"They… have been placed under protection."
Captain Atom, whose expression had been tense the entire time, finally frowned. He knew this Kryptonian could see through every corner of the world—but he hadn't expected him to start the conversation like this.
"Until we defeat you, they'll remain in a safe house. Don't even think about using them to threaten me!"
"Don't fool yourself. You know the ones using them to threaten you were never me!"
Seeing the red solar radiation emanating from Captain Atom, Joey felt he couldn't just let this soldier burn himself out in a meaningless internal conflict.
"Look at your abilities. You're practically born to fight Kryptonians. Instead of dying here, why not die on the battlefield against them?"
"Stop wasting your breath."
At this moment, there was only one word in Captain Atom's heart: loyalty.
"I don't expect you to understand—I don't need to be coerced to serve my country!"
Joey tilted his head to dodge the incoming red beam, then shot upward with a rising punch, launching Captain Atom out of the atmosphere before he could even react.
"You really are an idiot."
The things some of these so-called 'people' did had already gone beyond anything Joey could comprehend.
Captain Atom's behavior was extreme—but at least it was understandable.
A soldier like him, an old-school American men from the last generation, now with his family held as leverage—once given orders, it wasn't surprising he'd stubbornly fight to the death.
But others?
Their actions weren't driven by benefits or ideals. It was as if they existed solely to oppose him.
It was a bizarre mindset—Maybe I can't do anything good, but I sure as hell won't let you succeed either.
A philosophy of harming others without benefiting oneself, carried out to the bitter end.
Even the AI in the strategy games Joey used to play—no matter how much it tried to sabotage the player—had never been this stupid.
From the moment Captain Atom showed up until now, Joey had burned through enough mental effort to practically solve the three-body problem—and still couldn't figure out why the people in the Pentagon and the White House were so determined to oppose him.
Whatever.
At this point, it didn't matter anymore.
He had already drawn up a long 'list,' just like that Santa—and had even picked out a fitting location for the 'gulag hotel.'
Somewhere outside Anchorage, Alaska.
Maybe the meters-thick permafrost and the Arctic winds would finally cool those idiots' heads down.
Far away, Captain Atom's head rang as he drifted in space for dozens of seconds—yet Superman never followed up with an attack.
He had no choice but to grit his teeth and fly back to Earth.
His speed within the atmosphere was far slower than a Kryptonian's—that was one of the main reasons the brass had insisted on moving the battlefield into space.
But clearly, the other side had no intention of playing along.
By the time he returned, he was no longer facing Superman alone.
Wonder Woman and the orange-skinned alien woman hovered beside him, their gazes anything but friendly.
Especially Wonder Woman.
Her expression was as cold as when she executed dissidents on the British Isles—a look reserved for the dead.
"Do you know what kind of crime it is to interrupt a sacred Amazon funeral?"
The Godkiller sword in her hand reflected a dangerous gleam. Her harsh question wasn't a pretext—it came straight from the heart.
She had already prepared the coffin, placed the drachma coins, and was about to return her other self's body to Themyscira for a proper Amazon burial.
Not just 'herself'—every fallen hero below deserved the same dignity.
And yet, someone couldn't even allow the dead a moment of peace.
To Wonder Woman, that alone was enough to warrant a death sentence.
This situation was turning ugly.
Captain Atom released an electromagnetic signal, attempting to contact the backup team and call off the operation.
The plan had been flawed from the start—everything hinged on a hidden superweapon in space that might not even work, and the target hadn't even intended to fight him.
Killing Cyborg hadn't provoked Superman.
It hadn't even provoked Cyborg himself.
As guilt began to creep in over what he had done, a massive shadow suddenly blanketed the sky above the four of them.
No—that wasn't a cloud.
It was Cyborg.
Or rather… Cyborgs.
Captain Atom had never imagined Cyborg had hidden this many drone bodies. After disabling hundreds with an EMP, thousands more had appeared.
"Don't bother trying EMP again—that'd be a complete waste. Ever seen a multi-layer electromagnetic shielding grid spanning over a kilometer?"
