Silver Sable was dismayed at what she found in Symkaria. Her country was intact and complete but devoid of it's populace. The country was being overun by Panzer divisions. The Third Reich was moving in and taking the country over. the number of troops looked like they might be too much for Silver Sable and the four Teen Titans accompanying her even with the Science Police along.

Starfire called for JLA reinforcements immediately. Before long The Flash arrived to help with more help on the way.

Day 17: Late afternoon, an alternate Earth near a replicated Smallville.

The X-Men were down to the Angel, Cyclops, Havok, Polaris and the remaining New Mutants. All of them were frantic about the mysterious fate of their teammates. Of all the super teams existing, the X-Men were hit the hardest. What was worse was that very few of their enemies suffered the same fate.

Juggernaut and Black Tom were out there, so was Mystique, Sebastian Shaw and so many others.

Why had so many X-Men been targeted?

It seemed like there was nothing they could do to prevent being taken.

Lorna Dane was feeling dejected. What if Alex were taken next? What if she were taken and Alex stayed? The thought of either eventuality depressed her.

She began to mope as she walked. Her thoughts torturing her heart so that she became careless. She didn't notice the rift until she was nearly through it.

Tanaraq was stunned. Suddenly, he had a body! His own body! No need to possess some mortal. He had his own body!

He looked down at it. Orange yellow fur but exactly like the bodies he regularly possessed.

Delighted, he looked around. Where was this place? He sensed he was too far South from his stomping grounds.

He saw a small town with an unusual structure dominating it's skyline. It definitely clashed with the rest of the town's ambience.

He decided he'd destroy the structure. He advanced toward the town and was balked by a force field of some kind. He felt it out. Very solid force field.

He chuckled and delivered two blows to the force field. It collapsed immediately.

During that time, he was oblivious to the arrival of the X-Man called Polaris and would have been unconcerned if he had known.

Polaris saw what appeared to be the Alpha Flight member Sasquatch acting strangely. Striking at nothing, not realizing the invisible force field that Tanaraq just eliminated with his powerful blows.

She then observed Hercules and Ms. Marvel arrive with three strangers to confront the being she assumed was Sasquatch.

After a brief verbal altercation, she saw both Hercules and Ms. Marvel lay into Sasquatch and to her surprise, Sasquatch seemed to be holding his own. Why they were attacking Sasquatch was beyond her comprehension.

Suddenly she heard a query in her mind. "Who are you?' The effect was similar to when Jean Grey or Xavier would speak to her directly in her head.

She answered the query, in her head. "I am Lorna Dane, also known as Polaris. I am an X-Man. Why are Hercules and Ms. Marvel attacking Sasquatch?"

"Because that entity is an elder god of malice called Tanaraq, one of the Great Beasts. Hercules knew it immediately and surged in to attack. He is from your reality, do you not know him?"

"I ---- I'm sorry, I did not know him. I thought he was someone else. Can I help?"

"Just stand by, unless we summon you, Cosmic Boy has the same abilities as you and he is more accomplished with them."

Polaris felt insulted until she realized, she had not honed her powers in the same way her father had. Overcoming her ego, she watched as Cosmic Boy applied himself.

To her eyes, the only assault that seemed to phase this "Tanaraq" was the lightning hitting the Beast and the magnetic manipulation of Cosmic Boy, each and every move performed by him she could read like ordinary people read a book.

The lightning and the magnetic manipulation seemed to be the driving factor that drove this "Tanaraq" away and when Tanaraq finally fled to the North both Hercules and Ms. Marvel seemed exhausted, though Hercules struggled not to admit it.

With the force field down, all of them could easily enter the city. The X-Men were contacted, and Polaris was sent to them. Polaris began to seriously think about working on developing her mastery of her powers. Cosmic Boy volunteered to help her work on her ability.

Blade was surrounded by several native Americans all dressed in garb reminiscent of the American West. They even had arrows and lances, some had primitive rifles. Blade thought the weapons looked as if they would have been common in the American West.

One of them addressed him. "We are Kiowa. Are you one of the buffalo soldiers?"

Buffalo soldiers? What was that supposed to mean? "I am Blade. I am not a buffalo soldier, I am a vampire hunter. I am not a threat to you --- though if you attack me that would change."

"Vampire hunter? I know much English but I do not know that word."

I hunt and destroy men and women who have died yet still roam the Earth. The undead, they are called. Vampires are undead who feast on the blood of the living."

Murmuring broke out among the other Kiowa warriors. Apparently more then one of them understood English. Their leader raised his arm for silence.

"You destroy such spirits? Then you must be a mighty warrior. We have heard tales from our Comanche brothers that they have been plagued by spirits that haunt their nights. These spirits behave in the manner you have described. Their mightiest warriors have been no match for these evil spirits."

Blade's heart leapt. He had a deep abiding hatred for vampires and though his head told him he needed to find help to return to his own reality, his heart goaded him to find and destroy the vampires terrorizing these helpless primitives. The odd dichotomy of that small midwestern town coexisting with 19th century Native Americans still bothered him but he'd been unable to penetrate that invisible barrier to investigate it.

