Batman led Bane down to the Batcave.

He instructed Bane to strip down to his underwear and lay down in the chamber. After Bane was comfortable, the chamber began filling with an amber liquid. Batman told Bane to allow his forearms to be completely immersed in the liquid.

After enough of the liquid had filled the chamber to suit Batman's requirements, Batman lowered the lid. Bane could still breathe comfortably but could not see, smell or hear a thing.

After a short time, Bane felt a sensation in his forearms but; as per Batman's instructions, he steeled his will in order not to move them.

It was hard to gauge time but after an eternity that might have only been a minute. Batman opened the chamber and helped Bane out.

Bane tested his arms and felt as if they'd never been broken.

After allowing Bane a minute to marvel at his repaired appendages, Batman sat Bane down and together they worked out the details of how Batman wanted Gotham run.

Darkseid was only momentarily stunned to find out that it wasn't the Flash that he'd hit with his Omega Beam. He immediately had a plan on how to deal with this emergency.

He ran to Desaad's laboratory/torture chamber. In it was a helmet that had been confiscated from a would be hero who had discovered a way to get animals to obey you. It had belonged to the defender of a planet Darkseid had conquered long ago. The defender's skull was part of Desaad's decor for the lab.

Donning the helmet, Darkseid immediately ordered the huge lizard to stand down.

The creature had done considerable damage to the immediate area. Darkseid shrugged it off. He left the creature to sit docilely while he thought about what this would mean.

The Flash raced back towards Gotham City. Eventually his trajectory made it clear that a specific freeway that lead from Gotham City to Central City in Ohio seemed to be intact.

Intrigued and hopeful, Barry followed it West.

Shortly, he arrived in an eerie, ghostly Central City.

It was agreed. Batman would focus his energies on getting to the bottom of what was going on, and Bane would focus on keeping Gotham citizens as safe as possible until Batman found a way to return them to the real Gotham City.

Bane; still marvelling over his newly healed arms and feeling superficial good will toward Batman, left into the night.

Batman: unable to shake the feeling that he'd just made a deal with the devil and smarting over the reveal of one of his deepest secrets, decided to turn in.

Before he could do it, his JLA device triggered. He assumed he was getting paged by Aquaman and was shocked to hear Barry Allen's voice..

Using his JLA communicator Bruce asked Barry where he was. Barry explained and told him he would be there in seconds to discuss things personally.

Batman barely had finished securing his communicator when the Flash appeared directly in front of him. Batman made a mental note that he needed to find a way to prevent speedsters from such easy access to his home and the batcave.

The Flash immediately briefed Batman that Darkseid was a likely problem they would have to cope with.

After comparing notes, Batman realised that the beachfront needed monitoring. He'd appeared there followed by Aquaman and Bane the next morning and the Flash and Darkseid in the afternoon.

They considered the possibility that Darkseid might be behind their arrival on this world. Flash pointed out that Darkseid seemed to think that they were meant to fight each other when he'd arrived.

Batman felt a sense of frustration that he hadn't one inkling of what was going on.

Batman decided to call Aquaman and let him know about the new developments. After a short discussion, it was decided that Batman would monitor the beach til the midnight hour and then the Flash would go back and forth between Central City and the Gotham beach until noon the next day in order to monitor both regions. It was mutually agreed that none of them would let Bane know about Flash or Darkseid unless it was deemed absolutely necessary.

The news about Darkseid's involvement was especially disturbing to Batman.

Darkseid decided to zap the creature with the Omega Beams until he would find it useful again. Since the next time he would need it; he would want it to be in an aggravated state, he removed the helmet and deliberately caused pain to the creature. As it began to rampage again he zapped it with the Omega Beam.

Contemplating his next step, Darkseid noticed a device that looked similar to a mother box on a stone bench. Darkseid walked over to the bench and picked up the device.

Looking at the device, he saw a screen appear on one side of the box. He read what appeared on the screen and studied some accompanying pictures.

With a bemused grunt, Darkseid attached the device to his belt and decided to get some nourishment and turn in for some rest. He now knew what he might do tomorrow.

Bane returned into the night, relishing his newly repaired appendages. What an incredible device to have. he envied Batman possessing it.

Bane drove the Porsche to a headquarters he'd kept that enabled him to keep in physical shape and discreetly operate in greater Gotham without having to worry about being bothered by Batman or any of his (temporary) allies.

Exhilirated by the healing process he'd been through; which had also relieved any sense of fatigue he was feeling, he indulged himself by spending the next several hours until dawn performing vigorous workouts to maintain his prowess.

Aquaman received the news that Barry Allen and Darkseid were involved with mixed feelings. He loved Barry Allen like a brother but Darkseid was bad news. Aquaman was nowhere near Darkseid's weight class. He was confident he could handle any of Batman's enemies blindfolded but Darkseid was Superman level.

