The pieces that fully contradicted her understanding, she still noted down. She'd revisit them later from different angles—more experience, higher realm, new insights. She might see something she was missing now.
The Fifth-Dimensional princess's memories were filtered through her mental grid and decoded a second time. Translated into her own conceptual framework, the method for elevating a Two-Dimensional world to Three-Dimensional surfaced quickly.
To a Fifth-Dimensional being, the process was trivial to the point of absurdity. No wonder Mrs. Nyxly had stammered without managing to explain it. It was so simple to them that it was like trying to explain drinking water.
In the real world, who could walk you through swallowing? From the first swallow, through complete digestion and absorption, every step the water went through, every organ involved, every function performed? Almost no one. Because it was automatic. Fifth-Dimensional beings were the same—they'd never bothered to break down the process into discrete steps. At least this love-struck princess hadn't.
Thea couldn't just copy their instinct. She needed to break every step apart, crush it down, and study it piece by piece.
Fortunately, she had a scientist's patience. She'd conducted her share of real experiments in her early years. This was work that would have made someone like Diana—scientifically illiterate—stare blankly. Thea had the rigor and the mental frameworks to support the research.
She walked through the memories twice, confirmed nothing was missing, and returned directly to the Underworld. The residence of the Endless was the origin point of time, not a place for long meditations. If she lingered too long, Brother Destiny might throw her out.
Decompose, research, find she didn't fully understand the result, decompose further. For a while she was lost in the work—breaking a Fifth-Dimensional reflex down into something she could use at a crude level.
It was only when Diana reached her through a long-distance telepathic call that she learned Batman and the others had completed the reverse-teleportation project.
"What are you researching?" Diana asked as they changed clothes at home. Thea's silhouette had gone strangely diffuse, her aura unmoored, as if she might slip out of the material plane at any second. Diana was worried.
Thea sighed. She'd been at it for a full two weeks—more laborious than she'd expected.
Absorbed in the work, she'd started taking on faint traces of dimensional elevation herself.
But she was a god. Her life was fixed, which also meant her biological form was stubborn. An ability that could turn ordinary people into Four-Dimensional beings couldn't change her fundamental nature.
A sustaining spell pinned her current state in place. She gave Diana a short explanation.
Diana didn't really follow the Fourth-Fifth Dimension talk, but when Thea mentioned—in broad strokes—building a parallel universe, honestly Diana wasn't that surprised. From her vantage point, her lover was prone to... projects of every scale. Earth-shaking developments were par for the course.
The two of them headed to the Hall of Justice. Normally the Justice League Watchtower orbital base would be the ideal venue for something this covert, but when word got out that the advance team was deploying to Earth-3 today, not just the League but every faction sent representatives to observe.
Martian Manhunter, who usually kept his distance from the League. Luthor, tagging along on his own dime. Red Robin Tim from the Teen Titans. Madame Xanadu from the Justice League Dark. Captain Cold from the Rogues. All showed up.
On top of that: President Moira, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, General Sam Lane, Amanda Waller, Steve Trevor, various advisors and experts—a heap of officials packed in together. They wanted to witness this personally. See what a parallel universe actually looked like.
Not kidding—Batman was genuinely impressive. He'd turned a single legendary device into something spectacular. The original Golden Skull from the evil old butler had been basically a locator. Pop the channel, boom, done.
Now Batman had retrofitted it with a mountain of his own and Luthor's advanced tech. It could transmit sound and video across dimensions—essentially a live broadcast from another universe.
The original three-person squad—Nightwing, Black Canary, the Atom—had a new addition: the bald-headed Luthor was going too.
His job was important. Arguably non-optional.
For stealth, the first teleportation couldn't use too much energy, which meant packing light. The teleportation apparatus couldn't be assembled on this side and carried over—the other side needed its own rig built from scratch.
Setting up a teleportation array on Earth-3 wasn't a job for two fighters like Nightwing and Black Canary. Different specialties. The Atom didn't have Luthor's breadth of knowledge either. The materials and physical laws between universes would have subtle differences.
Most critical: they needed constant real-time reporting back to this dimension. This wasn't just a League matter anymore—it was a national-security operation. Several military strategists had set up permanent residence in the Hall of Justice, ready to revise the plan on the fly based on first-hand intelligence.
Only Luthor could handle that transmission work. Nightwing and his team couldn't show their faces, and on Earth-3 they couldn't wear disguises either. They wouldn't be able to appear on camera. So Luthor was riding along.
Nightwing's three-person unit would teleport from an adjacent side room. The main hall was centered around Luthor. His teleportation apparatus was the most complex—several nanoscale comm devices had to be implanted beneath his skin, and the landing coordinates were provided by Thea. Kanto still had a handful of subordinates on Earth-3. Their power was sealed, but a few Shadow Assassins could handle the initial reception just fine.
Vroom—vroom— The machinery roared to life. Luthor was loving the attention—not a trace of fear on him. A blinding flash of white light, and he was gone.
"Why isn't the video feed back yet?" Three minutes passed with nothing on the display. Moira couldn't help asking Thea.
"Time flows at different rates between the two universes. Should be any moment." Thea sounded certain.
Sure enough, five minutes after Luthor and company departed, the feed came through.
Nightwing and Black Canary would be disguised as ordinary locals and kept off-camera. The Atom could walk around in the open—normal people couldn't see him anyway.
Using the advanced-tech rig, the politicians in the hall could see Earth-3 too. Through the League, the feed was being relayed live to world leaders across the globe.
"The sky here is blood-red. Light's very dim. Almost no one on the streets." Luthor narrated cautiously as he pulled on a wig—bald heads drew attention these days. He wanted everyone to know him, sure, but he wasn't stupid. In a hostile environment, keeping a low profile was best. The air felt cold. He hugged his own shoulders and scanned his surroundings.
The road was wide and empty. Like a dead city. No pedestrians, and predictably no police cruisers. The occasional car that rolled past was packed with heavily armed irregulars. Headwraps, mismatched clothing, an assortment of mismatched weapons. It told you everything you needed to know about the level of chaos here.