An epic battle unfolded between a tyrant called the Claw and his enemies, dozens of masked vigilantes and superpowered humans. Large portions of streets were being torn up and buildings were knocked over. Magic fireballs from the Claw consumed dozens of trees at a time. The battle was observed by Isis, Morgan le Fey, Doctor C'thulhu, and a concerned local, codenamed the Black Cat.

A second alarm sounded from the Black Cat's wrist watch. The klaxon rang in a sharp, three-beat pattern. The woman stared at her wrist. “Oh no no no, it's a Level Three Crisis Alert. That's as bad as it gets.” She looked at the strangers with sympathetic eyes and a frowning mouth. “I'm sorry, but I think it's too late for you to get away now.

Doctor C'thulhu tried to sound reassuring. He really did try. “Please madam, tell us about the threat. We are not without resources of our own. We might be able to help you.”

The Black Cat dropped the kickstand on her motorcycle. “Okay, the observatories issue a Level Three when they spot an incoming threat like a comet about to crash into the Earth. It's not a comet though. It's a cosmic life form.”

Isis (herself a life form possessing the cosmic power) asked, “Anyone in particular?”

The Black Cat answered, “Yeah, it's the super-wizard. He must have noticed the Claw from his home on the neighboring star.”

Morgan perked up. “A wizard? His magic must be quite uncontrolled to dismay thee.”

Doctor C'thulhu picked up one a different word. “'On' the star? Surely, you mean from the nearby star. No one actually lives on stars.”

“Stardust does. It's not that his magic is out of control – he is. He calls himself a super-wizard, but he's actually a scientist. He means well, but the last time he came to Earth, he came to stop a civil war in a small country. He ended up reducing the entire country to ash so that no one would have anything to fight over. Millions died. There's no telling what he'll do to this city in order to get the world's number one super-villain.”

The air around them shook. All of the combatants quieted. The Claw looked up into the sky and observed a tunneling spatial forming. (author's note: The previous sentence is not an error. That fantastically bad phrase is copied straight out of an old Stardust comic book story.)

In a burst of starlight, a muscular figure in a bright yellow costume appeared high in the air over the city. Morgan squinted to see the man inside the glare. All of the mask-wearing figures of this world were abnormally muscular, but to Morgan, this specific man was grotesque in his proportions. His chin was the size of a melon. His arms were thicker than his hips. His neck was twice as broad as his skull, and his shoulders were six times as wide as neck.

The Claw hissed at the new arrival. The villain raised a talon-like green hand into the air. Eldritch lines of arcane energy drew a pentagram-like cage around the super-wizard. The Claw bellowed, “Welcome to my world, Stardust. I do not fear your power. I merely covet it. I will take your energy for my own.”

A red laser shot forth from Stardust's belt. The beam broke the lines of magical energy. Stardust yelled back, “The Claw! Your magic is useless against my ray-based science! Any rays you may use are foiled by my anti-ray-ray!”

The Claw cursed. Doctor C'thulhu shook his head in confusion. Isis shook with excitement.

Stardust clapped his hands together. A wide beam of blue light shot out of his wrist bands. Stardust shouted, “Ratifying Ray!” The light washed over the Claw. The villain's body transformed into a giant rat. The Claw's green face, however, remained unchanged. A hundred other people were also caught in the light and transformed into rats with human faces. Although the Claw had his size had been reduced by the ray to a tenth of its previous mass, he was still a rat the size of a city bus. The trio of aliens in the park were not caught in the beam's path and remained untransformed.

The Claw-Rat scurried to escape from his robe. Unable to get away quickly enough, he was caught by Stardust's next ray. The super-wizard touched a button on his left wrist band and emitted a green ray over a large portion of the city. The Claw-Rat began to float up into the air. Everyone began to float up into the air. This included the Black Cat and the three strangers. The Black Cat's motorcycle remained on the ground even as she floated up off of it. None of the litter nor leaves nor cars were effected, only the rat-people and the other humans; every person for city blocks in every direction felt gravity slowly reverse and pull them straight up.

Doctor C'thulhu's tentacles grasped desperately at passing tree branches. The twigs and leaves broke away in his grip. He declared, “I know science! This isn't it!”

Morgan called back, “It is not wizardry either.” The sorceress tumbled heels over head as she was pulled upward.

Isis said, “Wheeeee!”

Stardust said, “You were always a dirty rat, the Claw. Now, you are a rat caught in my anti-gravity ray!” His taunt was not heard, however, drowned out as it was by thousands of screaming voices as his victims fell towards space.

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