- Doomsday - Volume One: Gods and Monsters

Chapter 105: S.T.A.R.

It had been a whole week since the catastrophe that had broken loose in Wichita. Events began moving quickly. ARGUS moved in, securing control over Chemo, and what remained of Parasite's body. No information specifically was revealed to the public, just that they were in safe keeping. However, the media firestorm wouldn't go away that easily, just as the fallout that infested the city's remnants wouldn't either. People wanted answers, they wanted to know why and how this had all happened in the first place. Overwatch had acted too late, and nearly cost the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians. The government and its UN counterparts shared the criticism, but ARGUS had no official face. They worked in the background, unaffected by the changes in public sentiment. Unfortunately, Overwatch didn't hold that same ambiguity.

What Petras had wanted to avoid at all cost, a nuclear strike upon the city, seemed to have happened either way. At first, they had hoped to contain the mutate's attack, but Chemo made it clear that that wasn't possible. When news agency's caught whispers of some attack on Kansas' most populated city, it was impossible for them to cover up much. Footage of the events weren't openly available, but blurry, distant recordings were abundant. Hearings had already been organised, to delve into what had happened, and how Overwatch, who were supposed to be the heroes of the world, allowed it on their watch.

What was to happen with the close to a million refugees? That was an issue for the state legislature and the federal government to deal with, but it didn't spell any good news for local re-elections. Politicians were already calling for Overwatch to be barred from US soil. How they allowed a foreign military force to bypass their national sovereignty became a hot topic that would be asked again and again over the coming weeks and months. Did Overwatch still have a role in the world, especially when they couldn't compete with rising odds? That was the question that Americans asked themselves.

The most important part however, was that it opened the public consciousness to a few key facts. These mutates that the government had warned about did actually exist. There had been attacks before, the Doomsday, and the Goblin mostly, but also Metallo too. They weren't some made up conspiracy that was being pushed as some psyop. And those who tried to deny their existence were met with irrefutable evidence in the form of where Wichita once stood. And there were some who tried to refute the claims, that it was all some government hoax. They were mostly ignored, but it wasn't completely disproven by any means. They simmered in the background, radicalising and slowly growing a larger following. How could they trust the elites to hold their best interests at play when it was never them who suffered the most?

Yet, politicians were quickly side-lined for a much more interesting topic of conversation. Because Wichita hadn't been a complete failure, rather both mutates had been dealt with in one way or another. And that was due to the work of three men. Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern. New York City's Superman. And the Doomsday. It had been those three who had brought down Parasite and Chemo, with some support from Overwatch's Mercy.

Who were these people? What were they? Why did they intervene? There were so many conflicting voices and opinions, heated debates and scathing arguments. Vigilantes taking the law into their own hands? Or government subsidised super mercenaries? That some people could wield such frightening power was terrifying to a majority of the masses, and not only in the US, but globally. How could they allow free agents to do as they wished, when they wanted, without any oversight? However, there were those who argued in favour of their help. For, if they hadn't showed up then thousands would have died that day, and so would have millions more in the following weeks.

Hal Jordan was one of the more unique cases. He revealed his identity without much concealment, wearing it proudly. He was a Green Lantern, one of many peacekeepers from the Green Lantern Corps. Most had no clue what that meant, and they weren't wrong for that. Nobody knew about it. The Green Lantern did bring forth a few memories from ages past. A man with the same name had fought in a similar capacity during the early stages of the Omnic Crisis, alongside a team of other extraordinary caped vigilantes. It was a strikingly similar parallel, but most weren't informed. Much of that information had been cleaned by the government, having attributed their exploits to Overwatch during its founding.