"Hello, there."

Cap turned and saw a young man standing beside him. He was wearing a white bodysuit.

"Do you need assistance?"

Cap shook his head. "I'm fine. But I don't know where my team is."

"Would that be the team that the Injustice Syndicate just took to the Darkest Tower?"

Cap nodded. "That's them. Where might I find the Darkest Tower?"

The man pointed directly ahead. "Just keep going in that direction until you see a large building with the Injustice Syndicate's logo on it. You can miss it. Go in and you'll find a teleportation device."

"Just where is the Darkest Tower?"

"On the moon."

"Thank you, er . . . what is your name?"

"I go by the moniker of Tidal Wave. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?"

"Captain America," Cap replied, extending his hand. Tidal Wave shook it. "Will you be coming along?"

Tidal Wave shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't. I have some pressing matters which I must take care of. But I have a feeling you'll see me again. Farewell."

With that, a gush of water appeared under Tidal Wave, and he slid away. Captain America noticed a change in the air. It felt . . . dry.

Does he have control over the water in the atmosphere? Cap wondered for a second. However, he tucked the thought away and he walked forward on his journey to rescue his teammates.

Quasar's opponent was the android called the Vision, who was apparently under the control of Roulette. The Vision had been fighting here for weeks and had racked up a large body count. Quasar was to be next.

Quasar tried a sudden surprise drop-kick on the Vision, but the android shifted to his intangible form and Quasar went right through him. Then the Vision's gem glowed. indicating that he was about to blast Quasar with his laser blasts. Quasar instinctively put up his hands in a protective gesture. The Vision's beam shot out . . . and hit the restraining bands that covered the Quantum Bands. The restraining bands broke off, and the Quantum bands were free.

Had he done it on purpose? Had the part of the Vision that was once the heroic Human Torch come to the surface for a moment and found the will to resist Roulette's control? The Vision may have freed Quasar intentionally.

But it didn't matter to Quasar. He was free now to use his formidable cosmic powers! He unleashed his power with a vengeful fury. He almost destroyed the whole building. The villains in the stands ran for cover. They came here for an evening of gambling, not to fight with the likes of Quasar!

Quasar flew up to the stands and tried to find Roulette in this chaotic mob, but he had lost her. He decided not to try and apprehend all these felons. There were more important concerns to deal with now. There was the Key to contend with, for one thing. And also, there was the Vision.

Quasar landed in front of the Vision. The android had not moved at all since he freed Quasar. Quasar studied him. He seemed immobile. Quasar poked him. The Vision didn't move. Apparently, he had been deactivated, either by Roulette or by his own design. Either way, that made him easy to deal with. Quasar took the inert android and headed back to the Avengers League HQ, having no idea that his partners were prisoners in another dimension.

Inside the Darkest Tower, the Injustice Syndicate members were figuring out what to do with their counterparts from the Avengers League.

"So we've come to an agreement," said Real American decisively. "We're not just going to kill them, or all of them, at any rate."

Neutron Star frowned at this, but the more intelligent members of the Injustice Syndicate were definitely in agreement.

"Don't you fools see the connection between these people?" Ebonwing asked snidely. "They're not just the usual heroic fools that we end up killing every now and then. Examine their costumes, and think about the names that they call each other."

The Martian Murderer was quick to come to a conclusion. "They are exact opposites . . . of us!"

Iron Monger almost put his fist down, but he realized the damage that this action had done to the last Injustice Syndicate round table that they had. "How could they have escaped our notice up till now? Five years ago, we ensured that all who dared resist us were dead!"

Ebonwing nodded. "Yes . . . I snapped the Jester's neck personally. And I remember pinning the Puffin to a wall by his elbows with a pair of metal Ebon-spikes. It was delicious . . . "

Neutron Star spoke. "They could be from another universe entirely. There could be such a thing as a mirror universe parallel to ours."

Warrior Woman laughed cruelly. "Populated with weaklings such as these? I don't believe it."