The only times he'd even had to deal with Darkseid at all was to put down Deep Six but Darkseid himself had never been his problem. Now it looked like it might be.

Batman watched the beachfront from a lifeguard tower.

The hours passed uneventfully. When the Flash relieved him he secretly cursed that he hadn't had a better way to alert him if something came up. He needed to focus on solving the real problem that overshadowed even the presence of Darkseid. Who had brought them all here? Why Bane? Aquaman? The Flash or Darkseid? Aside from the history he and Bane had with each other and their JLA connections, each participant had little in common with each other.

Batman had a thought. Since all the heroes that were here were members of the Justice League and Gotham City, Atlantis and Central City were here; it was possible that something of the JLA might also be here.

Batman returned to the Batcave and went to his Justice League transporter. He decided to try the device. it should send him to the JLA satellite.

He stepped on the device.

He stepped off into the original cave headquarters of the JLA. The transporter should have brought him to the satellite but brought him there instead. Everything should have been covered in dust but the whole place seemed pristine. It was jarring to Batman to arrive there instead of the expected destination.

He stepped out of the cave. Below he saw the small town of Happy Harbor. Batman returned to the Batcave and fetched an older version of the Batcycle that he'd always stored here before they'd abandoned it as a headquarters. Not surprisingly; given the circumstances, it fired right up.

He rode down into the village.

Like Gotham when he'd arrived, it was like a ghost town. This bothered him. When the morning came; he discovered that some of the citizen's of Gotham had shown up too, including Alfred.

This was a problem. If the town's citizens started showing up, who would protect it?

Day 3:

Darkseid woke the next morning and began planning his next moves. He was known as the god of evil but he was feeling a sensation that was unfamiliar. He was feeling like a pawn. He didn't like the feeling that he was being manipulated.

He got up and was surprised to see a meal prepared for him. Looking around he saw bustling activity that was nowhere to be seen the day before. Hunger dog servants were cowering before him and catering to his needs, as subserviant as ever.

He looked out of his palace window. He saw Hunger Dog activity everywhere. He called for Desaad. No response. He called for Granny Goodness. Again, no response. He decided not to waste time calling for the other lieutenants.

He ate, carelessly saying small things to the staff, meant to alternately terrify them and fill them with false hope. He rose and strode out to the pavilion.

He called up a Boom Tube to take him to Gotham City.

Bane finished his extended work out and cleaned up. After he fixed up a meal of his own creation, designed to give him the optimum nourishment to enable him to be the perfect physical specimen he aspired to be, he set out into Gotham to do the tasks Batman had set for him.

He needed to rally the people of Gotham and arm them to protect the city against potential threat.

As he stepped out into the city, he noticed that the activity in the city had become more in tune with how the city behaved normally.

The city seemed to be behaving normally at first but within a matter of minutes people began stopping their vehicles and stepping out of their shops to point at the two moons that hung heavily in the sky.

It wasn't long before some people started crying and someone announced that it was armageddon.

Bane needed to stave off chaos..

"the plot thickens"

Barry Allen spent the night flitting back and forth between Gotham beach and Central City.

When the routine got boring and he began to get the feeling that he had little to worry about, especially with any threats to Central City, he began making side trips to investigate the countryside near the highway connecting Gotham and Central City. The freeway was in perfect shape.

Barry saw several things that verified Batman's concerns but nothing that bothered him anywhere near the degree that Darkseid did. It would be neat hat trick for the three of them to keep Darkseid at bay, much less stop him cold. He knew nothing about this Bane character; but apparently Batman has him under control, but he didn't see how Bane could be an asset if they needed to clash with Darkseid.

Dawn came and as Barry approached Central City, he was surprised to see that there was some scattered activity from citizenry that he hadn't seen before. Slightly worried, he rushed to his home and found Iris Allen just waking up in her bed she shared with Barry.

She woke up and saw Barry in his Flash gear and was immediately concerned.

Aquaman was woken up by the cheerful demeanor of Vulko.

"Well your Highness, I hope you're well rested. I'm a little concerned about some anomalies I've detected that call for your attention."

Aquaman was surprised to see his old friend and shot up to embrace him gratefully. He was happy to see his trusted confidante but then he remembered their situation.

Quickly, he briefed Vulko about the previous day. Understanding immediately, Vulko promised to rally any other citizens of Atlantis to arrange the prompt defense of the city.

There was only a small percentage of the populous available, and only a few with the martial training to protect the city but Aquaman supplemented it all by instructing the sealife in the genral area to watch for potential threats.

After a few patrols around the immediate area suggested little threat, Aquaman felt confident to explore a bit and swim to Gotham to connect with the Batman and hopefully talk directly with Barry Allen.

Swimming to Gotham, Aquaman passed a huge white sperm whale. Despite his sense of urgency, he had to stop and do a double take. Could it possibly be?