As the main force deployed and began flooding into Storybrooke Town from every direction, Dante made arrangements for Moon Girl as well.
Turns out, as a high schooler at Central City High, she'd actually been hiding the Devil Dinosaur in a lake on the outskirts of town...
Yes. A high schooler.
A thirteen-year-old high schooler.
She and Peter Parker were in the same grade, different classes.
What else can you say? Genius kids skipping grades.
"No way. Devil Dinosaur's that huge, and you were hiding him in a public lake? No one ever noticed?"
"Huh? No, he was spotted plenty of times," Moon Girl shrugged with an impish smile. "But when people said they saw a dinosaur in the lake, no one believed them. Except for a bunch of UMA freaks who come on pilgrimages. Devil Dinosaur even leaves them clues to make them more obsessed. But the more obsessed they get, the more regular people think it's just a hoax." She spread her hands. "What can I say!"
Dante's mouth twitched.
This thirteen-year-old was somehow more chaotic than the cursed darkhold.
"And when you awakened your Inhuman powers, why didn't you join the newly reformed FBI Academy?"
"What FBI Academy?" Moon Girl blinked, looking so innocent it was suspicious. "I'm just a regular girl. Why would the FBI Academy want me?"
Yup. That was a no.
Dante didn't press. The New S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy had brought in future heroes and some future villains but not everyone wanted to be part of the system.
Especially genius types who thought the system was beneath them.
Moon Girl was clearly one of those.
Also, she deliberately ignored Dante mentioning the word Inhumans.
That said a lot.
Chances were, she'd already contacted or maybe even joined either Jiaying's "Afterlife" or the Inhuman Royal Family.
If it was the Royal Family? No big deal. Attilan had its own tech tree and social structure. Quasi-feudal, sure, but the royal family didn't hold total power.
Maximus being the only madman exception.
Most of them were in good standing with major governments and hero teams.
Black Bolt was part of the Avengers and the Illuminati.
Queen Medusa once joined the Fantastic Four.
Even Crystal, Marvel's messiest social butterfly, still counted as a legit hero.
But Afterlife? That place was shady.
Compared to Attilan, Afterlife was more like a glorified refugee camp.
They didn't know their history, didn't know their purpose.
Just that they were "different."
In early days, sure, they came off like good people trying to survive.
But with just a little outside push, they'd turn radical fast.
In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., these Afterlife Inhumans even planned to wipe out humanity using diluted Terrigen crystals.
Jiaying herself had once been tortured in Hydra's labs, a literal human test subject under Daniel Whitehall.
But after she snapped?
She had fewer moral boundaries than HYDRA itself.
Dante glanced at Moon Girl again.
Too smart for thirteen. Too dangerous to ignore.
As a senior FBI agent, there's nothing wrong with monitoring superpowered individuals outside the system, right?
"Alright, alright. I'll pretend I didn't say anything." Dante mirrored Moon Girl's posture, hands out, palms up. "But make sure to keep the Devil Dinosaur in check.."
"Don't worry. Those UMA nerds don't have the chops to find him."
She was confident.
Despite his cute-sounding howls, Devil Dinosaur was shockingly intelligent.
Dante nodded but told her she couldn't leave until the FBI finished their cleanup. She agreed grumbling and perched atop Devil Dinosaur's head, glued to her phone.
"Kids are exhausting."
Maria Hill, in full FBI tactical gear, walked over—her figure doing zero favors for the uniform's original design intent.
"No matter how smart, she's still just a kid," Dante said, shaking her hand. "Thanks for leading the support team."
"Honestly, before the distortion collapsed, I hesitated bringing hundreds of agents and truckloads of equipment here." Maria scanned the area. "But now? I think we should've brought more."
"These people... they're all displaced victims pulled from another universe, aren't they?"
"I can understand every word of that sentence, but together... it gives me a headache," Maria muttered. "So all these folks on the ground? No ID. No background."
"Not exactly. If you flip through fairytale books, you'll find them all. Most are just regular storybook characters. Some? Not so regular."
"Any way to send them home?"
"I could send them. But I don't have their universe's coordinates. Who knows where I'd end up sending them…"
Dante was helpless.
Pulling people in was easy. Random universe, random character—done.
It's like a dirtbag hooking up and ghosting.
Sending people back?
That was the honest man's job. You needed coordinates. Timeline sync. Power requirements ten times higher.
Basically, if you didn't own a house, car, and life insurance, don't even try.
