Yes! A phone call!! It had been a long time since John had to use the old ways for communication. He could use his omniscience but that might trigger the senses of Perpetua who was busy draining the power of the remaining universes as they made plans.
This call was from the Harvester as they were finally in the signal range. John opened Fixit which has been in half slumber mode for such a long time. John had almost forgotten about the little transformer.
"Strange, where are you?"
"According to Hal we are still 3 sectors away from the Milky Way galaxy. Will need 2 more hours to reach." Strange gave John the good news. It meant that everything went fine and Perpetua didn't come after them. It was probably because she was busy with other universes or someone was playing a trick on them.
John hadn't let go of the notion that the enemies were playing cat and mouse with them otherwise in no circumstances they would have sent Robin King to his 'death' and that too in the Wall.
A neutral territory.
There was definitely something fishy here but it didn't matter. Only the bigger fists win at the end. John believed that and now was charging towards the enemy. He wasn't blind but there was nothing that he could do here.
"Are those your friends?" Bruce asked as he saw John taking a call.
"Yes. They are 2 hours out."
"Do you have any plans?"
"Yes. Storm the Bat Castle. Take down Batman who Laughs and all other evil versions of you. All of them come from the Dark Multiverse and I will warn some of them are truly demented to the extreme. So I would like your focus."
"You seem like you are confident of taking down this so-called Batman who laughs."
"I can fight against him. But this multiverse is your territory plus there is Perpetua who herself was the ancient ruler of the multiverse until the Hand came and imprisoned her. So we have two strong enemies. And I want to take down the weakest before he gains a power that crosses the threshold of the universe." John said.
"And how do you want to do this?" Diana asked.
"Do you know your lasso of truth is one of the most powerful things that could help us liberate the world from the chains?" John asked.
"What? What do you mean?" Diana was surprised by the words and she didn't understand the meaning. John then explained the whole theory of Past, Present and Future and at the end telling her that this lasso could liberate the world and make people remember the past which in turn will give rise to the positive forces and weaken the negative forces which are ruling their universe right now.
"Good theory!! But how do we trust you?" Bruce asked.
"You don't have to. Lobo is right now coming to Earth as we speak. He will explain to you better." John said. In the comics it was Lobo who helped Diana get to the place where the Truth was and thus with the help of her Lasso she became a God which destroyed the current multiverse. (Lobo was introduced as a villain but later he was turned into a bounty hunter in the universe who would do anything for money. In the comics, after Lex Luthor fell out of grace in the eyes of Perpetua, he in resentment asked Lobo to help him bring her down in exchange of money and thus Lobo ended up helping Diana. )
"Lobo? That maniac? Why will I trust him?" Diana asked.
"Because he knows your past, Diana. Lex remembers the past. He was the last herald of Perpetua. The last champion before Batman who Laughs took away everything. Oh yeah! He would do anything for money so you can ask him about it too." John said. He wasn't exactly being convincing here but he could only do so much.
Diana and Bruce asked for privacy as they needed to make sure that they were dealing with the correct people. John had a team and from the looks of it, it might be a huge team. The power play was weak on their side but there was nothing they could do. But then Diana mentioned a name that Bruce had almost forgotten.
Clark Kent. Superman!
They needed Superman if they wanted to have an equal deal with the allies. But both of them didn't remember what happened to Superman. So again they had to come to John for answers shamelessly.
"Superman is alive but he won't be for long. He is being turned into Darksied by the Darksied Batman as we speak. He is forced to be the battery of the sun of this Earth so you will have to go and rescue him."
-----
Read 40+ chapters ahead on my p@treon,com/thelightedghost