fees" and prepared Blackjack for experimentation.

Blackjack knew that the Metropolis building had been one of Red Skull's secret properties, and that something nefarious was in progress down there. He meant to reverse the theft, and to get his revenge in the process on a bad faith deal.

Meanwhile, Metropolis SCU received a tip that strange noises and bizarre lights had been spotted at this location. They sent one of their officers to check up on the DatTek affiliate. Detective Knight arrived seconds behind the teleporting catburglar. As he followed the thief in, a very short woman with disturbing leopard-like features caught up to him. "There's a huge fight in progress down that stairwell," she reported, twitching. Detective Knight tried to convince her to stay behind. She was obviously tired, jittery and frightened, but she seemed to think she was better prepared to handle a possible metahuman combat than the police officer was.

The massive brawl between enraged metahuman powerhouses, in a shielded sub-basement full of strangely glowing futuristic equipment, was already at a critical stage by the time they arrived. In the chaos, the cat spotted Silverwing dodging ranged attacks from one of Red Skull's Fourth Reich followers. She went from jittery-but-contained person next to Detective Knight to attack mode in an instant.

This was not the animal rage of the night before. This was Feral in her combat persona, so close to what Infinity Inc had designed that Silverwing might have seen no difference.

And then the heart of the combat between the leaders of each side ... exploded.

When the dust cleared, the three people who had been closest to Red Skull's prototype dimensional gate were on a hillside just outside a different Metropolis than the one they knew -- one full of the combined forces of its heroes and villains, all united in combat against an alien nihilist called "Doomsday".

They soon found members of Wyldfire and Metropolis SCU . . . but ten years older, fighting for the life of their world and for their colleague Superman, and with very little time to explain that the trio of Detective Knight, Blackjack, and Feral had been missing for an entire decade.

The visitors from the past were able to help turn the tide on this fight, to help slow the monster down while figuring out a plan to neutralize it completely. Unfortunately, that fight cost several lives. It also cost Feral all the resistance she had built up over years that allowed Jarissa to defy the Hybrid Minion programming.

Once the surviving local heroes had enough time to think about anything other than the combat, they worked with Blackjack and Detective Knight to determine that these three people had been switched with their local equivalents, but that the combat on Earth Prime's side of the exchange had been so high-energy that it dislocated the Conglomerate Earth's locus to the Doomsday event. They arranged to transfer the three displaced people back to Earth Prime -- which allowed the Conglomerate Earth equivalents to transit back to their proper place and time -- not only preventing the disappearance, but in fact preventing the Doomsday Event entirely.

Blackjack got a clean bill of health, agreed to a civil parting with no hard feelings from Wyldfire over the events of the past forty-eight hours, and returned to Gotham to make live incredibly difficult for the Penguin.

Detective Knight returned to his job with Metropolis SCU, but soon found himself dissatisfied with the whole thing. He eventually was recruited to Project: Quantum Leap as a safety protocol designer. His interactions with the portals themselves and with the on-site director were minimal. He may be a sleeper agent for SAFEGUARD.

Rissa woke up in a bedroom at the family mansion belonging to Dr. Jean-Claude Gironde. She went searching until she found Silverwing on the grounds, alive and well, in a short-sleeve shirt and jeans as she had never imagined seeing him before. After squirming away from a frantic hug, Thomas explained that her memories of the recent event would fade to the vaguest terms in the near future -- but he has brought her to join Wyldfire because living out in the Catskill Forest Preserve is damaging her health. He wants her to stay more closely associated with other people, ideally in a way that lets her do some good.

He interrupted himself, however, to ask if Rissa felt all right: "You don't look so good," he offered. Rissa admitted that she was overwrought from having seen him die. Thomas tried to assure her that she had no need for concern: he had learned how to use his superspeed to heal himself from injuries.

He made the grave mistake of demonstrating.

It may have only been a cut on his hand, but Rissa fainted from the mental strain. And when Thomas tried to catch her, he discovered that the catgirl was painfully warm to the touch from a very high fever.

It took Jarissa over a week and a half to recover from the fever, which was a cumulative response to the initial tests conducted by Red Skull that first night at DatTek followed by repeatedly triggering and fighting the Infinity Inc braintaping designs. To reduce the amount of new stimuli that she had to process, Dr. Gironde advised Thomas to bring his friend "back to a more secure-feeling location". Thomas interpreted that as the apartment he shared with Tina Grewal, where he could spend more of his time, rather than back to the campsite where Rissa had been living. He had already transported his son Bubba there. He installed Rissa on the couch, assured Tina that it was a temporary situation, and carefully nursed Rissa back to physical health.

Which worked out to Tina's advantage at the end of the month....