Cyborg wasn't exaggerating. At this moment, tens of thousands of units were converging together, their reactors forming a loosely linked network that generated a massive electromagnetic shield. Captain Atom knew it would be nearly impossible to use the same trick again to force Cyborg out of the fight.
Ever since Cyborg decrypted the message about the impending Kryptonian invasion, he had been secretly mass-producing drones, using Federal Reserve money to expand his mechanical army.
The people in Congress were too busy playing the stock market—while also printing money—to notice. After years of unchecked printing, even they had lost track of how much they'd issued. No one cared about Cyborg's little side operations.
Now, through the loudspeakers of those tens of thousands of machines, Cyborg launched a full-on noise assault at Captain Atom:
"Nathaniel Adam, you idiotic piece of shit—surrender right now! Or I'll beat you up so badly even your own mother won't recognize you!"
Cyborg, as always, was being merciful—still trying to talk his former friend down. But the others present had no intention of playing along.
Before Captain Atom could respond, Wonder Woman lashed out with her left hand, her Lasso of Truth snapping around him. In the same motion, she thrust forward with her sword:
"Someone like you isn't worth redeeming!"
A sharp sound cut through the air.
Joey moved in an instant, catching the blade mid-thrust with his bare hand.
The Godkiller sword—once capable of piercing straight through him—now seemed to have lost its edge, leaving only two shallow cuts on his fingers and palm.
Seeing this, Wonder Woman immediately pulled back her strength, but before she could say anything, Joey spoke:
"Diana, wait. I gave you a chance—you should give him one too."
Joey knew this world's Wonder Woman had never been one for mercy, but even he hadn't expected her to strike to kill without hesitation.
To her, someone like Captain Atom was the perfect test subject for her blade—someone whose death was justifiable.
But Joey couldn't allow her to continue down that path. If this went on, it would only end badly.
In the original timeline—before his existence—Wonder Woman had carved a bloody path from Themyscira to Britain. Later, in order to deal with Shazam once and for all, she had even been willing to kill him after he reverted to a child—without a trace of hesitation.
Every act of killing should make the world better—not turn you into a butcher.
Her attack stopped, Wonder Woman hesitated. Then, recalling something Aquaman had once told her, she finally understood.
"I… was wrong."
On matters like this, as someone who had once been forgiven, she had no right to make that choice.
Joey, however, didn't hear her inner thoughts—nor did he expect her to admit fault so directly. He hadn't even meant to criticize her.
At this point, he was already getting used to how… unusual his companions were.
In a strange way, he almost had to thank Vought International. The so-called 'top-tier heroes' there had already desensitized him—real, flawed heroes were far easier to deal with than perfectly manufactured fakes.
As for Captain Atom, his 'madness' lay in one thing: he still hadn't figured out what he was truly fighting for.
If he insisted he was fighting for his country, then Joey would just have to help him define what that 'country' actually meant.
Joey had always been a good person—but sometimes, to do something good, he had to act like a villain.
He turned to face Captain Atom and raised two fingers.
"Two choices."
"Option one: you surrender. Stay right here. In two hours, everything will be back on track. You go home to your wife and daughter. No one dies. Just a few parasites living in the White House, the Pentagon, and Congress will suddenly find themselves… taking a vacation up north in Alaska."
"Option two."
Joey's vision scanned Captain Atom's body, marking the precise points where a strike would destabilize him fastest—turning him into the largest nuclear detonation in human history.
"You fight us to the death. We kill you in three seconds. Then we use your body to trigger a massive explosion—one that sinks the entire North American continent into the ocean. Everyone dies."
"You said no one is coercing you. You said you're fighting for your country. So now—you decide who actually represents your country."
While speaking, Joey casually ran real-time calculations—just to make his argument more convincing:
"Right now, your country has 335,678,912 citizens. Eighteen percent are children under fourteen. Do they represent your country?"
He paused briefly.
"Oh—make that 335,678,910. Three just died in a gun fight. And one new life was born."
Then his gaze sharpened.
"Or is your country… just the 3,268 parasites hiding in lead-lined bunkers underground?"