Martian Murderer's giant brow furrowed. "Such things are possible. Imagine a world fresh for the taking . . . "

"One of them must know how they got here. There must be a scientist amongst them. We only need to find out how they got here, and we can travel to their world . . . "

"We could build a permanent bridge between the two worlds . . . using the resources of both to our own ends."

"Bring them out, then," Real American ordered. "Start with the smarter-looking ones; they'll know the most about how they arrived here. The others sneered at his order, but they agreed with the plan, so they did it anyway.

There had to be another way to get up there. He could let himself be captured, but he had no confidence that he would be able to escape once he was in the villains' clutches. Cap's strategic mind began to contemplate what the power structure must be on this planet so opposite to his own Earth. If the United States was a free country in his world, it must be a dictatorship in this one, obviously with the Injustice Syndicate in a ruling position. Surely the Injustice Syndicate would not bother with the day-to-day bureaucratic duties needed to rule a world. There had to be underlings...and the higher up they were, the more likely they would have a way of getting up to the Injustice Syndicate's headquarters. Captain America stuck to the shadows and headed into downtown Manhattan . . .

"Bullock, Dent, you have long been two of the toughest secret police officers on the NYSP force. That's why I'm letting you into my confidence on this matter."

"Don't you have a meeting with the Syndicate up on the moon today?"

"Yes. Listen closely, though. If I have my way, and if my colleagues' plans work, we won't have to worry about the Syndicate anymore!"

"Captain Gordon! To speak like that is treason!" Dent was shocked.

"Hush, you worm! You can't tell me you want to live another ten years under the rule of those superhuman monsters. My contacts, at the highest level of the Androcracy's defense forces, have devised a way of equalizing our power with that of the Syndicate. We have technology . . . super-powerful robots . . . that are able to match and defeat the powers of the Syndicate. I've been helping give the information needed to the designers of these robots . . . when we launch the attack, the Syndicate will be defenseless!"

Captain America had managed to hear the entire conversation from where he was. Now all he had to do was follow Gordon to the transporter location and use it to get to the moon.

"Who was that?" Gordon asked the teleporter technician. "Can you disrupt the beam before it reaches the moon?"

"It's too late! He's already there!"

Gordon rushed back to his office. He had to let the Injustice Syndicate know about their incoming intruder.

"Perhaps he knows something of how to reach their world," Martian Murderer responded. "Bring him to me."

War Woman threw Batman to the floor in front of Martian Murderer. The act served to awaken the Masked Manhunter. He sprang into action surprisingly fast, but he could do nothing, since his hands were bound behind him in vibranium shackles.

Martian Murderer picked Batman up, placed his hands on his forehead, and prepared for a deep mental probe. The surge of mental energy that came out of the Murderer served to awaken J'Onn J'Onzz.

J'Onn was trapped in a tube that kept a wall of flame in between him and the tube surface. He wished that he could break through the tube and save his friend, but the fire effectively made him powerless.

Martian Murderer grimaced along with Batman as the villain attempted to extract information from his mind.

"This one . . . has had some kind of training against mental . . . domination . . . But I will break his will by and by . . . "

"Man, these diplomatic visits bore me . . . " Speedster said almost too quickly for Killshot to understand. "I want to just get down there and run around the Earth a few times . . . "

"Gordon won't be staying long," Killshot said. He was one of the most notorious members of the Injustice Syndicate. He had posed as a hero for a long time, infiltrating the most secret bases of the anti-Syndicate resistance. At the resistance's weakest moment, he betrayed their leader, Alexander Luthor - the cries of his former comrades as the Injustice Syndicate tortured and slaughtered them were still strong and treasured memories.

The transporter energized . . . but it was not Gordon who emerged.

"What?" Killshot said.

Captain America had slammed him in the stomach with his shield before Killshot could say anything else.

"Who are you?" Speedster asked. "One of Real American's allies come to test us?"