He asked the Kiowa leader about the small town. He was told that the town appeared only a few moons ago and the natives declared it a place of evil and have given it a wide berth ever since. Blade decided he would help these people and then return to investigate after. He was given a mount and he rode off with the Kiowas to aid the beleaguered Comanches.

He wondered why they thought he might be a buffalo soldier, whatever that was.

Tanaraq tore his way Northward away from the superhero barrage he'd met. What drove him away wasn't the two with superstrength. He could have traded blows with them for a long time and would eventually have prevailed but the assault from that lightning combined with disorientation from that magnetic pulse barrage along with psionic blasts targeting his brain made it difficult to fight back. He couldn't cope with so many varied attacks at once.

Besides, the Great White North was calling him home. He no longer needed to possess a host body. Somehow, he had one of his own. he wondered how this had come about. Something with power greater then the Great Beasts themselves had done this but he had no idea why.

Suddenly, he was confronted by a brutish figure as large as Tanaraq branding a club as large as himself. The brutish humanoid reared back to strike and Tanaraq caught the club and crushed it. The brute looked at the stump of the club that he clutched in dumbfounded amazement. Then Tanaraq snapped the hapless Hill Giant's neck.

Tanaraq moved on in his exodus North.

Polaris was very excited to be reunited with the many missing X-Men, delighted to learn that they were safe and healthy. She was heartbroken to be separated by Alex but was reassured by the odd thought that he would be likely to follow her lsimilarly to all the other X-Men.

Unfortunately, she could not stop thinking about Rokk Krinn, Cosmic Boy. they had so much in common! He'd promised to get together with her to help her refine her powers and the thought sent a thrill through her.

She was ashamed of that thought so she busied herself helping Xavier.

After the Flash showed up, Wonder Woman arrived with Witchblade and the Angelus.

With all that additional power, they managed to drive the Third Reich forces out of Symkaria.

The Witchblade and the Angelus elected to stay, along with the Teen Titans to defend Symkaria until it's general population appeared to help protect the nation on it's own.

The Ultrahumanite assessed the situation in Capital City. He would only have to contend with a minimal number of superheroes. Some strong man called Doc Samson who'd been humiliated by Black Adam recently and Jesse Quick. Hawkman and Hawkwoman made occasional visits but were more concerned with Midway City and shouldn't be a problem.

The only other threats to his plans were Shield and Checkmate Agents and some new arrivals calling themselves Science Police.

It wouldn't be hard for him to take over behind the scenes as long as he maintained a low profile.

Johnny Alpha, Wulf Sternhammer and the Magdalena were recruited by Zatanna to stay in the Everglades and defend the Nexus of Realities along with the Man-Thing. The fear was that Umar, Hecate, Nightmare, the Enchantress or any of the other possible threats would outsmart the Man-Thing and assume control.

Swamp Thing also asked them to contribute in his war against Nemesis the Warlock who controlled the Lizardman population in the Everglades.

Mr. Sinister was working with the Jean Grey Clone. He was reprogramming her with the Madelyne Pryor personality she'd had before, along with the false memory that Scott Summers had abandoned her and her infant son that he'd programmed into her to believe. In fact, her whole tryst with Scott Summers was actually with a Scott Summers clone he'd created to initiate the Goblin Queen persona.

Once that took hold; her evil persona should manifest, enabling her to resume her status as the Goblin Queen and continue furthering his vendetta against the X-Men.

The Donald; alias Donald Pierce, was burning with resentment that he was now partnered with Selene. But the Hellfire Club held pristige and the Donald was all about feeling important. He was ill equipped to defy Selene in any case. He would just have to suck it up.

Longshot joined Fantomex in harrassing Third Reich forces dominating the Europeon Continent. The two made a fairly effective team in ruining the plans of small patrols. They fought forces that mainly represented Vichy France but occasionally were rewarded with a strike against the Gestapo.

Elsewhere, the Punisher had effectively become a boogie man to occupying forces everywhere. The Luftwaffe and the Panzer divisions were generally kept at bay by the efforts from two fronts by Captain Britain and The Statesman,

Captain America, Easy Company and the HDC troops made the Reich's infantry miserable. Yet they still kept coming.

Black Adam notified both Darkseid and Luthor of the existance of Oa in this reality. He also told them of Galactus. He then returned to Khandaq to resume rulership and convince himself that he did right.

The Mole Man had almost reached his destination with the Vampire Batman. He needed another hour before the subject awoke from his sleep.
Luckily, there was an underground river beneath the Mississippi that enabled them to ferry their subject to New Orleans in record time. Luckily the Vampire Batman had not realized he was well protected from the sun and had not stirred.

The Serpent Squad; which was all they could really be now, joined Hydra as a whole after they were contacted by the high level Hydra agent Sidewinder had contacted earlier. They became Hydra's special agents.

Madame Hydra; aka Viper, gloated over their recruitment.