Rescue

Though Jay hated this man before him for colluding with aliens and betraying his own people, the urgency of confirming whether his father was in this cell outweighed everything else. He symbolically broke the man's leg so he could not run around, then left him howling in the laboratory as he shot into the pitch-black cell.

"Dad? Are you there?"

"Jay? Is that you?"

The reply came from a dark corner of the room. Mr. Reynolds was there, weakly leaning against the wall, but at least he still had a human form—Jay let out a long breath of relief. On the way here, he had often worried about what he would do if Mr. Reynolds had also been turned into a monster with fangs and claws. Now, it seemed he had one less problem to worry about.

Mr. Reynolds was overjoyed to see Jay. He forced himself to rally, sitting up against the wall as the shackles on his hands clanged. Jay saw that he seemed to have aged more than ten years overnight, and his heart ached. Softly saying, "Wait a moment," he casually tore apart the shackles on his father and helped him to his feet.

As Kara swiftly tore open the shackles on the others, she asked, "Can everyone still walk? We can get you out of here."

The crowd answered her sporadically. Hope for survival rekindled in pairs of eyes that had seemed nearly dead. Jay could not help feeling ashamed. The joy of finally finding his father had made him forget about the other hostages. In truth, when he had jumped into the space-time passage, all he had thought about was rescuing his dad. He had not considered being a hero and saving more victims. Maybe if Kara had not come along, that would have been his final choice.

Jay asked Mr. Reynolds to wait a moment, then joined Kara in tearing apart the shackles on the other captives. When everyone emerged from the cell, Kevin Morgan was still lying on the ground in the laboratory, clutching his broken leg and wailing.

Jay hauled him up and slammed him viciously against the laboratory wall, making his vision swim with stars. Before Jay could even question him, he hurriedly said, "Stop, stop! I'll tell you everything."

Jay had countless questions for him, but there was not enough time. He could only ask the most important one. "How do we get out of here?"

"Follow that passage out to the end and turn left. You'll see a hangar." Kevin's tears and snot ran freely from the pain. "Pick a vehicle, and you can fly out in it."

"How do we get back to Earth?"

"Go back the way you came," he said. "There are three stable portals between Warworld and Earth. I only know about the one at the junkyard—we usually throw prisoners captured from Earth through that portal into the junkyard, and Warworld has people specifically assigned to receive them there. They pick out the ones they like and bring them back here. The ones they do not want are thrown directly to the junkyard cleaner, Trako, as feed."

"So we still have to go back the way we came." Jay tossed him aside and turned to leave. "Thanks for the advice."

"Wait, wait!" Seeing that they were preparing to leave, Kevin rolled over through the agony and struggled to crawl toward them. "Don't leave me behind! Take me with you! Mongor—Mongor will kill me!"

"Mongor?" Jay frowned. "So he really is the one in charge of Warworld?"

Mongor, the famous alien dictator and cosmic tyrant of the DC universe, was the ruler of Warworld and immensely powerful in his own right. Generally speaking, he was an enemy of Superman and Green Lantern, and he had clashed with the Justice League many times. If Jay were making a list of the villains in the DC universe he least wanted to provoke right now, Mongor's name would definitely be on it.

But no matter what, he had surely made an enemy of this dictator now.

Jay disgustedly glanced at the man struggling to drag himself along the floor and said coldly, "Then good luck."

With that, he ignored the pathetic man's roaring and wailing behind him and quickly led the hostages out of the laboratory.

Such a long procession swaggering through the command tower would have drawn attention unless everyone in the tower was asleep. After Jay and Kara swiftly dealt with two patrolling guards, a piercing alarm instantly rang through the entire building. The control center rapidly sealed off every area of the tower and dispatched large numbers of guards toward the danger zone, but none of it had any effect. Every squad of guards was knocked down by Jay and Kara within ten seconds, and every heavily reinforced door, thick as armor, was pried open with their bare hands. Nothing could stop them from charging into the hangar.

The group burst flamboyantly into the hangar, where all kinds of strange alien vehicles met their eyes—ones that flew through the sky, ran across the ground, and swam through water. There seemed to be everything imaginable, but unfortunately, this appeared to give them a new problem.

"Uh... does anyone know how to fly a plane?" Jay asked the crowd without much hope.

"This way." Kara hurriedly led everyone to a small silver vehicle, skillfully activated its controls, and opened the rear hatch. The craft was less than two meters long, but it was slim and elongated; if they squeezed in, they could barely fit everyone inside. Though it had two pairs of wings, it looked less like an airplane than a flying sports car.

Watching Kara squeeze into the cockpit, efficiently activate the console, and grasp the controls, Jay said with delight, "You know how to fly this?"

"More or less," Kara said. "This model is a common vehicle in many composite cities across the universe. My dad taught me how to fly one once during a vacation. Could you get the hangar exit open for me?"

"...Once?" Jay suddenly felt a lot less reassured, but he still did as she asked, tearing open the sealed gate and exposing a gap just wide enough for the craft to shoot through. Kara's explanation sounded like her dad had taught her to drive around a parking lot once—who knew how many years ago that had been? And now she was about to take it out on the road.

"Once." Kara took a deep breath. After seeing Jay return to the cabin, she shouted, "But at least I remember how to make it move. Everyone, hold on tight!"

The instant her words fell, dazzling blue flames erupted from the rear of the silver vehicle. Its powerful thrusters instantly gave it tremendous momentum, launching it forward with a roar, its cabin packed with passengers. Kara aimed the craft at the gap Jay had torn in the gate and shot through it. Like a bird breaking free from its cage, the silver ship spread its wings into the blue sky—then suddenly plunged downward.

Kara gritted her teeth and pulled back on the controls. The ship managed to steady itself just before making intimate contact with the ground, skimming low over the heads of alien pedestrians on the street. "Looks like we're a little overweight. But I think it can make it to the destination."

She raised the ship's altitude slightly, but the hull immediately jolted heavily again, as though it had taken a fierce impact, and sank several more feet. The underside scraped across the rounded roof of a building, tearing a deep gash through it.

Six spherical flying craft raced after them at extreme speed, clinging tightly to the tail of their ship. Each cabin held a Warworld alien soldier. A small-caliber cannon was mounted at either end of each spherical craft, spraying pale blue laser fire like rain.

"Uh, bad news," Jay said, looking out through the rear glass. "We've got company, and they look a lot faster than us."