"Afraid not, son." Cap threw a punch at Speedster, but missed.

"You have to do better than that!" Speedster made his hand twirl around at an almost unbelievable velocity. He was going to put his hand right through Cap's chest and tear his heart out.

But Cap didn't let him. He moved his shield into the field that Speedster's hand was generating. Speedster's hand hit the solid shield and Cap could hear his foe's bones shatter.

As Speedster began to scream, Cap knocked him out with one punch.

Cap looked at the two fallen villains, and then began to examine his surroundings. He shuddered at the presence of true evil of the Darkest Tower. Not even when he had helped liberate some of the prison camps during the Second World War did he have such a sense of pain and torture everywhere.

But it was up to him to rescue his teammates and get them out of the Tower and out of this dimension. He moved stealthily down the hallway.

"This is going better than I expected," the Key said, smiling. "Come along, Shakedown, my boy, let's get ready to travel to our new home. The universe I shall rule!"

Shakedown followed the evil genius, but shuttered at the magnitude of the evil he was seeing. The destruction of his native solar system and the enslavement of an entire universe!

He thought about the other members of the Injustice Syndicate and what they would be doing now. Most likely they would be torturing his teammates. Cap knew, however, that he had to put the thought of their torture out of his mind and concentrate on what he had to do.

And his concentration allowed him to hear the soldierly footfalls of someone walking his way.

Cap readied himself.

Maybe it was time to think of putting the last few unallied countries to the Confederate States under the Syndicate's control. Conquering Canada, Japan, and Siberia would not be all that difficult for the Syndicate. And after the world, then it would be the other planets in the solar system . . . and after that . . .

Real American was thinking so hard he did not see Captain America until the hero was leaping toward him. He instinctively pulled his star-shaped shield forward and ripped the first layer of red and white chain mail from his opponent's chest.

Cap rolled with the blow and struck out with a kick that pulled his opponent to the floor. He rolled over quickly and pinned Real American so that the villain's arms were almost immobilized.

One of Real American's arms was still holding the sharp vibranium shield, and was ready to cut Cap's head off at the first opportunity.

"You . . . cheap . . . copycat . . . " Real American spat out. "You . . . Communist!"

That was too much for Cap to bear. He head-butted his opponent, and used the distraction to grab the star-shield and throw it at the wall, where it landed and embedded itself halfway.

There had been few times when Cap had wanted to kill an opponent. But here, faced with his very antithesis, one who had probably committed all kinds of racially-motivated crimes, the temptation in Cap to use his shield to behead this fallen villain was very strong.

But Cap was already late in completing his mission. Any more time spent dealing with Real American would allow the Injustice Syndicate to torture them further. Instead he took the blunt portion of his shield and walloped Real American just hard enough on the skull to knock him out.

"You disgust me," Cap said as he walked away.

Cap worked to figure out the complex system of traps that the Injustice Syndicate had placed his teammates in. It was strange . . . the traps were cruel, but designed with the same technology that the Avengers League had used for their own prisons. He had absorbed enough of the training in how to use them over his months with the current incarnation of the League to figure out how to disarm them. As long as he had enough time to do it.

"Master Quasar, you have returned," Jarvis said, coming into the main hall.

"Jarvis, where is everyone?"

Jarvis turned and directed Quasar's attention to Hank Pym's impromptu workstation in front of the mirror.

"If I hadn't just been kidnapped by a being trying to take over our world by means of another, I would probably say how crazy that suggestion is," Quasar commented. "As it is, I have an android draped over my shoulder. Perhaps I could go put him down somewhere, and then help in this crisis?"

"An excellent suggestion," Jarvis replied.

Suddenly, the mansion jolted.

"What in the world?!" Pym exclaimed.

Jarvis and Quasar ran to the door and opened it.

"Oh my word . . . " Jarvis muttered.

"What's wrong?" Pym asked.

"The sky is being ripped open!"