Instead of trying to send them back, it was better to manage them properly.
He looked at the surrounding ruins.
They weren't from the battle. This was just how the ghost town already looked—partially collapsed, overgrown. There were even decent campsites nearby.
The FBI's "cleanup" would mean razing everything.
If it weren't so close to major cities, they'd probably have just nuked it and called it a "weapons test."
But...
"Instead of forcing these fairytale folk to integrate into modern America, how about we turn this place into an actual 'Storybrooke Town'?"
Dante's idea wasn't off-the-cuff.
Keeping them together made them easier to manage and monitor.
And, judging from their general vibes, most of them would probably love to stay.
Storybook lands were usually medieval, superstitious, and boring.
"In that case… it's doable." Maria's eyes lit up.
Cleanup and coverups cost money. Building a theme town was cheaper.
After all, a 'town' in the U.S. wasn't much bigger than a village anywhere else.
Plus, labor costs would drop dramatically.
Don't let the title fool you, Maria was not just a field commander.
After Sitwell was outed, she took over as Head of Internal Affairs and Human Resources.
Half the General Bureau's workload sat on her shoulders.
She only escaped from it once J'onzz joined the Bureau and took over HR.
J'onzz: elite on the battlefield and the office. Truly an alien built for every occasion.
…
Once FBI agents were on-site, things sped up.
All fairytale residents were temporarily brought to HQ.
They weren't going to stay isolated in Storybrooke forever, after all.
Once the distortion was fully gone, they'd have free mobility.
Meanwhile, Dante did a quick check-in with the rest of the Star Team.
Bruce Banner: recovering from almost being possessed by Chthon.
Quicksilver: ran off to get food for Banner, got lost.
Captain Carter: got bored, started scraping adult ads off tourist billboards.
Hela: remembered Fenris, missed him, started petting Little Red Riding Hood's wolf ears.
Thor and Loki: surprisingly well-behaved. Except Loki kept whispering to Thor to go fight Hulk again.
Dante facepalmed.
Banner had finally gotten to eat a hot dog with two sausages and now he had to babysit god-tier idiots again.
Surprisingly, Harley and Wanda were doing the best.
Harley, somehow functional, was helping agents assess the mental state of revived fairytale characters.
Some were waking up already. Harley ran a full psych eval on them.
A few field psychologists followed her around, furiously scribbling notes.
If you didn't know better, you'd think she had a PhD from MIT.
"…In a way, the fact that Quinzell is acting normal is more unsettling," Bruce Wayne said, appearing silently beside Dante.
"Jesus! Can you teach me that vanishing act? Could be fun for jump scares."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Bruce replied flatly. He removed the green lantern ring and handed it to Dante. "The crisis is over. This should go back to you."
Dante stared at him.
Classic Bruce. Always ditching anything 'supernatural' unless absolutely necessary.
"I'm not taking it. Keep it. Whether it's that Green Lantern ring or the Red one for Devil Dinosaur, I never planned on taking them back."
Translation: You're already on the team, buddy.
The universe was getting more chaotic by the day. Dante had a gut feeling a major event was coming, something universe-shattering.
Having a Batman on your side with maxed-out loyalty?
+30% survival rate, minimum.
And if Barry ever unlocked full Speed Force mode? They'd have a save/load feature on reality itself.
"I trust you," Dante added. "You'll be the greatest Green Lantern."
Bruce had been about to decline again. But that sentence—"I trust you"—and that mix of sincerity and sarcasm on Dante's face?
He hesitated.
Then slipped the ring back on.
Meanwhile, Catwoman, who'd finally stopped faking unconsciousness, was bandaging her arm nearby.
She suddenly shivered.
Then glanced over at Bruce and Dante, eyes narrowing like a cat seeing someone steal her food bowl.
Dante sensed her emotional state immediately.
She was glowing purple.
In the Emotional Spectrum, purple represented love.
Same tier as Rage. Not evil—but came with a few extra settings: obsession, jealousy, and drama.
Sorry, Selina.
Dante quietly apologized.
Blame the system.
He wasn't into guys, and Bruce Wayne was as straight-laced as they came.
Charm bonus or not, he wasn't switching teams.
Honestly, Catwoman should be more worried about that guy from Kansas.
Clark had succubus energy on weekends.
And he and Bruce? Long-time bromantic tension.
Dante gave her a thumbs-up, patted Bruce's shoulder, and headed toward the old Storybrooke tavern.
Fury's car was still parked there.
(To be continued.)
***
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